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Dual Use, Space and Ocean Tech...NY Tech Summit (Feb. 25, 2025)SUMMARY KEYWORDSDual use technology, space tech, ocean tech, cyber security, AI disinformation, Elon Musk, Ukrainian defense, naval drones, autonomous weapons, national security, public-private partnerships, ocean habitats, acoustic technology, geopolitical tensions, investment opportunities.SPEAKERSElena Anfimova, Gator Greenwill, Tony Cruz, Lisa Marrocchino, Speaker 5, Jaha Cummings, Carl Pro, Robin Blackstone, Speaker 4, Andrew Fisch, Mark Sanor, Dan BrahmyMark Sanor  00:00So Gator is with a family office investing in this space for a long time, with natural resources and minerals heritage. And Dan I met with Josette Sheeran at her office, otherwise known as the Carlisle hotel, who said, "You got to meet Dan", and now here you are on one of our panels. Thank you. So I think it's better, if you might share the "Harry Met Sally" story of how you met Dan Gator Greenwill  00:49That's a pretty good story. So Dan literally sent me a cold LinkedIn request. Yeah, there was a cut. Yeah, there were a couple of them. Mark Sanor  Wait, let's go back further. How did you identify him for that LinkedIn request? Or is it random? Or is it random? Give them the micDan Brahmy  01:15again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So as part of being a founder who has lived in Israel for the last 19 years, I've learned to be a relentless a**hole. And so it's kind of this skill set that you need to have in order to get to a certain point in life. And I saw I heard about Gator, and then I was like, you know, maybe I'll just try and find his email address, and then I've had a lot of success is just reaching out to people on LinkedIn, you'd be surprised, like former head of Senate Intel Committee, folks like guys that you would never dream of even talking to. And I was like, hello, I'm Dan, can we talk? And they're like, Okay, whatever. So it just worked out in that Mark Sanor  01:57In that same spirit, how did you How did you land Elon Musk as a client. Dan Brahmy  02:04Well, that's a long story. So, so I'll let you go into the things you wanted to Mark Sanor  02:10say. Oh, he doesn't want that question. Gator Greenwill  02:15So anyhow, Dan, Dan did a cold LinkedIn email. It was persistent, but the area that he was exploring was of already significant interest to the investment fund that I was working for. We had long had the thesis that one of the fundamental risks of AI before we even make it to anything like artificial general or artificial super intelligence was the risk of an explosion in disinformation, an explosion in cognitive biases being worsened by tribalism on the internet. And so Dan had obviously been building the company for a couple of years when he reached out to us, he was beginning to do a raise for series, a had, you know, a very reputable Israeli VC fund that was looking for an American co investor, and we negotiated term sheet, and the the rest is history. Now we are sitting here before you today. So that's the the one minute version. There's obviously more twists and turns along along the way, we've ended up supplying probably 20 to 30, like 20% of your capital stack, maybe something like, something like that. So ended up being a significant portion of, you know, raise capital for for si Amber, before the the pre IPO and the IPO. So Mark Sanor  03:39now just want I'm getting, I want to ask more unfair questions, but, but as you look at the landscape, right? That's this is a one, just one example. What do you what excites and scares you in this? Well, Gator Greenwill  03:52a lot of things scare me. A lot of things also excite me. So the rising geo political tensions between the US and the EU certainly scare me, as well as you know, the US and at least a few members of the of the five eyes, given how important that's been to the defense posture of the United States historically, by the same token, it is causing a much needed re evaluation in Europe of spend by the government sector in the defense space, there has already been a number of very promising start ups actually being founded, even in Ukraine, but also in Estonia, Germany, France, that have been started for funding due To the government just under investing in the sector. So I'm excited about the prospects for investing in Euro zone companies. Aside from Israel, we've also invested in several Euro zone companies. So one thing that distinguished us from early on was we looked at dual use as being not just about American innovation, but American and partners innovation, including. Between Israel and the Euro zone especially. Mark Sanor  05:04And so, I guess from your perspective, Dan, maybe tell a little bit of your some interesting stories. I do want to hear this Elon Musk story, if you don't mind. Dan Brahmy  05:18So just to give a quick background, I'm Dan. I'm one of the co founders and the CEO of a company called Sara, which is cyber security in abracadabra, which kind of reveals what we do. But the truth is, we've been out there for seven years. Raised money from from gators Firm A couple times, and the value has been actually much more than just the capital. Usually, we've raised money from Founders Fund a couple times, which is Peter thiel's fund as well in the valley. So the guy who created PayPal and Palantir and all these other names out there, and for four years, we've actually done the typical mistake of the tech very geeky founders, which is building, building, building, building, and not getting enough feedback from the market. And so for a very long time, we were at that stage where we were trying to prove to the world by building the best possible tech. And I think we had, we still have, actually, it gave us a crazy advantage, but not within that four years time period, because we were just building that technology, which is in a nutshell, able to distinguish between real bad and fake for the online realm, social media and traditional media outlets, right? We want to be that, that sort of stamp of trustworthiness for the conversations that we all witness on a daily basis, on a minute basis, maybe at this point. And then, because of the Peter Thiel relationship, and because we were a tiny Israeli start up with no presence whatsoever, you know, two years ago, two and a half years ago, and we landed an article in the Wall Street Journal and forms, because we made so much noise about the stuff that we were solving. Some day, we received a call from a lawyer who was like, the pit bull is pit bull I've ever seen in my life. Scaries guy I've ever talked to sends me an email like, we need to talk now my client. I'm like, who's your client? It's like, sign this 19,000 pages. NDA, that if you say anything, you'll die tomorrow. I'm like, All right, well, we'll try, you know, we'll just sign it and and then he it's true. I mean, he told me about this story, and so he's like, this is Elon. I'm like, oh, okay, that's interesting. What does he want? It's like, well, you know what he wants? He wants to buy Twitter, right? He wants to take the price lower, and he feels like there's a gap between what Twitter is claiming about the bots and the sock puppets and trolls and the fake accounts and their impact. And so what's what they are stating about themselves as a company, what is truly happening? They're claiming that it's less than 5% has no impact over the conversations that we see over Twitter X, and he feels like it's more and he wants to use your tech. So I'm thinking this might be the first little star on our shoulder as a tech company, right? You want to start building credibility. It's kind of a deep, deep tech, a dual use technology, serving, you know, defense organizations and national security. So I said, interesting. So I mean, obviously I would do it for for a penny, right? But we didn't ask for a penny. We asked for much more, and he paid. And at the very end, I think we did a very good job. And, you know, same pit bull at the end was, I was like, Hey, can I be honest? You know, it would be great if you'd allow us to, you know, we're small company, maybe, maybe, maybe you'd allow me to go to the press, because we did such a great job. And, you know, I think his thought process was, what would a 15 people team from Israel could probably do in the press. What are the odds of these folks making noise? Wrong assumption. We very wrong assumption. So within two weeks, I received another call, after we published 1000 articles in the press, it's just like CNN, all that stuff. And he was, like, a so my client is not happy, because now he's the owner of Twitter. I'm like, okay, and well, now it reflects really badly on him, because now he's the owner of Twitter, and you're bashing the head of Twitter itself. He's the owner my Yeah, but I mean, I, you know, I saved him a billion dollars. So should be happy like, Yeah, I think you should stop now with the press. You know, it's enough and say, Well, you know, we also lined up like the BBC and stuff like that. But it will stop at 1000 articles from that moment onward. So it was November 2022 as a small company, literally, with almost no revenue at that. Point, I think we were like 300,000 in annual revenue. In two years, we ramped up to 6,000,006 point 1 million. So we blew up, and today we serve I'm not saying it's all about the musk story, but I think that a lot of startups are just completely, completely disregarding that credibility and that and that brand recognition, because, though, because we not that we we're all about the tech and the tech and the tech and and eventually, and I'm saying this as a as a tech company in the field of AI combating bad AI with good AI. And I'm going to be shooting myself in the foot as a soon to be CEO of a publicly traded company. Don't hate me when I say that. But I think people don't buy technologies. I think people by people, and people by trust, and we, I guess we prove that with time, and this equation proves to be the worthy one. That's the route we're going to be taking. And two thirds of the companies, like R and D people, I don't understand half of the shit that they're saying to me, and I'm like, Oh, very interesting. And we just move on to other stuff. But the truth is this, what we see, it's, it's, it's incredible technology being leveraged by people who want to trust you, like, that's pretty much that. So that's the story about which Mark Sanor  11:13has, which has lots of use cases, right? Not just dual use, not just forensics, but we, Dan Brahmy  11:20serve. I mean, we're on a, this is a do use technology panel. Is this a panel? If it's two people, yeah, Mark Sanor  11:28it says it's a duo, duo, dual use, the finalist Dan Brahmy  11:33of the panelists. Yeah, we work a lot with national security folks. Mark Sanor  11:38So why do you want to go public? Why? Because he wants you to go public. Do you Gator Greenwill  11:46sure I'll so I think what we found, and I've been discussing the IPO option with Dan, actually from fairly soon after he invested, after I invested, sorry, when he began discussing with different bankers about that option, and our conclusion, based on conversations with a number of VCs, was that even with a relatively depressed IPO market, the cost of money for a compelling company in the public markets is significantly cheaper than what you were seeing from VCs, post SVB bank collapse, term sheets got especially outside, if you were not a kind of golden circle Silicon Valley, you kind of Blessed from above. You know, start up. You know, no offense against, you know, friends of mine that run companies like that. You know, the types of term sheets that you get, you know, from VCs, you know, are typically fairly onerous. And so that was where, you know, we said, hey, you know, this is going to give a, you know, a multi year pipeline to the company, you know, add a, add a valuation that is has lots of room to grow, but is not overly dilutive to the existence. And I know Mark Sanor  12:59we're not pitching, but I think there's an opportunity for us to get it before the IPO. Right? All right, we'll come back to that, all right, other than his space, 13:12not a technical Mark Sanor  13:14one, a personal one, what kind of answer? Dan Brahmy  13:16I was born in France, so I'm romantic by default. Okay, I've lived there. I've no, it's true. I Yeah, so this is the beginning of the story. So 50, I live 15 years in France, right? And everything's about, like cheese love and Eiffel Tower and whatever people like about France. But there's something true about it. And I mean, I could be talking about the VC and the term sheets and the limitation preference and all the stuff that everybody knows about that probably more than I do, as a matter of fact. But the truth is, I think that we're solving one of the most complex and interesting challenges that we're facing at least nowadays, maybe in seven years will be different. But for sure, for the last two, three years and for the next couple of years ahead of us, we are in really deep, muddy waters, and the way that I want one of our, one of our board members is Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state and head of CIA Jos about to be coming in as a post listing board member. You already know that one of the one of my ways to pitch it to them was not telling them about the technicalities of becoming a NASDAQ publicly traded company, because they know everything about complexities. While I was running in diapers, the guy run the CIA, so obviously he knows more than everything that I would do in life. But I told him, I think people need to perceive that opportunity at being a shareholder at Sara some point in time, in the next couple of years, as maybe I should invest in Batman, like if we are Batman. Mark Sanor  15:01It, and you guys are running this, the French, the French coming out, and you the romantic Dan Brahmy  15:08stuff, very geeky. But the truth is, like, if we're Batman and Batman has technologies, all I'm saying is, I think people should see this as the opportunity to potentially invest and help us build the technology that can be the arsenal to bring back a little bit of more transparency for this democracy. Because right now, Gotham City is running on fumes and is looking really bad, and the and and it feels like people are losing trust, slowly losing trust. And I got, I got two children, the two boys, four and two years old. And I'm saying, Damn, by the time they became they become teenagers. What are they going to be trusting? What they'll never trust the media. They'll never trust social media. They'll never trust things that they see online. Because Mark Sanor  15:49every single No, their dad is Batman, Dan Brahmy  15:53right? So that's Batman, exactly. I don't know who's Batman son in the show, but, but that's, that's the way I that I sold it to Mike Pompeo, like I want people to invest in Batman's also Mark Sanor  16:04so questions for Batman, yes, Tony Cruz  16:13as Iron Gate Capital Advisors looked at you. Have you talked 16:15to Hamlet you save? Or Gator Greenwill  16:20I know Hamlet, I'm not sure if he's under in this specific deal. I mean, some of the, you know, some of the companies that, some of the funds that, Iron Gate is an investor, and I'm almost, like 99.9% they have evaluated. Now, obviously it's a different, you know, it's about to be a different deal than it was, you know, before an IPO. So always could be worth revising that discussion with Ty and Hannah, Mark Sanor  16:48I've got two more panelists for you. So their space is up there as well. And there's ocean space and ocean we're talking about explain, and then ELA as a fund that focuses on dual use technologies as well. So just introduce yourself. Let me start with Elena. Elena Anfimova  17:14Thank you, Mark. Hello everybody. My name is Elena, and I do Ukrainian defense technology. You probably know that Ukrainian defense Tech is a world class innovation, and the gap the capital requirement for it is massive, and the challenge, in addition to capital, is how this startups access global markets. So this is what my team is working on, how to integrate the start ups in the domestic defense ecosystem, Mark Sanor  17:52which some are calling like the new Israel of sorts. And we were just having, oh, Patrick's here. We were having lunch, and I said, Do you know who Jacques Cousteau is? And he goes, Well, yes, I've been and I invested in his films. So his grandson, Fabian, has been with us, the CEO of his company. We've invested a lot in space, but we can gain a lot more cheaply and investing in ocean based research. So maybe it's explain. Hello. Lisa Marrocchino  18:27I'm Lisa March, you know, thank you for having me join. I was just in Davos, in Ukraine, cyber tech, and technology was a big topic there, so that was super interesting for me to be there was an AI cyber conference that I attended, but what we're doing at Fabien Cousteau was the first grandson of Jacques co he. His grandfather was an ocean pioneer. I'm missing the word ocean tech from this conference. However, we need to change that. I also do believe that ocean tech is going dual use because of, well, lots of geo political reasons. So we are focusing on national security as well, and I'll explain a little bit of that. But Jacques Cousteau developed some of the first technologies to spend more time in the ocean and habitat. So he built some of what are called Ocean habitats, or really ocean research stations. And we have one in space, but we don't have any in the ocean, because the space race took off and got and left ocean behind. And as Mark mentioned, in the last 10 years, you have invested $270 billion in space and private creating a private space industry, and created, really 1700 new companies. So we really are poised to create that same kind of phenomenon in ocean tech. It reminds me I was at Goldman Sachs in technology research, and this really reminds me of, kind of the early days of technology. So his grandson kind of picked up the torch, and in 2014 lived under water for. For 31 days with five scientists did not come up to the surface because of what's called saturation technology. So he was fully saturated and lived at 20 meters or 60 feet, and did not come up to the surface for 31 days. So what happened were some phenomenal things under water. There were science experiments and kind of an acceleration of that, because you were able to dive 10 to 12 hours a day. So what we can't get back is time. We know we're at the precipice. I mean, someone mentioned a meteor here that almost hit us. I think we should be much more worried about climate change and some cataclysmic issues that are we're on the precipice of then, uh, then the media are hitting us. So I, I do believe that we we're not focused on climate change and maybe this administration and where we are today. We won't be so we will use acoustic technology, sensor technologies we've evolved from just, not just a habitat, but really thinking about an ocean technology platform where acoustics and all of those national security issues do come into play, so I'll stop there. Mark Sanor  21:08Excellent. All right, so you got a cornucopia now, space slash ocean tech we'll use and let's open up for questions. I Andrew Fisch  21:24Yes, Lisa, this is completely anecdotal, so you'll have to answer the question, and in for me, a lot of call them drums. You know, a lot of devices are being now, roaming the oceans, gathering data of all types. Is this advancing what you do as opposed to having literally people in one place? Is it complimentary? Is replace anything? Lisa Marrocchino  21:53That's a great question. We really believe that you can't just do it alone with robots, but robots are essential to amplifying and extending the reach of humans. So and this, and NASA is really studying this a lot as well, kind of this human robotic interface, if human interface, and we really, if it were true that robots could do it all, they would be the only thing on them, you know, in space. So I do believe that you really need that human interaction with robots, and we can really amplify so yes, we'll be looking at robotics, a U V S, R V s, all of those in surrounding the habitat. If you think about the habitat, is almost like the smartest node on this kind of technology ecosystem platform. So that's how we're really looking at it. There's some super cool technology that can be, that's not even out there yet, right? That can Yes, absolutely. Then they have to come back, right? And then you have to interpret the data and AI, you know, one i We heard a lot about AI, and that's one thing I'm really optimistic about. AI in ocean, there is a flood gate of so if you send out all those robots and all those sensors, are going to come back with a flood gate, even with hydro acoustic modems, there's so much information to be processed, and we know nothing about our ocean. You know, 5% has been explored. So how can we gather all that data to do to make better decisions? And that's where robotics and AI, I think, is going to make play a major role in so we're looking at all of that technology. 23:24Thank you. Other questions, Robin Blackstone  23:28yes, you know, it occurred to me that one of the factors in the ocean as well as space, is that a lot of it's not own by anybody, and so it's essentially available to be used by anyone. And it's kind of an interesting advantage. Planets would be another space like that. So in a world that's carved up already on land, there's these vast spaces which are not carved up. I was just wondering what advantage that might confer on the work that you guys are doing. Lisa Marrocchino  24:06Yeah, that's also a really good question. So we work with governments and create public private partnerships. So right now we're working in Curacao, Portugal, cap of ver very talking to people in the Middle East as well. And it is interesting. And I don't know if anyone saw there was recently an article about China having a habitat. So there is an interesting phenomenon happening, going back to dual use and national security. All of a sudden, China is interested in creating habitats at very deep levels and to do all kinds of things. So it is an open space, and I think legal will probably play a big role in this. But right now, we haven't had any issues with putting a habitat in waters outside of Curacao, Cabo Verde, Portugal and the Red Sea even there's no been no issues with like, you can't go there or you can go here, but it is a. Question, the ocean is even bigger than lots of spaces, and it's right in our back yard. So as long as we all play nice, I think, for a while, and if China accelerates what they're doing in the ocean, I hope and pray that that will help the US come to terms with investing more and the ocean, 25:27just Jaha Cummings  25:32on the question of, I guess, areas for American city research, if you consider micro Nisa, I lived there for 20 years, and the whole northern Pacific we have our contact agreement, which pretty much denies rite of passage to anyone else, right? Lisa Marrocchino  25:45I love that. Yeah, all areas are open, or we're open to any area really that would that where we need to study the ocean, and really that's almost everywhere, because we haven't studied it at Gator Greenwill  26:00all. On the question of geo politics and the ocean, one I think still under sung aspect is that right now, an enormous amount of the world internet traffic travels underneath the sea, and we've already started to see Russian and Chinese vessels in the Baltic and the South China Seas, you know, imping upon Japan, or in some cases, it seems, even sabotage cables running into various countries that they have issues with, so that, you know, that's a live area, and sort of, you know, the oceans have Been a commons for the transmission of data and information for a long time that now seems to be more and more contested in the current moment of power competition, Mark Sanor  26:53one second, and you could just say, What? What? What's the technology or company in Ukraine or related to Ukraine, because you're not all investing in Ukrainian companies that you think is most exciting we should be aware of. Well, 27:10naval drones. Elena Anfimova  27:21Oh, yeah, they're Ukraine is the first country in the world to sort of create effective naval drones. And on December 31 actually, Ukrainian naval drones. Magura down two Russian helicopters, the first presidents in the world. Hard to say it's a record. It's still loss of life, and it's still horrible, but technologically speaking, a very cheap drone, comparatively to any missile destroys a helicopter to helicopter, and the third was damaged, but made it be back to the base. Another case, one Ukrainian drones destroyed $130 million missile system. So the mind boggling phenomenon about these drones and the drone warfare is that this very cheap, again, comparatively speaking, devices destroy multi, sometimes 100 million dollar systems I just came back from the Emirates, I went to this I deck, if you guys know, it's like the largest defense exhibition. And there were all these massive, shiny toys. And I was walking, walking by and thinking, you know, like a 10,000 drone can destroy it. So I guess what we're still grasping is how war far has changed, and dominating military stockpiles are still kind of the World War Two, slash Cold War technology, and what needs to happen right now is restocking in pivoting to defense technology right now in Ukraine, the war that's happening is a war of drones. It's not even people anymore. I had a like innovative aim in system for guns, you know, for actual soldiers to do something with. And I had to drop it because there were no soldiers anymore fighting, you know, each other. It's drones and swarms of drones. So. Boom, and there is a Ukrainian company called swam. I did not invest in it, but that that's a really break through technology. Then another, and pretty much like the group of tech that's really promising, is autonomous weapons. So it's autonomous remote control weapons that you can control from 1000s of miles, and they help to save lives and pretty much like it's equipment destroying equipment. Given how horrendous the concept of physical warfare is in 21st century, it's still better than you know this mince meat attacks, I think it's called that Russia really prefers and practices to this day in Ukraine, we do not have the human resources to sort of mimic this strategy. And we value human life, so we really prefer robots to fight. So it's autonomous weapons, autonomous drones, and also electronic warfare, because what's happening is that when you face a technologically advanced enemy is that there is this jam in spoofing and GPS de night environments, so the navigation systems become very prominent anti drone electronic warfare. So how do you protect your drone from being jammed and spoofed so that it completes its mission. The interesting part is that American drones did not do well in Ukraine at all. They were expensive and glitchy because they could not perform with that kind of electronic warfare that Russia has, and let's say, out of 10, Mission only two mission are complete, whereas Ukrainian drones can complete eight out of 10. There is one. Mark Sanor  32:14Compare that to the US technology today. How far are we? Because we haven't done this every day, every hour, like you Elena Anfimova  32:21are well. So this is what I'm saying, and a lot of feedback is kind of just like a second hand information, right? Because it's not published anywhere. The only sort of public media account of this that I found is a Wall Street Journal article about that, how glitchy and how ineffective American drones were tested in Ukraine on the battlefield. Because you see, the thing is, is even for AI to function well, it needs to be fed lots of data. Ukraine is pretty much the only place where you can get the data, and that pretty much accounts for why Ukrainian drones are so much more efficient than any other drones unless they are tested on the battle field in Ukraine. So for any drone company right now to be you know, anything, they have to be there, there. So is 33:21this something you're looking Gator Greenwill  33:22at? Absolutely. We're active investors in the conference system space, happy to discuss more especially Speaker 5  33:32so we are almost ready for breakouts and refreshments. Carl Pro  33:37But I had a quick question on the what I call your misinformation or BS software, I spent my lunch time reading through like 25 or 30 websites to try to pick out the same story and read them and all to find out where the truth is. Your system would probably be great to have some independent calculation of current events, without the biases. Dan Brahmy  34:10We have been, not we've been we've been dreaming of eventually creating that stamp of trust within us that we that we spoke about. So the short answer, what you said is, this is exactly what we're aiming at, which is being able to understand whether the source, so the actor who's pushing and propagating a certain narrative or a certain angle, whether it can be a trusted source. So is it a is it a real person? Is it a real journalist? Is it a fake journalist? Is it a but a sock puppet patrol, a spam account, you name it. There's another 10,000 we don't need to get into all the categories, but, but I think that that gives you know one portion of the answer that you're looking for, and and then we explain, just to give you slightly longer answer, we we sort of decipher what we call the behavioral patterns. So. So think about an MRI that says, how, how powerful and how fast does a piece of information fly out over social media? Is it only within the social media realm, or is it flying from social media, from Twitter to The Wall Street Journal and then back to Facebook, and then going back to tick tock. And then what kind of formats, right? So the speed and the strength, and then the third part of your question would be about the authenticity and the nature of the content itself. So not just the similarity, and is it copy paste, but actually, is it? Is it a deep fake? Is it is, you know, is a computer generating the pictures and the videos that we're looking at right now, and then you aggregate all this sort of answer into, should you ignore what you're seeing, watching, reading? Should you track it closely, because it might become a threat, slash an opportunity, depending which side you're on the scale, or the last point, which is, should you be so worried that you need to mitigate against that immediately? We you know you spoke about the drones, and we spoke about the the the Navy and how we could potentially leverage the unexplored territories. We've talked to three and four star generals, and we've talked to Secretaries of Navy, and we've talked to all these incredibly smart and powerful people that have the almighty power to shift territories and shift decision making process. And the funny thing is, they have made very costly decisions based on misinformation. They shifted entire armies, not small military operations. They have shifted dozens of planes, dozens of naval ships and 1000s of soldiers. What Mark Sanor  37:01so the first, so the first saner. His name was Sanor, who was Prussian. You know, we had a lot of hessian troops. So Michael Sanor was the aide de camp. Eventually, he was known as the Flying Dutchman. He stole the white horse. But for the battle of York title, it led to the victory, partly, where the French, because they were in New Jersey, where I live, their ovens kept baking the bread, and that was that deception to the troops. They fell. They're clearly still still up there. They're still eating when instead they they moved around and caught them by surprise. So we love the French information. And it was interesting that Macron came over to see Trump. But they will talk about these things, the breakouts. This is how we do breakouts. This comes this is a slide from 2011 12, when I would do these breakouts for Dennison. Anybody from Denison? You're close enough Denison people here, usually there's always one Michigan room makes little sister Council. But we would get together in round tables and then, and it would be the round table for fashion in New York, or for finance. And then we eventually get 300 people. And there were segments that we now have a round table for each of these panels. And like one physically is over there. It's probably a popular one next to the bar. Another one's over here, and we have the ones out there, out first, mingle, you know, stretch, move around again, and then I'll put on the screen where the round tables will be. And they will the format is basically no one dominates the conversation. There's no like alpha that just takes over. It's a round table. Everybody should introduce themselves what they're doing so that everybody knows and we all try to help each other. It's the same thing we did for the alumni. No one's asking for money. The school isn't asking for money. We're here to help each other. The same spirit here and for our family office world. So if someone's got some insights, you want some questions, let's ask the panel a little more information. You know, Alyssa, like you're in the ocean world, right? You should be a guest in this, well, deep tech, ocean tech world. And, you know, everybody should know each other. And and then we come back and we say two things, what did you learn? What are your takeaways? We'll come back here one more time, and one or two people will speak about it. And one of those takeaways is like, or is like, is there something we should do? Should we do a deep dive on ocean tech? Should we do a deep dive on, you Speaker 4  39:50know, may I say one more thing, just to give plug the ocean short time you don't Mark Sanor  39:55have a chance to do that. Okay? This is just the principles of it. Okay? And you want to know more about ocean Tech, I think Lisa will be near that bar over there. And so let's let's break. I'll come back to Mike 10 minutes or so. Let you know where the breakouts will be. Do the breakouts meet the people who are relevant to you. And that's that magic for what we do. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Panel. I'm joined our 361 firm community of investors and thought leaders. We have a lot of events created by the community as we collaborate on investments and philanthropic interests. Join us. You. You can subscribe to various 361 events and content at https://361firm.com/subs. For reference: Web: www.361firm.com/homeOnboard as Investor: https://361.pub/shortdiagOnboard Deals 361: www.361firm.com/onbOnboard as Banker: www.361firm.com/bankersEvents: www.361firm.com/eventsContent: www.youtube.com/361firmWeekly Digests: www.361firm.com/digest

If you want to hear the story of a truly unstoppable person then listen to this episode and our guest, Tina Huang. To begin, Tina grew up with a hidden disability which still does not really have a name. Tina will tell us how she battled through school up through under graduate and graduate studies knowing she was different, but not getting any real support to find out why she had so many difficulties with the learning process. Even so, not only did Tina have challenges, but she found on her own ways to get by and even excel.   In addition to her learning disability she lately has also had to battle what she calls “being environmentally sensitive”. She has had to face mold in three different homes which caused her to face serious illness. As she will tell us, however, she has come out the other side and is again open for business helping others who face similar difficulties as she has faced.   Tina has not only learned pre-covid how to be a good healer, but due to all the challenges she has faced she has found improved healing methods that have helped her. She is using her newly learned skills to do even more to help her clients. Tina clearly is committed to living and being unstoppable. She has lots to offer as you will see.       About the Guest:   For the 1st half of my life, I struggled with learning disabilities, severe stomach pains, depression, anxiety, and horrific self-loathing.  My father was always angry, and we were constantly walking on eggshells around him. I never could please him.  We lived in Hong Kong for 4 years where my parents put me in a Chinese speaking school, and I hated it.  I never was able to learn the language well enough to make friends.      Life was better after returning to the US, but in high school I was starting to notice that I had to work a lot harder than my peers.  In college I got my degree in computer science and then became a software engineer, but I had no love for computers.   Meanwhile my ailments and concerns were either dismissed by doctors, or inadequately addressed, or I was told I had to just accept my limitations.  This was fueling my depression and despair, so I decided for my own mental health, that I had to refuse to accept their limitations.   I decided that if they didn't have answers, I had to find them.  It was my only hope!  I applied to get my Ph.D. in neuroscience and went to the University of Rochester.   But in graduate school, we had lectures that would last for 4 hours and I couldn't keep up.   There weren't any textbooks, and I kept missing key points.  I constantly had to ask a classmate to help me fill in the gaps.   I was having frequent panic attacks about whether I'd be able to stay in grad school.  My peers seemed to be able to have relatively balanced lives, but I constantly had to turn down social activities to study.  Several professors suggested that I consider doing something else, but they argued that if I couldn't handle the classes, the research was going to be infinitely harder.  I disagreed.  I'd always been good at projects.  It was the memorization that I struggled with.  I was finally diagnosed with a learning disability in my last academic class in grad school.   My senior lab advisor dropped my funding when I told him I had been diagnosed with a learning disability.  My only chance of staying in grad school was to write my own NIH grant.  I did.  The head of the Neurobiology & Anatomy program offered to read my grant the night before it was due.   He told me it was the best NRSA grant he'd ever read, and that he had no suggestions for improvement!   It got funded on my first submission!  This was a first in all 3 neuroscience programs in my grad school (University of Rochester)!   In my 5th year in grad school, I realized I wasn't great in the lab, and didn't love doing research on animals, so I took off for a badly needed vacation for a month in India.  My travel partner mentioned wanting to get his Masters of Public Health, and I couldn't wait to learn more about it.  When I got back, I discovered the field of epidemiology and realized that this was a MUCH better fit for me.  So after getting my Ph.D. I went to Johns Hopkins for a postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology.  I did a postdoc in nutritional epidemiology at Tufts University,  some research with Transparent Corporation, and then ended up in a couple of postdocs that went south for various reasons, and I had to leave the field.  I was devastated.  I knew that if I had the support I needed, I would have been able to make a much bigger difference in Alzheimer's research, but apparently that wasn't my destiny.   Out of my despair, I sought ways to heal from my trauma.  I had already seen a psychiatrist at the best medical school, and counselors for decades, but I still hated almost everything about me.  Things had to change!  So I kept searching for anything that would help.   And that is when I discovered energy medicine.  I noticed that I was for the first time getting relief from my trauma for the first time in my life!  When I felt like my research career had ended, I started my business as a holistic brain health practitioner when I realized that I could help clients address their root causes quickly and efficiently with my intuitive skills.    Because I didn't have any business skills or support, it took a long time for me to have a full practice, but in 2021 I had a full practice with a waiting list.   Then in early 2022 disaster struck.  I had to evacuate from 3 homes over 5 months due to mold and toxins.   The first 2 killed my beloved soulmate kitty.    Then I bought a condo and had to evacuate 2 weeks later due to toxic mold and parasites.  The toxic mold came from the attic and chimney, and the stress of having to compel the HOA to remediate, while I was having relentlessly terrifying symptoms and unable to live at home was too much. I was out of money and had to live with strangers while I was extremely sick and immunocompromised in the middle of COVID.   I also got extremely environmentally sensitive and couldn't interact with paper, my clothes, bags, my computer or phone safely for about a year.   While I was an excellent healer before this trauma, I've been forced to relentlessly search for better and better ways to heal safely.   Luckily, it's been paying off, and I'm no longer environmentally sensitive and finally able to work again.  I need to rebuild my business as quickly as possible to pay off my debts so I don't lose my home.   I'm on a mission to help others with similar issues, so less people will have to endure the hell that I've been through.  But I'm unstoppable.   Ways to connect with Tina:   https://tryholisticbrainhealth.com/ https://www.facebook.com/tryHolisticBrainHealth/ https://www.facebook.com/tina.huang.353 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinalhuangphd/ www.youtube.com/@TinaHuangPhD     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Greetings once again, everyone. I am your host, Mike Hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset today, we get to do one of those things that I always love, and that is, we get a guest who I met at a recent podapalooza event. And if you don't know what podaPalooza is? Because you haven't kept up with this here. PodaPalooza is an event that happens four times a year, and it is an event for people who are doing podcasts, who want to interview people, people who want to become podcasters, and are wanting to learn how and it's also for people who want to be interviewed by podcasters. I think that covers everything. So it really is all things podcasting. And we had one earlier in June. And out of that, I happened to meet this very interesting lady, Tina Huang, who said that she wanted to come on unstoppable mindset. And I thought that would be a good thing. So here we are, Tina, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really   Tina Huang ** 02:24 glad you're here. Thank you for having me, Michael and   Michael Hingson ** 02:28 I didn't tell her that we would be nice, but we will.   Tina Huang ** 02:34 I'm always nice.   Michael Hingson ** 02:35 Well, there you go. See that's what works. As I did tell Tina, I think I told you, if I didn't, then I'll tell you now that there's one hard and fast rule on this podcast, and that is, everyone has to have fun. So there sounds great. So that works.   Tina Huang ** 02:51 I'm always up for fun. There you   Michael Hingson ** 02:53 are. It's always a good idea to have fun. Well, let's start maybe by kind of learning a little about the earlier Tina, growing up and all that. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that, and then we can, and I know from reading your bio, we can then go into all sorts of things from there.   Tina Huang ** 03:09 Yeah, well, thank you for asking. Michael. I actually had a pretty difficult childhood growing up. It's not a fun topic, but I'll kind of go into some some brief aspects about it. So I was born in the United States, but I moved to Hong Kong when we were when I was about six, seven years old, after first grade, and my parents put me in a Chinese speaking school, and I didn't speak Chinese at that time, and they my dad was like, you know, you got to learn Chinese by immersion. And I have to say that I really, really, really struggled. It was so hard for me. We had to memorize our Chinese lessons, and it would be only a paragraph, but the way I would memorize would be that, I mean, it was just I realized that just the standard, like repeating sentences over and over again wasn't working for me. So I finally went down to the method of memorizing one character and then adding another character and memorizing two characters and then memorizing three characters. I mean, it was so slow and so methodical. And at first grade, I was like, up till like, after midnight, studying for these stupid exams, these Chinese lesson exams. And my sister, my younger sister, was not having these kinds of problems at all, and so nobody picked up on something, that something was wrong, but that was kind of a beginning indicator that was something, that something wasn't going well for me. I hated Hong Kong, to be honest. It was just such a struggle. And I really miss speaking English, you know, I didn't. It was very hard to make friends when I was struggling so much with the language, and I get caught, get get, got put in different classrooms every year, because the way, my parents decided that to to keep us in school, they had a class that would go from morning to afternoon to morning to afternoon, but they want to keep me in the mornings. And so I had different, different classmates every. A year. So it was a real struggle. And I was very happy to get back to the United States, where I was like, oh my goodness, we're speaking English again. And and suddenly I went from being and I, and before I had left for Hong Kong, I was actually, like, grades ahead of everybody else. I was like, in third they, you know, even though I was in first grade, I kept getting put in, like, with the third graders. So this, you know, going from being the super smart kid to the super dumb kid was a real challenge. So when I came back to the United States again, I was a smart kid, but things my school schools got a lot harder as I got into high school, but especially undergraduate and then graduate school, where I was just really struggling in in classes in terms of absorbing information. And   Michael Hingson ** 05:47 what year was this roughly   Tina Huang ** 05:49 that I went to Hong Kong?   Michael Hingson ** 05:51 No say, when you went to undergrad, when you started college. I started   Tina Huang ** 05:55 college in 1986 Okay,   Michael Hingson ** 05:58 okay. The reason I asked is that we've learned so much about learning disabilities and so on since that time, yes, so it's not too surprising. But anyway, go ahead, yeah, and   Tina Huang ** 06:10 back in those days, for listeners who are younger, we knew hardly anything about learning disabilities, and we might have known about dyslexia when I was young. I don't know, we might have known about add but, you know, it was not something that was discussed. It was very rarely known about, right? So, yeah, and in fact, I went to graduate school in neuroscience, you know, I'm gonna skip move forward to that. And even in my neuroscience programs, we were not talking about learning disabilities back then, I was kind of appalled. I was like, we're not talking about learning disabilities and so, and that will apparently, was in the developmental biology section, but it wasn't in, or it wasn't actually in developmental biology. It was more like developmental psychology, yeah, where it was discussed, but it wasn't, it had not been brought into the neuroscience arena at all.   Tina Huang ** 07:02 Well, when   Michael Hingson ** 07:03 or let me rephrase it differently, what did you finally discover was your actual learning disability? Was it dyslexia? Or what was it? No, it wouldn't be dyslexia, because that wouldn't answer the issues of learning from an auditory standpoint, Chinese, although that's a language with a lot of nuances anyway,   Tina Huang ** 07:24 yeah, that well, so the the learning disability that doesn't actually have a name, it was just called an accumulative learning disability. You know, some people have auditory deficits. Some people have visual deficits. I had everything deficit in terms of, well, everything they tested deficit. And I should say that I didn't actually get diagnosed with learning disability until my last year of classes in graduate school, and it was because of the times, really, because there was just so little known about it. But I had extensive testing with a clinical psychologist, and what they discovered was that that I was exceptionally brilliant in some ways and exceptionally handicapped in others. And what I was struggling with, and what I still struggle with, it's just accumulation of information, a lot of information. And in graduate school in neuroscience, we actually had classes that lasted for four hours. And imagine four hours of intense, yes, not conducive to learning at all.   Michael Hingson ** 08:23 Disability notwithstanding, oh,   Tina Huang ** 08:25 my goodness, yeah. And, and, you know, it's a little frustrating to me. You know, in a neuroscience program that they'd actually allow that, like, how do they not understand that, that a four hour lecture is not a good idea for anybody. But you know, of course, especially with people learning disabilities. But you know, they weren't here there to accommodate people learning disabilities, even though two of us had one, one of my friends, we only we. You know, graduate school programs aren't necessarily large. Mine was only seven. No right between seven and 13 people in each class, depending on the the the class. And so I think in our program officially, there were nine or 11 or something like that, because it varied a bit depending on the year. But one, one of the women had dyslexia, and then there was me, and I really the it's a cumulative learning disability. So basically it means that, you know, if there's a lot of if there's too much information being presented at once, I'm not going to be able to retain it all. And it really shows up a lot in languages. Like, because there's just languages are almost they come out from nowhere. I have a really hard time remembering names unless they're common. Like, I don't have a problem with Michael, but if you give me a Chinese name that I've never maybe a language like Arabic or something like that, that I don't know Well, I mean, that's going to be or I don't know at all, that could be a real challenge unless I've heard that name before, or if it's simple to pronounce. But the more complex a name is, and the more foreign it is, the harder it is for me to remember, right? So it's, it's an. It's a learning disability that sort of requires that really baseline learning and and you know, that idea that, like people, can just jump into a foreign country and absorb that is exactly what I can't do, right? There's no immersion aspect of of what I do just FYI, I'm not making these funny. All these strange symbols are coming up on zoom that I'm not making. So I'm going to see if I can stop that. But I'm not making those purposely.   Michael Hingson ** 10:31 That's okay. And I'm not hearing and I'm not hearing them, so it's okay, okay. But the it's, it's interesting. So you went through most of of school, not really understanding why you were and you obviously observed that you were different, but you had no real understanding of why you were different or how you were different other than you just couldn't get material absorbed the same way most people did   Tina Huang ** 11:00 Right, right. And yet it was very confusing, because I was often told, Oh, you're really smart. You're so smart, you know. And I know that, like in some ways I am, you know. And actually, right now, they're only talking about it, but there's this term called twice exceptional. And twice exceptional is when you are exceptionally brilliant and yet exceptionally handicapped at the same time, and that's, you know, when you and somebody asked me really recently, you know, so isn't everybody neurodivergent, right? Doesn't everybody have these differences in their learning? And my answer to them was, yes, we all have different brains, and some of us are stronger in some ways and weaker and other ways. But when you have a disability that's so severe that you cannot have a normal life, you can't you can't have any balance in your life, or you need accommodations, and you can't function. You can't survive with the way society is expecting you to survive based on your disabilities. That's when you have a quote, unquote disability, is when societies, the society is not geared to help you thrive.   Michael Hingson ** 12:07 Course, the the issue with disabilities in general, and it's something that we talk about from time to time, on unstoppable mindset, when the opportunity arises, I submit that everyone on the planet has a disability, and the problem for most people is they're light dependent. Why is that a disability? Just watch the power suddenly go out where you are, especially at night, but even during the day, I've seen that happen during the day, power goes out, lights go out suddenly. Everybody's scrambling to try to find a smartphone or a flashlight to be able to see, because they're not used to functioning without light, and the reality is that their disability of light dependence is covered up because we have focused so heavily on making light on demand available. But it doesn't change the fact that the disability is still there, it's just covered up a lot, right?   Tina Huang ** 13:04 But you don't need it to survive either, unless, unless we have a power outage, right? So you, you know, you are much more prepared if we all have a power outage than most of us. But, yeah, situation often, then, then you would be in better shape. But if we don't have power outages, if we live in a country where that's not a common problem, then you know, other people are an advantage because they can see, right?   Michael Hingson ** 13:33 Oh, no, I understand that, but. But the point is, though, that if you want to level the playing field, the reality is, everyone has a disability of some sort. It's just that for most people, the disability is really covered up because we have light on demand. We don't have light on demand necessarily in Uganda and other places like that, where there isn't power or a lot of power. I actually talked with someone yesterday who's going to come on unstoppable mindset, and they offer to children solar powered lamps so that they can study because they don't have power to be able to have lights to study at night, but if they have solar powered lamps that charge up during the day, then in fact, they can continue to study at night, unless They take a different tact and learn braille or something like that, but sighted people aren't going to do that, and that's okay, but the bottom line is, it still proves that everyone has some sort of disability. What we don't tend to do nearly as much as we ought to is recognize that while everyone has different gifts. We shouldn't knock somebody just because their gifts are different than our gifts, right?   Tina Huang ** 14:47 And actually, I want to expand on that quite a bit, because there is, if we think about this a little bit more broadly. Well, first of all, there's, I don't know if you're familiar with Oliver Sacks, books he wrote. A Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He's a famous neurologist, and he talks about people who are differentially abled. He himself, I think, would be considered twice exceptional. He is the kind of person that he has a facial AG, nausea, where he cannot recognize people when he sees them. And in fact, it's so bad. It is so bad that if he looks in the mirror, he doesn't even recognize himself. And that's just insane. That's that is extreme. So he, he is also absolutely a brilliant writer and a brilliant neurologist, and he writes a lot about people who are differentially abled. So he has, you know, he's written about amazing stories of like, for example, there's a drummer with Tourette's syndrome, and as soon as he takes his medication, so he's a absolutely brilliant drummer. And as soon as he takes his medication, he loses that, that profound ability to drum in the way that he normally does. It's just, it's fascinating about what you know, how things can be influenced by our disabilities or the drugs that we take and so forth. There are other stories like, I don't remember whether it was Oliver Sacks or somebody else who wrote about a man who could smell as well as a dog, right? And imagine having the sensory receptors of of pets, right? And if we think about disabilities, it's like, well, you know, if you compare, if we compare ourselves to our dogs and their olfactory senses, well, we, you know, in some ways, we could say we all have disabilities, right? Because there are dogs that can sniff out COVID Or, you know, help us figure out where mold is and so forth. And you know, most humans, the vast majority of humans, aren't built for that. You know, we have there are animals across the animal kingdom that can see a lot of things that we can't see or detect energies that we can't see. And so when we think about this, I mean, and within the human spectrum, there are people that are very right brained and have intuitive abilities that most of us don't have, right so you know that, and so we are all differentially abled. That is true, and sometimes our handicaps actually lead to our brilliances. There's a fascinating story, I think it was on a hidden brain where somebody had a head injury, and after the head injury, they developed these amazing, incredible musical skills that were just beyond imagination. You know, like, suddenly, this person, without training, became a professional musician. It's like, so the brain is absolutely fascinating, and it's one reason why I'm a neuroscienter. I have training in neuroscience is because these differential abilities that people have are mind blowing and mind you know, and it's just fascinating to realize that we are we're all limited in our ability to perceive truth. We are all limited. And I think if we recognize that and know that, like it's dependent on our experiences and our own sensory systems, which are they're limited because we're human and we're not necessarily, we don't have all the sensory system systems that exist. It's just good to know. It's very humbling, and it's also helps us realize that there's all this new stuff to learn in these perspectives, to to learn from.   Tina Huang ** 18:24 And   Michael Hingson ** 18:26 I have always been a proponent of the concept that in reality, we should always be learning. And if we ever decide we know all we need to know and stop learning, that's such a horrible thing to do, because there's always new stuff to learn, always, always, which is what makes life so fun. I was at the University of California at Irvine a week ago tomorrow, actually, so last Thursday, and so I was down there because I was inducted actually into phi beta, kappa as an alumni member, which is kind of cool, because I wasn't able to to join when I was in in college, because they were just forming the chapter when I was leaving. But I was visiting one of my thank you. I was visiting with one of my old physics professors, actually a couple of them. And I brought up, you know, we were talking about how, how physics has learned so much, but there's still so much to learn. And I said, Well, someday we'll finally figure out the unified field theory that combines everything. And one of the professors said something that's very interesting, and I think is very true. He said it may not even be unified field theory. It may go off in completely different directions, which is new from the way it used to be. But the fact is, we're learning so much that we are. We're learning and discovering that things we thought aren't necessarily the way they are, and we have to continue to grow. And I think it's so much fun to see that sort of thing happening. Yeah,   Tina Huang ** 19:57 and I have to say, I mean, that's part of being an unstoppable. Having an unstoppable mindset, right? One thing that I talk about as a holistic brain health practitioner is that, you know, the reason why I'm a Holistic brain health practitioner, I should say, is because of my differential brain, my brain that doesn't, doesn't, isn't very, very conducive to an environment like medical school. So I basically did the PhD route and did postdoctoral training in epidemiology in order to to develop my expertise in root causes, which is what I'm an expert in. But as I talk to clients or the public in general, a lot of people struggle with symptoms that they don't understand or characteristics they don't understand. And Western medicine, you know, as brilliant as it is, and I'm not going to, you know, I'm not bad talking western medicine, but I think in the United States, we put a little bit too much faith in western medicine, and believe that it should be able to address everything. And right now it doesn't, and it may not ever get that way, until they start to open their mind up to look at what other cultures are doing. Chinese medicine, for example, has so much brilliance. Energy. Medicine has so much brilliance. The Amazon has so much brilliance. And if we stick to the idea that we need to think about it only in terms of the way that Western medicine is able to do it, and they are thinking about it in from a, you know, if you look at physics, they're looking at it from a It's not quantum mechanics, it's the other kind of mechanics. What is it? Classical Mechanics, right? It's a classical way of looking at things, but quantum mechanics is really like, that's where the magic happens, right? And if they're not incorporating that way of thinking, then they're going to think that everybody who's doing using methods, using quantum mechanics is crazy. But physics can prove that quantum that particles can be in two places at once. So in physics, can prove all these things that sound absolutely crazy, but work in energy medicine, and so the idea that like that, you know, I think I want to see, like Western medicine, just the whole field, be a little bit more humble in some ways. You know, when you go to a doctor, if somebody shows up with symptoms that that they don't understand, instead of calling them crazy, I want them to say, Oh, that's interesting. Let me, let me learn more about what's going on for you and see if I can figure out what those causes are or what to do about it. Yeah, you know,   Michael Hingson ** 22:38 yeah. So it's so true, I mean, there's more to life than drugs, and yeah, and Western medicine focuses so much just on the drug part of it, and there's been so much evidence that any number of people, and we've had a number of people on unstoppable mindset, who had medical Problems that Western medicine didn't solve but reg a and energy medicines and Eastern medicines and other kinds of forms of medicine, if you will, helped, and they were able to get beyond what was deal, what they were, what they were feeling and what was hurting them, and they became better for it.   Tina Huang ** 23:19 Yeah, exactly. And I think that the you know, it's not that you shouldn't look at Western medicine, it's that everything needs to be considered. And I think the more you merge it, and the more you consider the varieties of practices that involve, are involved, or that are possible, the better outcomes you can't get. Same time, it is very overwhelming. There's a lot of possibilities, of places you can go. So it's a matter of knowing, you know where the brilliance is, and and so forth. So that is a challenging and that's my life mission. Is figuring out, you know, what are those methods that are really effective and and helping people heal?   Michael Hingson ** 23:56 One of the things when we started dealing with China back in the Nixon administration and beyond, acupuncture started being talked about. But even today, Western medicine doesn't embrace it fully and make it a traditional part of what it does, even though clearly it helps any number of people.   Tina Huang ** 24:19 Yeah. And the thing about acupuncture is that, you know, they they used to say, and they're not saying it anymore, but they used to say, Oh, it's a placebo effect. And I would look at it and look at them like, this whole placebo argument is really kind of ridiculous when it comes to acupuncture, because it looks like torture. So it's like, Why would anything look like torture have a placebo effect? You know? Yeah, make any sense to me? Yeah. So, you know, I think, I think at least nowadays, Western medicine is a little bit more cautious about saying anything bad about acupuncture. And, in fact, more are willing to say, hey, you know, it's worth trying. It's worth trying. Exactly, good, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 24:55 Well, so for you, so you went through most of college. Knowledge and everything with a learning disability. What really finally caused you to I don't want, well, maybe the terminology isn't correct to say, feel comfortable with it, but what was it that finally got you to realize that you had a learning disability or were different, and you had to really do things in a different way, and how did that then start to affect what you did?   Tina Huang ** 25:26 Yeah, I am, I actually was asked several times in graduate school, like professors took me aside. So I should say, in graduate school, I was having regular panic attacks. I was I had no life. I was studying like crazy. I remember, like sometimes feeling so much panic. I would just get on my bike and just bike as fast as I can, you know, just trying to get that panic out of me. I was pulled aside several times by professors who said to me, you know, I you, you know, you really seem to be struggling way too much. And you know, the classwork is the easy part. If you can't do the class work. How are you ever going to be able to, you know, do the research? And I would, I would look at them and say, look, the classwork is going to be the hardest part for me. This is definitely going to be the hardest part for me. But once I get to the projects, once I get to the research, I'm good with projects. I think I should be okay. And they would look at me like I had two heads, and then let me know. And finally, my my advisor, My Media Advisor, in the lab I was working with, said, you know, Tina, you asked too many questions. And I was like, well, so does this other person like? Why? How? Why is asking questions a bad idea? And he said, Well, yours are different. And so I knew that he really cared about me, and he wanted me to thrive. And so the way he phrased it made me start to think, Okay, I need to go see get a clinical, you know, clinical evaluation. Now, again, back then, this was not something like we only knew about, I think dyslexia, and add at a time, weren't names for other learning disabilities and and so, and very few people even like, he didn't suggest I go see one like. He didn't even really know much about that concept. He just said, something is different about you. And so I did some research and looked and found out that there was a Learning Disability Center. And so I went to them, talked to them, and I had looked into the, I think, briefly before, but nothing. The disabilities that were described weren't exactly what I had. So, you know, it was, I didn't know if they could help me, but they sent me off to clinical psychologist who gave me this evaluation I was talking about, that that, you know, actually found that I was like he was actually the clinical psychologist I saw was in his 70s, and he had been working in the field for, I don't know, 50 years or something like that, but some insanely long period of time. And he said, you know, your ability to accumulate information is like less than the 20th percentile. We're talking about general population. We're not talking about in comparison to graduate school peers. And then when it but when it comes to, like, this one math test, which is just sort of arithmetic, he's like you, not only did you score a perfect score, but you did it faster than anybody else I've seen in the history of my entire career. And also I knew that, like, you know, we took these graduate school record examinations. And we had a verbal section, we had a math section, we had a logic section, and I know that, like in the logic section, I actually scored in the 98th percentile for people who are taking this examination. In the math I was like, in the upper nine, like, not upper 90s, but I think like 90 or 92nd or something like that percentile and the verbal, I studied the verbal like crazy, and I was, like, in less the 40th percentile. But I studied, I could never get that up high, you know, at all. So that's, you know, again, another example of extreme. So anyways, differences in my my abilities. So in that last class in graduate school I did, I was able to ask for more time on my tests, but my senior advisor also told me that I had to tell I'm sorry. My junior advisor also told me I had to tell my senior advisor that I had a disability, and I really dreaded that, but he had, he was holding the key to my funding. I was on his grant, and so I told him, and he dropped me. He dropped my funding.   29:21 And did he say why? He   Tina Huang ** 29:25 did not say why. Because, if he had said why, it would have been illegal. But, you know, he basically said he didn't think I could do the job right. Do, do the research. Luckily, my junior advisor believed in me, and my junior advisor was starting to get really worried about my senior advisor and not say he did not say that explicitly, but I could see in his actions there, the senior advisor was really well known, but there were some things about him that were of grave concern that were really getting revealed, partly from interactions with me. And so he dropped. To me, but Carrie o Banyan, who is my, was my advisor at the time, said, You know, you're, he didn't have the money at that time, and he's like, the only option we have is if you we write a grant, you know, and I had to write that. That was, that was an NIH grant called NRSA. And I wrote that grant, and with his support. And I remember the night before submission, the head of the neurobiology, anatomy Department said, Hey, Tina, would you like me to read your grant and give you just any last minute advice? And I was like, Sure. And so he calls me up the night before it's due. And he's like, okay, Tina, I want you to write. Sit down, grab a piece of paper and a pen, and I want you to write this down. And he's like, are you ready, you know, are you prepared for this? And I'm like, Yeah, give it to me, you know. And he goes, I want you to write I did an excellent job on my NRSA. And I was like, oh, okay, well, thank you. Do you have anything else? And he's like, No, I'm like, what? He goes, this is the best NRSA I've ever read.   Tina Huang ** 31:05 I was like, oh, okay, thank you. He goes,   Michael Hingson ** 31:08 What does NRSA stand for? And   Tina Huang ** 31:10 NRSA is, oh, it's just, I can't remember. It's important,   Michael Hingson ** 31:15 no, just curious. Anyway, go   Tina Huang ** 31:17 ahead, yeah, but it is the it was at least that time. It was the premier NIH grant that you could get as a graduate student. It was the most prestigious and best NRSA ever read, yeah, yeah. And so it was the best NRSA you'd ever read. And he said, yeah, just submit it as is. It's as good as it gets. You don't need any improvement. And then so I submitted it, and I got funded on the first submission. And again, that was the first. That's very unusual too. Yeah, it was extremely unusual. It was the first in all three neuroscience departments at University of Rochester.   Tina Huang ** 31:54 So I'm   Tina Huang ** 31:56 the comeback kid. I mean, I got, you know, I love that. You know, here I am. People have asked me to leave graduate school three times, and I show them that I can do research, right, you know, and that I'm an excellent grant writer, which is exactly the biggest reason, the biggest fear, and what I had been told is that it's so hard to get grants, and here I am. I just nailed it on my first try.   Michael Hingson ** 32:25 What did your senior academic advisor say about that? Oh,   Tina Huang ** 32:29 he didn't. He was out of the picture. We just didn't. We stopped talking to him honestly. Okay,   Michael Hingson ** 32:32 okay,   Tina Huang ** 32:34 yeah. Better that way, yeah. I mean,   Tina Huang ** 32:41 I am sure he heard about it, and I'm sure he was stumped. I know, I know that a lot of my professors that had asked me to leave were very confused by that, but I hope, I hope that seeing that enabled them to see that we need to start talking about learning distriments, differences in disabilities, and I, and I have seen that shift like I know that. I know that neuro learning disabilities, actually, what's really interesting is that I'm as I get these graduate school alumni magazines there are, there are actually conferences now in learning disabilities at University of Rochester, in the neuroscience you know that are heavily that neuro or the neuroscience department, is heavily involved. And I would like to think that what they saw with me helped them start to think about the importance of thinking about differential learning abilities.   Tina Huang ** 33:36 And probably that is true.   Tina Huang ** 33:41 I would, yeah, I just thought of that, but I think, I think that that probably got some heads turning.   Michael Hingson ** 33:46 So you got your PhD, and then what did you do?   Tina Huang ** 33:52 Well, I realized actually that I was not in love with lab work. I really am interested in mechanism of action, but I did not like the idea of working with animals in the way that we did in the labs, and I didn't like chemicals. And so I went on a trip to India during grad school years to kind of get away and and reframe and just think of it. And I was traveling with a friend who told me he wanted to get his master's in public health. And back then, I didn't know what that was, but I suddenly my ears perked up because that sounded really intriguing to me. And then I got back and and I was in the in a graduate student council, and somebody passed around the the pamphlet for public health, and I looked at it. And I saw this, this little description of a course in epidemiology, and I was like, Wow, this sounds really interesting. And it was about getting at root causes. And so I started digging into looking more the web was just a pretty new thing back then. And so I was like, searching, you know, the web, and trying to figure out. Um, more about this epidemiology, because it sound fascinating. And then I heard the John Snow story, which is about understanding like this. John Snow epidemiologist was what they call a shoestring epidemiologist, where there was a water pump that was the source of cholera, and how he found that made that discovery of how cholera started. And I was just like, This is what I want to do. I want to get at root causes. And so I actually decided, you know, I was advised to finish my PhD. I was in my fifth year at that time. I come pretty far at that point. So I was advised to just finish off my research and then apply for postdocs in epidemiology. So I actually applied. I, for some reason, I went to Johns Hopkins. I applied to Johns Hopkins, and I got accepted there as a postdoc. And so I did my postdoc at psychiatric in psychiatric Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, and I loved it, because they actually and they let me take all the classes. I audited them, because otherwise I'd have to pay for them. I didn't have the money, so I audited classes in epidemiology and and bio stats and all the other things that I needed to   Tina Huang ** 36:16 to work in that field.   Michael Hingson ** 36:19 So you learned what you needed to, and that's kind of where you started focusing.   Tina Huang ** 36:24 Yeah, yeah. So I wrote, I wrote some the work that I'm most proud of was in that field. I did some pretty made some pretty cool discoveries for in the field of Alzheimer's disease, discovered that early life actually impacts your risk of dementia. And I looked at a measure, an anthropometric measure, called knee knee height. So the height of our knees is actually indicative of our first two years of life. And specifically we were thinking it was nutrition, but now I think it might be more than nutrition. I think nutrition is a very important part of it, but I think also our adverse childhood experiences are contribute, contribute as well, but also our microbiome. So I was the first, not the first, paper to show that knee height was an indicator, indicative of or in knee height, or that those first two years of life was important and relevant for a risk, our future risk of dementia. I was the first person to show that in or first paper to show that in a western population.   Michael Hingson ** 37:43 So how did you discover that? Or what exactly did you discover that makes somebody who's less likely to get dementia, as opposed to somebody who's more likely?   Tina Huang ** 37:58 Yeah, so what I discovered is that people with shorter knee heights have a higher risk of dementia. Got it and the knee height is indicative. It's a reflection of what happened in the first two years of our life. Okay,   Tina Huang ** 38:14 yeah, so   Michael Hingson ** 38:15 partly nutrition, but partly other other things that come along that affect it,   Tina Huang ** 38:23 right? And I And, and that's, you know, I didn't prove that in the paper. That's just knowledge that I've accumulated from watching the research. But we now know the importance of the microbiome, for example, that was not, we were not touching on that subject at all back then, right? And now there's a lot of research on adverse childhood experiences. You know how our early life experience, you know whether we got enough emotional support, whether we have a parent that's in jail or violent, all of that impacts our stress and our you know, for if we're undergoing if we are in the midst of extreme stress or neglect or anything like that, not getting the new the love and support we need that can impact our ability to impacts our microbiome and our ability to absorb nutrients, digest and absorb nutrients, and To get interest that brain health connection that's vital to success and thriving.   Michael Hingson ** 39:24 I know that when, and I've told the story before here, but when I was born, and it was discovered about four months after I was born, that I was blind, I was born two months premature and put in an incubator and given too much oxygen, and that causes the retina not to develop properly, but the doctors told my parents to go off and send me to a home because a blind child could never grow up to be anything good in society. Essentially, couldn't be a contributor, would bring down the family and so on. And my parents said, Absolutely not. He can grow up to learn to do what. Whatever he wants. And that's why opportunity, which is, which is the point.   Tina Huang ** 40:06 And I think you're unstoppable, you know, because you had that parental, you know, those parental cheerleaders that you so badly needed, and that's just, that's amazing, well, and the power that's, I mean, that that alone, really speaks to the about the power of parents and what they can do for their kids. I see great example of that.   Michael Hingson ** 40:27 I've seen so many kids who are blind or were blind, who grew up and who weren't overly self confident, who didn't do as well as they could have, but it was because they were sheltered. Their parents didn't feel that they could do as much, and the result was they didn't do as much, yeah, and they didn't really learn to do the things that they could do, and they weren't challenged to be able to do the things that they ought to be able to do, like other people, and it's so unfortunate, but I've seen some, some children who grew up who were very good, very competent, very competent, but so many, oh, they're blind, they can't do anything, and that was how they were braced. And that's always a challenge, of course, and a problem,   Tina Huang ** 41:17 yeah. And I agree, and the same thing with me. I mean, as a person with learning disabilities, I was often dismissed. I mean, I had, I worked in, you know, I was at Johns Hopkins for my first postdoc, but I had some other postdocs that I'm not going to name, where I was neglected pretty severely, and it's because they did not recognize my genius, or maybe they did and didn't want to to foster that because of my other challenges and didn't, didn't believe that I was worth their time. You know, it's, it's very frustrating to to be brilliant and to know that you can contribute in huge ways, but that you're not given that chance to do so. You know, because of people's perceptions, they're inaccurate perceptions about what you're able or, you know, capable of. It   Michael Hingson ** 42:06 gets back to prejudice. It gets back so much to societal prejudice. Yeah,   Tina Huang ** 42:10 and it's, it's, it may not be intentional, and I don't think it's intentional prejudice, but it is stereotypes. And it's, we have these stereotypes. You know, our brains are constructed in a way that we have to categorize people quickly and efficiently. And I have to say that I am grateful because our society is changing. I mean, I am seeing that there is more and more awareness about learning disabilities and neuro divergence and celebrating that. Sure so that is that's wonderful. I I actually have been watching a bit of America got America's Got Talent. And what's great, what I really appreciate about that program is they're starting to accept more and more people of more and more different flavors. I mean, at times, there were we didn't, you know, we shunned people who are who are trans or, you know, have different sexual preferences, or gay or whatever. And, and we're becoming more and more open to those people as well, you know. And maybe not everybody is, but African Americans were, you know, we had an African American president. We're seeing we, we got to see an example of of African Americans and what they can do, you know, and Trevor Noah's brilliance. And, you know, there's just so many, you know, I think it was Amanda Gorman who was the amazing poet, yes. And so, it's, it's, it's wonderful that stereotypes are being broken and, and it's about time, you know, I think it is, it's huge change in just the last few years, and with that, and I'm so grateful to finally see that happen, because I've gone through so much of life where that hasn't happened, but I don't, I wish they'd talk more about, you know, other disabilities as well, but, but it changes are happening. So you're you're a part of that. So thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 44:03 The reality is that, in general, when we talk about diversity, we never talk about disabilities. It's not part of the conversation, and it should be, especially when the CDC says that up to 25% of all people in this country have some sort of a well, I'll call it traditional disability, as opposed to the other 75% who have light dependence, and it's still a disability, but 25% have a disability, and it's something that we don't talk about. There's a lot of fear involved in that, that, Oh, I could become like them. I don't want that. They're they're not as good as I am, they're less than I am, you know, and you talked about LGBTQ and so on. And I find it so interesting, how many people say in the Bible, it says that that's not a good thing, and you're you're going against the Bible if you're LGBTQ. But you know, Jesus also was the person who said, Judge not, lest you be judged and let. It, he or she, if you will, who is without sin cast the first stone. You know, the reality is that it's not my place to judge anyone, no matter who or what, even politicians, although they deserve it. But you know, we don't we. We don't judge people, because that's not our job. That's between them and God and it Well,   Tina Huang ** 45:24 here's the thing is that is that, why would God make us so different and allow that to happen like we're choice, all part of, I mean, this universe produced us, you know, and, and sometimes, you know, if we have brains that don't feel like, you know, if I, if I were, you know, and I'm not this kind of person. But I was also very interested. I actually wrote a paper on the biological basis of homosexuality in graduate school because I thought it was absolutely fascinating of understanding, you know, why? Why do we have brains? Why? Why do we sometimes have brains that don't resonate with how, how we show up externally? You know, like, how come a female can feel like they, they, they should be a male, and a male can feel like, how they should, you know, they should be a female. And it's, it's absolutely fascinating. It's, it's, I'm, I'm very curious about it, but I don't see the defect. It's just a difference, and it's absolutely fascinating, but it's a part of who we are, and it's a part of spectrum of society and and, you know, just because people are different doesn't make them less than it just makes them different, you know, interesting. And even   Michael Hingson ** 46:39 if it were true, even if it were true, which I don't think that it is, but even if it were true that, say being homosexual is is a horrible thing, it's still if, for especially religious people, if you think that goes against what God wants, that's still not your choice To make. Yeah, I agree, and people need to get over it. The reality is, it, is it? Mary, very well, may be choice. I don't know that. It's always choice. You're right. Brains are different, but it's still between the individual involved in God, and people need to leave that stuff alone and allow people to grow as they can, and it's okay to be different, but we, we don't generally tend to accept that collectively in our society, it's not okay to be different. You're supposed to really be like me, or you're less than me, right? And   Tina Huang ** 47:39 I have to say, in terms of a choice, it's not like, Oh, I'm going to choose this flavor of ice cream. It's more like, you know, I mean, people who are trans are choosing, they're choosing who they really believe that they are. And it's a correct fundamental, like, it's, so it's, it's, it's, it's much more. It may be a choice, but it's kind of a choice to just reveal that their truth, that's the real issue. They think, who they feel, their reality of who they are. So it's it. It's kind of like asking them if to, if they're asked to deny that they're asking to deny who they feel they are. And that's, that's a that's a huge thing to ask of people. Huge thing that's not okay to ask people, you know, and I think that's, that's a huge has been a huge struggle of mine, you know, like, I actually grew up in an environment where very Christian, and I have to say that I'm I rebelled a lot because I kept getting told that I had to believe this and I had to believe that. And it wasn't, it wasn't jiving with me, you know, like the idea that God loves you, wasn't jiving with me because I had so much horrible experiences as a child, you know, I did not feel loved by God, and so I did not resonate with that, right? Um, well, that's not something I'm resonating with right now. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, yeah, I've had a lot of challenges in my   Michael Hingson ** 49:08 life. I, I am one of these people who do believe that God loves everyone, but that is, again, an issue between you and God, and so if you decide that that that's okay, that's okay. If it's if you decide it's not okay, God's not going to smite you down for it. God isn't going to execute you. Everyone. That's the beautiful part about the universe. Everyone has free will,   Tina Huang ** 49:40 right, right. I do think it has a lot to do with our experiences, though. So well   Michael Hingson ** 49:45 it does it, it does. And you know, something may come along to make you feel differently in the future, but that's it doesn't matter. That's still really the choice that you get to make as you are going through life and experiencing the adventure. Life, and life is an adventure by any standard, right, right? And it far be. It from me to tell you that you have to say that God loves you,   Tina Huang ** 50:10 right? I appreciate that. Now,   Michael Hingson ** 50:13 my dog, on the other hand, would sit in your lap if he could, but that's another story. He's, he's, he's a   Tina Huang ** 50:21 I trust, I trust animals love me. I can have faith in that at least, at least the healthy ones. Well, yeah, but I am a, I'm a bit of an A kitty magnet, although I love them a lot too. So   Michael Hingson ** 50:34 Well, we have a cat, or I have a cat, and she's probably waiting for this to end, so that I will go pet her while she eats. She loves to get petted while she eats, and she gets very irritated if she doesn't get attention when she wants it. Yeah, that's okay. That's part of love. How did you grow to be a holistic brain practitioner?   Tina Huang ** 51:03 I so I think, you know, I've told you my backstory, learning disabilities and not doing traditional things. I I had severe depression, anxiety, stomach problems, and, of course, these learning disabilities that we've been talking about throughout my early life and kept going to doctors and getting dismissed by doctors. Or, yeah, getting getting dismissed. Or, you know, told I need to go see a psychologist or whatever, and and not really getting to the root of the problems. And I was fascinated by neuroscience, so, you know, I went, you know, did the neuroscience epidemiology route. I told you about that, but I had some bad postdocs, and these postdocs were career ruining for me. I discovered some fraud, and that ended up hurting me more than the person that committed the fraud, which was very upsetting, and I lost my job because I discovered their fraud. And so I had to find new methods to heal. And I had, when I discovered that there were ways that I could, through energy, medicine, intuitively detect root causes directly in people, I decided that that I really need to learn more about this. And when I discovered that the methods worked, I was like, Okay, I need to develop a career in this. You know, it's it was so much more efficient than doing the research. And I also was struggling. I know that, you know, I really was coming down to the or understanding the limitations of research, and some of the big limitations of research, especially when you're looking at data large scale data sets, is that you need to account for all the variables that are involved. And my research was an Alzheimer's disease. And if you look at all the different things are involved that cause Alzheimer's disease, you cannot fit it into a specific equation. You can only fit like, three or four, maybe five variables into a specific into an equation depending on the on your population size, and so it's not going to be able to count for all the very the individual differences. And there was just no way to do that in in epidemiology. And so there's real, I mean, that's just that points to a huge, huge limitation of research is that is really good for people who are the norm. But the problem is, is so many of us are not the norm. So many women. I mean, there's, there's not a lot of research in women, for example. So so much of the research is better for men, you know. And and if you have unusual symptoms, research is not going to cover you at this point, right? So, and I was, I was always in that category of having symptoms that doctors didn't understand. And so I was like, I've got to figure out root causes much more directly. And so when I figured out I could do that, I started to work on develop my own business, and that's how I became a holistic brain health practitioner. I absolutely   Michael Hingson ** 54:06 love it. You made comments about the concept of first impressions. Tell me about that.   Tina Huang ** 54:14 Yeah, I I don't like I think it's really important dangerous. It could be very dangerous to allow your first impressions to navigate your understanding or shape, not, not it will shape, it will always shape your understanding of a person. But if you let it be the sole contributor to your impressions of a person, it can be very dangerous, so let me just elaborate that on a bit. There are people who are very charming and likable when you first meet them, and oftentimes leaders. Lot of leaders are very likable and very charming and can be very popular and well loved.   Tina Huang ** 54:57 But I.   Tina Huang ** 55:01 They can also be very toxic to people who are close to them. And I'm specifically talking about people who are in the sociopathic, the sociopathic personality type, and narcissists are a great example of that. They can be very, very charming, and we can hold on, especially if we are an empath, and are the kind of person that wants to take care of others, we can hold on to those beliefs about this person, that they are wonderful, and that everybody loves them, and so forth, you know. Why? Why are they so? Why does everybody love them so much, you know? And then, and then this person, if you get to it into a relationship with them, if you get too close to them, they can end up being very toxic to especially empaths or people who are vulnerable. I'm not saying that everybody who is charming and likable is this way. I'm just saying that if you are, if you happen to encounter a narcissist, that that's what can happen these personality types, they can go from being just absolutely amazing and wonderful in certain stages and absolutely terrifyingly horrifically dangerous for you on the other side. And so making these assumptions is can be very dangerous, but it's also dangerous for the individuals who have disabilities that are hidden. So it is dangerous for people like me who have a hidden disability. People are not necessarily going to see that I have a disability. It is dangerous for people like me because, for example, I developed a severe environmental sensitivity due to Toxic Mold and doctors could never see even first depression can be like going to a doctor's office and they don't see anything wrong and they can't run anything in tests, so they've decided that you're fine. And so for me, I got, didn't get the diagnosis I needed, and I didn't get the support I need. So I'm actually in deep debt because of I wasn't able to work for two years because nobody was able to give me a diagnosis, and I couldn't get on disability. And so that's another example of first impressions that are dangerous. And they may not be dangerous for the person, if it's the doctor giving it to the patient, but it's very dangerous for those of us who struggle with toxic mold issues. Because I am not alone. There are tons of us who struggle with symptoms that nobody understands and are not getting disabilities or disability help because doctors refuse to understand or to look at the impacts of mold on our systems. Mo, you know, there's three types of mold. There is pathogenic mold, sorry, there's allogenic molds, pathogenic mold and toxigenic mold. And most doctors, if you ask them if they know about those three types, or if they know about different types of mold, they will not know. They only know about allergenic and that's a huge problem, because pathogenic mold, for one, can make you sick for months and make it impossible for you to work for months. Toxigenic mold can completely destroy your immune system and your detoxification systems and make you completely immunocompromised. And it can do it for your entire life, yeah. And it can make you that, that in parasites can make you extremely immunocompromised, and they don't know about that. You know, it's   Michael Hingson ** 58:22 scary that not enough is being done to address the issue. It's like anything else. It takes some incredible, rude awakening somewhere before anyone starts to really focus on some of these issues.   Tina Huang ** 58:36 Yeah, it's, it's a big reason why I was absolutely determined to get well is because I knew that I was going to have to get on stages and start to speak about this. I'm I'm not just trying to champion my own, my own experience, but my experience struggling with these toxic mold issues was absolutely horrific. It was hellish, beyond imagination, and there's not social support to help people like us, and it's just, it's horrific, and it needs to, it needs that needs to change.

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," where we dive into the world of food with our guests from all corners of the culinary landscape. This time, we're delighted to have Nicole Aufderhar with us, known for her Instagram page @TenThousandBakes, where she showcases her incredible baking creations. Our conversation traces her baking journey from family traditions to competing on the Great American Baking Show, where she reached the final three and participated in the finale. Nicole shares her love for Minnesota State Fair Baking and her insights into balancing a creative passion with an artistic career. Join us as we explore her baking adventures, inspirations, and the sweet success she's found along the way.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And today, my guest is Nicole Ofterhauer, and she is at 10000 Bakes on Instagram. And we became friends, kind of funny, through the Jason show's hottest day on record at the state fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:00:36]:Yes. Where we were all dying and couldn't think straight.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:40]:Yeah. We were just, like, sweating ourselves off, and you had made these super beautiful blueberry macarons. And you were there to talk about your experience that you'd had as a state fair baker, but also on the Great American Baking Show, which if people don't know because I still think people don't know that that show exists.Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:01]:They don't know. Even, like, my friends and family sometimes don't know that it exists. It's yeah. Everyone knows the British version, but surprise, there's an American one.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:10]:Yes. So The Great British Bake Off, spun off a great American baking show, and Nicole was a guest on it and did very well. Weren't you, like, in the final 3?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:20]:Yeah. Yeah. I made it all the way to the finals.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:22]:Okay. So that's exciting. And I just wanna point out, I don't know when people are gonna listen to this because I'm probably gonna release it maybe this Friday or the next Friday. I haven't decided yet. ButNicole Aufderhar [00:01:34]:Mhmm.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:35]:If you haven't gotten a chance, please go right now to Nicole's Instagram page and look at 10,000 Bakes. Because, honestly, she has some of the most amazing spooky treats on there. Girl, I mean, those the skull truffles with the raspberry filling, are you kidding me?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:51]:Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I I've always been kind of a Halloween nut. Like, always been my thing. The spookier, the better. And so for me, Halloween baking is kinda all about embracing kind of the quirky and weird. So I just go all in with it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:07]:It's always fun every year.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:09]:I mean, your stuff is real cool looking. Very beautiful. There was also a black was it what kind of a, cake was it?Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:18]:Yeah. So I made it was a peri breast, actually. So, like, a patichou base pastry.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:26]:Yeah. It looked like chew pastries stuffed or filled with, like, a cream of some sort.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:31]:Yep. Yeah. So I used, black cocoa creme pat, and then there was also you couldn't see the picture, but there was, like, a raspberry gel as well. So kind of that dark chocolate raspberry thing kinda fitting with Halloween.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:44]:I mean, it was unbelievably fantastic looking.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:47]:Oh, thanks. Yeah. Like I said, it's I get to be my weird artistic self this time of year, so it's kind of fun.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:53]:I like your weird artistic self. Take that and the listener kind of on the journey of how this whole thing started for you.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:01]:So I have kind of been baking my entire life. You know, like, most people grew up mom in the kitchen, Nestle Toll House, Christmas cutout. You know, nothing, like, crazy, but just, you know, family baking. And as I grew up, I just kinda started to dive more and more into it. I'm kind of a shy person. So when I would go to parties, like, talking to people is stressful, but if I bring a bank, that gives me something to talk about. Sure. So, you know, I kind of started doing that more.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:30]:And in college, I actually studied photography with, like, emphasis on food photography. And because I don't wanna take pictures of babies. So I decided to do the food route, and then I kinda decided that, well, if I wanna take pictures of beautiful things, I might have to learn how to bake some of these things. And so it's just kind of continued to grow and grow, and it's always been kind of my creative endeavor that's just for me and just for fun and really lets me express myself without the pressure. You know, I'm an artist full time, so I have that pressure there. So this is just just for fun, just for me. And when I saw that there was a great American baking show, which I didn't even know. You know, I've watched the British version for years, and then I saw online that they were casting for the American version.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:19]:I thought, oh, well, let's let's see. Why not? You know? And I put my hat in the ring, and I made it all the way to the final round of 1st year, which I wasn't expecting. It's a very long process, and I just what I thought would maybe just be something that I'd enter and never hear from again ended up being this multiyear journey of traveling with baked goods and auditions. And after a couple 2 years of auditioning, I was cast on the show.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:51]:So yeah. So exciting.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:53]:Yeah.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:54]:So how long from the beginning of you arriving to start the taping to when you go home is that length of time?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:04]:So you are there basically for an entire month. For us, it was the entire month of August. You do a lot of prep work stateside before you go, you know, coming up with your own recipes and stuff. But once you are there, you are there the whole time. Even if you're eliminated, then you just kinda get a London vacation, but you're there for the entire month.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:24]:So they do it in the Great British Bake Off same space?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:28]:Yeah. So for the Great British Bake Off, there's 2 tents. There is a tent where they film the version everybody knows, and then there's a tent where they film, like, celebrity versions, and I believe it's coming from Janae Baycock is still there as well, but, yeah, there are 2 tents. We're in the the other tent, like so it's not the tent, but it's one of theirs.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:51]:Yeah. And Paul and Pru are still judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:55]:Yeah. Yeah. It's the same judges. It's Paul and Pru. We have American hosts. You know, that's the difference. People always kind of, I don't wanna say, hate on the American version, but they always say, oh, we don't like it because they're hypercompetitive, and they don't have the accents and all this. And I'm like, well, yeah, we don't have the accents.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:12]:Sure. And that's the baddest. Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:16]:So there's that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:18]:Yeah. So, you know, I mean, if you wanna nitpick, but it's still, like, a heartwarming, friendly show. Like, once people sit down and watch it, they're like, oh, that's actually enjoyable. I'm like, yes. That's what I've been telling you.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:32]:It is funny that the perception of Bake Off and what people love and what attracted me to it too was just how kind and supportive everybody is. And we've gotten used to watching these, you know, chopped and these sort of aggressive male dominated, like, shows of competition. And it is funny because I do think America in general this is a very gross generalization, but I do think we're more competitive. We're very aggressively business focused, like, success focused. And I think what is nice about The Bake Off is there's a lot of people from all these different walks of life, and they just happen to make pastry too or they're bakers.Nicole Aufderhar [00:07:20]:Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. And that's when I auditioned because I talked a lot about my state fair, you know, competing background. And they purposely were, like, asking me, well, are you hypercompetitive? Are you how do you feel if you don't win? You know? And so I had to make sure that I expressed that I'm not competitive despite all that. Like, I love the community behind these competitions and the friends that I've made, and they are trying to seek out people for that show that are there to just be with other bakers and have fun and get this experience and aren't there because I wanna win. And, I mean, the prize is a cake plate. You know? Like, you're not getting $20,000 or a book deal.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:01]:You know? You get a cake plate. So if you're not there to just have a good time, you know, they're not gonna put you in the tent.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:09]:You happen to mention the state fair. Can you talk a little bit about your state fair baking experience? Because you're pretty well known and traveled in the state fair scene too. Minnesota State Fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:23]:Yeah. Yeah. Especially the last year, people have kind of, I don't know, found my like, I've always shared about my journey with it. That's kinda why I started my Instagram page was because I wanted to share this community and show how accessible it is. Like, you don't have to be an incredible baker to enter. You just start. You just start entering stuff, and you get to meet people on entry day. And sometimes you get feedback from the judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:48]:Sometimes you get head scratching feedback from the judges, but, like, it's just a super fun thing. And so I grew up with a step grandma who competed and kinda taught me the ropes from a young age and was kinda harsh about it, but it served me in the long run. And, so then about gosh. It's been 10 years now, I believe, I started. I did my first contest. I just entered three things, you know, just to kinda feel it out, and all 3 of them ribbon. I got 2 seconds and a 5th, and I was like, oh,Stephanie Hansen [00:09:20]:okay. You know? That's either this isNicole Aufderhar [00:09:24]:you know, I wasn't sure what to think. I'm like, oh, this is easier than I thought, or I might actually be kinda good at baking because your friends and family are always like, oh, everything's fantastic, but isStephanie Hansen [00:09:33]:it really? You know?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:35]:So it's kinda given me this avenue to try new things and meet new people. And over the years, you know, I've I've done pretty well, and I've made some really amazing friends, and I just it's something I look forward to all year round.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:48]:What do you remember what the three things you were that you made in the first?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:53]:Yeah. They weren't even I'd call them baking light. Honestly, it was like a granola bar and then some granola, and then they used to do this thing called the recipe challenge Yep. Where everyone would get the same recipe. You know? So it's kinda like the technical on the makeup, honestly, which is what appealed to me is you all get the same recipe. You kinda have to interpret it. And so I got a second place on that. I got a second place on the bars, and then I got a 5th place on the granola.Nicole Aufderhar [00:10:23]:And the the funny thing with the cookies was I was always under this belief that you had to enter things freshly baked that morning, you know. So I woke up early to do my final round, and they didn't they failed. The dough, I don't know what I did wrong or if it was the heat, it failed. And so I'm crying in the kitchen. I'm like, what do I do? Well, I had ones that I had stored in the freezer, like, 3 weeks ago. I mean Yeah. I was like, I wanna save them just in case, and I'm so glad I did because that's what I ended up entering were 3 week old transfer cookies, and they still placed.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:55]:Yeah. And a lot of people do that. Like, I know another woman, and she enters, like, 82 contests. And some of her stuff comesNicole Aufderhar [00:11:03]:inStephanie Hansen [00:11:03]:the freezer, and she pulls it out the night before, and that's what they enter.Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:07]:That's what I and that's what I've been telling people this year, especially, people are surprised to learn that I did that. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, well, but don't they taste them? Like, yeah. You know, you can kinda tell freezer goods from the fresh, but that's what everybody else is doing. So if you're the best of the freezer bunch Yeah. You know, and it works.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:25]:How many categories did you enter this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:28]:This year, I ended up doing 12, I believe it was, which I'm not I mean, there's people that show up with laundry baskets full of stuff, you know, and max out at 20. I doing 12 was a lot for me. I usually, like, keep them in the single digits. But, yeah, it went really well. Half of them ribboned. I got a smoked steaks for the first time, so it was a lot of fun this year.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:Yeah. And what people maybe don't know I mean, you said mentioned that you're an artist. You make, leather bound journals and leather goods. And, what's your website for that? Because I wanna make sure we tell people because your work's reallyThanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:07]:So my website is wayfaringgoods.com, and it's not wayfair like that big furniture supply place or whatever. It's spelled wayfaringgoods.com.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:21]:I love it. Yeah. Because you're not doing this in a professional scope.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:28]:No. Baking is right now, you know, probably, you know, I don't know, forever. It's just for fun. I I love what I do with my leather business. That has been something I've been doing full time for 15 years. Like, that's really where my I don't know. I'm as passionate about baking as I am about leather, but I like keeping my leather as my business and my baking as my creative passion, which I think is important for professional creatives to have that thing without the pressure of selling.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:03]:And let's talk about that for a second because that's sort of uniquely American too. I think that this idea is like, oh, well, she's making all this stuff. She's in competitive realm. She's doing really well, so she must be planning a bakery because we, like, don't really just allow ourselves to have these creative outlets without making them into something. We feel the pressure from ourselves.Nicole Aufderhar [00:13:28]:Yeah. Oh, exactly. And I think I mean, it's so important to have that creative passion that you don't have that pressure behind. And I I think so I started my business right out of college. I could have either gone the professional photography router than what I did. And so I think because I started young, I learned how important it is to have that creative passion just for fun. I see a lot of my friends that have since pursued kinda similar art businesses, and I see them now struggling with this. Like, oh, well, I'm also good at this, so I should sell this and I should do that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:05]:And it's like, no. You don't have to sell everything you make. Like, if you're a creative person, you might be good at a lot of different creative things.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:13]:Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:14]:You know? And it stops being fun when you know, like, if I have a failure in the kitchen, I'm disappointed. You know? I get frustrated, but it's okay because it's not going anywhere. I don't have to worry about someone a customer coming. I don't have to, you know, it's a different kind of failure versus the feeling when you're struggling with the business. And so I I like having those two things very separate.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:41]:Yeah. I can see that too. And, also, like, this idea that because you're good at something or because you make something, then it's becomes less a hobby and then a job. And sometimes I struggle with that because I'm just cooking now between the cookbook and the show and the adjacent appearances and, my blog.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:02]:I feelStephanie Hansen [00:15:02]:like I'm just cooking all the time. And sometimes, like, I feel another like, I have to, like, videotape everything I'm doing. And, like, the other day, I was like, I'm not pulling out the video camera. I'm going to cook something that could I? Sure. But, I'm just going to make these apple muffins because I have apples and I feel like an apple muffin and I'm not going to videotape it and you know what? I'm not even going to write down the recipe. And I just was like I just sat in the moment. I enjoyed the bake. I loved the smell it made my house.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:33]:The muffins came out. I ate 1. I gave one to the dog and then I went and distributed them the neighborhood and got rid of them and came home and was like, oh, that was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:43]:Yeah. Isn't that's the best. That is those are that's the best feelings. And I know exactly even though, like, I don't do my baking on a professional level, just in the world of social media. Like you said, you have this pressure to film everything you do and turn everything that you do into some form of content. And that just sucks sucks the fun out of it. You know? Like, you know, sometimes it's fun, you know, but if you're not feeling it, like, don't do it. If Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:11]:I don't know. You know, it's important to, like obviously, for you, it is part of your work.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:17]:But But is it I mean, also and I'm sort of like I don't know. I'm just sort of working through this too. Like, we give a lot away of ourselves as creators, as people in a social media space, and it's just demanding. And I don't wanna, like, sound not grateful because I am because you build a platform and people really dig your stuff and that's fun, but also, like, trying to recognize what's real and what's not real sometimes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:50]:Yes. Yep. Yeah. Because people see a version of you and and a version of what you do, and they expect that over and over and over again.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:00]:And it can be exhausting. Yeah. And some daysStephanie Hansen [00:17:04]:you don't feel like delivering that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:06]:Yeah. I don't. You know? And and then sometimes I feel like, oh, I have to put it out there because I put everything out there, and then I do it and it doesn't do well or whatever. And then I stress out about that. It's like, why? Why?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:17]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:18]:You know?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:20]:Well, you and I had coffee, and I think you well, we met at the hottest day of the year, and then you followed up. And you're like, would you ever wanna have coffee? I was like, yes. Of course. And I I also loved that you reached out to me because I do like bringing this creative online life sometimes into the real life of you and I just sitting and having a cup of coffee and talking about what we're into and what's fun. And I just I was I was appreciative that you reached out. And I I wish more people would do that kind of in a real space because I think that's how you grow and how you can help mentor others and help others find their path because so many people have helped me along the way. My goodness.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:04]:Yeah. No. Yeah. And I I'm still so grateful you said yes because Sure. It is super important. And I think that people are kinda surprised when others are willing to do stuff in person and meet in person. And even for my tiny little thing that I do at the state fair, I met people online and they were worried about bugging me or asking me questions. And I'm like, why? Like, oh, I Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:27]:I I and maybe not I love talking about that kind of stuff. If I can help somebody else, like, I go to competition. I'm like, so, like Yeah. Like, it's better for all of us in the long run, you know, if we're encouraging others to do it and get better and help the people where we can with stuff that we've learned along the way. And, like, I personally enjoy doing that. So that's why it was so exciting to Yeah. Get to sit and talk with you and, you know, meet someone else of the food, you know, yeah, and just learn from each other.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:59]:So what's next for you, Nicole? Have you thought about that?Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:05]:All the time. No. Again, after having done the show and now I've I've been very fortunate since the show came out with opportunities that have come my way. You know, you never know if anyone's gonna notice or pay attention or anything, and I've honestly been quite overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I have done. And so people, you know, they expect the bakery. They expect us to expect that. That is not that's not on my realm. That's not what I'm thinking at all.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:36]:I long term dream, short term dream. I don't know. I always tell people I would like to do a cookbook. That is something I thought of wanting to do years. I mean, that's kinda always been in the back of my head because Yeah. I enjoy the recipe development portion of baking. So that's kinda where my strong suit is. That's where I that's what I enjoy the most.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:59]:So, you know, obviously, I'm gonna be continuing on with my leather business as always Yep. Gearing up for holiday season right now. So that's, you know, the main part of my life, but I'm just gonna continue to create recipes, share that, share the state fair knowledge, and just be willing to embrace and be open to whatever might come from it.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:26]:Alright. Let's do something fun. Are you ready for fun? Maybe. Always. I have, like, 5 to 10 questions. We'll see how it goes. Just random kinda rapid fire questions.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:40]:Oh gosh.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:42]:They're not hard. They're they're all about you. They're not hard.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:46]:Okay.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:46]:Oh, okay. Here's number 1. What is the first bake you remember making yourself?Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:54]:Cupcakes. Cute. Yeah. Like, as a kid? It's so basic, but that's yeah. Strawberry cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream. Yum. That was my first, quote, unquote, real bake that I did.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:08]:I love it. Okay. When you go to a potluck, what do you typically bring?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:16]:Macarons.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:18]:Oh, fancy. Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:20]:They're easy to share. They look impressive, but they're pretty easy to whip up.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:25]:Okay. What is the first thing you eat from a Halloween candy bucket?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:32]:That's funny. Snickers popped into my head first, but Reese's are my favorite, but I guess Snickers would be my first.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:37]:Okay. I love that. Reese's is the number one popular candy. You probably know that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:41]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:41]:Yeah. What, is the restaurant that you've been to more than any other?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:51]:Well, green scene since moving up to Walker. That would be yeah. Okay. I love the green scene here in town.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:57]:And you live in Walker. I should mention that. Yes. What's your most used pan?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:05]:I my little I have a little saucepan, and I will shove anything I can into it even if it's not supposed to fit. I love it.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:12]:I have one of those too, and it's funny. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:15]:Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't fit. Okay. I just did that last meal with some jam. It was poor decision but I think it worked.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:21]:But you still loved your pan. Okay. This is your last question in the in the final round of the rapid fire questioning. What's an existing cookbook you wish you had written?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:36]:Oh. Oh. I'm looking at all my cookbooks. I know. It's aStephanie Hansen [00:22:41]:hard one.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:42]:That is a hard one. I can't I well, it's funny because I feel like picking any of them. I'm not worthy of any of them, but I have they're all old vintage ones. Like, I have this rose what's her last name?Stephanie Hansen [00:23:03]:Birnbaum Levy Birnbaum.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:05]:I use a lot of her books. I wish I had the skill and the abilities to write something like that.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:11]:Do you know that that cake bible book that she wrote is having its 35th anniversary this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:17]:I don't see that. I know. I can't believe it because except I have all, like, the real old vintage ones of it, and it's it's so cool that it still has stood the test of time.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:27]:Yeah. No. I love that you have those. That's amazing. Well, Nicole, I hope people will follow you on Instagram at 10000 Bakes. We're gonna for sure have you on, Jason's show next summer so we get a chance to connect with her there again. Wonderful. Also been doing reviews of Great British Bake Off with Bradley and Dawn on my talk 107.1.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:50]:Yeah. Yep. People should follow you, and you're making really cool Halloween stuff right now.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:56]:Yeah. Thanks. Yes. We're having fun over here.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:59]:Yeah. It's amazing. Alright. Well, when you're gonna be coming down to town next or not downtown, down to town, next, give me a shout, and we'll have coffee again. It was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:09]:Oh, definitely. Totally.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:10]:Alright. Thanks, Nicole. I appreciate you spending time with us today. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:14]:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:14]:We'll talk soon. Bye bye. Bye. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to another episode of "Dishing with Stephanie's Dish," where we dive into the world of food with our guests from all corners of the culinary landscape. This time, we're delighted to have Nicole Aufderhar with us, known for her Instagram page @TenThousandBakes, where she showcases her incredible baking creations. Our conversation traces her baking journey from family traditions to competing on the Great American Baking Show, where she reached the final three and participated in the finale. Nicole shares her love for Minnesota State Fair Baking and her insights into balancing a creative passion with an artistic career. Join us as we explore her baking adventures, inspirations, and the sweet success she's found along the way.EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Stephanie Hansen [00:00:16]:Hello, everybody, and welcome to Dishing with Stephanie's dish, the podcast where we talk to people in the food space. And today, my guest is Nicole Ofterhauer, and she is at 10000 Bakes on Instagram. And we became friends, kind of funny, through the Jason show's hottest day on record at the state fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:00:36]:Yes. Where we were all dying and couldn't think straight.Stephanie Hansen [00:00:40]:Yeah. We were just, like, sweating ourselves off, and you had made these super beautiful blueberry macarons. And you were there to talk about your experience that you'd had as a state fair baker, but also on the Great American Baking Show, which if people don't know because I still think people don't know that that show exists.Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:01]:They don't know. Even, like, my friends and family sometimes don't know that it exists. It's yeah. Everyone knows the British version, but surprise, there's an American one.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:10]:Yes. So The Great British Bake Off, spun off a great American baking show, and Nicole was a guest on it and did very well. Weren't you, like, in the final 3?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:20]:Yeah. Yeah. I made it all the way to the finals.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:22]:Okay. So that's exciting. And I just wanna point out, I don't know when people are gonna listen to this because I'm probably gonna release it maybe this Friday or the next Friday. I haven't decided yet. ButNicole Aufderhar [00:01:34]:Mhmm.Stephanie Hansen [00:01:35]:If you haven't gotten a chance, please go right now to Nicole's Instagram page and look at 10,000 Bakes. Because, honestly, she has some of the most amazing spooky treats on there. Girl, I mean, those the skull truffles with the raspberry filling, are you kidding me?Nicole Aufderhar [00:01:51]:Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I I've always been kind of a Halloween nut. Like, always been my thing. The spookier, the better. And so for me, Halloween baking is kinda all about embracing kind of the quirky and weird. So I just go all in with it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:07]:It's always fun every year.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:09]:I mean, your stuff is real cool looking. Very beautiful. There was also a black was it what kind of a, cake was it?Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:18]:Yeah. So I made it was a peri breast, actually. So, like, a patichou base pastry.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:26]:Yeah. It looked like chew pastries stuffed or filled with, like, a cream of some sort.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:31]:Yep. Yeah. So I used, black cocoa creme pat, and then there was also you couldn't see the picture, but there was, like, a raspberry gel as well. So kind of that dark chocolate raspberry thing kinda fitting with Halloween.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:44]:I mean, it was unbelievably fantastic looking.Nicole Aufderhar [00:02:47]:Oh, thanks. Yeah. Like I said, it's I get to be my weird artistic self this time of year, so it's kind of fun.Stephanie Hansen [00:02:53]:I like your weird artistic self. Take that and the listener kind of on the journey of how this whole thing started for you.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:01]:So I have kind of been baking my entire life. You know, like, most people grew up mom in the kitchen, Nestle Toll House, Christmas cutout. You know, nothing, like, crazy, but just, you know, family baking. And as I grew up, I just kinda started to dive more and more into it. I'm kind of a shy person. So when I would go to parties, like, talking to people is stressful, but if I bring a bank, that gives me something to talk about. Sure. So, you know, I kind of started doing that more.Nicole Aufderhar [00:03:30]:And in college, I actually studied photography with, like, emphasis on food photography. And because I don't wanna take pictures of babies. So I decided to do the food route, and then I kinda decided that, well, if I wanna take pictures of beautiful things, I might have to learn how to bake some of these things. And so it's just kind of continued to grow and grow, and it's always been kind of my creative endeavor that's just for me and just for fun and really lets me express myself without the pressure. You know, I'm an artist full time, so I have that pressure there. So this is just just for fun, just for me. And when I saw that there was a great American baking show, which I didn't even know. You know, I've watched the British version for years, and then I saw online that they were casting for the American version.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:19]:I thought, oh, well, let's let's see. Why not? You know? And I put my hat in the ring, and I made it all the way to the final round of 1st year, which I wasn't expecting. It's a very long process, and I just what I thought would maybe just be something that I'd enter and never hear from again ended up being this multiyear journey of traveling with baked goods and auditions. And after a couple 2 years of auditioning, I was cast on the show.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:51]:So yeah. So exciting.Nicole Aufderhar [00:04:53]:Yeah.Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Stephanie Hansen [00:04:54]:So how long from the beginning of you arriving to start the taping to when you go home is that length of time?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:04]:So you are there basically for an entire month. For us, it was the entire month of August. You do a lot of prep work stateside before you go, you know, coming up with your own recipes and stuff. But once you are there, you are there the whole time. Even if you're eliminated, then you just kinda get a London vacation, but you're there for the entire month.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:24]:So they do it in the Great British Bake Off same space?Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:28]:Yeah. So for the Great British Bake Off, there's 2 tents. There is a tent where they film the version everybody knows, and then there's a tent where they film, like, celebrity versions, and I believe it's coming from Janae Baycock is still there as well, but, yeah, there are 2 tents. We're in the the other tent, like so it's not the tent, but it's one of theirs.Stephanie Hansen [00:05:51]:Yeah. And Paul and Pru are still judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:05:55]:Yeah. Yeah. It's the same judges. It's Paul and Pru. We have American hosts. You know, that's the difference. People always kind of, I don't wanna say, hate on the American version, but they always say, oh, we don't like it because they're hypercompetitive, and they don't have the accents and all this. And I'm like, well, yeah, we don't have the accents.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:12]:Sure. And that's the baddest. Yeah. Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:16]:So there's that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:06:18]:Yeah. So, you know, I mean, if you wanna nitpick, but it's still, like, a heartwarming, friendly show. Like, once people sit down and watch it, they're like, oh, that's actually enjoyable. I'm like, yes. That's what I've been telling you.Stephanie Hansen [00:06:32]:It is funny that the perception of Bake Off and what people love and what attracted me to it too was just how kind and supportive everybody is. And we've gotten used to watching these, you know, chopped and these sort of aggressive male dominated, like, shows of competition. And it is funny because I do think America in general this is a very gross generalization, but I do think we're more competitive. We're very aggressively business focused, like, success focused. And I think what is nice about The Bake Off is there's a lot of people from all these different walks of life, and they just happen to make pastry too or they're bakers.Nicole Aufderhar [00:07:20]:Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. And that's when I auditioned because I talked a lot about my state fair, you know, competing background. And they purposely were, like, asking me, well, are you hypercompetitive? Are you how do you feel if you don't win? You know? And so I had to make sure that I expressed that I'm not competitive despite all that. Like, I love the community behind these competitions and the friends that I've made, and they are trying to seek out people for that show that are there to just be with other bakers and have fun and get this experience and aren't there because I wanna win. And, I mean, the prize is a cake plate. You know? Like, you're not getting $20,000 or a book deal.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:01]:You know? You get a cake plate. So if you're not there to just have a good time, you know, they're not gonna put you in the tent.Stephanie Hansen [00:08:09]:You happen to mention the state fair. Can you talk a little bit about your state fair baking experience? Because you're pretty well known and traveled in the state fair scene too. Minnesota State Fair.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:23]:Yeah. Yeah. Especially the last year, people have kind of, I don't know, found my like, I've always shared about my journey with it. That's kinda why I started my Instagram page was because I wanted to share this community and show how accessible it is. Like, you don't have to be an incredible baker to enter. You just start. You just start entering stuff, and you get to meet people on entry day. And sometimes you get feedback from the judges.Nicole Aufderhar [00:08:48]:Sometimes you get head scratching feedback from the judges, but, like, it's just a super fun thing. And so I grew up with a step grandma who competed and kinda taught me the ropes from a young age and was kinda harsh about it, but it served me in the long run. And, so then about gosh. It's been 10 years now, I believe, I started. I did my first contest. I just entered three things, you know, just to kinda feel it out, and all 3 of them ribbon. I got 2 seconds and a 5th, and I was like, oh,Stephanie Hansen [00:09:20]:okay. You know? That's either this isNicole Aufderhar [00:09:24]:you know, I wasn't sure what to think. I'm like, oh, this is easier than I thought, or I might actually be kinda good at baking because your friends and family are always like, oh, everything's fantastic, but isStephanie Hansen [00:09:33]:it really? You know?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:35]:So it's kinda given me this avenue to try new things and meet new people. And over the years, you know, I've I've done pretty well, and I've made some really amazing friends, and I just it's something I look forward to all year round.Stephanie Hansen [00:09:48]:What do you remember what the three things you were that you made in the first?Nicole Aufderhar [00:09:53]:Yeah. They weren't even I'd call them baking light. Honestly, it was like a granola bar and then some granola, and then they used to do this thing called the recipe challenge Yep. Where everyone would get the same recipe. You know? So it's kinda like the technical on the makeup, honestly, which is what appealed to me is you all get the same recipe. You kinda have to interpret it. And so I got a second place on that. I got a second place on the bars, and then I got a 5th place on the granola.Nicole Aufderhar [00:10:23]:And the the funny thing with the cookies was I was always under this belief that you had to enter things freshly baked that morning, you know. So I woke up early to do my final round, and they didn't they failed. The dough, I don't know what I did wrong or if it was the heat, it failed. And so I'm crying in the kitchen. I'm like, what do I do? Well, I had ones that I had stored in the freezer, like, 3 weeks ago. I mean Yeah. I was like, I wanna save them just in case, and I'm so glad I did because that's what I ended up entering were 3 week old transfer cookies, and they still placed.Stephanie Hansen [00:10:55]:Yeah. And a lot of people do that. Like, I know another woman, and she enters, like, 82 contests. And some of her stuff comesNicole Aufderhar [00:11:03]:inStephanie Hansen [00:11:03]:the freezer, and she pulls it out the night before, and that's what they enter.Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:07]:That's what I and that's what I've been telling people this year, especially, people are surprised to learn that I did that. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, well, but don't they taste them? Like, yeah. You know, you can kinda tell freezer goods from the fresh, but that's what everybody else is doing. So if you're the best of the freezer bunch Yeah. You know, and it works.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:25]:How many categories did you enter this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:11:28]:This year, I ended up doing 12, I believe it was, which I'm not I mean, there's people that show up with laundry baskets full of stuff, you know, and max out at 20. I doing 12 was a lot for me. I usually, like, keep them in the single digits. But, yeah, it went really well. Half of them ribboned. I got a smoked steaks for the first time, so it was a lot of fun this year.Stephanie Hansen [00:11:52]:Yeah. And what people maybe don't know I mean, you said mentioned that you're an artist. You make, leather bound journals and leather goods. And, what's your website for that? Because I wanna make sure we tell people because your work's reallyThanks for reading Stephanie's Dish Newsletter! This post is public so feel free to share it.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:07]:So my website is wayfaringgoods.com, and it's not wayfair like that big furniture supply place or whatever. It's spelled wayfaringgoods.com.Stephanie Hansen [00:12:21]:I love it. Yeah. Because you're not doing this in a professional scope.Nicole Aufderhar [00:12:28]:No. Baking is right now, you know, probably, you know, I don't know, forever. It's just for fun. I I love what I do with my leather business. That has been something I've been doing full time for 15 years. Like, that's really where my I don't know. I'm as passionate about baking as I am about leather, but I like keeping my leather as my business and my baking as my creative passion, which I think is important for professional creatives to have that thing without the pressure of selling.Stephanie Hansen [00:13:03]:And let's talk about that for a second because that's sort of uniquely American too. I think that this idea is like, oh, well, she's making all this stuff. She's in competitive realm. She's doing really well, so she must be planning a bakery because we, like, don't really just allow ourselves to have these creative outlets without making them into something. We feel the pressure from ourselves.Nicole Aufderhar [00:13:28]:Yeah. Oh, exactly. And I think I mean, it's so important to have that creative passion that you don't have that pressure behind. And I I think so I started my business right out of college. I could have either gone the professional photography router than what I did. And so I think because I started young, I learned how important it is to have that creative passion just for fun. I see a lot of my friends that have since pursued kinda similar art businesses, and I see them now struggling with this. Like, oh, well, I'm also good at this, so I should sell this and I should do that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:05]:And it's like, no. You don't have to sell everything you make. Like, if you're a creative person, you might be good at a lot of different creative things.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:13]:Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:14:14]:You know? And it stops being fun when you know, like, if I have a failure in the kitchen, I'm disappointed. You know? I get frustrated, but it's okay because it's not going anywhere. I don't have to worry about someone a customer coming. I don't have to, you know, it's a different kind of failure versus the feeling when you're struggling with the business. And so I I like having those two things very separate.Stephanie Hansen [00:14:41]:Yeah. I can see that too. And, also, like, this idea that because you're good at something or because you make something, then it's becomes less a hobby and then a job. And sometimes I struggle with that because I'm just cooking now between the cookbook and the show and the adjacent appearances and, my blog.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:02]:I feelStephanie Hansen [00:15:02]:like I'm just cooking all the time. And sometimes, like, I feel another like, I have to, like, videotape everything I'm doing. And, like, the other day, I was like, I'm not pulling out the video camera. I'm going to cook something that could I? Sure. But, I'm just going to make these apple muffins because I have apples and I feel like an apple muffin and I'm not going to videotape it and you know what? I'm not even going to write down the recipe. And I just was like I just sat in the moment. I enjoyed the bake. I loved the smell it made my house.Stephanie Hansen [00:15:33]:The muffins came out. I ate 1. I gave one to the dog and then I went and distributed them the neighborhood and got rid of them and came home and was like, oh, that was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:15:43]:Yeah. Isn't that's the best. That is those are that's the best feelings. And I know exactly even though, like, I don't do my baking on a professional level, just in the world of social media. Like you said, you have this pressure to film everything you do and turn everything that you do into some form of content. And that just sucks sucks the fun out of it. You know? Like, you know, sometimes it's fun, you know, but if you're not feeling it, like, don't do it. If Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:11]:I don't know. You know, it's important to, like obviously, for you, it is part of your work.Stephanie Hansen [00:16:17]:But But is it I mean, also and I'm sort of like I don't know. I'm just sort of working through this too. Like, we give a lot away of ourselves as creators, as people in a social media space, and it's just demanding. And I don't wanna, like, sound not grateful because I am because you build a platform and people really dig your stuff and that's fun, but also, like, trying to recognize what's real and what's not real sometimes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:16:50]:Yes. Yep. Yeah. Because people see a version of you and and a version of what you do, and they expect that over and over and over again.Stephanie Hansen [00:17:00]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:00]:And it can be exhausting. Yeah. And some daysStephanie Hansen [00:17:04]:you don't feel like delivering that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:06]:Yeah. I don't. You know? And and then sometimes I feel like, oh, I have to put it out there because I put everything out there, and then I do it and it doesn't do well or whatever. And then I stress out about that. It's like, why? Why?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:17]:Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:17:18]:You know?Stephanie Hansen [00:17:20]:Well, you and I had coffee, and I think you well, we met at the hottest day of the year, and then you followed up. And you're like, would you ever wanna have coffee? I was like, yes. Of course. And I I also loved that you reached out to me because I do like bringing this creative online life sometimes into the real life of you and I just sitting and having a cup of coffee and talking about what we're into and what's fun. And I just I was I was appreciative that you reached out. And I I wish more people would do that kind of in a real space because I think that's how you grow and how you can help mentor others and help others find their path because so many people have helped me along the way. My goodness.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:04]:Yeah. No. Yeah. And I I'm still so grateful you said yes because Sure. It is super important. And I think that people are kinda surprised when others are willing to do stuff in person and meet in person. And even for my tiny little thing that I do at the state fair, I met people online and they were worried about bugging me or asking me questions. And I'm like, why? Like, oh, I Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:18:27]:I I and maybe not I love talking about that kind of stuff. If I can help somebody else, like, I go to competition. I'm like, so, like Yeah. Like, it's better for all of us in the long run, you know, if we're encouraging others to do it and get better and help the people where we can with stuff that we've learned along the way. And, like, I personally enjoy doing that. So that's why it was so exciting to Yeah. Get to sit and talk with you and, you know, meet someone else of the food, you know, yeah, and just learn from each other.Stephanie Hansen [00:18:59]:So what's next for you, Nicole? Have you thought about that?Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:05]:All the time. No. Again, after having done the show and now I've I've been very fortunate since the show came out with opportunities that have come my way. You know, you never know if anyone's gonna notice or pay attention or anything, and I've honestly been quite overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I have done. And so people, you know, they expect the bakery. They expect us to expect that. That is not that's not on my realm. That's not what I'm thinking at all.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:36]:I long term dream, short term dream. I don't know. I always tell people I would like to do a cookbook. That is something I thought of wanting to do years. I mean, that's kinda always been in the back of my head because Yeah. I enjoy the recipe development portion of baking. So that's kinda where my strong suit is. That's where I that's what I enjoy the most.Nicole Aufderhar [00:19:59]:So, you know, obviously, I'm gonna be continuing on with my leather business as always Yep. Gearing up for holiday season right now. So that's, you know, the main part of my life, but I'm just gonna continue to create recipes, share that, share the state fair knowledge, and just be willing to embrace and be open to whatever might come from it.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:26]:Alright. Let's do something fun. Are you ready for fun? Maybe. Always. I have, like, 5 to 10 questions. We'll see how it goes. Just random kinda rapid fire questions.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:40]:Oh gosh.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:42]:They're not hard. They're they're all about you. They're not hard.Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:46]:Okay.Stephanie Hansen [00:20:46]:Oh, okay. Here's number 1. What is the first bake you remember making yourself?Nicole Aufderhar [00:20:54]:Cupcakes. Cute. Yeah. Like, as a kid? It's so basic, but that's yeah. Strawberry cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream. Yum. That was my first, quote, unquote, real bake that I did.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:08]:I love it. Okay. When you go to a potluck, what do you typically bring?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:16]:Macarons.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:18]:Oh, fancy. Yes.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:20]:They're easy to share. They look impressive, but they're pretty easy to whip up.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:25]:Okay. What is the first thing you eat from a Halloween candy bucket?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:32]:That's funny. Snickers popped into my head first, but Reese's are my favorite, but I guess Snickers would be my first.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:37]:Okay. I love that. Reese's is the number one popular candy. You probably know that.Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:41]:Yeah.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:41]:Yeah. What, is the restaurant that you've been to more than any other?Nicole Aufderhar [00:21:51]:Well, green scene since moving up to Walker. That would be yeah. Okay. I love the green scene here in town.Stephanie Hansen [00:21:57]:And you live in Walker. I should mention that. Yes. What's your most used pan?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:05]:I my little I have a little saucepan, and I will shove anything I can into it even if it's not supposed to fit. I love it.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:12]:I have one of those too, and it's funny. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:15]:Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't fit. Okay. I just did that last meal with some jam. It was poor decision but I think it worked.Stephanie Hansen [00:22:21]:But you still loved your pan. Okay. This is your last question in the in the final round of the rapid fire questioning. What's an existing cookbook you wish you had written?Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:36]:Oh. Oh. I'm looking at all my cookbooks. I know. It's aStephanie Hansen [00:22:41]:hard one.Nicole Aufderhar [00:22:42]:That is a hard one. I can't I well, it's funny because I feel like picking any of them. I'm not worthy of any of them, but I have they're all old vintage ones. Like, I have this rose what's her last name?Stephanie Hansen [00:23:03]:Birnbaum Levy Birnbaum.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:05]:I use a lot of her books. I wish I had the skill and the abilities to write something like that.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:11]:Do you know that that cake bible book that she wrote is having its 35th anniversary this year?Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:17]:I don't see that. I know. I can't believe it because except I have all, like, the real old vintage ones of it, and it's it's so cool that it still has stood the test of time.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:27]:Yeah. No. I love that you have those. That's amazing. Well, Nicole, I hope people will follow you on Instagram at 10000 Bakes. We're gonna for sure have you on, Jason's show next summer so we get a chance to connect with her there again. Wonderful. Also been doing reviews of Great British Bake Off with Bradley and Dawn on my talk 107.1.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:50]:Yeah. Yep. People should follow you, and you're making really cool Halloween stuff right now.Nicole Aufderhar [00:23:56]:Yeah. Thanks. Yes. We're having fun over here.Stephanie Hansen [00:23:59]:Yeah. It's amazing. Alright. Well, when you're gonna be coming down to town next or not downtown, down to town, next, give me a shout, and we'll have coffee again. It was fun.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:09]:Oh, definitely. Totally.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:10]:Alright. Thanks, Nicole. I appreciate you spending time with us today. Yeah.Nicole Aufderhar [00:24:14]:Thank you.Stephanie Hansen [00:24:14]:We'll talk soon. Bye bye. Bye. Stephanie's Dish Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stephaniehansen.substack.com/subscribe

Simon Sansome was born, raised and continues to live in England. He had what he considers a normal childhood except for the fact that he did have and has today dyslexia. As he describes it, reading even to day some forty-two years after he came on the scene, is extremely difficult for him. He does, however, write well. He will tell us about his growing up, going to a British college, then joining the workforce and eventually going to a university. Yes, college as he will tell us is different from university.   In 2014 he was struck with a slipped disc. Unfortunately, the chiropractor who then attempted to fix the problem only made matters much worse and Simon became paralyzed from the waist down. Simon determined to move forward and went back to the university where he graduated in 2018 with a degree in journalism.   Along the way Simon created a Facebook page and a community called “Snowball Community”. As the community evolved Simon and later others began posting information about accessible places first in England and then elsewhere as well. Today Snowball has received countless awards for all it is doing to promote accessibility and Simon tells us that they expect to have over a Million viewers on a regular basis. Snowball Community will soon be providing opportunities for restaurants, shops and other places to obtain in-person accessibility assessments and the ratings from those assessments will be available to promote the businesses that are evaluated.   Simon by any standard is unstoppable and inspiring. I trust that you will agree.       About the Guest:   Simon sustained a life changing injury when he was 32 which left him disabled from the waist down. It forced him to take early retirement and he decided to go to DMU to study Journalism and pursue his passion for writing.   In 2016, while at DMU, Simon set up a Facebook Snowball Community with the idea of raising awareness of, and improving, disabled access. His award-winning campaign has had a global impact and the page now reaches more than 20 million people a month.    Simon is also an award winning film/documentary producer after his life story was brought by Amazon Prime and his film ‘Access All Areas' won 16 international film awards including best film.    Simon is also founder of Snowball Community a global disability app where you can leave reviews on how accessible a place is. Which is available on Android and Apple devices. The app has had 40,000 reviews in 12 months making it the biggest disability app in the world helping thousands of people daily.    Simon has won a number of major awards he is widely considered to be one of the most influential disabled people in the UK.   He was named in the top ten of the most influential people in the UK 2023 and this yeas won the Digital and Tech award at the Disability Power 100 and won the prestigious Santander X national award and will represent the UK at the Santander Global awards 2024.   Ways to connect with Simon:   https://www.facebook.com/FreezeSnowball   https://twitter.com/FreezemySnowbal   https://www.instagram.com/freezesnowball?igsh=MTl5ZHMxb3FvdzV1dA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr   https://www.tiktok.com/@snowball.community?_t=8jKD9oRZmPw&_r=1       About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi there. This is your host, Mike Hingson, and you are listening to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. I love to say that every so often, but here we are once again, and now we are talking with Simon Sansome, who is over in England. So it is about 736 in the evening there, and it's 1136 where I am. So Simon, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Simon is a he's going to talk about snowball and I don't want to give that away. He also is a person with a disability. So again, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Thank you very much. It's   Simon Sansome ** 02:01 a pleasure to be here.   Michael Hingson ** 02:02 Now I am curious about something that just popped into my head. Do you all have daylight savings time over there that takes effect at some point? Yes, we   Simon Sansome ** 02:10 do. Yes.   Michael Hingson ** 02:12 When will that start?   Simon Sansome ** 02:13 No idea whatsoever. It just pops up on my iPhone and changes itself   02:17 these days. Yeah. Yeah. I   Simon Sansome ** 02:22 mean, best thing from working at home doesn't really affect me. Yeah, well, it's not like I lose an hour or gain an hour because I just stay in bed or get up, you know, get it when, when I need to. So, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 02:33 now I'm just really curious. I'm gonna look at my calendar. I think,   02:39 I think it's April.   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Is it all the way to April? Yeah, with Okay, over there, it's April. Well, here Daylight Savings Time begins. Oops, I'm sorry. Daylight Saving Time begins next Sunday. So you can tell we're recording this in advance of when it's going to actually go up everyone but daylight savings time here in the US, begins on March 10 so time Time flies. However, when you're having fun, I guess   Simon Sansome ** 03:13 there is a rumor over here that Daylight Savings Time was actually created by Benjamin Franklin so we could play golf in Scotland. Is that what it was, apparently so, but obviously we've got nothing to verify that, but that's the rumor. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 03:26 yeah, but it didn't get implemented all that soon. But you know, on the other hand, um, Benjamin Franklin is also one of the main characters in the new James Potter series, the outgrowth of the Harry Potter books. Oh, I didn't know that, because he is the Chancellor of Alma alaran, which is the American or US School of magic. So he's been around a while. This guy, Franklin, he's done a lot of stuff. But anyway, nevertheless, welcome to unstoppable mindset, and we're really glad that you're here. Why don't you start by telling us kind of about the early Simon growing up and some of those things. Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 04:06 of course, I grew up in a village called burst in Leicestershire, that for most people, nobody knows where Leicestershire is. Everyone thinks of Nottingham when they think of Les share because it's the cloak, because of Robin Hood. So Nottingham Sherwood Forest is about 40 miles north of Lacher. However, we have become more famous over the recent years. We won the premiership in 2016 in Leicester City, which went was was a fantastic thing for the city. And then Richard the Third interesting fact, it was found under my car parking space. Dickie three. I was working for social services at the time, and Dickie three under my car parking space. So that was fun, I know, but no grew up in a normal house, Mum, three sisters, went to school, was dyslexic, wasn't diagnosed. I did terribly at school, great at cricket, loved the sport, played a bit of rugby and. And, yeah, just, I suppose really, you know, I worked. I worked all the like, Saturday jobs, and worked in a fruit and veg shop from the age of 14 to 16, getting up at four, four o'clock in the morning, going to work for a few hours, then going to school, falling asleep at school before Yeah, and then going to close the shop up at night. And I did that for one pound 25 an hour, which was, you know, child slave labor, yeah? So really, your average childhood, nothing really exciting going on there.   Michael Hingson ** 05:33 So did you ever go to Sherwood Forest?   Simon Sansome ** 05:35 Many times it's a nice walk. Yeah, is it we go on a regular basis due to the fact that it's you can hire a they're called trampers over here. It's a big mobility scooter, and so you can go around Sherwood Forest in the mobility scooter. So we'll get there quite a lot, because it's a nice outing. What   Michael Hingson ** 05:52 kind of trees?   Simon Sansome ** 05:55 Big oak, okay, big ones, yeah, willows, oaks and lots more. You know, it's a forest.   Michael Hingson ** 06:02 How big is? How big is the forest?   Simon Sansome ** 06:04 Absolutely no idea whatsoever. It's big. It's a forest. Yeah, you know, it's a good few miles across, a few, good few miles wide. You're going to get lost in it, if you if there wasn't a path, yeah, yeah. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 06:19 and it's nice that after all these years and all the reputation that it has, and Robin Hood hiding in it and living there, and all that, that it really does still stand and people honor it, which is cool. Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 06:31 I the best thing about Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, if you've seen it, he arrives in Dover on by sea, and then by night, he's walked to Nottingham, which is about 250 miles, he's fast,   Michael Hingson ** 06:47 and when you got to go after the sheriff, you know, you, you've got a mission, you got to do it,   Simon Sansome ** 06:51 yeah? So fat place Walker, him and him and Morgan Freeman,   Michael Hingson ** 06:57 well, my favorite movie is actually a slightly different one. It's called Robin in the seven hoods. Have you ever seen it is,   Simon Sansome ** 07:04 is that the, I don't know if, no, I'm thinking of Robin Hood, many types. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:09 Robin and the seven hoods, stars, well, the Rat Pack, basically. Okay, and so Bing, Crosby is no Frank Sinatra is Robbo. It takes place on the in Chicago during the gang times. So Frank Sinatra is Robbo. Dean Martin is John, or Little John. Bing Crosby was Friar, tuck and other people. Peter Falk was Guy Gisborne. Okay, you know, so they had all the characters. It was, it was really a cute movie. I've always loved to watch that movie. It's a lot of fun. So, and needless to say, it was a comedy and, and at the end, most everybody ends up behind, you know, in concrete. It in behind a wall, except for Friar Tuck who gets the girl? Fair enough. I think Robbo doesn't get walled up either, but it's a fun movie. But anyway, no Sherwood Forest. It's all on the south side of Chicago, okay. But anyway, so did you go to college? I   Simon Sansome ** 08:16 went to college and dropped out and then moved when? Because I just didn't get along college. Well, the thing is, because I had undiagnosed, I was undiagnosed dyslexic, yeah, in the like, you know, 80s and 90s, it wasn't really recognized as a thing, no. So I really couldn't really write until I was 1516, so I didn't go to what you would I went to a college. But the college isn't what colleges in America, or secondary rather than higher education. So we go, we go primary school, high school, college, university, okay? And so I went to, I went to Leicester college to did, what did I do there? It was film, I think, yeah, for about a year, dropped out and then got a job in Scotland, and moved Scotland just on a whim and became a training manager in a hotel. And the idea was, is I wasn't going to be rich, I but I thought, if I could be a waiter, if I can be a barman, if I can be the head of the departments in a hotel in the catering industry, then I've got a job for life. Yeah. So I've got a backup plan. So because once you've worked in a bar, in a restaurant, or you've been a chambermaid, which I've done, or kitchen shoe chef, or whatever, you know, you can pretty much walk into any job anywhere, and just, you know, you're always going to have a job if you need to, you can find things. Yeah, yes, absolutely. And that was the plan, because I didn't have an education behind   Michael Hingson ** 09:39 me. And then, and I'm amazed at the number of people, and I shouldn't be, because I understand the history who happened to have dyslexia or who were on, what we would say now is on the autism spectrum, who were never diagnosed. I've talked to a number of people here on on stop. Mindset who talked about the fact that they were autistic and didn't even know it until they were in their 30s or even 40s, and it was very freeing to figure it out, because they knew they were different, but they didn't understand what what was really going on with them, and then in the last 15 or 20 years, they finally got enough of a diagnosis, a lot of information. So they, oftentimes, they figured it out even before the medical profession did.   Simon Sansome ** 10:37 Yeah, same thing that happened with me. It was late diagnosis, yeah. So, so after Scotland, I moved back down to moving with my sister to help her out, because she had a child, and she was struggling. She was single mother. And so I got a job working at British Gas in Leicester, which is in the call center, and I got and after a painstaking working a nine to five job in a call center, thought, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. Yeah. So I returned to education. And I returned to Loughborough College, which is up the road, and my then teacher, my sociology teacher, after handing in my first assignment as a mature student, she went, right, you're dyslexic, have an assessment. And that's when it really Yeah, and that's when it changed. That's when everything changed for me.   Michael Hingson ** 11:28 So what changed and why did it? Well, I can understand why, after the diagnosis,   Simon Sansome ** 11:33 I got the support I needed, that I didn't that I didn't realize myself, that I needed so kind of support, extra reading lessons, extra tuition, how to read and write, how to spell, very patient teachers, and a lot more encouragement as well from the college, which then helped me go on to university as well. So yeah, so   Michael Hingson ** 11:57 your your teachers helped you teach your brain to connect and be able to eventually really recognize, yes, so   Simon Sansome ** 12:07 I learned very visually. I can't really read. Can't really read very well. However, I'm an excellent writer, which is ironic. And I was writing everything and everything because I enjoyed writing so much. But I couldn't read software. I couldn't read out loud. And if I would read, sit there and reading your book, I would have, I call them brain farts, but their memory lapses or something, where you can read a whole page, or three or four pages of a book, and you can read it absolutely fine, but I've got no idea what's happened in those three pages, the information just doesn't   Michael Hingson ** 12:42 stay there. Yeah, the disconnect is still pretty strong. Yes, very much. So,   Simon Sansome ** 12:47 so I learn visually. So I was, I mean, back in the day, I was a huge film fan, and that explains the reason why. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 12:53 but, but you could write so you could, you could communicate. And whether, whether you, I assume, probably more often than not you, you wrote via a keyboard. Yep,   Simon Sansome ** 13:05 very much. So I also used the dragon talk back in the day, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 13:09 but you don't. How did you do with like, writing with a pen or a pencil? No, I Yeah, no, I can do that quite well. You can do that quite well as well. Yeah, yeah.   Simon Sansome ** 13:18 I kept my journal as well. I kept a diary, yeah, just because it helped me to write. So   Michael Hingson ** 13:24 do you still use Dragon? No,   Simon Sansome ** 13:27 no, God, no. It's atrocious. I don't I haven't used it for about 15 years, so I don't know where it is now. Oh   Michael Hingson ** 13:34 gosh, it it is incredibly much better than it used to be when it was dragon. Dictate. Now it's Dragon Naturally Speaking, I use it a lot, and when I discover it has mispronounced, I can read or not mispronounce, but misrecognized or misinterpreted, I can correct it, and it doesn't take much in the way of corrections. But Dragon is so much better than it used to be. Yes, I use Dragon Professional and and I do type a lot and compose a lot, but I also find when I'm doing something that takes a while to do because it's long, it's much better to use Dragon to do it.   Simon Sansome ** 14:18 Yes, No, I never really got along with Dragon. I used it, but a big fan of it. But however, the dictation on my Mac and my phone is absolutely perfect for me. We'll come to it shortly. But I'm a journalist as well now, and so I can write a story within 10 minutes, 500 or 1000 words within a few minutes. It's great, and   Michael Hingson ** 14:40 you would find that that Dragon has that same level of accuracy, because I think a lot of the algorithms went from Dragon to other technologies, or the other way around. But Dragon is really great today.   14:55 Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 14:56 so, you know, I can't, I can't complain a lot about Dragon. And it really does help a great deal. It's a whole lot cheaper than it used to be, but that's another story. You know, of course, the original Kurzweil Reading Machine for the blind that read print out loud by being able to look at a page and recognize the characters. The original Ray Kurzweil machine was $50,000 and now you get free OCR on an iPhone or an Android device or or very inexpensive anyway, and optical character recognition is a common place kind of thing anyway. So yes, lot different than it used to be. The world does progress and move forward. It certainly does so you did eventually go to university. What did you do there?   Simon Sansome ** 15:41 Yeah, so the first time I went to university. So I went twice, I did criminology. Oh, wow. Because I was enjoying writing so much, I thought I'd like to be a crime writer. What a waste of the time. If you want to learn about crime, you don't go and do you don't go and do criminology at university. So because it was so boring and so dull, I dropped out after the second year again. I mean, I was doing okay. I was getting about 50s, you know, so, two, two ish at university, but I really wasn't enjoying it, and I wasn't putting any effort into it. And so, yeah, I dropped out and looked for a job and went to work for the council. So   Michael Hingson ** 16:27 the council being so,   Simon Sansome ** 16:29 I worked for the local authority. Left City Council. Okay, yeah, the city council. Okay, great, okay, yes. So I,   Michael Hingson ** 16:36 I that was different. It was,   Simon Sansome ** 16:39 it was, it was very interesting, because I wasn't enjoying university, that was the thing, and so   Michael Hingson ** 16:46 and so you decided to leave criminology at the university and go look at the criminals of the council, right?   Simon Sansome ** 16:51 Pretty much. Yeah, I started off in housing. I worked as a housing assistant for a couple of years, working up there, and then, after a number of years getting a bit of experience under about doing some volunteering for youth services, um, I moved on to social services. And I was there till I left the council. And that was, that was an education. I did that for about eight years. And so, yeah, that and nothing prepares you for working for social services, going to see people intimate house you know, into their homes, their immediate environments, how people live, the poverty, the destruction, the drugs, the deaths you know, every you know, everyone's everyday life that you take for granted. And it certainly was an eye opening experience and a very worthwhile life education,   Michael Hingson ** 17:43 yeah, at the same Yeah, it is a great education at the same time, when you do it and you care, you are also hopefully able to help people and make a difference, even if it's with one life that   Simon Sansome ** 17:56 was the intention. So our specializing in adult mental health and physical disabilities by the time I left, and what you see every day is you try and get some positives from it, because you are saving lives and you're trying to make people safe, and that's your job. And at the end of the day, you get people who just don't care and just want to die and kill themselves. And yeah, it's people dying on you every day, especially if you come to the hospitals, that's interesting. I didn't I got transferred to one of the hospitals here in Leicestershire and but even before I had a case or went to see went to see a patient, to get them discharged from hospital, I had like, nine deaths on my table, wow. And so I got transferred back, just in case I thought I was killing people, even I hadn't seen anyone.   Michael Hingson ** 18:46 So did, do you think you ever really did make a positive difference to any of those people who were really losing hope, or who had lost hope? Were you? Were you able to help?   Simon Sansome ** 18:55 I mean, the thing is, is because you're the first point of call, so I was on effectively, emergency call outs. So you go and make sure that person is safe, you make sure they've got food, make sure they're okay, and then you pass it on to a long term team. So mine was the emergency intermediary department, like working with the police, ambulance service, firemen and so on and so forth. We would do joint visits. And so I really never got to see the long term effects. I was there to put the plan in place and then let a longer term, longer team, manage that person and the cash plan, or whatever was needed. So well,   Michael Hingson ** 19:31 it's a it is a process, no doubt. So when did, when did you leave the council? What year was that   Simon Sansome ** 19:39 that was? When was that that was 2015   Michael Hingson ** 19:42 Oh, okay, well, yeah. And then what did you go do? Because at some point after that, your life changed.   Simon Sansome ** 19:48 My life changed. So it actually changed while I was working for the council. Um, so I became disabled in 2014 um. So I we're not 100% sure how the injury happened. I'll explain. So I was doing Ruby training at Victoria Park during that week, and I we also had a ton of bark delivered to our driveway because our driveway needed doing. And so I have this I slipped a disc, and I don't know if it's from the or it's from playing with me that I don't know, or rugby training anyway, not from cricket, not from Cricket. No, I have played cricket for a while, since then I played it as   Michael Hingson ** 20:30 a lad. Cricket is very slow. Oh, cricket's amazing   Simon Sansome ** 20:34 you. It's more technical than baseball. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 20:37 I know. I understand. I When I visited New Zealand and listened to some cricket on the radio, and it was really hard to follow because it it generally does move pretty slow, so I know it's very technical, and I never really caught on to the rules. I did figure out rugby a lot more than than I was able to figure out rugby   Simon Sansome ** 20:58 is 80 minutes. I mean, cricket lasts for five days. It's beautiful. Yeah, I   Michael Hingson ** 21:02 understand, but you have to take the time to really learn the rules. And I didn't have enough time to really listen to the radio, I guess   Simon Sansome ** 21:11 that's right. Anyway, yeah, so I had a slip disc. I've had a slip disc before, and normally I would take some ibuprofen, do my exercises, try and pop it back in. On this occasion, me and Kate, my new wife, we were going away on a honeymoon to Mexico, and so I went to see a chiropractor in the local area. And it was doing well, you know, I was getting better. I was exercising. What I was walking further. It was had I took a few weeks off work because it was really very uncomfortable, and couldn't really visit people in their homes when I'm really uncomfortable. However, on the fifth or sixth visit, this newly trained chiropractor decided she was going to have a go at putting the disc back in for my honeymoon, and she crushed levels three, four and five of my spine while doing that, and that hurt. I screamed. I didn't know what she did. I thought she slipped. I thought she she could. She warned me it was going to hurt, yeah, and it did. It really did okay. And I after I couldn't get my shoes on, so she was on. So she helped me get my shoes on, and effectively, she just threw me out after I screamed. I think she knew something that had gone wrong. I didn't know at the time. I just thought she put my disc back in because I was in so much pain. I collapsed outside where Kate was waiting for me in the car. And I went home and said, Look, I'm just going to go to bed. I'll sleep it off. And the following morning, I woke up, I thought I had a stroke because I had no sensation from the waist down. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 22:50 yeah. My wife was a t3 para, so it was basically from the bottom of the breast down. But I understand exactly what you're saying,   Simon Sansome ** 22:59 yeah. So it was a very unusual situation. I didn't know what to do. Kate had gone to work that morning. We lived in a cul de sac, a dead end road for you and me.   Michael Hingson ** 23:10 Nope, no cul de sacs. Very well, that's okay,   Simon Sansome ** 23:14 okay, that's fine. I wasn't too sure on the terminology for the American audience.   Michael Hingson ** 23:18 It's it's a term over here, too cool,   Simon Sansome ** 23:21 excellent. And so I was shouting for assistance. There's nobody there. I didn't have my phone on me. Phone was downstairs, and so I threw myself out of bed, did an army crawl, threw myself down the stairs, but naked, and I don't really remember a lot after that. I don't mean apparently my mom came round. Apparently, the ambulance came round. But I you know, but I don't remember a lot what happened. I really don't. What I know is, when I was taken to hospital, I had an MRI. Don't remember the MRI at all. Obviously, I'm under painkillers at this time, and there's a lot going on, and I'm in shock because I'm paralyzed from the waist down. And yeah, they they did an MRI. The emergency doctor said it was cordial. Quite a syndrome. Cordiaquinas syndrome is fully recoverable if you get an operation within 2448 hours. However, for whatever reason, and we still don't know the answer to this, the consultant overall, the A and E doctor, and said, It's not cordial Corona syndrome, and they put me on the ward for three months not knowing what to do with me, because they didn't know what was wrong with me. And by the time the by that time, the damage had been doing. Needed to do it within a 48 hour window to stop any permanent damage. But no, they left me there, and I was unfortunately left there to rot for three months. The damage had been done, and then I was paralyzed from the waist down for forever. I still, you know, I'm a wheelchair, full time wheelchair user. Now I. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:00 yeah. By then it was irreversible and there was nothing you could do. Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 25:04 very much. So,   Michael Hingson ** 25:06 so as a paraplegics, can you? Can you now? Well, I've summoned that. You then went through some sort of physical therapy and strengthening and so on. Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 25:17 absolutely. So I went through physio for a while. I mean, some of it has come back. Some of it did come back for a while. They said you probably going to get better for a while, but then it's going to deteriorate again. So the point where the first, after a year, I could walk, you know, 200 meters, maybe, with a walking stick and a frame. So I was getting out, you know, I could walk slightly. I could, you know, so that wasn't too bad, okay, however, then I got a drop foot, so that went so I couldn't really walk anywhere, because I got no balance. And then the other Association went to my legs, so I got to a point where I could walk slightly, a little, and then it started disappearing over the years. It's been 10 years now. So now I've while I've got about, in my right leg, I'd say about, ooh, 10% sensation. But my drop foot, there's nothing at all. Can't feel it, so you can drop it off, I wouldn't notice. And in my left leg, I've probably got about 10% usage. So I can move my legs, I just can't feel anything, and then my bowels and bladder have gone as well. So I've got a self catchpherized and stuff as well.   Michael Hingson ** 26:25 Yeah, which? Which my wife always had to do. She was born with scar tissue on her spinal cord, so she's always been that way. We always been apparent. So obviously huge difference in your lifestyle going forward. And how did you cope with all that? What did you do? What did you decide to do? Because you strike me as a person who isn't going to let a lot row of grass grow under your feet, as it were. Well, I   Simon Sansome ** 26:55 mean, we didn't know. Wow, this is the thing. We were stuck because I couldn't work, okay? And work made me take ill health retirement. They didn't want me back at work. Even though I didn't want to do that, I was forced to take ill health retirement at 32 we me and Kate. This is where me and Kate were very sensible. Is because Kate was earning a good wage, I was earning a good wage, and we brought the house. That was in case any of any of us lost our jobs, we could still afford the mortgage and the bills. Okay, wouldn't leave us with a lot of money, but we could just, we wouldn't lose the house, right? So if we, if we brought a huge because we had a nice three bed, semi detached, it was a really nice house, but it we could have Afford a House shovel the size, but if we did that, we'd be really stretching ourselves. So because we were sensible. That gave me the option to go and we needed to cover the mortgage effectively, because the bills were the bills and the mortgage were effectively case wage, and so we didn't have really any money to live on. You know, we're talking about 2030, pound a week after all, the bills will come out and the mortgage. So I decided that I was going to return to university to retrain, um, after pretty much the day afterwards. Uh, let's let city council told me how to take ill health retirement, and I applied to university to check do a journalism because I enjoyed   Michael Hingson ** 28:14 writing. Did the health retirement then give you some income,   Simon Sansome ** 28:18 very little. It was 134 pound a month. And it still is about, I think it's going to be up to inflation, like 150 pound a month. I get it after life, not much. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, I was 32 there's no money in the park for the ill health retirement, yeah. But what would happen is, is it would give us time to sort things out, and the student loan would cover any food bills, or, you know, anything we needed for that for three years. So it gives us a little leeway. So it gives us a little bit of an income. It takes the pressure off Kate and so I returned to university to train as a journalist, and that's again where everything starts to change again. So,   Michael Hingson ** 29:04 but you could write, so there you go, yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 29:07 um, couldn't spell. It still can't spell, but I could tell a story, yeah, so I can get it checked by Kate or my mom or whoever. So, yeah, it's, it was interesting. So yeah, I got accepted. And I was twice the age of everyone else there, which was a little bit embarrassing, but I didn't really care. I was more mates with I'm still in contact with them. Actually, I'm still, and this is like 2000 what, 15 until 18 I graduated. Yeah, I'm still in contact on Facebook and stuff with all my lecturers, not the people I went to university with, because, yeah, but all lecturers I'm still in contact with.   Michael Hingson ** 29:46 So, you know, I want to come back and continue the story, but now I'm a little bit curious. Given the way things work over here, a lot of times, somebody clearly made them a. Stake in terms of dealing with your diagnosis and so on. Did you ever think about any kind of litigation or going after them legally and looking for funds that way, or anything like that?   Simon Sansome ** 30:11 We had to. Never sued anyone in my life. Never wanted to. Yeah, but we're getting to the point where I you know, wheelchairs are expensive. Equipment's getting expensive. Mobility scooters are expensive. We need an adapted vehicle, brooches, medication. We need carers. We need, you know, personal help with personal care, adding confidence power, which was really expensive, and so we didn't realize at the time how expensive having a disability was. So we got to the point where we had to take legal action. And we saw a lawyer, we got recommended one, and after five years, they settled. They didn't go, he didn't go to court. And so that was put in a trust for my protection. Yeah, yeah, because I am going to deteriorate later in life, and the cost of that is going to be extortionate, so that is well protected. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 31:16 yeah, it's unfortunate you have to do that sometimes my involvement in litigation was that I was thrown off of an airplane because of my guide dog, and we, we sued, we eventually settled years ago. Was back in the early 1980s it's an education to go through the process, and it did go to court. There was eventually a settlement. But it was even really hard to get a good jury, because some of the original people who were potential jurors worked for airlines, or new people who worked for airlines, and so they said they'd be prejudiced, and it didn't matter that a blind person with a guide dog was ejected from an airplane simply because of the dog. Yeah, of course, today that that couldn't happen, well, it could happen, but it would. It can. He   Simon Sansome ** 32:10 still does. It does. It   Michael Hingson ** 32:11 does and but the laws are, are more substantive, but even so, it lawsuits are, are really not an easy thing at all, and there's a lot of emotion that goes into it, and there's a lot that one has to decide they want to put up with. And you don't really know a lot about that until you're in the middle of it, unless somebody really sits you down and describes this is what's going to happen. I had a little bit of that, but I know how difficult it is to do people have told me I should sue the hospital that put me in an incubator when I was born prematurely, simply because that could cause blindness. And other people have actually sued successfully 20 and 30 years after they were born, they litigated, and I just felt, look, medical science had already started to be told that a pure oxygen environment could lead to what at that time was called retrolateral fibroplasia, which is now retinopathy or prematurity. But I think 2030, and 40 years later, suing doesn't accomplish anything and and so my parents and I talked about it a lot, and we all agreed that that doesn't make any sense to do, and we didn't, and I have no regrets about that, but your situation is significantly different than that. Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 33:44 we had to move house. We had to double our mortgage. We couldn't stay in the house we were in at the time. And yeah, it was, it was a painful experience. So yeah, we needed, we needed an adaptive property at the end of the day, and we simply couldn't afford one. So you found   Michael Hingson ** 34:03 one, or did you build one? Or so   Simon Sansome ** 34:07 we couldn't find one. We actually brought one off plan, but we had to double our mortgage to do it. Yeah, that was interesting. So that wasn't pleasant, pleasurable at all, but we managed it. So   Michael Hingson ** 34:20 we had instances where we built a house from scratch. First one was a manufactured home, and then we we moved to New Jersey in 1996 and we built a house there because we couldn't find a house that we could relatively easily modify. And if you modify a home, the cost is so expensive because you've got to redo doors, you've got to redo counters, you've got to redo a lot of things. That's assuming you can find one that doesn't have too many stairs for a person in a chair, and that you can can ramp those but. If you build a home, there's really no additional cost other than the cost that we had in New Jersey, because it was in an area where they only had two story homes, so we did have to put an elevator in. So that was an additional cost, but that was the only additional cost, because, as you're pointing out, everything else was on plan and you you design it in, there's no additional cost for building lower counters if you're doing it from the outset. So we did that. But then when we moved to we moved back to California, we couldn't find a place to build, and so then we did have to modify a home and it and the problem is that you can't really put it in the mortgage, and it's a little different today than it was when we moved back out here in 2002 but we couldn't put it in the mortgage, so it was $150,000 that we had to find. And eventually it it worked out as you, as you pointed out with like with you. Then we moved here to Southern California. We built this home, and I am, I'm very glad that we did. It's, it's a great house.   Simon Sansome ** 36:05 Yeah, we've got a lovely home now. It's fully adapted. It's great, you know, it's large. I can get around quite easily. So it's a it's very nice,   Michael Hingson ** 36:14 all one floor,   Simon Sansome ** 36:17 all one floor. Yeah, it's extremely long.   Michael Hingson ** 36:19 There you go. Well, so you went back to university and and clearly that was a major commitment and dedication on your part to decide to do that, but you didn't. What was the university like? How accessible was the university?   Simon Sansome ** 36:36 Oh, it wasn't accessible at all for me. So I had a manual hospital, manual wheelchair. At the time, I couldn't push myself around because of my spinal damage and the spinal damage that I've got. I can't really push myself well in a manual wheelchair, right? And we didn't have any money for a scooter, so the first year, I was really struggling because we didn't know what services we didn't know what services we could access. We didn't know what was available. I'm newly disabled. I'm new to this world, even my work for social services, and until you're sitting in the chair, what you know about the world is absolutely nothing. And so it wasn't until I came across Disability Services at the University who helped me apply for a grant with the snow interest in the UK, and they provided me with an electric scooter. Well, that was brilliant. I mean, oh my god, yeah, it's like I found freedom. Because obviously, you know, so my university is called, my university is called Democrat University. And although it's not on a hill by any means whatsoever. There is a slope going all the way down to the main campus. And it's quite, it's quite a long road, but the slope is very subtle school it helps, yeah, but if you're pushing yourself in a manual wheelchair up that slope, by the time you get to the main road, you're absolutely exhausted. You just can't push yourself anymore. Yeah, and it's about, it's about a quarter mile along the whole campus. And so, yeah, I was pushing myself backwards with my foot on the floor up the hill to get the classes and stuff. And I just said, This is ridiculous. This can't carry on. And so I spoke to Disability Services, and they helped me out. So,   Michael Hingson ** 38:16 so what did you do once you So you went to the university, you you did that, and you were committed to making it happen and and there, there had to be times that they would have been tempting to give up, but you didn't. No,   Simon Sansome ** 38:30 I wasn't really tempted to get up. I mean, I have side effects from my corticoana syndrome. I have, like, seizures in the legs, which can happen anytime, and that causes that knocked me out for a few days. Yeah, so I did get a few medical exemptions here or there, but, you know, the the lecturers were more than happy knowing that I was capable of doing the work, yeah, which is cool. Yes, very much so. But I did have to have a couple of exemptions here or there, but nothing major. But while I was at university, that's when I set up the Facebook page, which is now known as snowball community, and that's what brings us to it. So, right, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 39:05 so tell us all about snowball and yeah, and everybody should know that I teased at the very beginning. I said, Well, now isn't it time that we should remember that snowball was the name of the pig in Animal Farm. And Simon's not read Animal Farm, so I   Simon Sansome ** 39:24 got red Animal Farm can't read, sorry.   Michael Hingson ** 39:27 Well, go listen to it. Then, you know, it's not that long on the book. It's not that long.   Simon Sansome ** 39:33 No. So when, when, after a year of recovery, when I was going to university, so I went. So we were going out for a meal. It was the first meal me and my wife went out following the injury, okay? And there's a really nice place in Leicester, Spanish tapas, and it was the first time out in the wheelchair for a meal, and we couldn't get in. Okay? We called up and the wheelchair wouldn't go through the door. There was a step. At the front. And they're like, can you step over? That went, No, not really. But what happened was, as well, they put a table in front of the disabled entrance as well. Oh, that was good. Yeah, they had a ramp that went into the road, so that was interesting. And then the disabled toilet was upstairs, and so it was an emitted, a mitigated disaster. It really was atrocious. And this, and we didn't know this, we know I've never paid attention to say what access, you know, it just something we'd never, you know, I've never really been in a wheelchair before, so why? Why would I, yeah, yeah, and only if   Michael Hingson ** 40:42 you took an interest, but most people wouldn't think of that, yeah, yeah, exactly understandable. So   Simon Sansome ** 40:48 yeah, we just thought, you know, what else can we not get into? And it turns out quite a lot. And so a couple of days later, I decided to set up a Facebook page. It was called Ability access. Back then. It's now, of course, now being rebranded snowball community. And you know, all it was, it wasn't anything special. It was a very simple Facebook page, and it was to raise awareness of disabled access in the Leicester area. That's all I wanted to do. I didn't want awards. I didn't want recognition. I didn't want any of that. But however, within like, I think it kind of triggered something in people. It's not mold. It snowballed. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not too sure why or how, but I started putting a post of pictures of things, of places I couldn't get into, and videos, and, you know, me being angry, and so on and so forth. And, you know, within a like, within a month, I had 1000 followers. You know, they went to 2005 1000. And just kept on growing and growing and growing. Then we got nominated for many the page got nominated for awards. He started winning awards. And that's when I, at the time, I decided I was going to create something, if I could, called snowball community, which was an app. I had the idea of a disability app, but I'll come to that in a second. And yeah, it just, it just would not stop growing at the moment, I think it's about 110,000 followers on social media, and in 2019 it became the most read disability page in the world because people sharing videos, people sharing stories. You know, we were reaching an audience of over 30 million people a month. At one point, it just got absolutely crazy. And I just mean, I couldn't carry on doing that. I mean that took a lot of time, that took a lot of effort. And we just said, Look, we can do something with this. We can use the audience we've got. We've got an audience who follows it on a regular basis, who comments on a regular basis. And I said to Kate, we could do something really special here. And so I just Yeah. Once I graduated in 2018 I graduated from university with, again, a two one with honors in journalism, and I was working as a freelance journalist as well, which is great. It's because I could work whenever I like, but really, ability access would now snowball, just started to take over my life on the social media pages. And I said, Look, we could design an app here and create an accessibility app, and it took years of design to try and get it right. It really did. We took, we took, we did consultations, but also we couldn't afford it at the time either. We had to raise money for it as well. That's quite hard. And so, no, it's at the moment. Snowball was launched last year, and we are looking to get 100 that it's won national awards. It's one we came back from Barcelona last week. Okay? It won funding at a global award ceremony. And it's really snowballing. It's, we're expecting 100,000 reviews on the app this year.   Michael Hingson ** 44:04 So do you? So have you created an actual nonprofit organization out of it, like snowball.org or anything like that?   Simon Sansome ** 44:15 No, I really wanted to. I wanted it to be a charity organization. Yeah. And the reason I wanted it to be a charity organization, because I had assistance from a charity organization in the UK while at university, however, um, here in the UK, there are very strict rules and regulations on what you can spend the money on if you're a charity. And I wanted to set up a fund to help students who have disabilities at university, so I can do that. But also, I wanted to give 10% of the profits to local businesses who can't afford to do their own adaptations. We're talking small businesses, coffee shops, you know, local cafes, bakers and butchers and so on and so forth, fruit and veg shops who simply haven't got the 1015 grand what's required to make their stores excess. Possible. So I still, I'm still ever have every intention of doing that, but I couldn't do that as a charity organization. The rules and regulations wouldn't allow me to spend the money where I wanted to and where I thought thought, see if it where it's needed to do so for the communities across the UK. So I actually set it up as a limited company with the intention of probably 10% of the profit aside for local businesses to apply for grants when we start making money.   Michael Hingson ** 45:30 Yeah, well, but that is, I would still say that is exciting. You're, you're, you're channeling all of that, and hopefully you'll be able to do some major things to to help raise a lot of awareness. So what other kinds of things do you do to help raise awareness about disabilities and so on?   Simon Sansome ** 45:50 Yeah, so we're launching a number of profiles, at the moment, a number of things. So what we're doing is, I'm sure you have it in America as well with you, probably for your restaurants and pubs and everything you have, something similar to a food safety hygiene certificate. Yes, I'm not too sure what you call it. Over there, we have a certain similar thing here. It's a rating from one to five, okay? And we're launching something called the snowball membership scheme, and we're taking our 70 staff over the next few months to cover the whole of the UK. And what we're going to be doing is we're launching a scheme where businesses, whether it's Frankie and Benny subway McDonald's, can sign up to the system where we will go out and basically view a disability consultation for 250 quid and give you a full breakdown of what you can improve on your business, but also gives you an access rating that you can promote on social media and say, Look, come to our business. We are disabled friendly, yeah. But what that does is that creates a huge opportunity for businesses and the snowball app, because we are creating the biggest disability app in the world, and it tells you where you can it tells you where you can access, where you can go, okay, where you can eat, where you can shop, but also, more importantly, where you can spend your own money. And I was doing some research earlier today, before this interview. And according to one, I think the valuable 500 is the disabled community in America has $8 trillion of disposable income right to spend on things like restaurants and cinema tickets and so on and so forth, to cafes and, you know, clubs and shops and whatever, per year. So $8 trillion is going unspent because the disabled community in America, which is 60,000,060 1 million, I believe, don't know where to spend their money.   Michael Hingson ** 47:48 Well, when you think about the fact that it's the largest minority worldwide, you hear anything from 20 to 25% of all persons have some sort of disability. The The only, the biggest challenge that I see is the problem is that the disabilities aren't uniform. That is, it isn't the same. The needs that that you have, to a degree, are different than the needs that I have. The bottom line, however, is that even if you deal with it in that term that everyone has different kinds of disabilities. The fact of the matter is, it's still awareness. And while you need physical access to get into a restaurant, I need access to be able to to know what's on the menu and know what it's going to cost. And you don't have as much of a need for that, as I do, because you can lift a menu and read it in theory, but the fact is that we all have different challenges, and as I've said a couple of times on this podcast, we need to really redefine disability. First of all, disability doesn't mean a lack of ability at all. This isn't really the issue, because we do have terms like disciple, discrete, you know, they're not all negatives and and so disability is is really something different than what people have made it into. Disability is a characteristic that everyone has, and it manifests itself differently. I love to say that that the reality is, for most people, your disability is that you're light dependent, because most people don't do well in the dark, and they and Thomas Edison fixed it by inventing the light bulb, but it still is a disability, even if it's covered up, because most of the time you have light disability is a characteristic that everybody manifests. It's just that we do it in different ways.   Simon Sansome ** 49:44 No, I completely agree. I'm hoping that the system that I've created will address that. So, because what we've done as well is not, it's not just the question of, oh, we're going out there and is disabled friendly, is wheelchair accessible? We're doing. Know, full disability consultation on the business. So, do they have Braille menus? Do they have a change in place facility? You know, is there a lift? Is there Braille on the lift, that kind of thing, and so. And we're also introducing something called the stimulation rating as well. And this is touch, touch, taste, sight, see and spell. And this is to give you an indication of what those things are at that place for people with visual impairments, for mental health issues and learning disabilities. Because, for example, if you go to the British Library, very quiet, you know it's going to be quiet. Okay. If you go to the Natural History Museum in London, well, some days it's really nice and peaceful on other days, because you've got 10 school 10 coaches of school children, absolutely chaotic. Okay, so it does vary considerably. And the whole idea is, is, while it's not a perfect rating system, because, like you said, there are so many different types of disability, not every disability is the same. Yours is different to mine. We're trying to incorporate a holistic approach to making sure that people feel comfortable going there, because they can relate to something that's on the assessment, and they can see what's there, so they get the full report, and therefore they can have an individual, independent, independent, independent decision on whether that place is suitable for them. So it's not a perfect system where it can be changed quite easily through feedback. It can be improved through feedback. It's like a moving model at the moment. It's like 16 pages long the assessment. But hopefully it will with the feedback we're getting and how it will grow. It will hopefully evolve into something absolutely fantastic for everyone to be inclusive everywhere.   Michael Hingson ** 51:42 Well, and that's a cool thing, clearly, to do. One of the things that I know well is that you and I were introduced by Sheldon Lewis at accessibe. Sheldon is in the nonprofit part of accessibe in helping to find places that need Internet access and who are nonprofits, especially in the disability world, and helps provide accessibe for that. And I don't know whether you all are doing much yet with accessibe, but clearly it's a great place to get involvement in the whole issue of internet website access is is a horrible thing. I mean, we have so many websites being created every minute, and the reality is that none of the major internet website building companies, including Microsoft and Google, do nothing to insist that for website is being built, it has to be accessible right from the outset. So, you know, accessibe is a great, inexpensive way to help with all that, and I'm assuming that Sheldon and you are working on that somewhat.   Simon Sansome ** 52:54 Yes, we are. We've had a discussion, and unfortunately, accessibe isn't available on apps at the moment, but that is something they're working on, and you introduce it soon. So I'm, I think once it's available on the apps, I will after, course,   Michael Hingson ** 53:07 but it is, however, the reality is that restaurants and other places do create websites, and people go to websites, and so that's, that's right now, the place where accessibe can make a significant difference.   Simon Sansome ** 53:22 Absolutely, I completely agree they should have it on there. Yeah. So   Michael Hingson ** 53:26 that is, that is a that is certainly one place where, you know, we can help. And certainly every restaurant should have an accessible website and and if they're going to have menus on the website, then there are certainly guidelines on ways to make those accessible, and that is part of what needs to be done.   Simon Sansome ** 53:46 Yes, and I completely agree with you. I support it, of course,   Michael Hingson ** 53:50 yeah. And you're right, apps, apps today, that's a different process. It's a different animal, but it will come, and that'll be something that that we'll be able to see. But in the short term,   Simon Sansome ** 54:02 yeah, I've told Sheldon, straight away, we'll get it on there straight away, as soon as soon as they've done the development for the apps, for access to be   Michael Hingson ** 54:09 Yeah, but right now, well, okay, but right now for your app, it could be accessible. You just build it that way, but it's not the app. But every restaurant should have an accessible website, and that really ought to be part of what you look at when you're going to a restaurant, to explore what and how accessible they are. Having accessible and inclusive websites is certainly something that is very straightforward to do today. Yes,   Simon Sansome ** 54:38 it is, but businesses are lazy   Michael Hingson ** 54:42 well, but you know, they also that they are, but they also think that it's more expensive than it needs to be, and that's part of the whole issue. I mean, if you go to a restaurant and it's not accessible because you can't get into it, so they're still lazy. They didn't make it. Accessible right from the outset, and either they're going to where they're not, and it's a lot No no, no offense in any way intended, but it's a lot less expensive to make a website accessible than it is to modify an entrance so that you can get in with a wheelchair when there are steps or a very narrow door. Yeah. So it is yeah, laziness goes always Yeah. And   Simon Sansome ** 55:23 hopefully, if they do have initiatives that hopefully snowball, can help me out with that, with the credit that we want to provide to small businesses, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 55:30 yeah. And I understand that most businesses are pretty small and don't necessarily have a lot of money to spend, but with websites, that's where accessibe can make a big difference right from the outset? Yeah, absolutely, which is pretty cool. Yes. So what's, what's next as you go forward with snowball What are, what's the future going to hold?   Simon Sansome ** 55:52 Oh, my God, right. So, I mean, we're having a huge expansion, as I said, we're taking on about 70 staff to cover the whole of the UK. We're actually looking to franchise it as well across North America and Europe. We've also asked to be consultants for a number of governments as well. So it's going from strength to strength to strength. Every week, we keep on getting inquiries. We've got customers signed up already for the assessments, for the membership schemes. Loads in London. London's really taking off quite nicely. So it's where we're going at the moment is, I don't know, but in a couple of years time, I think we're going to be a major player in the app world for accessibility, because we already are the most that we are the biggest disability app in the world at the moment. Mm, hmm. By a long, long way, by, you know, 10s of 1000s of reviews. So nobody's really going to catch up with snowball, but we still need people to use it on a regular basis. That's the thing, because all the information we get is usually generated. Okay, in the UK, we're doing really well. In America, we need a bit more help. Yeah, but, you know, I was having a I was doing another podcast a couple of weeks ago in America, and there's a chap who wants to give us 10,000 locations of petrol stations across America where they went, because he doesn't know where to post it. All this information on accessible fueling stations across America, where they'll come out and help you to fill yes and you to fill your yes and stuff, and do help to pay for it. And he's just got no idea where to post it. So parallel, we think he's going to get we will win early stages of talks, and he wants to give us that information to help people to travel across America, and so they know where they can go and get their car filled up with assistance. So it's just we need people like that to leave reviews, to add places to use it on a regular basis, even if you go, even if you spot a car, you know, disabled car parking bay, you can have that. If you find an accessible toilet, add the accessible toilet. If you find an accessible restaurant, add the restaurant. Even if you find an inaccessible restaurant, add the inaccessible restaurant, because it will stop people going there and being disappointed. So all that information is extremely relevant to help people to be live a more independent life. So we need as many people across the world, including America, to download to to add reviews like you would on TripAdvisor. Is TripAdvisor for the disabled community. We just need more reviews and more people to use on a regular basis, and it will grow considerably. And therefore, once that's grown, we can start helping people more with like booking cinema tickets, booking airline travel holidays, and expand it that way as well. Because once businesses know that you're booking it through snowball, then they know you need extra assistance. So Sheldon,   Michael Hingson ** 58:43 has Sheldon talked to you about access find? Uh, no, okay, access is again, right now, it's website oriented, but access find is a database that accessibe created of accessible websites, and any website can say, you know, we have, we have made our website accessible, and it's checked, but then, when it is, then they are included in access, find. And it might be interesting to explore that, both in terms of websites, but finding ways to expand it. So we can, we can explore that and talk about that one. So what? What motivates you? I mean, you're doing a lot. Why?   Simon Sansome ** 59:28 It's the frustration of not being able to so, I mean, yes, remember, I for 32 years, I was fully independent. I could go anywhere in the world. I wanted to Okay, and it's the frustration that the world is not I'm not going to say it's not welcoming, because it's not that's not quite right. I'm going to say uneducated. And the ignorance of that everyone can access everything after having an injury like mine is very small mindedness, and I get. Frustrated that, because I travel a lot for work. I travel all over the world, and when we turn up to places, you know, we haven't got the right room, we can't access the hotel, we can't access the restaurant. It's got to the point where we don't choose where we want to go the place chooses us, yeah, and I don't, I don't think that's fair, no. And so I just want an equal opportunity world. That's what I don't like being turned away from places where we want to go for a family meal. I don't like being turned away from the cinema because the disabled seats so close to the screen. You know, it's, you know, it's just It frustrates me. And that's what, you know. I think that's what keeps up, keeping me going, but also as well, is when I was in hospital, because I got told I would never sit up again. I got told I was going to be on my back for life. Okay? And I'm very fortunate where I am. I mean, I know that sounds really stupid, because I'm paralyzed from the waist down, but I am very fortunate where I am, and I see, especially from a social services point of view, there are so many more people worse off than I am okay, and I just want to help them as much as I can. I want to give them choice. I want to give them a bit of independence. I want them to have that freedom of not being restricted to, you know, five, five places to go and eat, or, you know, the only place you can go to the cinema. I want you to the only tourist attraction you can visit. I want them to be fully inclusive. I want them to have a good life, you know. And I think snowball can help a lot of people do that.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:40 Well, that's cool. So if people want to learn more about Snowball or access the app and so on, how do they do that? And how do they reach out to you? Yeah,   Simon Sansome ** 1:01:50 I'm on LinkedIn. Simon Samson, just send me a message. That's not a problem at all. Spell, if you would please. Yeah, S A N for November, s o m for mother, E for Echo,   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:03 and first name Simon, s, i, m, o n,   Simon Sansome ** 1:02:05 that's correct. You can also, you can also email us at support at snowball dot community,

Join us on Hearts of Oak for a powerful conversation with comedian and advocate Abi Roberts as we dive into her latest work, We The People: Letters from Dystopia. In this interview, Abi reveals the heart-wrenching stories behind her book—a collection of real-life testimonies from individuals affected by the COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates. More than just stories, these letters shine a light on the lasting impact of government overreach, personal loss, and the fight for freedom. Abi shares her journey of gathering these voices through her podcast Abby Daily, emphasizing the importance of truth and remembrance, especially in a time clouded by misinformation. With the evocative illustrations by Bob Moran, We The People stands as both a historical document and a beacon of hope. Tune in for a deeply moving and thought-provoking discussion that balances the weight of serious topics with Abi's sharp wit, underscoring her mission to give voice to those who suffered and to remind us all of the importance of freedom. Don't miss this interview—watch it now on Hearts of Oak. Interview recorded 30.10.24 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Connect with Abi Roberts: X |https://x.com/abircomedian Instagram |https://www.instagram.com/abirobertscomedy/ Website: https://abiroberts.com/ Connect with Hearts of Oak...

In this latest episode, Mustansir Saifuddin delves into the ever-evolving landscape of Gen AI with Todd Kackley, Vice President and CIO of Textron. Todd shares how his team implemented their inaugural generative AI solution and the crucial role leaders play in crafting scalable, well-governed, and future-proof data analytics and AI infrastructure. Todd shares invaluable insights into striking the balance between leveraging third-party capabilities and developing in-house models, shedding light on the dynamic interplay between proprietary solutions and open source technologies. Whether you're a seasoned leader or a budding enthusiast, understanding the nuances of Gen AI and its implications is key to driving innovation and staying ahead in today's digital landscape. Todd A. Kackley is vice president and chief information officer for Textron Inc. In this role, he leads the business unit chief information officers and the Textron Information Services (TIS) organization. He oversees Textron's Information Management Council and manages Textron's information technology supplier and outsourcing relationships. Prior to his current role, Kackley was executive vice president and chief information officer for Bell where he developed and executed IT and digital strategy, aligning business systems, infrastructure, cybersecurity and development capabilities to the needs of the business. Connect with Us: LinkedIn Todd Kackley Mustansir Saifuddin Innovative Solution Partners  Twitter: @Mmsaifuddin YouTube or learn more about our sponsor Innovative Solution Partners to schedule a free consultation.    Episode Transcript [00:00:00.890] - Mustansir Saifuddin Welcome to TechDriven business brought to you by Innovative Solution Partners. Today, an old friend, Todd Kackley, Vice President and CEO of Textron, joins me to delve into the ever evolving landscape of Gen AI. Todd shares insights into implementing their inaugural generative AI solution and the pivotal role leaders play in crafting a scalable, well-governed, and future-proof data analytics and AI infrastructure.   [00:00:40.270] - Mustansir Saifuddin So thank you for joining the session today. Today, we will be talking about any organization's readiness to embrace Gen AI. And I would like to get your perspective on this topic. So with that, I would like to get into our session.   [00:00:57.060] - Todd Kackley Let's do it.   [00:00:59.280] - Mustansir Saifuddin Awesome. Great. So let me start with, as you lead your organization in these times of quicker adoption, we see this across the board, across technologies. When we talk about AI-driven solutions, how are you and your team striking a balance between leveraging third-party capabilities versus developing in-house models?   [00:01:24.640] - Todd Kackley Well, Mustansir I think that's a very good question. And this is also something very relevant for us at Textron. We recently implemented our first production generative AI solution, and that solution leverages a third-party proprietary generative AI model. And part of that decision making was certainly there's a lot involved in developing artificial intelligence models as a technology company as well at Textron. We've dealt with AI, and it's been part of our product offering and some of the things that we do around geospatial analysis and other things. And we built models in the past. So the decision to make versus buy, it wasn't necessarily one that we had to approach when it comes to generative AI, because I think this is an area where it's certainly a buy, leverage third-party models because of the capability and the massive amounts of compute and investments required to go off and build a model, the capability that we're We're seeing coming from third-party proprietary models that are secure. And certainly that's something that's very important to us, making sure that we leverage a third-party model that is secure and allows us to be able to work within the confines of our data tenant and be able to leverage the benefits of the OpenAI, but at the same time protecting our sensitive data.   [00:02:58.640] - Mustansir Saifuddin Now that makes sense. I mean, let's fast forward, right? Are you even looking at in-house models sometimes in the future, or is this something that you think a third party will give you the leverage that you're looking for as far as technology as well as security? One of the big question marks right now with Gen AI.   [00:03:16.820] - Todd Kackley In our defense businesses, it's something we're certainly possibly kicking around where there may be smaller scale opportunities for us to build lambda-based models or others using Compute technology that's not massive data center type of the computing horsepower that you need to be able to do something as large as an Open AI or an Azure AI type of experience. I contend that most of the use cases that we're seeing right now, I think there's a difference that people need to look at when they approach this question, and it's what What outcome are you trying to achieve? And if the outcome is, I want quick analysis or summarization or content generation and so forth, recreating that wheel and trying to build that model may not make sense where those third-party proprietary models already exist to do that. In fact, I'm seeing even in the ecosystem of development of workbenches and use cases around these third-party models, there are several developments already in place that have the turnkey copilot for a contract's evaluation or proposal generation or service centers and doing things like help desk. Those are accelerating the ability to implement quickly and get value quickly. And even the model itself, I read something yesterday that It just blew my mind that the evolution of ChatGPT 3.5 to 4.0 to 5.0 is at a pace that it's reinventing itself about every six months.   [00:05:12.810] - Todd Kackley And that's 4xMaur's law. If you think about that, the pace of Maur's. As a technologist, that just blows my mind.   [00:05:21.990] - Mustansir Saifuddin For sure. I think that leads me into my next question. When we talk about proprietary solutions versus open source, How does that affect your strategy?   [00:05:34.270] - Todd Kackley Well, I certainly appreciate how open source really drives innovation, and it really OpenAI is a good example. Openai is a good example. The release of ChatGPT a little more than a year ago as an open source technology has really fundamentally changed the perception of artificial intelligence and pretty much put the technology technology in the hands of the everyday consumer. You don't need to have a PhD in neural network to go off and understand how to interact with artificial intelligence. In fact, I think that has really accelerated. It's the fastest adopted technology hitting the 100 million user mark in less than two months. But at the same time, as a technologist, I think we've seen over time that there are certainly risks with some of the open source technologies, whether they become proprietary at some point or they get consumed by some player and they now become a fee-based application, and you've already committed to the technology. We've seen that across some of the major players that consume other open source technologies, and they turn around and license it. That's certainly a risk. It's certainly something that you can't undermine or underestimate the amount of patching and keeping up with the vulnerabilities of open source technology, because I think they're a little more susceptible to one of the vulnerabilities.   [00:07:11.670] - Todd Kackley But it's certainly something we have to weigh out when we make decisions around using proprietary technologies versus open source.   [00:07:21.460] - Mustansir Saifuddin Yeah. I think what I'm hearing from you, it seems like a lot of that is dependent on your business model and your individual needs as an organization, right?   [00:07:31.620] - Todd Kackley Absolutely. It's not just, let's go find the lowest cost solution always. You have to take into consideration many aspects not just is it the best solution? Is it a secure solution? Is it one that's going to endure, that's going to have a life cycle that is going to sustain? Because you don't make a technology investment. You hope not to make a technology investment and expect It's like that they only have a couple of years life cycle. You want it to endure a little bit. Sometimes what we've seen in the ecosystem, even in the larger players, in the consolidation of certain applications of the stacks and so forth, and the reinventing of those stacks, it's really forced us to stand back and look at all of these investments to make sure that there's going to be viability in the solution provider to continue to support, do investments, and continue to evolve that product set, whether it's a small individual capability or a larger enterprise-wide program.   [00:08:42.080] - Mustansir Saifuddin Yeah, for sure. I think longevity and durability It seems like it needs to be built in the solutions that you're looking for, right?   [00:08:50.300] - Todd Kackley Absolutely.   [00:08:51.310] - Mustansir Saifuddin So thinking about from an experience perspective, you got years of experience, both in business and technology. What are some of the good use cases of AI-driven solutions that you've seen deliver tangible business value? I mean, it's all about providing value to business and then at the same time building trust with the business. What's your take on that?   [00:09:13.760] - Todd Kackley Well, we go back a long ways Mustansir. I appreciate you not actually stating how long I've been doing this job, but it feels like much longer. But it's interesting. The whole generative, as I just said, the whole generative AI thing, if you think even a year and a half ago, this wasn't on the radar for most CIOs or most technologists in general. And now it's pretty much consumed most of our discussions. For sure. So we decided here at Textron to take a look at an applicable use case. And while there are lots of analysis on where these capabilities actually work well or maybe provide the best value, we focused on our service center area of opportunity. And when you think about a services business where you have large volumes of data, not just on how you support, sustain that customer's product and the history of sustaining that customer's product, but you also have the combination of data around all of your All of your technical publications, all of your engineering specifications, everything known. And many of our products are in a regulated business, like commercial jets and so forth, or helicopters. So you have a lot of data that you need to maintain, and having that in disparate sources or even trying to make it accessible to a maintenance technician or a service center, call center resource, sometimes is a challenge.   [00:11:06.350] - Todd Kackley So we sought to try to accelerate the access to content internally for our maintenance technicians in our service centers, and it certainly provided an opportunity for them to have a capability, allow them to quickly either troubleshoot or identify content and point them to the the latest publication, latest operating procedure, latest set of instructions, and give them some insights as to how they should consider approaching either troubleshooting or diagnostics types of activities. We're certainly seeing that that's going to drive a measurable impact in the time that these maintenance technicians normally spend in front of a computer. They would rather spend time turning wrenches and doing the work to repair the aircraft and get our customers back in the air. And that's where the value is, having our customers' aircraft not sitting on the ground in our service centers, but in the air. So we see that not just in our aircraft industry, our business. But we also see that opportunities across anywhere we're providing a customer support type of solution. You think about even in IT, The help desks, we have... Most large organizations have a level one, level two, level three type of help desk.   [00:12:38.140] - Todd Kackley And as questions go from level one to level two, and level two to level three, the cost of that answer continues to get higher. So bringing the information and the ability to solve that person's question closer to level one, or maybe not even needing level one at all, if you're bringing it to the user, it And yourself, most people that I know, when you have a general household issue, you go to YouTube. How do I solve this? How do I fix this? And before you call the service technician, everything, you try to figure out. And I think users are more inclined to do that if they have access to the right information at their fingertips, and it's useful and current and timely. So I think those are really applicable use cases.   [00:13:30.620] - Mustansir Saifuddin No, I think for sure, what I'm hearing from you is time to delivery, right? And the example you use of YouTube is so real. Every day we do this, we look up things and we are trying to find things. How can we apply the same approach in a business scenario, in an organization which has got all these different levels of teams and support systems in place? The time to delivery to a customer, either internal or external, makes a lot of sense. I And this whole use case, especially when you talk about what Gen AI can do, seems like it's just helping get to the answers much faster than we ever comprehend it in the past.   [00:14:13.560] - Todd Kackley I agree. I do think it's going to transform how knowledge workers and beyond that, even the example of the shop floor of workers that we're having, the maintenance technicians, they're very excited because if you think about it, we have a... Most organizations have a challenge around keeping talent and skills and the continued evolution of having to provide them with the training and the knowledge. And the generative AI opportunities that allow us to use content generation for training or just the accessibility to the information levels the field a little bit from somebody that maybe 20, 30 years of experience to somebody that has less. So they all are leveraging the same resource and getting that expert information to help them accelerate their jobs. So I'm excited about that. I think that's going to help, particularly help us bring in the next workforce in the future and prepare them for the skills.   [00:15:25.600] - Mustansir Saifuddin No, totally. I totally agree on that. So taking a little segue over here, on On a personal note, where do you go do your research? What are some of the readings that you're currently doing? Would you like to share?   [00:15:39.140] - Todd Kackley So particularly on the topic of generative AI, there's a lot to stay on top of. I certainly follow most of the leading business journals and tech journals, and stay on top of that. I've got a lot of flags in my search criteria to be able to pop up new things that are coming up, and certainly look for those articles. And I follow several podcasts and tech leaders, spend a lot of time talking to systems integrators as well. And then I have a very large network that I belong to a number of professional organizations with technical leaders, CIOs, and we have a lot of discussions on this topic as well. It's an evolving topic, and I find that not just generative AI, there are several disciplines when leading an information technology organization that one needs to stay on top of. And then I try to find time also to read self-development books, things certainly leadership and books on organizational change and leading large organizations and working across generations. So there are tons of resources. I think the most valued resource is in your peer network, having an opportunity to sit with peers in the same type of role that you have and have those discussions, whether it's a chief information officer, Chief Information Security Officer, CTO, even an analyst in a business function or a technical function, having that ability to work with their peer group and understand what's going on day to day helps them develop their self-awareness and their knowledge of their skills.   [00:17:48.750] - Mustansir Saifuddin Yeah. It seems like your time is filled with all these different areas where you're pulling in the information and making sure that you're applying those your day to day operations as well as your learning that you're going through.   [00:18:05.910] - Todd Kackley I can't profess all of it sticks. I mean, there's probably more content going in that actually I can retain. But it's one of these things I find that having conversations about it and checking your understanding, this gener AI, going back to that quickly, my having to understand how all of this works and feeling comfortable with the solutions that we're looking to bring forward and how those operate safely, securely, and understanding how we explain that to the users and leaders as well. That's a big piece of that, being able to understand the capabilities and technology enough to assure key stakeholders and leaders that we're making the right decisions as Absolutely.   [00:19:01.290] - Mustansir Saifuddin Absolutely. So let's talk about from a Gen AI perspective, right? It is so new. It's a developing area for both business and technology. How do you see leaders such as yourself establishing a data, analytics, and AI infrastructure that is both scalable, well-governed, and at the same time, future-proof? It's a lot of things in one, but I-Yeah.   [00:19:29.970] - Todd Kackley That's a really good question. One of the things that we're still having a discussion on is there's been several years in the data and analytics, and I know you and I go back several years in the data analytics space originally. And organizations have spent a lot of time and money and effort putting together large data lakes or a focus on structured data for the purpose of data and analytics, for the purpose of dashboards, for the purpose of possibly maybe even more impactful data sciences and driving more value out of predictive and prescriptive type of data analysis and so forth. And that's all part of this evolution, I think. And we're still getting our arms around this. There's And maybe I'll just say this, and whether people think I'm right or wrong, we'll let them be the judge of that. But I think there's a Venn diagram here where data sciences and data analytics overlaps with the generative AI, and there's something in the middle of that Venn diagram. But the difference is when you're really focused on the predictive and the prescriptive repeatable model of a data science model where I need this machine learning algorithm to drive a very predictable output, understanding whether or not my machine on the shop floor is performing predictably, and I can identify when it's varying off of its function versus the generative AI type of experience where I need very comprehensive analysis with structured and unstructured data versus the data science, which may be more structured and curated data.   [00:21:40.160] - Todd Kackley I've often described it to people. I see data sciences as I'm looking for the needle in the haystack, and I see generative AI is what's in the haystack? And oh, by the way, there's a needle. So there are two different ways to look at it. I think when it comes to making decisions around the whole data side of this, data governance and data ownership is going to be a key piece of that, and it always has been, because ultimately, neither side works well with bad data. So that's certainly going to be something that's going to continue to drive the discussion. But I think a bigger piece of this is going to change the The way we think about architecting our data, whether or not it needs to be as structured as we've had in the past. We were just having this conversation the other day with our senior leaders in the past to build something like a chatbot or to build something like a very large search engine, you had to spend time creating the database, creating the indexes, creating all the special keys, doing all the tables and everything you to do, and then do all the programming around it.   [00:23:02.920] - Todd Kackley With generative AI, it doesn't matter really what structure your data is in. It's really about the prompt and how you ask the question and interface with the model to get the answer. So I do think we have to make a clearer distinction on what tool sets are used for what purposes, because you can't always use one or the other to solve the same thing. But that's going to be the challenge for technologists as they look at, do I need a data mart? And one of the risks here also When you're dealing with data, this is ultimately replicating all this data over multiple places and paying for it in multiple places and so forth. So you have to think about that. What's the architecture? Does it sit natively in the application and AI works around it. So we'll see. It's still too early to tell, but I think those are things that we have to directionally think about.   [00:24:09.750] - Mustansir Saifuddin Yeah, definitely. I think it's an evolution, and we are just getting into it, finding ourselves right in the middle of it. Great discussion so far. But based on all that we have covered so far, what is that one key takeaway that you want to leave with our listeners today?   [00:24:30.030] - Todd Kackley Well, if we're talking about, since the theme has been largely generative AI, I think the key takeaway is that There may be a few, but I think when you're having the discussion around generative AI, it's important to understand that many organizations have been doing AI for a while. Data sciences is part of that evolution, building an algorithm and building a model and so forth. So I've seen peers in my industry and others, even not in my industry, their immediate reaction was, we've got to shut this genervate eye down or we need to go slowly. And the reality is, I think it's an evolution of what we've been normally doing with It's things like machine learning and algorithms and so forth. And it's something that regardless of whether or not, and I'm finding here, regardless of whether or not you have a position on to go fast and forward or to be more risk averse and hold back, the users are going to find a way to use this capability. And that's probably the big message here. If you're a technologist listening to this and you think you've got ChatGPT blocked or you're shutting down and saying, We're going to go slow.   [00:26:05.320] - Todd Kackley Trust me, your users are finding a way to use this technology to help them with their jobs. And you're going to have to figure out how to make it part of your business processes going forward in a secure manner that meets the requirements of the business and the need. And and embrace it because it's not going to go away.   [00:26:34.360] - Mustansir Saifuddin Thanks for listening to Tech-Driven Business brought to you by Innovative Solution Partners. Todd shared valuable insights on how organizations can transform business with generative AI. His main takeaway, Gen AI is here to stay. If you are a technologist, know that users are finding a way to use this technology to help them with their jobs. We would love to hear from you. Continue the conversation by connecting with me on LinkedIn or Twitter. Learn more about Innovative Solution Partners and schedule a free consultation by visiting isolutionpartners.com. Never miss a podcast by subscribing to our YouTube channel. Information is in the show notes.

[TRANSCRIPT] [click, static] Hey Harry? Where are you? [click, static] You could have at least left a note. Something to let me know that you're okay, that you're not de— [click, static] What happened? When did you leave? Maybe if it was June, I'd be able to look at your garden and figure out just how long its been since you last tended to it, but you'd only just be putting new seeds in the ground now and I'm not going to go digging up your garden if you're just out at the store.  That's…that must be it. You ran out of canned goods and you had to go looking for more. And I bet you've had to go a bit of a ways away considering we've cleaned out everything in a thirty mile radius.  Right, so…I'm not going to freak out. Yet. I only got here twenty minutes ago, I'm sure it'll be… It's strange, being back. Everything looks pretty much the same—though I did notice the back door has come loose at the top hinge again. You know, I'm sure that's something you could figure out how to fix on your own. It's not hard. (sigh) But I guess I'll go ahead and fix it again. I might as well, I'm here.  I didn't expect the smell of this place to hit me so hard. When you're in a space so long, you stop noticing the sensory aspects of it—the smells, the sounds, the way the light shifts throughout the day, throughout the seasons. All things I didn't know to miss. But now that I'm confronted with them again, I realize just how much… Lavender and chamomile, with an underlying layer of turpentine. That's the smell. Harry got into making her own soap a few years ago. Anytime I happened to get a whiff of one of those flowers on the road, I'd— It's different. In context, it's different. Knowing the origin ot… Despite everything, despite all the shit you've done and my own foolish fucking heart, I think I— Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you, Harry. At the very least, I'm looking forward to seeing the look of complete surprise on your face when you walk through the front door and see me.  [click, static] [click, static] Hey Harry? Where are you? [click, static] You could have at least left a note. Something to let me know that you're okay, that you're not de— [click, static] What happened? When did you leave? Maybe if it was June, I'd be able to look at your garden and figure out just how long its been since you last tended to it, but you'd only just be putting new seeds in the ground now and I'm not going to go digging up your garden if you're just out at the store.  That's…that must be it. You ran out of canned goods and you had to go looking for more. And I bet you've had to go a bit of a ways away considering we've cleaned out everything in a thirty mile radius.  Right, so…I'm not going to freak out. Yet. I only got here twenty minutes ago, I'm sure it'll be… It's strange, being back. Everything looks pretty much the same—though I did notice the back door has come loose at the top hinge again. You know, I'm sure that's something you could figure out how to fix on your own. It's not hard. (sigh) But I guess I'll go ahead and fix it again. I might as well, I'm here.  I didn't expect the smell of this place to hit me so hard. When you're in a space so long, you stop noticing the sensory aspects of it—the smells, the sounds, the way the light shifts throughout the day, throughout the seasons. All things I didn't know to miss. But now that I'm confronted with them again, I realize just how much… Lavender and chamomile, with an underlying layer of turpentine. That's the smell. Harry got into making her own soap a few years ago. Anytime I happened to get a whiff of one of those flowers on the road, I'd— It's different. In context, it's different. Knowing the origin ot… Despite everything, despite all the shit you've done and my own foolish fucking heart, I think I— Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing you, Harry. At the very least, I'm looking forward to seeing the look of complete surprise on your face when you walk through the front door and see me.  [click, static]

Nick Martocci, founder of Tower Training Academy and former Marine, joins the podcast to discuss his program that provides comprehensive wind turbine technician training with career development support and job placement assistance. With an accredited apprenticeship program approved by the Department of Labor, Tower Training Academy is well-positioned to help meet the growing demand for skilled technicians in the wind energy industry. Visit https://towertrainingacademy.com/ for more info! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with the Chief Commercial Officer at Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. We're in San Diego at ACP OM&S. We have a special guest, Nick Martocci of Tower Training Academy. Nick is a former Marine and he has a training facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. Which Joel and I didn't know about, and we just met you on the floor. And this sounds tremendous, because we've been trying to do more outreach to potential technicians, and give them outlets of where to go to become a technician, because every operator in the United States needs people, and they need educated people that are ready to go to work, and we're just trying to elevate. All these training facilities yours being one of them. So Nick, welcome to the podcast. Nick Martocci: Thanks for having me. Yep I know there's probably some other Marines in there Just wanted to make sure to make the correction once a Marine always a Marine. So He's a former or prior Marine. I started out in the Marine Corps and then I finished up my career in the Army National Guard as a CH 47 pilot and then as I was making that transition out of the military like a lot of veterans do, I Yeah. Was playing, Hey, what do I want to be when I grow up? A situation. Yeah. And so I tried a lot of different things. One of the things we naturally gravitate to is obviously security and Sure. Things of that nature. And when I found out, that's just not where I wanted to be I sprawled out and said, Hey, let me find something else. And when I eventually found the wind industry, I absolutely just fell in love. Fell in love with the opportunities, the welcoming and familiarity, if you will, of the military as it is. And I just absolutely fell in love. And so that's why, later on, after I did a lot of different things in the field blade repair, torque contention operations, things of that nature eventually became an instructor and built my own program for GWO, because I knew What individuals were really needing from the certification side, especially having been out in the field and then knowing what the technicians really need to be ready for. Seeing those gaps. Absolutely. And that's why for Tower Training Academy, our motto is not just ready for today, but we're prepared for tomorrow. And so I want to make sure when I built my program, that technicians that are going to be coming out of the field and out of my, or into the field out of my program, Would be ready for today and prepared for everything tomorrow because there's a lot of booming changes that are going to be going on in the wind industry. One of the comparisons I make with the wind turbine industry is very similar to the computer industry. When you buy a laptop, a few days later, it's out of date, because the technology is constantly changing.

So what does the term “HR” mean to you? What is the HR industry? How has it changed over the past several years? These are questions that our guest, Matthew Burr, answers at the beginning of our conversation. Matthew has been an HR consultant for nearly seventeen years.   While we do talk about the state of HR, Matthew discusses many aspects of leadership, being a coach and consultant and how all of us in the work-a-day world can learn and grow both in our working and personal lives.   One of the most interesting topics Matthew and I discuss deals with the first two books he published which are all about successfully paying off student loans in a fraction of the usual time. He will explain that while discipline is important, there really are strategies that may very well help you to get out from under student loans or any debt sooner rather than later. Listen in and see what lessons and thoughts you can take away from this episode of Unstoppable Mindset.   About the Guest:   Matthew Burr has over 16-years of experience working in the human resources field, starting his career as an Industrial Relations Intern at Kennedy Valve Manufacturing to most recently founding and managing a human resource consulting company; Burr Consulting, LLC, Talentscape, LLC and Co-Owner of Labor Love, a Labor, and Employment Law poster printing company. Prior to founding the consulting firm, the majority of his career was heavy industry manufacturing and healthcare. He specializes in compliance auditing, training labor and employment law, conflict resolution, performance management, labor, and employment relations.   Matthew has a generalist background in HR and operations, while providing strategic HR and operational solutions to his clients, focusing on small and medium sized organizations. He works as an Adjunct at Alfred State University, Tompkins Cortland Community College, and The College of St. Rose.   He successfully designed an HR Concentration in the business management major that aligned with both SHRM and HRCI certifications, providing opportunities for students to sit for both the SHRM-CP and aPHR certifications upon completion of the degree, concentration, and internship hours as an Assistant Professor of Management at Elmira College (Retired January 2022). Matthew is also the SHRM Certification Exam Instructor, with a current pass rate of 92% on the SHRM-SCP and 83% pass rate on the SHRM-CP and a combined 88% on both exams over a 7-year period of instructing the course (Elmira College, Collin College & The College of St. Rose).   Matthew works as a trainer Tompkins Cortland Community College, Corning Community College, Broome Community College, and HR Instructor for Certification Preparation for the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI). He also acts as an On-Call Mediator and Factfinder through the Public Employment Relations Board in New York State, working with public sector employers and labor unions.   ** ** Ways to connect with Matthew: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CC4L6ZQH?ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_Y6A40806CGYDQDJFVR09_1 Burr Consulting, LLC Blog: What's New in HR iTunes: The Upstate HR Podcast Facebook: Burr Consulting, LLC LinkedIn: Burr Consulting, LLC Twitter: @Burrconsulting       About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi, once again, this is Mike Hingson and I want to welcome you to another edition of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And our guests. Matthew Burr certainly has lots of experience with the unexpected. He has been in the HR profession for 16 years, he's done a lot of teaching, he's done a lot of consulting, has amassed a great amount of expertise. And I'm gonna let him talk more about that than then. Me doing it because he's the guy who should know. So Matthew, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Matthew Burr ** 01:56 Yeah, Michael, again, appreciate you having me on here, your podcast and always happy to, to join and answer any questions and tell any any crazy stories I've dealt with over the last 16, almost 17 years, it'd be 17 years in December, I started my consulting company eight years ago in October, so October of 2015. And really like to support any organization small, you know, small organization up to medium size on the HR front and help, you know, business does really align HR strategy to the needs of their organization and watch leaders grow and evolve and become very, very well versed in the Employee Relations and making sure we're doing everything compliant as well.   Michael Hingson ** 02:40 Works for me, needless to say, Well, why don't we start maybe going back a little further and tell us kind of about the early Matthew, getting stuck, you know, growing up and why you ended up where you were and that kind of thing, because something had to start that process. But you you started out as a kid like the rest of us and tell me about that.   Matthew Burr ** 03:02 Yeah, you know, again, started out really came from Logan, Utah, right around right north of Logan, Utah. I grew up there for 14 years and then made the decision to leave home when I was 14 years old and move across the country and realized it really going down I think a bad path in life not making the best decisions. My parents separated early on in life and didn't have a great relationship with either them and was able to make the decision and come back to upstate New York and live with family when I was 15 and finish out high school and from there went on to college and I think struggle in the beginning. Right. I didn't do great in college. And ironically now i They let me teach at these schools after having a few, a few bad semesters. I'll just put it that way. But yeah, I mean, again, just kind of finding my footing, you know, early on in life and in the you know, early 2000s 2001 2002 didn't really know what I was going to do. I decided to relocate to Phoenix for a little while and move back to Utah, worked in a call center for I don't know six or seven months and realize that the academic path was probably the right place for me to be I realized there was more. I think there was a calling to get back in and finish the academic side and decided to return to New York and finished my associates degree at a community college went on to get my bachelor's degree and while I was an undergraduate decided to pursue an HR internship and I've stayed in the career field ever since and then really been able to grow into a professional I mean, and again, my education really hasn't stopped. I'm recently completing a Lean Six Sigma black belt as well. Just that actually tonight's the last class on that. So I've really been in college, buy in in certifications on and off probably for the past 22 years is trying to upskill myself and do what I can do to make a difference in the market. Damak world and also in the consulting world, so I do teach part time as well. You know, the number of schools as an adjunct professor truly enjoy that I was a full time professor for five years, retired from that field and was able to continue to do some teaching part time online. I do a lot of travel now and live out of state in Texas at times from New York. So teaching in a classroom gets incredibly complicated when you travel like that. So yeah, I mean, again, you know, spend played football golf when I was younger baseball as well, it's been a lot of time in the weight room and trying to just keep myself you know, mentally sane, dealing with some of the craziness, you know, that I deal with on the HR front, but, ya know, it's, it's been it's been a great a great life, I wouldn't ask for anything different challenges and really blessed I got to live a blessed life, which I'm appreciate elbow. So   Michael Hingson ** 05:53 Well, that certainly is cool by any standard, what got you from college then to go into HR? I know you started out in as an intern in a valve manufacturing company and so on. Was that HR or what got you into that?   Matthew Burr ** 06:10 Yeah, so when I was a senior in Elmira College, the there was a requirement to, to complete an internship and I was lucky enough, you know, in really interviewed well, to get that internship in the industrial relations department, which is your your HR department, it's an old school word for HR. My grandfather actually worked there for 35 years as an electrician. So being able to work in the same facility with some of the same people he worked with was a very unique experience. And during that internship, I had taken a Myers Briggs test personality test in one of my classes, and HR, attorney, marketing manager and financial advisor all came up with my personality aligned, the personality that align with the career and I was already doing the internship and HR looked at the other fields and really stuck with this when I did apply to law school in 2014 2015, was wait listed a number of schools and was unsuccessful in getting admitted, but I've had a good ride in the HR field. So really, the internship and then the personality test, kind of set me on the path to success in the HR field at this point.   Michael Hingson ** 07:25 Well, and looking at your bio, though, you clearly have and it makes perfect sense to have a knowledge or some knowledge of HR law and, and being able to be conversant in that whether you're actually a certified real degreed or whatever, lawyer, you still have a lot of knowledge that you've gained over the years about that, and I assume that that has helped a lot. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 07:50 and I did i my i do have three master's degrees. And the last one was a master's degree in jurisprudence, Labor Employment Law through two lane it's not a JD, but it is a master's degree in specific HR law, which, which has been helpful. I mean, it's an area that I've specialized in really, throughout my career and understanding it in detail. The laws change across the country, even state and local white on the HR front, I would say insurance takes daily, so it's an area you've got to be well versed in, but yeah, absolutely. And I work closely with a lot of attorneys in the work that I do. And I've always been interested in the law, labor law, employment law, so it was really a natural fit, happy to have that knowledge. And it's continuous education as things evolve, for sure. So   Michael Hingson ** 08:37 well, how do you define HR in the in the HR world? You know, I suppose there are probably a lot of different ways to describe it, but how would you describe HR? Um, you know, I   Matthew Burr ** 08:51 see it as an evolving area, I in many organizations where I think it was seen as much more administrative, you know, benefit enrollment, hire people, fire people, your new hire paperwork, the employee handbook, maybe some training too much more strategic, where we're helping align, really HR departments, with the needs of the organization, looking at business, HR, business partners, strategic partners, and helping drive business solutions through the human resources department. That's where I see it going. I think we have a long way to go. As a profession. I think that HR, the profession in general needs to understand, you know, finances and operations, customer service and the internal workings of an organization as you evolve into a more seasoned strategic professional. But yeah, you know, it's gotten from much more transactional type of work to much more strategic So, but that's where I see it going. And again, there's always I think, areas of opportunity improvement for any HR professional or any department to look at based on the needs of the organization. So   Michael Hingson ** 09:59 Yeah, well, obviously that can even be a moving target depending on what the organization is doing or how it's evolving as well. Sure,   Matthew Burr ** 10:10 absolutely. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, definitely. And again, I think one of the key focuses, recently has obviously been on the great resignation people, you know, the turnover rates across around the world has been astronomical, and how do we continue to maintain? You know, you know, internal growth, succession planning, when people are changing jobs every 12 to 24 months or less at this point? Right. And I, you know, again, I think mental health has become a big deal as well, I think we've had a lot of challenges with that in the workplace, the culture, the communication, all those areas, I think HR plays an intricate role in helping drive strategy on and helping evolving based on the needs of, you know, the business, the workforce, and the and really the consumer as well. So   Michael Hingson ** 10:56 you can think about this whole concept and phenomena that we're experiencing now where people change jobs every 12 to 24 months, it didn't used to be that way. Why is it shifted to doing that? And is that necessarily a good thing? Or how valuable would it be if we got back to more of a mindset where people stayed at one place longer?   Matthew Burr ** 11:23 You know, and I was talking about this yesterday with another another person. And I mentioned a study, I'd read that the study out of Europe said Gen Z is going to change jobs or change careers potentially 30 times throughout their career lifespan, right. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a huge number at this point. You're changing jobs every 12 to 15 months. There's, I think there's value in in turn, and organizations in turnover related to, you know, bringing in fresh ideas fresh, you know, fresh blood, not looking at the way we've always operated. I think that it does, it is harmful to organizations, if we're having 80 90% of turnover, every club and there's problems in an organization, right. But I think if we can show the value in in growing succession planning and developing internal talent and get that communication out to the workforce, you are going to have opportunities to recruit and retain. Look from a longevity standpoint, I think if you can retain talent, you can bring the right people in and grow talent, you're ahead of the competition, because I think that's an area that most businesses struggle with right now. And so how do we do that? How do we make sure people are empowered? Engaged? It's discussions I think most organizations around the world are having at this point.   Michael Hingson ** 12:45 Why do you think we've migrated toward this kind of a situation as opposed to people staying at companies a whole lot longer?   Matthew Burr ** 12:54 Well, I mean, you got, you know, pension, pension plans are pretty much gone at this point. I think those were big. I mean, you know, the I think the retiree benefits and things like that, that used to be offered at major corporations are non existent anymore. I think that plays a role in it. I think the loyalty factor to an extent, is gone. But I also think people are looking for promotional opportunities and growth. And I think we've got to be able to sell that internal in organizations to show there is a path to growth, a path to success, if you're willing to take on the challenge. And, you know, and do the hard work to get there. You know, again, I think that that is one area. I also think that organizations at times struggle with disengagement I think people become bored in roles. I think we have communication issues, decision making inconsistencies, the psychological workplace contract, I think is evolved at this point. You know, again, do people want hybrid remote work jobs? are we offering that as an organization? Those are all questions, I think that every organization has to look at and figure out what works best for them, and how do we recruit and retain talent? I think, you know, a lot of times what it comes down to in what I do as a consultant, at the end of the day is workplace communication. It seems like we're lacking their leadership. I think conflict management, leadership decision making is another one consistent accountabilities and other things as well. The accountability factor is another area to think about there too. You know, again, I think the equity of processes and policies internal is another thing to take a look at. I mean, all those things I think play a role in the churn and dissatisfaction at times in the workplace. I think if you can get your hands around those as as an organization you're going to be in much better position you know, to be competitive and recruit retain people.   Michael Hingson ** 14:53 Yeah, um, this year, maybe I miss assess Same, but it seems to be that we're finding more groups striking than I've seen in quite a while. Is it just kind of coincidence that we've had like the writers and the actors and the I guess, United Auto Workers? I don't know, what are they still planning a strike? Or did they come to an agreement and then hotel workers and there are others, seeing a lot more people in essentially unionizing kind of environments are striking more than I think we've had in the past. Does that really hold true? Or am I miss assessing that?   Matthew Burr ** 15:38 Yeah, I mean, again, I think that, you know, one thing I will say about it is labor does have the advantage to an extent for sure. I mean, I think there is absolute, the labor and union or non union, I think people know, they have the advantage, because there is so many there are so many job openings. There. There is a need for workers. And frankly, I mean, again, some of the settlements, some of these other unions have gotten pilots, I think, you know, the railroad workers have really set the bar pretty high and the UAW coming in wanting like a 50%. pay increase. Yeah, 30 hour week. So yeah, UPS also made sure I don't I don't want to forget the Teamsters and ups, that was another major settlement for labor at this point. So you've seen some significant settlements related to, you know, related to this. And and so, you know, again, I think that yeah, I mean, you see, strike Starbucks is another one at this point. Yeah. I've seen it. But ya know, I think that labor has the advantage across the across the world. And people know that it's not just strikes in this country. There's strikes globally, globally at this point as well. So   Michael Hingson ** 16:51 yeah, well, and again, I'm not saying that they're bad men in any way, shape, or form. But I just noticed that there seems to be an increase. Well, look what's going on in France, they're, they're irate over changing the retirement age from 62. To 64.   Matthew Burr ** 17:11 Yeah, exactly. I mean, I some of those, I mean, some of those strikes, and we haven't seen I mean, you know, there's been some strikes, but the UAW has not struck yet, you know, Teamsters. Pilots didn't, pilots did some, you know, I think some I'd call some work slowdowns and things like that there was some picketing, but you some of that stuff. Now, globally, it really has gotten pretty violent. I, ya know, I mean, it's, it is it is a complicated time between labor and management, and obviously, labor and government as well. So   Michael Hingson ** 17:45 well, how do HR departments and in leaders in HR, and I think leadership is something relatively well, well worth talking about? But how do they help influence or shape policies in companies? Or how can they? And do? Do company leaders really listen to HR?   Matthew Burr ** 18:09 I mean, again, it comes down to do you get have you? Have you earned a seat at the table within your organization, whether it's a non for profit, or government agency, or even a major Fortune? 500? Right. I mean, do you? Do you have the credibility to walk in and make those decisions and help guide that policy? Yeah, I mean, I think that every HR professional should strive to do that, I think people need to be well versed, again, on the business side, on the people side, number one, people side number two business side, and then a close number three is obviously the the Labor and Employment Law side as well. So all those things play a role in helping drive and dictate policy and strategy. But you've got to understand it in detail. I mean, you really do have to be a business centric HR person to help drive those in. And as well have the people in soft skill, the human side of it is critically important as well, the psychological side. But I mean, again, a lot of those policies and procedures, and decisions and processes are going to be dictated on on the legal side as well. So you've got to be well versed in that component as well, a lot of times, you see. And again, I've done work with labor unions for years at this point. A lot of times what happens is, you see the labor relations and the contract negotiations farmed out to attorneys. I mean, I've never even thought about doing that as a as an HR professional that does labor. I mean, but most places have gotten away from having HR people manage labor negotiations, labor contracts, which I think is not a great sign. I think that HR people need to be versed in those things to be effective in their careers. So Well,   Michael Hingson ** 19:49 it seems to me that good HR people have a gift or a strength of being able to relate to people, the people that they serve, which is a Of course, a lot of different aspects of a company. But if you farm things out, you're losing or giving up that whole ability to establish and maintain the relationships that you really need to have.   Matthew Burr ** 20:11 Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, it comes down to relationships, and really maneuvering to get things done. You have to have the relationships with the employees, you have to have the relationships with the management team as well. No. And with the unit, I mean, if we're talking, you know, labor at that point, you've got to have the third party relationship at this point, too, so definitely, but   Michael Hingson ** 20:34 I know you talked about strategic leadership. What does that exactly?   Matthew Burr ** 20:39 You know, I mean, again, I think it's again, driving really driving organization. It's driving strategy, right? It's looking at, you know, looking at the three to five year process for the organization, helping understand making business decisions, based on the needs of the organization in the workforce, I think it's looking at saying, Okay, where do we need to innovate? Where do we need to change mission vision values, really understanding that understanding the financial components helping budget, and then relating it back to HR? I mean, and again, I think there is, you know, strong alignment with HR strategy and the needs of the organization, if you're able to turn the HR department into more of a strategic, I would say, strategic partner at this point in organizations, which I think the the career field is, is still evolving. So, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 21:35 And it is, it's a process needless to say, well, you know, one of the things I've thought about, and I know and some of our discussions, I think we've touched on it, maybe even before today, but anyone who's a professional at a company, would you view them? Or would you think that the best mindset that they could really adopt would be to be to consider themselves a consultant to be able to advise and to help and whatever else is implied by being a consultant? Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 22:08 yeah. I mean, and I think that's the book I wrote about HR consulting unboxer HR career, really, you know, it's driven in the book itself is prefaced on how to build an HR consulting company like bootstrap it from scratch at this point. But one of the messages I talked to HR professionals about in some of the speaking engagements that I do on this topic is you've got to look at yourself as an internal consultant, right? What's the return on investment for from an HR department standpoint for the organization? What value are you adding to the organization? How are you effective? Are you measuring your effectiveness? Are you seeking feedback? Can you can you show us some wins and losses, and that's the type of thing you got to look at, I think if you look at your job, as an internal consultant, or even at you know, looking at it as an external consultant, you know, those are things you can do to truly, truly I think, evolve your HR career, your HR department and and really make a major difference at the end of the day for any organization. And eventually, you might become a consultant after that, where you're like, Okay, I can do this. And I can do it for many organizations. And I think that if people look at that, really, as a strategic partner, a consultant, like a decision maker, or you know, trying to establish that relationship, within the relationships within the organization, I think the sky's the limit, I think, again, you're going to understand the needs of not only the workforce, the needs of the business, but also the needs of that consumer or patron or customer, whatever that might be community as well. So   Michael Hingson ** 23:43 well, the other aspect of that, it seems to me is, it goes beyond HR, I think that anyone who really is involved in a company, no matter what their job, could view their position, or maybe ought to view their, their, their job and position as being a consultant. And that implies in part that you have expertise that you can share and should share. And if you're doing it well then other people appreciate you sharing and providing your knowledge.   Matthew Burr ** 24:14 Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And and again, I think that with that apps, you know, if you're looking at it from that lens, and you're saying, Okay, what's the return on investment for my services? How am I making a difference? You know, in the, in the organization, the community in the world, I think you're going to look at things a lot differently. And again, I think part of that goes back to it and at some of the coaching that I do with with executive coaching I do on the side with managers is looking at like an internal SWOT analysis yourself, what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses, where your opportunities and or your threats, both personally and professionally, and I think as you piecemeal that together, kind of map that out on a on a SWOT analysis type diagram, you're going to see again And what you're where your subject matter expert in and where you might need to improve. And I think that as you evolve your skill set your emotional intelligence, you're going to see a major difference not only in your, in your professional life, but also your personal life as well. So   Michael Hingson ** 25:15 yeah, I think that's really it, it it, it does filter into both. And the bottom line is if you really look at it that way, and you analyze what you're doing and how it's being received, then you have questions you can answer if you feel it's not being received, well, why? If it is being received? Well, that's great, and how could you maybe even do it better, and so on, but those are the kinds of things that especially if you discover that you're truly being successful, might going back to what we discussed earlier, help lead you towards staying somewhere where you're successful. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 25:50 and look, I mean, with anything in life, I think you've got to recognize we're going to make mistakes, you know, fail forward is a term that I like to use, finding opportunities, looking at ways to evolve your own skill set, looking at ways that you need to change personally and professionally. And as I think you get into that mindset of continuous growth, kind of being obsessed with, with doing things better, getting yourself in a better position. Again, I think it just spills over into everything. discipline and consistency are two terms I use, in everything that I do. If you're disciplined and consistent, I think that's going to take you a lot farther than talent. Well, at this point. I mean, if you're that structured, you're doing the right thing, trying to try and improve yourself, and helping other people get better. I think, again, the sky's the limit, both personally and professionally, to really live the life that you want and achieve the goals that you have at that point. So   Michael Hingson ** 26:43 Well, yeah. I'm a firm believer in that we tend as people not to do nearly as much internal analysis or, or looking at ourselves daily, as we should we don't we just let things go on. We don't really look at things and going, Well, what worked today, what didn't work, and why didn't it work? And we've got to get away from this idea. And I know, that's not what you're saying, but of failure, you know, if you fail, did you really fail? Or is it it's the better way to view it a learning experience that helps you move forward. And we just don't do that we don't do enough self analysis of a lot of things that we do. Yeah.   Matthew Burr ** 27:28 And I look at that I look at any failure as an opportunity. Right mistakes, I call them opportunities. I say when my organizations when we're doing change management. Yeah, I mean, you know, we have a mess, but it's an opportunity to get things better and to get things put in place or improve. And it's the same thing with personal growth. It's like, Yeah, I mean, you made a mistake. You learn something, what did you learn? And how do you improve from it improved from and I think if you're looking at that, through through that lens, again, I mean, I think that, yes, you are going to continue to improve and get better throughout life. And it's just one of those things. We all have life lessons. And sometimes they're hard to learn. But at the same time it is there's always opportunity to do things differently to tweak, to modify, and to improve from any of those lessons, I completely agree with you, Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 28:16 one of the things that I've learned is to stop saying to myself, I'm my own worst critic, I listened to every speech that I give. And I do that because I want to see how I'm doing. And if I can't listen to myself and learn, then no one else is going to be able to help. And I've learned that rather than saying I'm my own worst critic, I really should say and do say I'm my own best teacher, because really, I'm going to be my best teacher and the only person who really deep down can teach me. Other people can impart information, but I need to be the one to be taught and learn being. So I've learned that one of the things that I need to view myself as doing when I am listening to speeches, and so on that I give is it's a learning experience. And that is because I'm my own best teacher, which I think is a whole lot more positive anyway.   Matthew Burr ** 29:08 Yeah, yeah. And I do a lot of self reflection, a lot of meditation, looking at different scenarios and say, Okay, how could have handled this, this? Pull the emotion out of most of the things I do now, I don't make decisions based on emotion. I mean, you know, those are things you've learned through life experience, and just continuing to look at ways to get better. And I think yeah, I mean, again, I like what you're saying about that and listening to your yourself speak. I can't say never listen to myself speak, I should probably start doing that. And that's a good piece of advice. So   Michael Hingson ** 29:40 I remember when I was program director at our campus radio station at UC Irvine. I wanted people to hear themselves because I wanted people to improve and some of the DJs were really not very good. There were a few who were but even so most could use improvement. Had I heard them, but they never heard themselves. And I asked them to record their own shows and they wouldn't. So we did it for them, essentially, without their knowledge. And all we needed to record was them talking, we didn't need to record the music. But at the end of every week, we gave them a cassette and said, You need to listen to this. Because you have to hear what you sound like, you're going to be able to figure that out. And you know, what, people really dramatically improved, who listened?   Matthew Burr ** 30:27 Yeah, working in the call center, I mean, with the quality assurance when when they say that the calls may be recorded, they actually do record those calls and will pull you into a room, and you'll listen to calls and they're going to dissect it and tell you where you need to get better. So we have very similar process. And I've been through that when I was a call center rep back in 2020 years ago, this point, so yeah, no, I Yeah, absolutely. And I can appreciate that whole dynamic, because that is how you get and again, I think you have to accept that's another thing except criticism, be open to feedback in order to evolve at that point. So sure,   Michael Hingson ** 31:02 it makes perfect sense to do that. So you just published your unbox the or HR, professional career. MIT just got published in July, right? Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 31:15 yes, sir. We published it in July. I wrote it last November, we've kind of been tweaking it and putting the the finite details on it. And we just published it, I think it was like July 18, July 2011, we launched that book on Amazon. And so very happy about it, happy to have it was it's a third book I published which is fantastic. It really kind of dissects my, not only my journey through HR consulting, and building a consulting firm, but also kind of gives you a little bit of backstory on on why I do what I do, how I got involved in it, and, and just kind of looking for opportunities outside of just HR consulting, say it's kind of a well rounded book, I think, the feedback I've gotten from people, you know, as they've read it and want to get an HR consulting, there's things they never thought about. So there, you know, it's a great read, there's resources in there to kind of give you places to write things out and take notes and kind of put your own goals and objectives down and kind of what like action item type lists that are throughout the book. But yeah, no, it's great. I didn't think I'd ever get this third one out and was able to write it in three weeks. And then we published it in July. And I'm happy that the team got it out and work with me and kind of stuck through to the bitter end at this point. So   Michael Hingson ** 32:29 So what's the next one gonna be? No, yet?   Matthew Burr ** 32:34 Yeah, haven't even thought that far ahead. The first two are about student loan repayment. The third one was consulting, probably something about, you know, who knows, now do a bio on myself. I don't know. I mean, maybe the next one will be about some of the scenarios in HR craziness that I deal with. I mean, you get a little bit of that in the consulting book, but there's probably some some case study type of role playing events, and just different scenarios I can run through just from my own personal 20 year career, that would probably be a great training resource for people that want to get into HR. So   Michael Hingson ** 33:09 do you have a story you could tell about some of the craziness of HR? Or would that be giving something away? You don't want to do?   Matthew Burr ** 33:15 Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, a lot of it, you know, it's in, you probably could probably get on a roll and talk about certain things. I don't want to say you don't want to really do too much with the confidentiality, but no, I understand. And so, you know, in a lot of it, you know, again, it's opportunities to evolve processes, it's opportunity to watch organizations be successful, pinpoint weaknesses, and really kind of show the process of getting better. And, you know, in really, in my career Early on, I had the opportunity to work with some really strong consultants that came in, we had a $20 million loss company, we're able to turn around and work very closely with them, as the new HR professional had the opportunity to work in a bankrupt paper mill bait Paper Company at one point. So I've worked in very challenging and tough environments, I think they've prepared me for the challenges and opportunities that I deal with every day. Because I've seen some of it. I mean, not all of it, I say I learned something new probably every day in this field. But, you know, again, I think that it is change management is difficult, whether it's operations or HR or finance, there's always room for improvement, but you got to be real, I think you've got to have thick skin to get in there and kind of exploit weaknesses and really evolve organization does not easy. So   Michael Hingson ** 34:34 good point about having a thick skin. Definitely. More people need to have a little bit more of that. But I'm assuming you have had situations where you had a particular individual who was a problem in one way or another that you were able to turn around and help them become in as a result their company become more successful. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 34:55 no, I mean, I you know, I think one of the stories I wrote about endings IKEA director and a nonprofit and really when I started, you know, started with them I happened to be it was a an organization in New York, I happen to be down in Texas at the time, or really got into it. And I was in Texas for a month. And the place was really struggling. And, you know, I, you know, get up early in the morning and swim, I was thinking about how am I going to fix this thing every night. And, and, and again, I had a couple of scenarios. I mean, it was like, Okay, I coach, the executive director manage to put the individual to success, I terminate and replace, or I go in and run the facility myself until we replace. And again, when I came back to New York, I had a very, I think, a very direct conversation and just said, Look, you got to step up, or you got to go, I mean, and I and again, I had a conversation with the board of directors as board president as well, like, this isn't going to work, we're going to have to look at replacing at this point, if the person does not buy into this process. And really over the past, I would say 1218 months 100% turnaround person is in a much better place as a leader. And I mean, drastic improvement on an organization, I can say, that's probably one of my success stories that that comes up off the top of my head, you know, great retention of employees, and you still have turnover, obviously, you're gonna get completely different. And I, I gotta give the person all the credit for buying in and working with me, and really going through some challenges and again, really leveling up in their career and their, their professional life as well. So,   Michael Hingson ** 36:35 yeah, it does get to be a situation where sometimes things have to get really bad before somebody recognizes it, and improves. And I guess that's part of human nature that sometimes it just has to really go far downhill before it can start going back up. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 36:53 and I, when I when I talk to clients, first thing I say, when they bring me in, and look, a lot of times my client brought in at times to replace HR professionals or fix HR departments. And I said, Look, we're gonna have I call them wins and losses, right? We're going to have good days, and we're going to have bad days, and we're going to have good weeks, we're gonna have bad, we're gonna have bad months. I mean, so. So I mean, again, like, you're gonna have ups and downs, it's a kind of a roller coaster at this point. And so you've got to be prepared to take that punches and organization and just rebound from and recover. I mean, so those are things that I see all the time. And and how do we continue to, you know, to reinforce that, and I said that to a new client, if we're bringing a new HR person on, we recruited, we were able to fill the job very quickly, but I gotta look, we're still gonna have ups and downs, it's not fixed. It's it. There's things that have to get done, this person is going to come in and help me fix these things. But give it time the process. It didn't break overnight. It's not going to be fixed overnight, either.   Michael Hingson ** 37:54 So it's all about setting expectations, isn't it? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Well, you written two books about student loans. So that must be a subject near and dear to your heart. Do you want to would you tell us a little bit about all of that stuff? Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 38:09 you know, again, having a number of degrees, I could talk about student loans for probably 1520 hours that people want. So really started out to get the journey started, you know, finished my bachelor's degree in 2007, private school in New York had about $15,000 in student loans, when I left, decided to go back and get a master's degree at the University of Illinois. So upon graduation in December of 2011, roughly had seven E's for $75,000 in student loans, and so the goal, you know, as of January 2012, I took a job in northern Michigan, the goal was to get it paid off in under two years, I mean, the 75,000, I think most people thought I was crazy, it was impossible to able to pay that debt off in 23 months. Fast forward to 2016 decided to go back and get an MBA at Syracuse University. finish that degree in December of 2017. Graduated with $117,000. in student loan debt, obviously, MBAs are super expensive from private schools. I paid that debt off in 33 months, and then I finished a third master's degree roughly 40,000, borrowed there, and I was able to pay that off about four months after I had finished that degree. So so really, you know, overall, both books, talk about my strategies, discipline and consistency is on making payments and just being as proactive as I can to reduce my debt. And I've continued that with more of my mortgage, continue that with car payments, but again, it's just looking at debt and how to reduce it as quickly as possible. And I know not everyone's in the same situation me you know, you could have health care costs, you could have kids. I mean, I get all that you live in a bigger city. I understand all that. I still think there's ways to To reduce costs and reduce debt astronomically, and again, student loans impact what 50 million people in this country, you're gonna have to deal with eventually. So what   Michael Hingson ** 40:11 are some of the things and suggestions that you might have for people as far as getting their student debt down and relieved?   Matthew Burr ** 40:18 Yeah, you know, and again, I think consolidation is always an option, you have to be careful that you don't want to spend money on a consolidation company, making sure the interest rates are as low as possible. It really comes down to me need versus one right in in life? And again, do you need it or just wanted? And again, I think you've got to look at that. Do you really need Netflix? Probably not. Do you need an iPhone every year? No, probably not. Do you need a brand new car? You're probably not right. I mean, so, you know, do you need Starbucks or dunkin donuts every day? Can you brew your own coffee and save yourself? 345 $6 a day, those things add up. And I've had people on Fox Business argue those things, but okay, well multiply a $6 cup of coffee by seven by 52. That's a bunch of money you can put towards your student loans right there. I mean, at all, I never thought of it like that. Well, I do. I mean, so again, it's like, you know, those are things that absolutely can impact long term. And the other thing I always tell people is always make more than a minimum payment. I don't care if it's $10, or $20, or $5. Keep that interest absolutely as low as possible from accruing and you're hitting principal, absolutely. Every time. I mean, and I've carried that over to my mortgage, to 30 year loan. And I, you know, again, with the mortgage, I think I paid roughly 65,000 off in two years, it was about a $220,000 mortgage on maybe 250. I don't remember exactly what it was. But I'm to the point now, where it's, the majority of the money is now on my payments, the big payment is going towards principal, I mean, so I've completely destroyed that interest model with my mortgage payment as well, because I've just taken it, and I make additional payments every month to offset the interest at that point. And so if you look at it like that, I think you're gonna look at it differently. The other thing I did with student loans originally, other really upset me actually is watch the interest accrue every week. And so when I was at my max, back in 2012, I think it was $100 a week accruing an interest and I mean, I'm like, the only people making money or banks in the government. Like that was it like I saw that I'm like, game over man, like, you know, I'm gonna make is I'm gonna pay this off as quick as I can. Because I didn't want other people making money off my money at that point. And so I've taken that competitive Stan with any debt I've gotten at that point. So   Michael Hingson ** 42:47 and it's, it's worked really well. So it's all about making more payments or making higher payments and not just certainly paying minimums. Yeah, reduce,   Matthew Burr ** 42:56 I mean, you know, look at your highest interest rate, knock it down, and you continue to do that. And I think again, people will get out of debt set goals, reward yourself, discipline yourself and be consistent and you absolutely will be successful with with debt, you know, debt reduction, and really anything in life as well, like I've talked about. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 43:16 we went through, we went through some periods of that and we had a fair amount of credit card debt just because of different things like buying wheelchairs for my wife, she was in a chair her whole life. So buying power chairs that she needed, that insurance didn't cover. And so we had some pretty hefty credit card bills. But she worked really hard at we both did, but she did most of the financial management, she worked really hard to make higher than minimum payments by far to the extent that she was able to pay everything completely down. So now the only credit card we have credit card debt we have is what we have in any given month. And I have she has passed away so it's now just me and the next step that I took was that every month the entire bill from the previous month is automatically paid so I've set it so that that will automatically happen so we don't have any credit card debt which I'm really happy about course the banks are always sending me nice, lovely invitations to open a new credit card or do other things with our credit cards and even our mortgage company wants us to take out an equity loan. Very nice and generous of them. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 44:35 I got an ad I got an ad like that the other day from you know from my mortgage company as well. I'm like, Oh, this must be the annuity I get I get it. Well, what I get now with my credit card companies is, you know, rollover a balance you get at 0% interest for 12 or 24. Yeah, so I see I get those I mean constantly an email and in the mail but yeah, I did see the home equity first time I've seen the whole manually email like that ever. I'm like, Okay, this is a new one I guess I'm gonna get so yeah, not I don't need it right, I try to pay for everything in cash obviously put as much towards retirement when I can. And just again, just keep costs as low as I possibly can and live a, I would say an economically, I don't want to say frugal, but just, you know, I guess a balanced life, the best way to put it so?   Michael Hingson ** 45:24 Well, yeah. And I know for, for me, we've worked. And when Karen was alive, we both worked really hard at it, but we work to, as I said, keep all the payments down and don't spend a lot of money that I need to, I do use the credit card for some expenses, again, but they get paid off at the end of the month, which is the big important part. It's just easier to use the credit card because I'm not going to write checks. And so using the credit card and the other part about it is there isn't an interest charge. There is a financial charge, they still get they get some money, but it is not what it would be otherwise if the credit card amounts the balance is increased a great deal.   Matthew Burr ** 46:11 Yep. Yeah, no, same thing. I use it I get the airline miles and do some traveling. So it works out well for me. Same Same Same exact thing with me with American Express. So yeah, absolutely. What I   Michael Hingson ** 46:20 love is listening to the flight attendants on airlines, we use American a lot, and they're always talking about get the new American Airlines, whatever. Credit card MasterCard or Visa card, and you'll get 70,000 bonus miles and all that what they don't tell you in all these lovely presentations is the interest rate on the card. Yeah. And,   Matthew Burr ** 46:48 like 25% Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 46:49 I'm sitting there going, I would want to do that. Why now? I suppose the the argument could be made? Well, if you're paying it off every month, then you don't worry about that. But still, it's it's a lot of money. They they definitely get it from you   Matthew Burr ** 47:06 know, yeah, in one way or the other. I mean, and then you've got the annual fee stuff that they'll hammer you on certain cards, too. Yeah. And   Michael Hingson ** 47:13 the American Airlines cards are one of those where there's, after the first year, there's always a fee. So you know, it's good not to have to do that. Well, so you wrote two books on student loans. Why to? What did what did one not have that the second one needed to have? Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 47:28 you know, I mean, the first one, the first one, how I paid off 74,024 months really focused on that first master's degree. And then I went back to school, I met the second one's really focused on the NBA the 117 and 33 months. And really, we kind of evolved the slaying the student loan dragon as a title for the second one, all three are on Amazon, you know, if anyone's interested, but, you know, it really goes into more detail more specifics about the process, I undertook to pay off that, you know, huge amount of money in really under in under three years. And I think it's a modified version of the first one. But it goes into much more specifics about the discipline about the process and about, I mean, and also some background on looking at student loans. You know, when you're, you know, high school students, so there is there is some information on there, what to look for the fine print, the interest rates, you know, it definitely covers a little bit more ground, I think, than the first one did. So, isn't this   Michael Hingson ** 48:28 all really about fiscal discipline discipline, though, and it can be tough, but isn't that what it's really about? You've got to be disciplined enough to do it. Yeah. 100%   Matthew Burr ** 48:38 Yeah. And I mean, it's discipline and consistency. I mean, every, every day or every week, I was making payments, I mean, so you know, again, it's it's that process of just being consistent and really kind of, again, managing your money so you're able to make those payments every week and not in keeping that interest rate down. I mean, that's absolutely what it comes down to is flexibility and discipline. Yes, we   Michael Hingson ** 49:03 have a car loan my wife had a wheelchair accessible van, we sold it back to the company that we bought it from, so that it would go to somebody else in a chair who could use it but I needed a vehicle that I could be driven around in rather than relying on other people. And so one of the things that we did with this new car loan is I make payments that are larger than then the payment that is due every month on it. So it's interesting to see them get to the to each month see that there's this extra like 75 or $100 on the on the loan. And I wonder sometimes if they really know what to do with that, or they must think I'm crazy.   Matthew Burr ** 49:46 Yeah, and it's funny you say that because the last vehicle I purchased us vehicle I think and when I turned mine and I had a $25,000 loan on the vehicle, you know and by I was able to pay that off in about six or seven months. And I was again, I calculated, I ended up paying about $193 In the interest and maybe 12 cents. So it was it was one of those things where I just continue to hit it, obviously, monthly payment, and then hit it with smaller payments throughout the month to reduce the accrual of interest at that point, it's the same thing I've done with my mortgage, if you hit it with smaller payments, it's not calculated much interest at the end of the day. So yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 50:27 And that's a really good piece of advice to make those additional small payments.   Matthew Burr ** 50:33 That's what they call the snowflake method when it comes to debt repayment. So Well,   Michael Hingson ** 50:39 you mentioned failing forward. What does that mean?   Matthew Burr ** 50:43 Yeah, I mean, basically, you know, I think it we came back to what we're talking about looking at, you know, looking at mistakes as opportunities, learning lessons, I think it's that emotional intelligence component of, you know, getting through kind of getting through the storm, recognize you made a mistake, recognizing that there, there was something that you might need to do differently and reevaluating. And I think learning from it and moving forward and being better growing from those experiences. That's exactly what failing forward is. And I think that if you take that approach, nobody's perfect. I think that there's always opportunity to evolve in anything we do, whether personally, professionally, financially, spiritually, health, wise, wellness, whatever it is, you know, a, again, looking at for those opportunities and becoming disciplined enough and consistent enough to learn from that.   Michael Hingson ** 51:33 It gets back to playing out now, self analysis, and being willing to look at yourself and what you're doing. And we, for some reason, that is just so hard for people to do, I think it's a behavior that we learned, and we've been taught. And we don't necessarily learn introspection nearly as much as we should. And it's such a valuable thing. And it doesn't take a lot of time on any given day to do it. Although if you meditate and spend more time on it, that's okay. But the whole idea is to really be introspective and think about what you're doing in the course of the day. And the more of it you do, the tougher and the more developed, if you will, the mental muscle becomes, which is I think, a very important thing. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 52:19 and again, and I related back to one of the things I related back to when I talked to leadership, and they're like, you know, these employees don't want to work. They you know, they're lazy, there's turnover and and and one thing I say to people is, have you looked in the mirror and and asked yourself what you're not doing. I mean, it's that exact component, not everyone is lazy. Most people want to come to work and do a good job and they want a fair day's wage and things like that. That's that psychological contract. But what are you not doing to disengage people or to engage? I mean, it's, it's, it's that simple, like, look in the mirror and say, What can I do better? As a leader? Where can I improve? That's going to help this this organization and asking some of those questions to employees? Where do you see what do I need to do? I mean, you know, again, it's look in the mirror, I guess what it comes down to is, you know, take a take a deep dive into yourself and say, What can I do to get better today? I mean, and really, that's what if you improve? One percentage day 200 365%, at the end of the year, that's, that's a hell of an improvement, in my opinion. So yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 53:24 by any by any standard, and it makes sense to do it. And we all want to try to improve and learn. I wish more would do it. We're, we're a country today. And and I know it's not just the US, but of course, this is where we are. So it's most visible. But we're in such a fractured world, and nobody wants to listen to anyone and nobody wants to do anything except criticize everyone else but themselves. Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 53:50 no, I agree. And I think it's self accountability. I mean, and again, I've made mistakes and consulting. And I'll own that. I mean, I take ownership of everything in my life, I'll look at every situation, I'll own it. And, you know, and and recognize that, maybe, you know, maybe, I mean, and I do need to get better. I mean, and I'll tell people look, I need, you know, there are things that I still need to look to work on and reflect on. And I'll share that with people during training and say, I'm absolutely not perfect. There's things I'm continuing to work on myself. And it takes, you know, it's an emotional intelligence that it's that next level, look at life to recognize that and once you can get into that mindset of continuous evolution, I again, I think that society would be a whole lot better off I think the workplace would absolutely evolve and people would be much I think, much happier and in the things they're doing in life as well. So much more peace. So   Michael Hingson ** 54:39 so how do you overcome challenges? I mean, you face them. Needless to say, you sound like everything is perfect, but I know that you like any of us have challenges.   Matthew Burr ** 54:47 Yeah, I mean, again, I mean, I think that it's, you know, one thing I've done is it's like you're putting in places and you're put in storms to make you stronger, right? I mean, if you can't handle pressure you don't want Success. And so, you know, it's one of those things where I look at every situation it puts me under pressure and stress is a growth opportunity, and what can I learn from it? How can I be effective? And how can I make a difference? And so, no, I mean, you know, my life definitely is not perfect, you know, again, and there's always things to look at and do differently. And I think it's just one of those things that you do some self reflection, you do some meditation, you're thankful for what you have the blessings to you you've been given and just continuing to move forward. Take it one day at a time.   Michael Hingson ** 55:32 Yeah. Well, what do you think the biggest mistakes in life that people make are? That was grammatically not a very good sentence? But what do you think the biggest mistakes people have? Are Making human life?   Matthew Burr ** 55:45 I think they think you're listening to people's opinions. I think people get caught up in that drama, that gossip and kind of like, let them direct your life. It's your world, you shape it the way you want it. You know, I again, I think that they, they get caught up potentially, you know, it, that's a big component. My opinion is definitely listening to people and taking advice from people that maybe haven't walked in your shoes. I think they're not learning from mistakes, either. I think they continue to make the same mistakes. It's kind of the definition of insanity. Right? Doing the same thing over and over. So, you know, and again, I think that emotional intelligence a lot of times with is another component of of just not doing that self reflection and taking ownership. I think if more people took ownership of their own life and their own mistakes, their own responsibility, you'd see a world of difference. I mean, again, you have a failing business, you're not you can't blame the government. You can't blame Congress, you can't blame the president. What are you doing to make that business successful? I mean, why do you have turnover? I mean, and again, there are questions that you need to ask yourself as an individual as a leader. I mean, I'm relating it back to the workplace, but it works personally as well, in a bad relationship. What do you need to change at that point? I mean, those are all things, people have to take a deep dive and look at and see what things can be different. So yeah, I mean, accountability. And I think just not learning from mistakes and not growing when they need to grow. So.   Michael Hingson ** 57:16 So what advice would you give to people who are listening to this going forward?   Matthew Burr ** 57:22 You know, again, I think you've got to take risks in life that no risk, no story, you know, I think that there's always there's always pain and growth, I mean, you have to expect it, whenever you try something new whenever there's a challenge, you're going to feel pain, I mean, I'm just accustomed to pain at this point. And and it's just one of those things that it is what it is. And again, I think that if you start taking personal accountability and ownership of the path you're on the sky's the limit set challenging goals and and try to achieve those goals. And if you make mistakes and fail, fail forward, learn from it and move on and get better, I mean, just continue to look for those 1% improvements, you know, be thankful for what you've got and just focus on what you can control one day at a time.   Michael Hingson ** 58:06 And I don't think there's any better advice than anybody could take from this or any of the podcasts that we do I really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us and going through all of this and giving us some some good thoughts and good ideas on I know I'm taking away some some things from this I haven't made little payments during the month on loans but I by may do more of that with the car and that'll be kind of fun. So I'll have to look at that.   Matthew Burr ** 58:34 I get that definitely not that's always a good thing.   Michael Hingson ** 58:37 Yeah, well that's that's a logistics issue to to do too. But I will work on it and that'll be kind of fun. Well, I want to thank you again for being here. I really appreciate it. I hope that all of you listening out there enjoyed it. Matthew if people want to reach out to you since you do coaching consultant, among other things, and so on. How do they do that? Yeah,   Matthew Burr ** 58:56 Burr consulting. llc.com is the website you're able to put in a request from my website? Matthew m a t t h e w at

Today we have Nick Niehaus on the show and we are discussing video in 2024. If you aren't using video, then you are doing something wrong. Get ahead before it's too late.ResourceNick's WebsiteReal Estate Marketing DudeThe Listing Advocate (Earn more listings!)REMD on YouTubeREMD on InstagramTranscript:00:01:40:20 - 00:02:10:17UnknownSo how do you attract new business? You constantly don't have to chase it. Hi, I'm Mike Webster, Real Estate Marketing Dave. And this podcast is all about building a strong personal brand. People have come to know like trust and most importantly, refer. But remember, it is not their job to remember what you do for a living. It's your job to remind them, Let's get started.00:02:10:19 - 00:02:30:10UnknownWhat's up? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Wrap. So the Real Estate Marketing Dude podcast. Folks, we're at the end of the year here. And if you're like most people probably thinking, Wow, 20, 23 sort of sucked, but what am I going to do in 2024? It's what you should be doing this time of year. While business is slow this year, maybe a little bit slower than the normal for a lot of people.00:02:30:12 - 00:02:47:10UnknownBut regardless of what happened this year, when the summer comes around, one of the things I always do is just practice and think about what the hell I'm going to do next year differently. What changes am I going to make? One of the things that you have to do is make changes, especially right now, this is the best time to make changes.00:02:47:10 - 00:03:12:06UnknownIs when everybody started looking around what to do when there's an interrupt or a pattern change or anything like that. That's the best time to go out there and actually stand out. Stick out. One of the ways to do that is going to be obviously with video, if you've been on the show for quite some time, we talked about video, we script an interview, lots of videos over the years, and we brought on Nick that's going to tell us everything about video, where he sees it going and whatnot.00:03:12:08 - 00:03:32:04UnknownAnd that's we're going to talk about today. What are you going to do next year in video? A lot of change. In the last 18 months, we saw long form go to short form. We saw, you know, like the need for less, call it edited videos even more. Authenticity has always been the key. But what's coming in 2024, you have artificial intelligence.00:03:32:04 - 00:03:47:11UnknownCan you use that for script writing all this other stuff? So that's we're going to be chatting about today. So without further ado, let's go ahead and introduce our guest, Mr. Nick Niehaus. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Mike. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me on. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about what you do business school.00:03:47:11 - 00:04:03:04UnknownWhat does that tell you about when you get into it? Like because what we want to talk about is how we're going to do in 2024 on video. What can we do that you haven't done already or what you see where the trends and what should we be focusing on? Yeah, absolutely. So I guess, first of all, you know, I run a company called Business Video School.00:04:03:06 - 00:04:22:03UnknownWe primarily teach real estate agents how to use video. And one of the key components of that is that we really teach people that video is a form of communication. So, yes, it's a marketing tool. Happy to provide some tips and tricks on that front today. But I think that that in my mind and heading into 2024 is maybe the most important thing to sort of understand.00:04:22:04 - 00:04:38:20UnknownYou know, coming into this year. You mentioned obviously it's been a tough year. And the good news about that is that there there's less noise, there's less people marketing. I mean, there's literally less agents than there was a year ago. But there's also just once agents that cut back on their their ad spend, they cut back on their effort.00:04:38:21 - 00:05:02:05UnknownYou know, they're they're out there looking for side hustles. And I get all that. But that means there's just less content being created, there's less being posted. And so a lot of ways, I think heading into 2024, I mean, you got to think about it as an opportunity. I mean, this is this is a chance if you're still serious about your business and you're looking to grow, we are the projections look like we're going to see a bit of an increase in transactions, not back to where we had been, but that's going to help a little bit.00:05:02:05 - 00:05:29:15UnknownSo I think that, you know, you mentioned obviously short form got big. I think we're actually seeing a shift a little bit back towards long form. Again. You know, Tik Tok added 10 minutes and a live video never went away. Rights. There's some opportunities there. But I do think you know what you're talking about, authenticity wise, that is probably the biggest trend we're seeing, is that I was doing an example, as I did doing a presentation that day, and I asked the roomful of folks like, who here can define your ideal customer, Tell me about them.00:05:29:19 - 00:05:45:15UnknownLike, do you know any of the information about that person you're really trying to attract? Is that niche? Two or three years ago, nobody had an answer, right? Like everybody was just like, I buy it. So how's anybody I can work on? Anybody. I wanted to relate to everybody. Again, we're like trying to do what everybody like the person, like they can't stand, like, you name it.00:05:45:16 - 00:06:02:05UnknownHow are you going by us? I got you, bro, Right? Yeah. Like the guy I absolutely hate. I really want to work with that person. Right? Like, we know that's not true. We know that's also just not how your business works. You tend to attract, you know, certain categories of individuals and probably push away other types of individuals that sort of natural, but that was what struck me.00:06:02:05 - 00:06:20:24UnknownThis event is the average person in the room. They actually had some information about their ideal customer. They had started to think about this and that. To me, that's the that's the thing that's shifting. You know, I think a lot of agents that have been serious about their business for years have finally sort of accepted this reality of like, look, communication is easier.00:06:20:24 - 00:06:37:16UnknownThat's ever been it is so easy to put information in front of other people. And what that means is there's just so many more people doing it. So if I want to cut through that noise, I have to say something more customized for my ideal customer. Right? I got it. I got to get a message, is going to get their attention and is going to attract them.00:06:37:16 - 00:06:54:17UnknownIt's going to get them to want to start paying attention to me on a regular basis, especially in these periods where not that many people are buying or selling houses. Right. Because that's that's your brand, period, right? I mean, if anything, the agents that did it right this year, they focused on brand building. They got even better, you know, sort of learned even more about that ideal customers.00:06:54:18 - 00:07:08:19UnknownThey could cater their content even more to them. And now they have thousands of additional people that know who they are, who are starting to trust them, starting to like them, you know, starting to see all the stuff they have in common with them. As soon as those people want to sell their house, they already have their agent.00:07:08:19 - 00:07:23:01UnknownRight. And I know I know you've been talking about, you know, being top of mind for for many years. Right. That's the power of video. Is your face being the first face, the pops into that person's head. And so I think I think that's the big trend right now is is get to know that customer. Be honest with yourself.00:07:23:01 - 00:07:38:08UnknownIt's okay to narrow down and sort of pick a certain kind of group of people and then just make sure you understand them really well. And then my favorite version of this is to look at where you overlap with them, right? So what are your interests? What are what are pain points you've experienced in life? Match that to your ideal customer.00:07:38:08 - 00:08:08:04UnknownFind those those commonalities, the things that both of you are really excited to talk about. And that takes some work. It takes a little bit of soul searching perhaps, but you do that come to 20, 20 for that information, you're going to kill it. That's great that people are actually seeing it. You're right. They are. I could really I mean, I really thought about it because they're usually when I used to do a lot of like brand, the first question like what's interesting, you and everyone else like this first thing ask right See like if they if they can recognize that and a lot of times 90% of time like, I'm going to you00:08:08:04 - 00:08:23:10Unknownknow, work in the best interests of my client, I'm going to do a good job on them. I'm like, Are you supposed to do that? Like, yeah, like, like basic requirements of the job. Yeah, But yeah, I mean, that's good because that's all this is, is brand. So like Nick, are you told me that I just get on video.00:08:23:10 - 00:08:41:21UnknownI'm not just going to start generating a ton of lead just because I'm on video. Well you know unfortunately nowadays no. Right. I mean, there kind of was that point man. We used to make videos. They're just generic. Is that put them out. People get business. Right. But yeah, I think that ship sailed a little bit. Yeah. And let's talk a little bit because you hit it on the heart.00:08:41:22 - 00:09:01:08UnknownGo even deeper with it. Dialing in like the content strategy because it's not what you say, it's how you say it. That if people are paying attention to you and often people are so scared to the, say, the how and how they would when no one's looking. So what I mean by that is like, you know how the same way you are when the nobody's watching you like when you're by yourself is the exact same way.00:09:01:08 - 00:09:19:19UnknownYou should be on video when everyone's watching you. You know, But it's hard for people to do that. We put that like, what is Johnny going to say about me or What's Melissa going to say about me? And like, who cares why? You know? Like, how do people get over that? Well, yeah, that's a great question. I think that that is and I've seen that.00:09:19:19 - 00:09:32:16UnknownI mean, you and I both seen that a thousand times, right? It's like it's it's always the most Randy's like, I have this cousin and he's always been mean to me and like, he's going to comment on my video and I'm always just like he's, yeah, of course he's been doing that his whole life. It's he's just that's who he is.00:09:32:16 - 00:09:52:06UnknownThat's nothing new with you, you know, but that will hold people back. And so, yeah, I think so to me a lot of that is is luck when you when you do social media, you know it's I think that's what most people think of when it comes to video. It's always going to be a performance. I mean, there's a way because the thing is like you're never going to get rid of that aspect that just sort of any random person could see that content.00:09:52:12 - 00:10:12:16UnknownAny comment could come through and you just can't predict it. So the flipside of that is, okay, look, if that is a performance and there is going to be a little bit of nerves no matter what, are there other kinds of video? Are there other places I could be sharing content or are there other ways I could talk to people through the video camera that aren't the same kind of pressure, you know, maybe to get some practice, get some familiarity?00:10:12:18 - 00:10:31:15UnknownA lot of that, I mean, because in my mind, like any type of or to somebody, if everything else was second nature by then like if if using the equipment was was really convenient, they'd done it a bunch of times of speaking into a camera was familiar. And the only thing that was new was just the information they were sharing at that moment, then they're pretty natural, right, because they're comfortable.00:10:31:15 - 00:10:48:00UnknownSo I think it's about reps, right? It's about how many how many reps do you have? How many times you made a video? That's why for our school we always teach our students. I mean, start at the other end of the spectrum. Start with 1 to 1 video messages, right? You're sending a video to a single person. My favorite example that is Happy birthday videos.00:10:48:04 - 00:11:01:05UnknownGet on Facebook. It tells you whose birthdays are happening today. Like literally next to each one of them is a message button. Yeah. And you can click it. You can jump into messenger and send them a happy Birthday video about 15 seconds. I do that demo on my my trainings all the time. Like, get your phone, let's do it right.00:11:01:05 - 00:11:18:13Unknown2 minutes later, you send a couple these videos. So that's just there's just so little pressure. But the crazy part is like it also has business ROI. I like it. It's actually one of the most effective forms of video we've ever seen because because it puts you again, it keeps you top of mind, right? Like you're in their head now, Like they just saw you.00:11:18:15 - 00:11:35:03UnknownYou just you just smiled at them. You wished them happy birthday or whatever it is you said, Hey, that that vacation you went on. Look, thought a lot of fun. Let me know what I should check out if I ever go there. Whatever it is. 15, 20 seconds. Now you're in their head. Now they're going to remember you a few weeks later when they when they, for whatever reason, have a need for your product or service.00:11:35:03 - 00:11:51:13UnknownObviously, if they need to sell their house, you know, you're going to be more likely to pop up. And it's just so low pressure. So I like to start there. And I think that when you when you start with these simpler kinds of video, especially when you see the business impact. Right. So a couple weeks later, you sent 50 of them to a, you know, 50 people.00:11:51:17 - 00:12:06:03UnknownA couple of them reached out. You had a couple meetings scheduled, whatever it is. Right. That just makes you sort to accept, okay, this is worth it, right? Like, I can do more of this. I can keep taking more chances here. And then we kind of build on that, Right. So I think that thing that helps a lot.00:12:06:03 - 00:12:25:16UnknownYeah. Yeah. It's like you need a little bit of confidence. You need those little wins when you get when you're getting started. Like, and, and you're like, yeah, you actually watch that. What. I don't think anyone watch that video and you might have had like ten views, but if four of them were impactful, like it was worth it, you know, like don't look at, yeah, look at the law and it's a long game.00:12:25:16 - 00:12:56:16UnknownSo here's a question I get for you. Curious how you're going to answer it because there's a in you got to approach it the right way. So like is video lead generation or is it branding. Yeah. I mean that's a hard one right. Because I think I will say number one it's branding, you know, I think it absolutely can do both, you know, I mean because again I think video is one of those things that it's the closest as, as a species because like you know as humans like we've been inventing new ways to talk to each other for hundreds of years now.00:12:56:16 - 00:13:13:02UnknownRight? I mean, just in the past 30 years, I mean, you different ways that we invented that we can share our ideas with each other. There's a whole bunch of them, you know. So I do think as long as you just accept that, hey, this is this is a new way to build relationships, and it's the closest we can we can actually get to being face to face, right?00:13:13:02 - 00:13:27:21UnknownI mean, you look at I like to make the example of, you know, look at the pandemic. And I know we all got burned out on Zoom, but that was thank God we had Zoom, you know, because otherwise you've been on the phone all day. What about conference calls? You know, it just would have been much messier, much less impactful.00:13:27:21 - 00:13:44:07UnknownWe would have we would have misunderstood each other at a higher rate. All that's been research, you know, So it's it's very proven that, like, look, when I get in front of somebody, their brain in a lot of ways actually feels like they're having a face to face conversation with me. So branding number one, right? Because it's a relationship building tool.00:13:44:07 - 00:13:59:05UnknownThey're becoming familiar with you. They're starting to form that trust. And that is one of the problems, right, is that a lot of times when you get results from your video marketing, it's not because they just watch a video, immediately click the button and then they're going to call you and say, I just watched your video. I'm signing up right?00:13:59:07 - 00:14:24:02UnknownBecause it's kind of like, you know, calling up a friend and saying, you know, or calling somebody. I'd be like, Hey, you know how we've talked to each other several times in the past? Like, that's why I'm calling you today. Like, that's that's a like people are going to do that normally. So you have to ask. I think that's the takeaway there is if you do this stuff, you know, you're going to you're going to have you're going to get weird comments from people like, you know, here's one of my favorite examples of how, you know, this is working is you go to a networking event and somebody comes up to you and it feels00:14:24:02 - 00:14:38:14Unknownlike they're really familiar with you, right? Like they're they're like, hey, you were doing the thing the other day and like, you were talking about this and you don't really remember who they are because, I mean, that is just What's up, dude? What's up, bro? Right. Subdued. hey, how you been? Yeah, Yeah, Good to see you. Right.00:14:38:16 - 00:14:59:03UnknownLike, I don't know, I started. I started to just almost say that in action. yeah. Good to see you. I like is if I know him. Because half the time, I think I do. But that's what. That's what you look for, right? Is like, are the conversations starting to shift and all of a sudden it's cool because I mean, I go to the stuff nowadays and I don't have to, I don't know, strike up small talk, you know, like people remember who I am or I've never met them.00:14:59:03 - 00:15:13:04UnknownAnd but they've seen me a bunch because of my content. And so I think that's a good indicator. And then if people are calling you, just ask them, you know, where have you seen me in the past few weeks? You know what? What kind of are you see in any of my stuff on social? I'm just curious if it's working and all of a sudden that'll trigger.00:15:13:10 - 00:15:38:11Unknownyeah. I watch your videos all the time. Okay, well, now, you know, that's where those leads are coming from, right? Yeah, A lot of it is like these videos build up over time. You guys like it's not a Yeah, instant like, gratification thing. And that's like we had we have one one gallery that's an attorney and she's like, she's only shot like four videos and literally like five months.00:15:38:13 - 00:15:54:03UnknownShe's like, Why isn't this thing working? Like, dude, you got to shoot more videos. Like, you got it. So like, there's this you got creating the videos only have to battle though, but you have to distribute, right? So why do we walk them through that importance of that? It's not just creating the video that's only half the battle, guys.00:15:54:03 - 00:16:13:09UnknownIf you don't get it seen, then that's. yeah. So like, I see it all the time. People will post or they won't be social on social media. Then they expect the video to work, right? So like it's not Craigslist. You can't just post the video on Facebook, but you're never social on Facebook yet yourself. And then it's it's like it's not going to work.00:16:13:09 - 00:16:33:17UnknownSo question is, is video versus creating versus distribution, Where do you put the which is more important? All right. Yeah. No, that's I mean, obviously, I'm preaching to the choir with you, right? Because you get all this stuff. You've dealt with all this discussions before. And yeah, that's a huge point is it is so easy, especially if you're nervous, right, to make the content.00:16:33:17 - 00:16:45:22UnknownAnd then and then for whatever reason you sit on it. I still need to edit it. I still got to change that one graphic or whatever. It is crazy. I use that a lot, you know? I mean, I got to the point where I had to just hire an editor on our team. Just be like, Look, I'm just going to shoot this stuff.00:16:45:22 - 00:17:08:13UnknownIt's going to be in this folder and then you're going to take it, edit it and post it for me. So that just never happens again. So yeah, you know, distribution, I think it's probably the most important part, you know, I mean, because, because I don't think that the quality of the video is really what matters. So, you know, as long as you made something where I can clearly understand what you're saying, I think that's that's kind of the one benchmark I always look for is like the audio is clean enough.00:17:08:13 - 00:17:22:22UnknownI can hear you. You know, as long as I can understand what you're saying, then it's good enough to share and you will get better. Right? But you don't you don't necessarily improve that much if you're not getting any kind of feedback, you know, So if you you know, if you share a lot of content, you tend to get some feedback.00:17:22:22 - 00:17:40:14UnknownYou can ask for more, you can collect data, you can look at your stats, you can see where people stop watching the video and go back and see why there's so much information that you get from that that allows you to make those changes and improvements. So yeah, I think distribution number is probably more important. I think then it's also dormant.00:17:40:15 - 00:17:59:08UnknownDon't forget you can reshare the same video. I think people, they sort of forget to do that too, right? Because I mean, the first time you put something out, number one, but people didn't see it. Number two is the idea of especially if it resonates with people will resonate again, You know, so I've taken some of my more popular videos that have performed better and just reposted them, and they do even better the second time, right?00:17:59:08 - 00:18:15:22UnknownBecause then that person saw it two months ago. Maybe they recognize it, maybe they don't. But but again, that's kind of reinforcing that idea for maybe sort of the comment. Most don't even notice it. It's all in our own heads. Like no one remembers, like the video they watched yesterday. I don't remember. I know I watched Stranger Videos yesterday, but I could I couldn't tell you one of them.00:18:15:24 - 00:18:31:20UnknownI just know I saw. Yeah, I'll be halfway through reels all the time and I'm like, Wait a second, I think I've seen this before. Like two days ago, you know? But I'm still watching it again, so. And then back to what you're saying, I think that's huge too, which is you have to do the work on the other half, the other side of the coin.00:18:31:20 - 00:18:48:18UnknownRight. Which is you have to engage that. That was I got that wrong, too, when I first started. Right. Like I very I resisted social media initially. You know, I kind of grew up in the the era when these things were like literally coming out right to like my a couple of years ahead of me would have been like when Facebook was was released at Harvard.00:18:48:19 - 00:19:02:18UnknownSo a few years later, like when I could have signed up for Facebook initially it was still just college students, you know, just to kind of show you the line up there. And I could of and I didn't I kind of waited until the end of school to ever even sign up for it. So when I first got on, you know, it was for business reasons, right?00:19:02:18 - 00:19:19:20UnknownIt was all about like, I want to I want to get attention for my business. And I did that. I just I just posted. Right. And I had a bunch of friends and I kind of wondered like, okay, why doesn't this lead to much? Once I started commenting and liking and engaging with other people's content, that's when I saw that that switch kind of flipped, right?00:19:19:20 - 00:19:35:09UnknownBecause, I mean, you got to remember, like the algorithm is going to look at the first 20, 30 people. It shows your post to right. And if those people engage and they comment and they like it and maybe they share it or something like that, then it's going to go show it to a bunch more people. Well, you can create those relationships, right?00:19:35:10 - 00:19:50:20UnknownI mean, there's there's a certain group of people who are pretty active on social on both ends, right. If they're posting a lot. I mean, they're also logging on and looking at things a lot. So get out there, engage with their stuff, contribute in a meaningful way. And all of a sudden, couple weeks later, those people will return the favor.00:19:50:20 - 00:20:11:00UnknownAnd now that that seeds, that initial engagement with your content shows it to more people gets in front of more of those strangers you may be trying to attract. So yeah we we emphasize that a lot as well, which is, you know, if you're having a problem and you are posting relatively regularly but you're not seeing the engagement, go give the engagement and then see what happens to a street.00:20:11:00 - 00:20:32:01UnknownFolks. What about frequency? How often should I be creating content and should I be doing short form or long form? And like, how many videos do I need to do every single month or week to stay consistent? Is there? Well, and that's that's the thing, right? That to me that word the second one is consistency that that is actually, I think, more important.00:20:32:03 - 00:20:49:22UnknownSo I think frequency, I think a lot of people try to start with too high of a frequency, right. Logo. You know, I keep hearing you're supposed to post three shorts every day, which is a lot. I mean, any of us made content like suppose she were trying to make decent videos. That's a ton of content, right? So, okay, I'm in post three a day and they post three today.00:20:49:22 - 00:21:03:03UnknownAnd the next day they post three and then they post two and then they give me like, I can't do this and they stop altogether. And it's yeah, it's like you run out of business, right? It's like you had this presence. People are seeing you and then you get you vanished from them. So I think it's better to start with.00:21:03:03 - 00:21:25:01UnknownJust think about what you can do. Not not totally comfortably, you know, push yourself a little bit, but like what isn't really outside the current realm of possibility, so to speak. Right? You're not making a single video ever once a month to start, right? If you do that two or three months in a row and it was a piece of cake and you feel like you do more, make a bonus video or to write and then gradually up that frequency.00:21:25:01 - 00:21:42:05UnknownSo as as once a month becomes comfortable, I'll go to twice a month, go to once a week, you know, and then kind of see where you settle in in the long term. There are examples of this all up and down the spectrum, right? I mean, if it was that every successful business owner kind of did the exact same thing, then there'd be a formula.00:21:42:05 - 00:22:03:04UnknownUnfortunately, it is, you know, all over the place. I remember now, Mark Rober was is an extremely successful YouTuber. He's got his own sort of like toy engineering business nowadays based off of the following he posts like once a month. It is very infrequent, but it's consistent and people know as the kind of take me out every day takes my other that much closer to his next video.00:22:03:06 - 00:22:27:15UnknownAnd so it can build and it can build, you know anticipation right? People get excited that the next one's coming, but it's going to take a little bit of time. But it's got to be consistent, right? If you don't show up consistently, that's where you have problems, right? That's where where the algorithms starts not liking you. You know, I mean, these companies, they'll they'll favor the people who post regularly because they know that people are going to keep logging back in to see your stuff and therefore they can sell ads.00:22:27:17 - 00:22:44:07UnknownSo if you are posting consistently, they will show your stuff to more people because they see you as more of a partner for their ad sales, which not they make all their money, right? So that's that's where I focus on. Right. And then I think from there, I mean, between short and long and kind of all those decisions, that's a personal preference in some ways.00:22:44:07 - 00:23:02:01UnknownI mean, Short is really popular right now. I like short form, especially for newbies, because if you're putting out your first piece of content and I've never seen anything from you before, I don't trust watching you for 10 minutes, right. Like you're just a total stranger or in that case, a 22nd short. I might give you a chance and I might watch it.00:23:02:01 - 00:23:30:06UnknownAnd if I like it, then I'll watch until a bit longer next time. So I do think it makes sense to start short and then kind of build to the longer content. Agreed. Agreed. Don't overthink it either. sure. You've got to pick like one one spot because of something. You can't do not do anything. There's a tension and then there's like legion, like the long form is going to be more like the people are way more down your funnel need you, but it's the short that leads to the long.00:23:30:06 - 00:23:45:24UnknownSo you have to have a little bit of both. I like long for website stuff. yeah. Up to there. You know, you got to have all your long stuff there. It makes sense. But then short form, we don't see a lot of that. I'm not like the engagement on the logs just like doesn't happen anymore no matter who it is.00:23:46:01 - 00:24:05:13UnknownJust seems like they're just pushing those things up and the shorts are doing well. It's crazy, but it switches. It switches. So what about 2024? What do you do? Yeah, you guys are doing some cool stuff I hear with AI and whatnot. Like, how are you using. I would video scripts is probably like if you guys are stuck with what to say.00:24:05:13 - 00:24:24:13UnknownLike use A.I. for your scripts. So it's not that hard. There's literally everything. Verify what it says first verify you agree with what the air bot tells you. Yeah. I don't like read it. Don't just like say something you don't believe or agree with, but use it as a good baseline. How are you guys using it right now and what do you see the opportunity right there with it?00:24:24:15 - 00:24:42:16UnknownYeah. So we're got you know, we're trying in all kinds of stuff. So yeah, first and foremost, I think script writing, it's incredibly helpful for that, especially now that Jackie Beatty and several others have Internet access, right? I mean, you can have it right yet current up to date, factually accurate information. You're right. You do have to double check it.00:24:42:16 - 00:25:01:17UnknownJust make sure it doesn't make any mistakes, that it does a lot less of that than it was even six months ago. So it's gotten a lot more trustworthy. But you still want to verify. And then from there, I mean, we're starting to see opportunities with now generating images and graphics. So one of the things we did in our school is we started building our own tools there.00:25:01:18 - 00:25:26:10UnknownThey're based on the same tech as Chad GPT. We're just using the API, but we're able to kind of further train the the API a little bit. So the right scripts that are really specific to social media, that are specific to the real estate industry. We have a new tool now. We have something that we're introducing tomorrow actually, which we're calling workspaces, which is basically like all of the tools that you need to make your video all on one page.00:25:26:10 - 00:25:43:10UnknownSo we've got one that writes a script for you. The second one will generate a background image that you can use if you have like a green screen set up and nowadays you don't even need green screen, You just click a button and it removes the background for you automatically so you can swap that in. So we're doing like a holiday video challenge tomorrow and so they're going to using that stuff for that.00:25:43:12 - 00:26:03:23UnknownSo those are couple examples. And then I mean, from here forward though, it's just going to get crazier, right? I mean, because you're looking at that full automated editing in some cases like right now, there are some tools starting to come out. We use a tool called carpooling sometimes, and it's not perfect yet, but they have one now where you can just essentially talk to it and it'll do the editing you want.00:26:03:23 - 00:26:21:12UnknownSo some of the technical skills you need to edit your videos going away, right? So like just being like, Hey, three minute, you're 3 seconds in, add a graphic with my name and it slides in from the right and it'll do that and will generate it right. It's like that's happening now. There's so matters, right? Like people just, you know, fake people talking to the camera for you.00:26:21:12 - 00:26:45:07UnknownRight. So it's filed. Yeah I saw one a tool that I saw one that are doing like cool YouTube images for thumbnails, which I thought was cool. I forget what which one it was. But there's another A.I. tool that was got I lost my train of thought. I'm going to it's going to come back to me in a minute.00:26:45:09 - 00:27:08:02UnknownWhat was I using that thing for? Something fucking crazy? And I have to. It just lost my train of thought. I'll come back to it. I mean, yeah, there's some that are like. Like one of my favorite versions right now is there are several to do it. One I know of, it's called Opus, but it'll take a long form video and it'll just cut it up and do a bunch of shorts for you, you know, And it even has like the intelligence kind of find the most interesting points in that video, right?00:27:08:02 - 00:27:23:07UnknownSo, I mean, it's crazy what's possible. We had one that's what I was going to say. We had one translate in the Spanish like it was the same person. English. They're speaking in English. And it literally translated everything in Spanish and in the voice it looked. I'm like, That's not even though I'm like, No, I know. It's not like I'm like, that's a yeah.00:27:23:07 - 00:27:44:07UnknownThey literally translated to Spanish, which is a big deal because you can't edit in Spanish. You just switch over like, that's crazy. So there's a lot of that coming through. But these are these were just solving for problems that people who couldn't get on video previously had. So there's really not an excuse anymore. I mean, you could literally become anything by just do a little bit of research with any of that stuff.00:27:44:07 - 00:28:02:07UnknownAnd that's and that's a great yeah. I mean that that's important to keep in mind here is that like, look, if you think you had a runway to drag your feet to use in video, I mean, it's about gone now. And I think especially because, I mean, it's one thing to compete with other people, right? So you can you they all have their insecurities, other issues.00:28:02:07 - 00:28:18:06UnknownThey're going to take their time to, you know, that's already kind of fade now because enough people started doing this. But now you're competing with a I to right now. I mean, heck, if somebody was nervous going on camera, they can use a fake avatar and put a video out there and like, I don't think that's as good, but as you being on camera and talking to people.00:28:18:06 - 00:28:47:08UnknownBut it's more content, it's more noise, right? It's easy to create. And so, I mean, yeah, the urgency has has just continue to accelerate. I mean, it's really getting to a point where what is possible is just incredible. But that also means, you know, there's no sitting on the sideline anymore, right? Because I mean, again, you got to remember, like, it's all that psychology that the effect of somebody seeing your face in that face is talking to them and the way that that builds that relationship, that Parasocial relationship.00:28:47:10 - 00:29:04:15UnknownParasocial was apparently like one of the finalists for word of the year in 2023. Right? So it's like that people get this stuff now, right? I mean, we're all conscious of it. And so, yeah, I think I think that that's I think is kind of coming a little bit out of left field because we didn't really know these things were going to pop up in advance so quickly.00:29:04:17 - 00:29:20:14UnknownBut yeah, I mean, it's really opening the possibility that we could see AI real estate agents, you know, I mean, you could see these kind of like fake avatars that work somebody through almost the entire the only thing they wouldn't be able to do is physically show a home. Right? But I mean, you could do virtual home showings with an AI avatar.00:29:20:14 - 00:29:44:22UnknownI mean, it's kind of wild to think like what some of these tech companies are going to be putting out in terms of products that are competing with a traditional agent here even in the next 12 months. So I don't know they'll come that fast, but keep an eye on it. What about for realtors right now? I mean, I don't know any like big pop producers are aren't doing video like it's sort of weird if they're not at this point in the game like and that I mean, that alone should just give you as motivation you have to do it.00:29:44:22 - 00:30:18:13UnknownIt's like it's it really isn't I don't in real estate it's such a personal brand business like like you have to be on video. It's your face, not your brokers, your face that matters. Have you seen I still I've yet to see anyone that doesn't like work with yet. I Yeah it's hard to think of any I mean even the ones that are sort of more traditional agents that are have been successful for decades and you know didn't necessarily need to carve out a new audience like they've, they've reluctantly started doing it, you know, just because I mean, you don't want to wait until your clients are asking for it, right?00:30:18:14 - 00:30:34:14UnknownIt's like you got to get in front of at least that. And I and I was joking, you know, a few months ago, I was doing a presentation. I basically pointed out I was like, look, when people start getting video messages from their mechanics about their car and what's wrong with it when it's in the shop like star point, they're going to expect this from you.00:30:34:14 - 00:30:49:16UnknownThey're going to start asking for it and like you want to be learning it, then it's not it's not something you learn in a day, right? You learn it now. So you can preempt that. And literally in that particular guys guy raise their hands like, you know what, my my BMW dealership just sent me a video message yesterday and I was like, well, I mean, it's happening, right?00:30:49:16 - 00:31:05:07UnknownSo I got I got one for my plumber. Like plumber come over. And it was it was cool. Like it was like he and it was a little intro. It was a little about video. I was like, here's your technician. And it was it was like such a personal touch. The kid was like 22 years old, you know, and the company, like, set up the video.00:31:05:07 - 00:31:18:12UnknownBut when he showed up to the door, I'm like, yeah, you're the guy in the video. It was I was like a little different of a, you know, tell me, I hate plumber, How are you doing? But now he saw a video. There was a different what's the word is a different exchange of Hey, nice to meet you.00:31:18:12 - 00:31:37:10UnknownI almost felt like a new beat already. Right? It's just like. And it's just that little touch is a difference many times for getting hired or not. Especially when people are like, looking for an agent. You got to stick out and do something differently. Anything else you want to add for 2024? Any other tips? Anything that you want to you tell people to be on the lookout for?00:31:37:12 - 00:31:54:08UnknownWell, you know, I think that honestly, I mean, if you just make video, the focus 2024, you're going to be in good shape. You know, I mean, I think there are other things to think about. Obviously, we've talked a bit about it and that being a big part of those. But I think the reality is like this is the year to do it.00:31:54:08 - 00:32:13:02UnknownThe market is going to start to come back to some degree. I think. I mean, I'm I'm not that expert. I'm not the one saying that. But the experts seem to be saying that to some degree. And so, yeah, I mean, you just got to have awareness, right? I mean, you got to have enough people that know who you are, what you what you do, the fact that you're a friendly, trustworthy person that they could see themselves working with in the future.00:32:13:04 - 00:32:28:24UnknownAnd I just don't see a long term future for people that don't have that awareness. You know, I mean, if you're not if you're not seen as somebody if your face can't pop into my mind when I think about real estate, you're going to be in trouble at this point, right? I mean, I think that that's really it.00:32:28:24 - 00:32:47:02UnknownSo I don't you know, because video can be so overwhelming to people. I want to leave it at that. Right. Because, I mean, I don't want to give you other things to to use to procrastinate. So at least when it comes to me, it's like, hey, make it make it all about video, Make it all about getting yourself on camera, whatever that means, even if it's as simple as just saying happy birthday to people.00:32:47:04 - 00:33:02:01UnknownI mean, I think if you did that, you spent 2024, sang Happy Birthday through a video to every single person in your database. And that's the only kind of video you made. You probably can change your business. Yeah, you probably will. 10 to 15% of the people who say hello to you are going to be moving themselves this year in 100%.00:33:02:01 - 00:33:19:05UnknownI'm have referrals. So like whoever. Right. I think you actually sent me a video birthday email before on Facebook. You might have. I think I have. Yeah. I think it sort of sticks out now that I'm thinking about it. But I mean, that's that's like the perfect that's like the perfect example guys. Like, I'm just like, yeah, Nick did send me one of those videos in the past.00:33:19:07 - 00:33:48:21UnknownNow I have like, this is years ago. Yeah, Yeah. Why don't you tell them the video business school or it or buys video Schools act so they can check it out if they want to learn more. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So easiest way to find us. Just check out the website. Bizarre video school accounts so busy video school dot com and yeah we got you got some freebies on there I think that's a great place to start you can check out our memberships we do both monthly and annual plans that is not a long term contract.00:33:48:21 - 00:34:09:13UnknownWe don't sell any individual courses so it's very much a community based experience. We have an entire curriculum. We have 200 video recipes, which is basically video scripts on steroids. Monthly Challenges Q&A is, you know, all kinds of support tools. I mean, the laundry list is all there. But definitely check us out at bizarre video school dot com.00:34:09:15 - 00:34:43:16UnknownSweet. Thanks, bro. Appreciate you sharing your insight This episode we appreciate you guys. Another episode of the wrestling Marketing Do podcast folks, if you like this whole thing about generating and staying in front of your database and generating attention from the people that matter most, visit referrals. Sweet Adcom Referral Sweetcorn. We will farm your database through direct mail, video, email and give you everything the post and do on social media each and every day and months so that you don't have to stop thinking about what to do on any of social channels and more importantly, the people that you want to remember what you do for a living will, and then start setting your businesses00:34:43:16 - 00:35:02:08Unknownwith attractions all about keep your personal brand from the people that are most and and forget who the hell you are. That's all referral suite does WW dot referral suite dot com. Check it out and hope to see you on the inside. Thanks Nick and appreciate it too. Of course. Thanks for having me. Thank you for watching. Another episode of the Real Estate Marketing Do podcast.00:35:02:08 - 00:35:23:03UnknownIf you need help with video or finding out what your brand is. Visit our website at WW w dot Real Estate marketing do dot com. We make branding and video content creation simple and do everything for you. So if you have any additional questions, visit the site, download the training and then schedule time to speak with the dude and get you rolling in your local marketplace.00:35:23:07 - 00:35:26:02UnknownThanks for watching. Another episode of the podcast will see you next at.

Kev and Kelly do a second harvest of Graveyard Keeper Timings 00:00:00: Theme Tune 00:00:30: Intro 00:02:17: What Have We Been Up To 00:06:11: News 00:34:56: Graveyard Keeper 01:14:29: Outro Links Coral Island 1.0 Moonlight in Garland Early Access Sun Haven 1.3 Update Fabledom Fairytales & Community Update Moonstone Island Eerie Items DLC Lonesome Village Physical Edition Garden Story Translation Update Fantastic Haven Graveyard Keeper Contact Al on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheScotBot Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/ Transcript (0:00:32) Kevin: this is kelly ween this is kelly ween kelly ween kelly ween and in this show uh we talk about games that are filled with cottage gore yeah hi everyone welcome to the harvest season um with me today is kelly i’m kevin she’s actually gonna be here for well spoilers but then she’s gonna be on next week too she were on last week I bring it up because last year you were on for Halloween we did Cult of the Land. (0:00:47) Kelly: Hey. (0:00:57) Kelly: Oh, I forgot about that. (0:01:02) Kevin: And so, yeah, so, well, that’s exactly right. (0:01:03) Kelly: Is this just like my thing? (0:01:07) Kevin: Um, yeah, you’re Kelly our pumpkin queen. (0:01:10) Kevin: So here we are. (0:01:11) Kevin: Um, she’s all about this stuff. (0:01:14) Kevin: And so we are here today to talk about graveyard keeper, another, um, cottage gore game, um, technically this is a second harvest episode. (0:01:25) Kevin: Uh, Raschelle covered it way back. (0:01:28) Kevin: Like the first Halloween episode. (0:01:32) Kevin: And so I knew about it for years, but I didn’t get a chance to play it until recently. (0:01:37) Kevin: Um, and Kelly has played it significantly. (0:01:40) Kevin: Um, yeah. (0:01:40) Kelly: I only got out of it though last year. I was very new to it, so… (0:01:44) Kevin: Well, still more than I have. (0:01:49) Kevin: I’ve only played, uh, just a handful, relatively speaking. (0:01:51) Kevin: Um, but yeah, that’s, uh, we will get to that soon enough. (0:01:58) Kevin: Um, but before that, as always. (0:02:02) Kevin: Show notes and links and the transcripts are all available on the website for people to see and look at and on. (0:02:09) Kevin: Ooh, and whatnot. (0:02:11) Kevin: Um, and, uh, before the graveyard keeper will do news as always. (0:02:17) Kevin: And more importantly, what have you been up to Kelly? (0:02:19) Kevin: What have you been playing, watching, doing, yada, yada. (0:02:21) Kelly: Um, playing? I’ve really been slacking. I’ve been playing solitaire in Pokemon Go, which is not… It is, but I just… I get stuck playing it, and like, it’s fun, but I’m also like, I could be playing something better. (0:02:37) Kevin: Yeah, I mean it’s like comfort food sometimes it just it’s simple and I get it Exactly sometimes you just need a mindless game Okay, okay madman okay, I have not watched it. I’m familiar with it. That’s the one with That’s the one like 50s (0:02:37) Kelly: Um… [laughs] (0:02:39) Kelly: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s like, thoughtless. Um… (0:02:50) Kelly: But I just… (0:02:51) Kelly: I rewatched Mad Men, so that I think is more exciting. (0:03:05) Kelly: yeah like 60s advertising, yeah. (0:03:05) Kevin: add agency right (0:03:07) Kevin: 60s okay all right how how mm-hmm how long is it like the whole thing oh wow that’s longer than expected well that’s cool yeah sure (0:03:07) Kelly: uh I was a big fan when it came out. (0:03:12) Kelly: uh it’s like seven seasons I think? yeah seven seasons. (0:03:18) Kelly: yeah when I first ran I jumped ship like I think after season five. (0:03:25) Kelly: uh I mean it’s not the worst last two seasons but they’re not as good. (0:03:32) Kelly: Good. (0:03:34) Kevin: Um, let’s see, uh, well, I’ve last week we covered paleo pines actually kept up with it a good bit after There was a patch that dropped It’s been a big dinosaur for a week for me. I watched Jurassic Park this week again - (0:03:35) Kelly: What about you? What have you been up to? (0:03:52) Kevin: Boy, that movie’s real good good other than that Yesterday I cried that Super Mario wonder it just came out yesterday (0:04:04) Kevin: the newest one for this switch and It’s a good one Um, I’ll plug the rainbow road radio the other show I do with our mutual friend Alex We did our first look at it on that show. We just recorded and that’ll be dropping soon It’s fantastic it’s There’s I’m only a little bit in like on the second world but like every (0:04:23) Kelly: What do you think of it? (0:04:34) Kevin: level feels like it is introducing something new and different and I mean classic Mario is good you know 2d it’s your standard 2d Mario and whatnot so the gameplay is good and it’s just filled with all sorts of fun surprises and delights I’m going to spoil people on probably the best part that I’ve experienced so far there’s this level it’s like the second or third level you can do. (0:05:04) Kevin: There’s a bunch of piranha plants popping out of the pipes and you run and jump past them and whatnot. (0:05:09) Kevin: And then there’s the Wonder Flower which changes the level in different ways or whatnot. (0:05:15) Kevin: So when you touch the Wonder Flower, it starts this musical production and all the piranha plants just start singing. (0:05:23) Kevin: And it’s incredible, you entice everyone to at least look it up. (0:05:29) Kelly: I actually, I saw it on TikTok this morning and I was like, hmm, okay. (0:05:30) Kevin: It’s just so much fun. (0:05:34) Kevin: It’s so, because it just, right? (0:05:37) Kelly: Very much unexpected. (0:05:38) Kelly: I thought it was like somebody made it at first, like, you know, somebody edited it. (0:05:41) Kevin: Yep, it’s so out of the blue. (0:05:42) Kelly: But no, it was real. (0:05:45) Kevin: Yeah, no, it’s good. (0:05:48) Kevin: It’s really funny and yeah, the game just brings smiles to me every level with all sorts of unexpected twists and turns like that. (0:05:56) Kevin: So yeah, Mario Wonder, two thumbs up for me for sure. (0:05:59) Kevin: Like I said, people can go to Rainbow World Radio to hear more in-depth thoughts. (0:06:04) Kevin: But, yeah, that’s mostly what I’ve been up to. (0:06:08) Kevin: And now, with that, let’s hop on over to the news. (0:06:15) Kevin: We have, as always, a handful of, mostly game updates. (0:06:19) Kevin: Yeah, there’s a lot of game updates for some reason right now. (0:06:24) Kevin: So we’re going to start off talking about Coral Island. (0:06:30) Kevin: Okay, the one, okay, this is a big one. (0:06:34) Kevin: For people who may not remember, Coral Island is your standard Stardew-esque, well, I say standard. (0:06:40) Kevin: It’s got all your fixings, your farming, and it’s on an island, hence the name, right? (0:06:46) Kevin: So it has the tropical aesthetic and whatnot. (0:06:51) Kevin: But the big news is the 1.0 version is launching on November 14th, which is exciting. (0:06:58) Kevin: They have a trailer, and it looks expansive. (0:07:05) Kevin: There’s a lot going on. You have your farm, you can go underwater, you can meet mermaids, you can do your romancing, (0:07:12) Kevin: you can do, I think there’s even a race in there somewhere. All that good stuff. (0:07:18) Kevin: It looks very polished and like a 1.0 game. You can also… (0:07:22) Kelly: Yeah, I was going to say, it definitely looks like there’s, it looks a lot different than like the first, you know, clips I saw of it. (0:07:30) Kevin: Yep, absolutely. Yeah, it’s definitely a game now, for a better way of putting it. (0:07:36) Kelly: Yeah. (0:07:37) Kevin: And you can also dress up as a panda or dinosaur, so you know, there’s a lot going on there. You also get your little animal crossing, you can redecorate your house wherever you want. (0:07:49) Kevin: Oh, you can even have a baby in this, that’s wild. Yeah, that is dropping on November 14th, (0:07:58) Kevin: just a couple of weeks and it will be dropping on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 they’re hoping for a 2024 release for a Switch version. Do you think you’ll try Coral Island or look in its general (0:08:12) Kelly: I think I might. I think it definitely looks really cute. I think it depends on if I’m playing anything, you know, when it comes out. I’m trying so hard not to, like, backlog myself. (0:08:22) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, that’s the hard part right too many games Yeah, no, that’s that’s a good idea I definitely have bought back So I respect that I think you can romance a mermaid so, you know, I’m not that going free I wonder how that’s gonna work. How are they gonna move up the land or vice versa? (0:08:43) Kevin: It’s a two-story floor but the bottom floor is underwater [laugh] (0:08:44) Kelly: just uh living in a two separate homes kind of situation there you go (0:08:52) Kevin: I’m down for that, um, yeah, right now it’s only 25 bucks, oh that’s not bad for this, that’s, that looks like a lot of content for 25 bucks, so, um, get excited. (0:09:06) Kevin: Um, oh, oh yeah, okay, sure, yep, that makes sense, that’s fair. (0:09:07) Kelly: Oh, it does say it’s going to release, I think, at $30, though. (0:09:11) Kelly: There’s a note about the price adjustment. (0:09:14) Kelly: But the diving looks really cool. (0:09:16) Kelly: I played a lot of Dave the Diver over the summer, (0:09:19) Kelly: so I feel like I’m still looking for games where I can go exploring like that. (0:09:19) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s good. (0:09:23) Kevin: Yeah, it does look good for like the animation stuff. (0:09:29) Kevin: I’m also a big fan of underwater type games and it looks very expansive down there. (0:09:35) Kevin: So yeah, there’s a post on Steam page with all the updates and everything. You guys can check it out. (0:09:44) Kevin: If you do have early access, it looks like there will be a save reset. (0:09:53) Kevin: So there is that. But, either way, November 14th, I look forward to it. I might actually check it out now. It looks pretty… (0:10:00) Kevin: So, next up we have Moonlight and Garland. (0:10:06) Kevin: I don’t know if this is a game announced, but it’s… (0:10:09) Kevin: Yeah, I guess it is, because they’re announcing their early access October 24th, which will probably already be out by the time people are listening to this. (0:10:18) Kevin: This is… here, let me read their, uh… (0:10:22) Kevin: The elevator pitch, where is it? (0:10:24) Kevin: A cozy open-ended life sim about finding your feet in the big city, decorate your apartment, make new friends, grow too many houseplants, and love your city life. (0:10:33) Kevin: Um, so it… yeah, it’s… it’s city-based, right? So you’re in an apartment, you’re not running a whole farm, but you can grow plants, you can have pets, um, make relationships and whatnot. (0:10:46) Kevin: The art style is… (0:10:48) Kelly: That’s the most realistic farming sim. (0:10:52) Kevin: » [LAUGH] (0:10:54) Kevin: » No, you’re right. (0:10:59) Kevin: » Yeah, yeah, Kelly can. (0:11:00) Kevin: Well, no, you’re in the house now, you’re not in an apartment anymore. (0:11:03) Kelly: No, but definitely, you know, went through that also, like, how do I keep my plans alive in my apartment when there’s no sun? (0:11:04) Kevin: But yeah, you know the feeling. (0:11:12) Kevin: Man, gosh, you’re super right. (0:11:16) Kevin: Boy, there’s a person showing an apartment with a lot of bunnies in their apartment, that seems difficult. (0:11:23) Kevin: You’re gonna have that many bunnies in an apartment. (0:11:26) Kevin: The art style is, it’s 2D pixelated, but it’s not Stardew-esque. (0:11:31) Kevin: It’s a little more cutesy than that, and I don’t know how to best describe it. (0:11:35) Kevin: And all the NPCs are kind of bobbing their head at the same time to some unknown beat, it is cute looking. (0:11:43) Kevin: And it’s only the early access, so I’m sure it’ll grow considerably more. (0:11:51) Kevin: That is, you know. (0:11:52) Kevin: October 23rd? 24th? I’m seeing two different days. (0:11:58) Kelly: I definitely want to follow up on it because just looking at the coming soon photo, it’s like why is there an iguana on the sidewalk? (0:12:06) Kevin: Hahaha! (0:12:06) Kelly: Can I have an iguana? (0:12:07) Kevin: Wait, you havin’ a guana? (0:12:08) Kelly: And then there’s also the bear man. (0:12:10) Kevin: Wait, wait, wait, wait, let me see, which one are you talkin’ about? (0:12:10) Kelly: I’m on the steam page, the early access release. (0:12:14) Kevin: What? (0:12:15) Kevin: Okay, okay, let me see… (0:12:17) Kelly: So in the coming soon photo that says steam early access, October 24th, whatever, wishlist now. (0:12:27) Kevin: Okay, okay. Oh, I’m looking at the wrong page. I would explain it wouldn’t it? Yup. There it is. Okay Yeah, I was looking the wrong page. There is a bear man. Why is there a bear man? (0:12:28) Kelly: There’s a bear man in the iguana, like do I get a pet iguana, do I get pet pigeons? (0:12:37) Kevin: Okay, I Okay, I want to mine a department full of pet iguanas that that I can do they’re pretty low-key There are pigeons. So, you know, definitely, you know, they’re hitting Oh, are they gonna have the the trash bags out on the sidewalk? (0:12:55) Kevin: Are they gonna go all in on the city? (0:12:57) Kevin: I don’t know if garland is a city name. It’s a city in texas. I know that much. (0:13:11) Kelly: Yeah. (laughs) (0:13:28) Kevin: But yeah, coming soon, early access. (0:13:31) Kevin: Next up, the clip side of early access, we got DLC patches, whatever you want to call it, for Sunhaven. (0:13:39) Kevin: This is the magical-esque farm where you do magic, there’s monsters, dragons, etc. (0:13:51) Kevin: It is patch 1.3, which includes new buildings. (0:13:58) Kevin: There are several that don’t look human, one is an angel, just straight up an angel. (0:14:04) Kevin: One guy is blue, he’s a moon attendant, whatever that means. (0:14:11) Kevin: You have to, they will be unlockable at some point, but that’s fascinating, dating non-humans like that. (0:14:20) Kevin: Oh, they will have a couple of other romancibles coming later this year. (0:14:28) Kevin: They will also have new farm structures and buildings. (0:14:32) Kevin: Greenhouses, silos, chicken coops, butterfly gardens, I like that. You don’t see that in farming games. (0:14:38) Kelly: That’s very unique, yeah. (0:14:40) Kevin: That’s cute, I love a butterfly garden. (0:14:44) Kevin: Monocyphoners, glorite siphoners, I don’t know what they are, workshops, and ticket counterfeiters. (0:14:54) Kevin: I don’t know what that means, but you’re counterfeiting. (0:14:57) Kevin: They’re up to crimes. I like that. (0:14:59) Kevin: I want to know why you can do crimes. (0:15:01) Kevin: Tickets for what? (0:15:03) Kevin: I don’t think they’re concert tickets. (0:15:05) Kevin: That’s fascinating. (0:15:07) Kevin: But yeah, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff. (0:15:10) Kelly: A lot of stuff. There’s like a ghost shed kit? I want a ghost shed. (0:15:11) Kevin: What does that mean? (0:15:18) Kevin: Do you keep ghosts in there? (0:15:19) Kelly: You grow them in there, maybe? (0:15:21) Kevin: I don’t… (0:15:23) Kevin: Oh wait, there are variations. (0:15:25) Kevin: variations because there’s pumpkin and mushroom. (0:15:27) Kevin: It looks like a ghost, oh I see it. (0:15:29) Kevin: Yeah, it has the eyes, the windows look like eyes and the glow, okay. (0:15:29) Kelly: Oh! (0:15:31) Kelly: That makes so much more sense because I was like oh mushroom shed. That’s just a shed where you grow mushrooms, you know That’s and then I just took the rest of them like that [laughs] (0:15:33) Kevin: Um, sh*t skins, yeah it does. (0:15:36) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, okay. (0:15:44) Kevin: Um, oh that’s the butterfly, wow those are big butterflies. (0:15:47) Kevin: Um, oh those are fascinating buildings. (0:15:49) Kevin: Um, let’s see, player birthdays. (0:15:53) Kevin: There is the birthday, birthday celebration. (0:15:57) Kevin: There is a huge pinata that you can hit, so I’m already down for this. (0:16:01) Kevin: Um, geez that’s like a full sized lion looking pinata, that’s great. (0:16:06) Kevin: Um, that’s uh, so all that’s included in the patch. (0:16:10) Kevin: Aside from that there will be DLC available. (0:16:13) Kevin: Um, all six different packs, trick or treat, spirit battle, rock and roll, cyber pop, monkey monkey, and dreamy ram. (0:16:22) Kevin: They’re all, they contain different items, packs, outfits, items, whatever. (0:16:27) Kevin: You guys can check the Steam page for details. (0:16:30) Kevin: Uh, for, yeah, there’s more details out there than we talked about, but, uh, yeah, that seems like a hefty patch. That seems like fun. (0:16:38) Kelly: Yeah, there’s a lot in this. This page goes on. (0:16:38) Kevin: Um, uh, yeah, it does. Um… (0:16:41) Kelly: And there’s even a coming soon, so… (0:16:43) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, they’re talking about future. (0:16:47) Kevin: Um, wow, new season of weather. Wow. (0:16:50) Kevin: Gloomy, what’s the difference between rainy and gloomy rain? I don’t know. (0:16:55) Kelly: Um, I think there’s I could I could understand that one (0:16:55) Kevin: But there you go All right, yeah, I guess. Okay, uh See like out here in Georgia. It’s a little more like rain. Not gloomy rain. Gloomy rains like hurricane force rain That’s what I think Wait no, yeah, okay. I get it (0:17:10) Kelly: No, I think gloomy rain is like when it’s kind of cold and like the sky is just dark and grey all day and it’s like just kind of constant. Like you could have nice rain, like you could have sunny rain, you could have like… (0:17:24) Kevin: Yeah, I do enjoy sun showers. (0:17:25) Kelly: It doesn’t have to be gloomy. (0:17:26) Kelly: Just like a normal rain shower isn’t always gloomy. (0:17:27) Kevin: You’re right. (0:17:28) Kevin: Yeah, no, you’re right, okay, um Yeah, so there’s all the whole bunch of stuff you guys can check that out Is that sorry? Yeah, when’s the release? I didn’t it’s it’s Oct they posted it October 20th It is oh, yeah, it’s already out on Steam. Yeah, so Now time this recording which means by the times you guys are listening. It is definitely available. That is again Sun haven (0:17:58) Kevin: Huh? Oh man, I’m just looking at the picture like a big tree man monster. I might have to check this out I like tree monsters. I I haven’t played a magic game in a minute. Well, I mean, well, maybe our keeper gentle notwithstanding Um, but it’s high, you know fantasy magic II I’m down for that. I could use that Yeah, uh, okay speaking of well, I don’t know more updates (0:18:04) Kelly: right? like i’m kind of like- i’m intrigued. i’m definitely very (0:18:17) Kelly: Mm-hmm. (0:18:18) Kelly: I feel like this is pretty different, yeah. (0:18:28) Kevin: We have so this is The what I refer to as not a city builder but a village builder because it’s medieval villagey themed But you’re helping build the whole village and run everything it is currently in early access and they are dropping a update for it I’m excited for this game myself. I’m gonna wait for the 1.0, but I love the art style. It’s cutesy and goofy (0:18:59) Kevin: and they are dropping all sorts of things in this update including a An encounter with a misunderstood Cyclops who’s very cute. His eye is just a dot His name is Eric one eye you can there will be a witch’s hut a red hooded girl Who’s looking for her grandma’s house? That that’s a speech. I don’t trust that at all. Oh, no, I don’t like that Hemisary gnomes (0:19:26) Kevin: It was seriously rare! (0:19:28) Kevin: And then a fawn with a really big nose and mustache. Oh, I like this guy. (0:19:33) Kevin: There’s a… and a few more. (0:19:36) Kevin: Well, those are fun characters that they’re adding. I love the art style and it looks really fun on these mythical, magical, whatever you want to call them. (0:19:46) Kevin: Cyclops and fawns. Gnomes. They’re fun looking characters. (0:19:48) Kelly: No, yeah, they look they look so cute. It looks very adorable (0:19:49) Kevin: Yeah. (0:19:51) Kevin: Yep. (0:19:53) Kevin: There are, oh gosh, 50 new world events and 30 new objectives. (0:19:58) Kevin: I don’t know what that means, but those are big numbers. (0:20:00) Kevin: Oh, there’s a magic bean. (0:20:03) Kevin: There’s monthly and yearly objectives. (0:20:06) Kevin: Hot weight. Positive and negative events. Oh, oh, they’re, they’re, they’re wild. Okay, I’m down for that. (0:20:15) Kevin: They have, let’s see, new buildings, a laborer guild. Oh, so you can hire better laborers. That’s fun. A bank. (0:20:24) Kevin: Oh, you can tax your villagers at different rates? (0:20:28) Kevin: Oh, that’s awesome. Grand theater? Oh, that’s a nice looking theater. (0:20:34) Kevin: Fisherman’s hut? Fish up stuff? All sorts of quality of life stuff? (0:20:40) Kevin: Well, there’s a lot of graphs in this game and things like that. I’m down for that. (0:20:45) Kevin: Yeah, that’s a lot of stuff coming. Like I said, I’m probably going to wait for 1.0 myself, but I’m glad that it’s coming along nicely. Yeah, that is again fabled. (0:20:57) Kelly: Is there any, is there any real estate or? (0:20:59) Kevin: Go. Oh, it is live. That update is already live as of this recording. (0:21:05) Kevin: So, yay. If anyone is playing the one point or the early access, first of all, (0:21:10) Kevin: somebody tell me if they are because I want to know about it. And it is out already. (0:21:15) Kevin: Um, yeah. All right. Good. Oh man. I’m just trying to fable them. It’s so goofy looking and the. (0:21:23) Kelly: Is there like an overall release date or no? (0:21:33) Kevin: uh not that i’m saying now um I have left here a quick glance um yeah so probably still a hot minute probably sometime in 2024 i’d hope but uh it’s not dead yet so i’ll take that let’s see next up we have uh moonstone island we have dlc for that this is which one’s this one okay all right we so we have dlc come (0:22:11) Kevin: Well, let me get to the details. Yeah, it’s the Halloween update right? That’s the key thing here. Um, (0:22:16) Kelly: I think so, ‘cause it’s for Halloween. (0:22:17) Kevin: We’ve got just a whole bunch of Spooky decors per their website gravestones skeletons a big old pumpkin house um Web’s five types of cobwebs. Oh Oh a rug. That’s just the tongue. That’s clever. I like that. Um, (0:22:38) Kevin: uh So yeah, there. (0:22:41) Kevin: Okay. (0:22:43) Kevin: Okay. (0:22:45) Kelly: I’m sorry, it’s actually not out yet. (0:22:45) Kevin: Okay. (0:22:47) Kelly: It’s not out, which I’m kinda… (0:22:47) Kevin: Um, there are n- some- the- so some of this stuff is DLC, which I’m assuming means purchasable separately, but there will be stuff included for free in the updates on the skeletons and things like that. (0:22:58) Kevin: Um, spirits are free- I don’t know what spirits are in the context of this game, but um, but they’re coming some out. (0:23:05) Kevin: Um, oh wow, I didn’t check- it’s got some good reviews. (0:23:09) Kevin: Um, I’ll have to check that out. (0:23:11) Kevin: Oh wow, what? Oh gosh, I forgot about- I’m remembering the game. (0:23:15) Kevin: There’s- you can fight like robots with a card battling system. (0:23:19) Kevin: They are… (0:23:21) Kevin: Yeah, oh man, oh gosh. (0:23:23) Kelly: These are really cute looking things, these creatures. (0:23:26) Kelly: I, yeah, like, I really like the style of it, yeah. (0:23:26) Kevin: This whole episode’s just me getting excited about games I forgot to get excited about. (0:23:31) Kevin: Um, as if I didn’t have enough already. (0:23:33) Kevin: There are really cute characters- there’s a fishbowl with legs. (0:23:36) Kevin: Um, I like that. (0:23:39) Kevin: that. And then at the end they just. (0:23:41) Kevin: Have a picture of a cat with like a sun hood. I don’t know but um, it’s very cute cat. (0:23:47) Kevin: That is Moonstone Island. That is already out, I believe. Why do we have a date for that? (0:23:52) Kelly: It is a very cute cat. (0:23:54) Kelly: The game is out, it says “NA” for them. (0:23:56) Kevin: Okay, thank you. But it says, while says it’s October 27th. I (0:24:06) Kevin: Couldn’t find that myself. Oh wait. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, October 27th. It’s only $4. (0:24:11) Kevin: Okay, that’s actually not bad at all and 10% off the first week. So there’s 46. (0:24:18) Kevin: Yeah, okay. Oh, it’s a new spirits must be a little monster buddies. That’s what it means. I’m excited. One looks like an apple with a worm through it. They’re just showing silhouettes. I’m just guessing. (0:24:23) Kelly: There you go. (0:24:29) Kevin: And yeah, I don’t know all that. Oh, I might check this out now. It’s a very cute game. (0:24:34) Kevin: Moonstone Island. Um Let’s see Next up we have oh, this isn’t an interesting (0:24:41) Kevin: one because boy, I never thought we’d see this this is Lonesome Village game that I notoriously advocate because the developers are from Mexico. It’s got the cute coyote as you saw puzzles in a tower. They’re coming out the fiscal edition. Pre-orders are live. You can check the show notes for the link. It is not from limited run games actually. A game a site called premium edition games. (0:25:11) Kevin: physical edition which includes all sorts of goodies including oh wow a full-color manual oh that’s exciting Wow a dog tag yeah they do um oh man a manual that’s exciting um yeah it’s great um yeah I I cover this game with Johnny, it was last year or year before, I don’t remember. (0:25:22) Kelly: Dude, the indie games always put so much into like what you get from… (0:25:32) Kelly: I love a manual. (0:25:33) Kelly: A full color manual too, that’s so nice. (0:25:41) Kevin: It’s a fun little game with lots of puzzles, and just very very cute little animal-closing-esque villagers. (0:25:47) Kelly: It looks really cute. The art style kind of reminds me of like Cult of the Lamb, but without the like paper feel. (0:25:47) Kevin: It’s actually funny because in the “story” of the game, so it’s called Lonesome Village because there’s a village and everyone’s kind of been turned to stone or disappeared. (0:26:03) Kevin: And the villains, they’re the people who did it very much look like Cult of the Lamb. (0:26:06) Kelly: Okay. (0:26:07) Kelly: Oh! Oh! It’s a cult! It’s a cult! What is happening here? (0:26:09) Kevin: Yeah. (0:26:12) Kevin: It came out around the time Cult of the Loom. (0:26:14) Kelly: I’m watching the trailer! Oh my god! (0:26:15) Kevin: It looks a lot like Cult of the Loom. (0:26:18) Kevin: The cult from Cult of the Loom. (0:26:20) Kevin: I think we made the joke in the episode. (0:26:22) Kevin: It came out around the same time too. (0:26:25) Kevin: Yep, yep, exactly. Yep. (0:26:26) Kelly: That’s so funny, ‘cause I was thinking it kinda like reminds me of the way they do the animals, like the style of the animals. (0:26:32) Kelly: But now that I’m watching this trailer, it’s like literally… (0:26:32) Kevin: It’s cult, it’s a lot like Cult of the Loom, Cult. (0:26:36) Kelly: That’s so funny. Oh, I gotta play this. (0:26:41) Kevin: Yeah, I have to check it out again. I still have it. (0:26:45) Kevin: It’s been a while. I’m sure they patched it up and done some stuff. (0:26:48) Kevin: ‘Cause I had a few rough edges back then, but I’m curious. (0:26:51) Kevin: I might do another look at it at some point. (0:26:54) Kevin: Because, yeah, props to–but, again, Mexican dev team, so I gotta shout them out. (0:26:59) Kevin: Ogre Pixel, that’s the name. (0:27:02) Kevin: But, yeah, that is a cute little logo of an Ogre–Pixillator Ogre. (0:27:07) Kevin: And again, this is the physical edition release. (0:27:11) Kevin: $40 for the premium edition, which seems to be their only version but includes all sorts of goodies. Um, I When do pre-orders end? I don’t know if I see that but the pre-orders are available now So you can check out the site and get it. Um Alright next up we have Not Garden Galaxy is perfect. We’re heading on the notes. That’s a different game that I was going to cover almost (0:27:42) Kevin: Garden story. That’s the one with the playable grape. That looks a lot like Stardew Valley a lot like It has It’s very cute though the grape that’s playable It is an update that has 11 new languages. Wow, that is a lot of languages I don’t know which ones they are. I just see the It’s out on Steam and switch already this update (0:28:09) Kevin: Very cool. Yeah, I actually don’t know what language is. I don’t know. (0:28:11) Kevin: Let’s see the details. But wow, that’s a big number. Good for them. (0:28:16) Kevin: Always props for making it more available for more people and whatnot. (0:28:19) Kevin: Yep. It is. The grape is very cute. (0:28:20) Kelly: Yeah, that’s always awesome. It really does look like stardew though. It’s cute though (0:28:25) Kevin: Next up, a new game announcement for as far as I can tell. (0:28:31) Kevin: This is called Fantastic Haven, which actually I find really intriguing. (0:28:36) Kevin: It’s the prime… (0:28:40) Kevin: Let me read the– (0:28:41) Kevin: The elevator pitch. (0:28:43) Kevin: So, this is a… (0:28:57) Kevin: Yeah, a Zook cheaper-esque type game, but they’re all magical creatures. (0:29:03) Kevin: Um, so you’re building big pens that look like circular homes more? (0:29:09) Kevin: Um, you alter the land and… (0:29:11) Kevin: It’s full 3D graphics, um, the… I think the actual designs of the creatures are actually quite nice, um… (0:29:18) Kevin: I like animals and critters and… (0:29:21) Kevin: …cheaping them and whatnot, so I’m already pretty interested, um, especially with the spin of… (0:29:26) Kevin: …like, they’re all magical creatures, I don’t see any other animals in here, I see like a griffin, uh… (0:29:31) Kelly: No, I’ve only seen, like, yeah, griffins and some weird frog with, like, horns and stuff. (0:29:31) Kevin: Yup, it’s a bullfrog, you get it? (0:29:36) Kelly: Ah, yes, yes, yes. (0:29:41) Kevin: The color shows a lot more, uh, it looks like you’re even busting some out of, like, cages and, like, carny… (0:29:46) Kevin: …you know, those carnival cages with the wheels, the cars, um… (0:29:51) Kevin: So that’s… that looks very fun, yeah, like I said, a lot of menus, probably, um… (0:29:57) Kevin: …very zookeeper tycoon-esque, um, but with the heavy, uh, magical fantasy paint over it, um… (0:30:06) Kevin: So that is right now the only release date planned is for Q2 of 2024 so it’ll probably be a minute but look forward to it I certainly am those are some fun designs yeah it’s it’s it’s charming enough for me I’m definitely interested um and then lastly okay this one I want to talk about in depth a little more because this one’s affecting me personally uh well actually there’s two me and my neck was night market once again got another patch that one. (0:30:41) Kevin: one point two point one oh whatever the it’s out on switch so you know it’s out on the steam version or whatever um so uh there’s a lot of quality of life stuff you can do with it. (0:30:48) Kevin: I’m not gonna go into the details because I don’t remember them but the other one I want to talk about because we just talked about last week is paleo pines. (0:30:53) Kevin: We just got yup okay so uh one point two point one oh whatever the it’s out on switch so you know it’s out on the steam version or whatever um so uh there’s a lot of quality of life stuff you can do with it. (0:30:54) Kelly: Which I still have to play, but I have not yet. (0:31:11) Kevin: We can change how quickly time passes in the game um oh gosh so one of the after I recorded last week with Spencer and we talked and played I was getting a lot of crashes. (0:31:23) Kevin: They had released a patch previously to fix some of that they said it was like a memory issue um but they were still experiencing it. (0:31:26) Kelly: Mmm. Okay. (0:31:31) Kevin: I felt like the more farther I got in the game the more I was crashed getting crashes uh they addressed some of that. (0:31:37) Kevin: that the game is still not free of crashes because (0:31:41) Kevin: we’ve been probably within an hour after downloading the update the game crashed on me again But it is better in general So they’re definitely aware and working on it at probably top of their list There is Also, there’s a whole list and you can check the show notes for them. I’m trying to look at which ones that are Stand out to me. Oh, there’s a cooking pot (0:31:46) Kelly: Oh, God. (0:32:07) Kevin: But it was weird because it was at some other guy’s house you have to go all the way to this other (0:32:12) Kevin: cook stuff but now you can buy one for your own ranch so that’s great oh here’s a fun one um so you can ride your dinosaurs because of course you can but the thing was whenever you got off of them they would just run away from you at max speed it was whole it was wild you could like try to stop them but um clearly not intended they have addressed that and and this definitely was an update needed and and it works um they will no longer run away from you when you get off of them (0:32:42) Kevin: um yes well luckily I think it was only in the ranch like your home base when it happened they wouldn’t leave you when you’re out in the wild oh my god that would be the worst yes but it’s still a pain because your character is a lot slower than the dinosaur so yeah yeah it’s just a pain having to go across the ranch to find them I mean it’s a pretty big ranch too um (0:32:44) Kelly: feeling it’s like okay nice I can I can get to the place I’m going to but once you’re there you’re stuck there now (0:32:56) Kelly: Oh, okay, okay, I was picturing like you, yeah, like you in the middle of like some field or something. (0:33:12) Kevin: uh there’s all sorts oh horse lock so there was a uh resource called forestwood that was needed for a lot of things it was pretty rare they increased the respawn on that that’s great um they did some ui improvements which were nice uh um lots of other things some oh there was a storage glitch spencer talked about think they fixed that um yeah just sort lots of little things (0:33:42) Kevin: because there were lots of little things that needed fixing um like I said still not 100 percent yeah yeah there is um where is it do they not have it um so there there is I read there is one glitch that they haven’t addressed yet um they know it’s an issue but for some reason at some point and it’s happened to me your game will reset to the first day of the game because there’s you know calendar like most farm. (0:34:12) Kevin: games and whatnot like you’ll keep all your stuff but somehow the calendar will just have reset to the very first game or very first day of the year which is wild um luckily I was able to get around that if you encounter it you can just reload an old save and it’s fine but um that was the wild glitch to see um but yeah that was I’m glad that came out because that addressed a lot of the little nitpicks Spencer and I had with the game and I’m sure (0:34:42) Kevin: they’re still working hard on that so good for you paleopines that update again is out already for switch and probably the other versions whatever versions it’s on all right so that was uh yeah the hearty helping of news and things but that’s now we’re doing that let’s talk about grave graveyard keeper yeah what’s what’s the tagline the most inaccurate medieval simulator isn’t that (0:35:09) Kelly: Something like that. I know inaccurate is involved of [laugh] (0:35:14) Kevin: Hold on let me look at it. Um the most inaccurate cemetery simulation game. Okay. Yeah, I think that’s what it is Okay Well Yeah, so again, um It and this game’s been up for years at this point. Um, I’ll covered it years ago Yeah. Yeah, there you go. That’s cute (0:35:24) Kelly: Oh, the most inaccurate medieval, yeah, cemetery sim of the year. (0:35:36) Kelly: Uh, they had their five year anniversary actually in August. (0:35:42) Kevin: There’s a bunch of DLC I bought the (0:35:44) Kevin: version with all the DLC I don’t know what the base game hazard does not have. (0:35:48) Kevin: I’ve only played it for an afternoon or two. I don’t think I’ve reached any of the DLC portions yet probably. (0:35:49) Kelly: Oh, did you? Okay. (0:35:57) Kevin: They’re all parody names there’s a stranger sins there’s breaking something (0:35:57) Kelly: Um, I’m trying to remember. I know the DLC… (0:35:59) Kelly: Yes, because there’s better save soul. (0:36:04) Kelly: Um, I did look into getting them, but I didn’t- I didn’t, because I think it was like- (0:36:11) Kelly: I feel like there’s- there’s so much going on in this game already. (0:36:14) Kevin: Even if it is, there’s a lot going on. (0:36:14) Kelly: Uh, that I was very happy to not have the added, um, things that like go along with the better save soul one. I heard that gets a lot of pretty tedious. (0:36:24) Kevin: Yeah, heh heh heh. (0:36:25) Kevin: Better save solo, that’s good. (0:36:29) Kevin: I don’t think that one’s out on Switch. (0:36:31) Kevin: That’s it? I don’t know if that one’s out on Switch. (0:36:32) Kelly: Oh, are you playing on Switch? I am not gonna lie. I have not. (0:36:36) Kelly: I’ve been so bad at playing my Switch this year. (0:36:44) Kevin: But, I mean, that’s fine, like, I know that the Switch port gets black for a good reason. (0:36:55) Kevin: There’s a Switch tax for sure, so I don’t blame you. (0:36:57) Kevin: But hey, at least we can compare notes on that. (0:37:00) Kevin: If you played on Steam, I would guess? (0:37:10) Kevin: Um, but okay, so let’s okay, let’s the elevator pitch Okay, first of all, I didn’t expect that this game’s an isekai That I didn’t expect at all so for people unfamiliar with isekai that is a genre of anime primarily where a character wakes up in a simulated often fantasy type world (0:37:38) Kevin: Sword Art Online and just… (0:37:40) Kevin: …other ones. It’s a whole trope now. (0:37:42) Kevin: Umm… (0:37:43) Kelly: I was gonna say it breaks the, you know, inherited your grandpa’s farm trope though. (0:37:44) Kevin: … (0:37:46) Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. (0:37:48) Kevin: You’re just a guy who gets hit by a car cause he’s looking at his phone. (0:37:52) Kevin: Don’t look at your phone when crossing the streets. (0:37:54) Kevin: It’s dark in the rain, people. (0:37:56) Kevin: It’s not recommended. (0:37:58) Kevin: And he wakes… (0:37:59) Kelly: Poor dude’s just trying to give back to his girlfriend or whatever. (0:38:00) Kevin: …yeah, his love, as he says, and… (0:38:03) Kevin: …he wakes up in a graveyard area and… (0:38:08) Kevin: There’s a talking skull that talks to you. (0:38:10) Kevin: And he says, “Hey, welcome. You’re the graveyard keeper, I guess.” (0:38:13) Kevin: Um, more or less, and sure enough, you’re put in charge of this graveyard in this little medieval village area. (0:38:23) Kevin: And you’re trying to figure out how to get back home while managing the graveyard and all the stuff people are asking you. (0:38:32) Kevin: Because, of course, people are going to ask you to do everything around here. (0:38:35) Kevin: Uh… (0:38:36) Kelly: I mean, what would a game be without everybody asking you to do all these things? (0:38:40) Kevin: Right, right. (0:38:42) Kevin: Um, so, okay, hell, you beat the game, correct? What are your overall impressions? (0:38:50) Kelly: I really liked the game. I thought it was a lot of fun. I think there’s a lot of stuff to do, (0:38:57) Kelly: like it can get a bit overwhelming, but I think, you know, it definitely involves, you know, (0:38:59) Kevin: Boy does it. (0:39:01) Kevin: Oh. Yep. (0:39:04) Kelly: looking things up online. But I will say there is an issue with how intuitive it is. (0:39:08) Kevin: Yep. (0:39:10) Kevin: Yep. (0:39:12) Kelly: I think I could have been further along in my gameplay if I understood some of the (0:39:20) Kelly: panics. A lot better. And I will say on that note, it was not always easy to find the answers on the internet. So that made it even worse. And sometimes if you did find an answer, (0:39:21) Kevin: Yep. Okay, so yeah, so. Mm-hmm. (0:39:31) Kevin: Oh yeah, the double whammy, oh yeah. (0:39:35) Kevin: Yup, it’s wild. (0:39:38) Kelly: it was from like 2018, so something got patched or didn’t work like that anymore. (0:39:46) Kelly: So, that was my biggest issue. (0:39:48) Kelly: Did it stop me from putting in, you know, (0:39:50) Kelly: 90 hours, I think, or whatever into the game? (0:39:55) Kelly: No, but there were definitely moments where I was frustrated. (0:39:59) Kelly: Or, like, again, just like, I was playing the game, I was enjoying myself, (0:40:03) Kelly: but I could have been further along than what I was. (0:40:07) Kevin: Yeah, um, okay. Mm-hmm Okay, yeah for sure they’re just Yeah, absolutely. Um, so for comparison I got the game Thursday I think today’s like Saturday. So two days ago So I’ve only played for and Mario wonder so I didn’t play as much yesterday So I played the game for an afternoon and then some um, I like the game a lot. Um, (0:40:07) Kelly: And not even in, like, a micromanagy, like, you know, whatever kind of way. (0:40:13) Kelly: Like, in, like, a… (0:40:15) Kelly: It would have made more sense. (0:40:26) Kelly: Mm-hmm. (0:40:37) Kevin: I think it is Almost minecrafty and how open it is and crafting and everything But I fully agree like that’s my biggest criticism there’s a lot that is not intuitive Or explained well Yep, yep, yep, I’m sure (0:40:50) Kelly: you haven’t even gotten or opened a lot of the, you know, different aspects of the game yet at this point, I’m sure, because it really expands. It expands a lot. There is a lot to do. There is so (0:41:03) Kevin: But I can imagine… I mean I see the skill tree. (0:41:07) Kevin: So… I can… I can… she’s… I can… (0:41:12) Kevin: So there’s a skill tree in this game, right? You have to get points to unlock your skills. (0:41:18) Kevin: And you can see how far it goes. And yes, I can see there’s a lot to unlock and do and whatnot. (0:41:24) Kevin: But… I think the skill tree is probably where I can direct my first criticism. (0:41:32) Kevin: Because there’s three types of points, whatever you want to call them. (0:41:37) Kevin: Red, green, and blue, and you need different amounts of each for unlocking each new skill, which lets you craft new things or do new things, whatnot. (0:41:46) Kevin: Um, the red and green work hard to get, but the blue, the blue is killing me because I hit a point where I had like one blue point overall and couldn’t figure out how to get more. (0:41:56) Kelly: You run out of them. (0:41:58) Kevin: Yeah. (0:41:59) Kelly: There’s a certain point where the game just stops you from getting more for a bit. (0:42:02) Kevin: Really? Wow. (0:42:04) Kelly: Not like stops you. (0:42:06) Kelly: There’s definitely a roadblock, I would say. (0:42:11) Kevin: - Yeah, okay. (0:42:14) Kelly: I struggled with that for so long. (0:42:17) Kelly: And then, of course, at a certain point, it’s like, oh. (0:42:20) Kelly: Now, actually, you’re out of red. (0:42:23) Kelly: Or now you’re out of green or whatever. (0:42:25) Kelly: And it’s like, oh, something that I– (0:42:26) Kelly: so I think one of them is done from manual labor, red, I think. (0:42:27) Kevin: yep yep your manufacturing and things yeah red okay oh you don’t get read from them (0:42:34) Kelly: Yeah, so at a certain point, you get helper zombies that you can assign to do things. (0:42:42) Kelly: So you’re no longer getting the red from those things that you would be getting red from. (0:42:47) Kelly: So it definitely makes you have to stop and think and watch everything. (0:42:56) Kevin: Yup, absolutely, um, it’s a very resource-manage-y heavy game and that includes your skill points or whatever you want to call them. (0:43:07) Kevin: That’s fascinating. (0:43:09) Kevin: Like I can see the blue are going to be very scarce. (0:43:11) Kelly: But I think it’s interesting because it does… (0:43:13) Kelly: Sorry, I was gonna say it just it does impact, I feel like, (0:43:18) Kelly: what you’re trying to do in that day. Because if you’re trying to get blue points… (0:43:19) Kevin: Right. Yeah, exactly. (0:43:22) Kevin: The nice thing, one of the nicest things about the game, (0:43:26) Kevin: there’s no real pressure. (0:43:28) Kevin: There’s no seasons or years or whatever. (0:43:31) Kevin: There’s a week. (0:43:32) Kevin: So like in six, seven, I don’t remember how long, how many days, (0:43:36) Kevin: but that’s the worst that you have to wait. (0:43:37) Kelly: It’s seven days Which and I liked I like I really like the fact that there was no pressure on the seasons or When you finished the game even or anything like that. I also liked the Each day is a different person You have to make sure that you’re getting the things you need to have done before that day so you can go and deal with that person (0:43:38) Kevin: Yep. Which go by quickly. (0:43:42) Kevin: Yep. (0:43:57) Kevin: Yep. (0:43:57) Kevin: Yep. (0:44:03) Kevin: Yep, he just gotta wait until… (0:44:03) Kelly: Because there’s definitely some weeks where if you miss that person you’re screwed (0:44:07) Kelly: Yup. And there is something later on in the game, you know, when things have slowed down in certain areas and you’re just like waiting for that one day where you can fast forward. (0:44:10) Kevin: Until that point. (0:44:21) Kelly: Yes, but I do actually want to say on that point, I think this is very interesting because there is no pause button. There’s no space yet. (0:44:21) Kevin: Yeah, sure that makes sense. Yeah, you can fast-forward at any point you should go to sleep and (0:44:32) Kevin: Yeah, yeah, even if you’re in your menus, time goes on. (0:44:37) Kelly: Yeah, you have to literally like go to the exit screen or whatever. Like the main menu page. (0:44:41) Kevin: Yeah Yep Yep, so if you’re looking through your notes here You know hemming and hawing at a menu thinking about where you want to spend your points that happened to me just just today When I was playing I cuz I finally got some blue points today. And so I was just like agonizing over I wanted where I wanted to spend them and before when I got out of the menu Oh, it’s evening already. Cool. The whole day’s [laughter] (0:44:43) Kelly: There’s a certain page that stops time, but the rest of them don’t. (0:44:48) Kelly: Mm-hmm. (0:45:09) Kelly: Yep. (0:45:11) Kelly: Yep. (0:45:12) Kevin: But they’re the kind of I mean, I don’t know if it was their intent or not But the way to combat that it’s very easy to reroll your did your save like you own there’s no autosave It just saves when you go when you wake up So most of the time you can say you’re pretty much have a safe at the start of the date or start of the day, excuse me, and You can just reload to that and have a plan or save yourself (0:45:23) Kelly: Oh, yes. (0:45:25) Kelly: Yes. (0:45:29) Kelly: I would just quit the game. (0:45:32) Kelly: Mm-hmm. (0:45:40) Kelly: Oh yeah, no, there was many times where I would either just, you would see like the NPC walking away from their post, and I would have to go and reset the game and then do the day over and make sure I got there early enough. (0:45:47) Kevin: Oh my gosh. (0:45:50) Kevin: Yep. (0:45:52) Kevin: Oh my gosh. (0:45:54) Kevin: That happened to me twice already when I go down and Snake is running away and like, “No, I need to talk to you, Snake.” (0:46:02) Kelly: oh god he’s so annoying he’s so annoying for the skill points though I think it’s like kind of fun like there’s some weird ones you can choose from uh-huh (0:46:05) Kevin: He is. (0:46:08) Kevin: He is. (0:46:11) Kevin: Yeah. (0:46:13) Kevin: Overall, I’m a big fan of the Skilled Trees, umm… (0:46:17) Kevin: Because you can very much pick and choose if you want to focus on certain areas and whatnot. (0:46:23) Kevin: Umm, obviously like… (0:46:25) Kevin: To get green points, that’s the farming stuff, so you do want to invest in some of that stuff. (0:46:30) Kevin: Umm, but like, early on you can really get through a lot of the wood and metalworking stuff. (0:46:37) Kevin: Umm, and again, with almost no pressure on when to do it, umm, it’s… (0:46:42) Kevin: It’s very open and you’re very free to pick and choose as you want. (0:46:46) Kevin: You know, (0:46:47) Kevin: the limitations of how many skill points you actually have notwithstanding. (0:46:52) Kevin: I think it is a clever system. (0:46:54) Kevin: And because you get to see what’s coming ahead, that helps you plan that too. (0:47:00) Kevin: I really like that. (0:47:01) Kelly: Yes, definitely. (0:47:01) Kevin: Um… (0:47:02) Kelly: There was definitely some areas in the skill tree though where I did not understand what, (0:47:09) Kelly: like if you unlocked something, (0:47:12) Kelly: I didn’t understand how to access it afterwards, (0:47:15) Kelly: which then led to me diving down a rabbit hole, (0:47:18) Kelly: trying to figure it out. (0:47:18) Kevin: Yeah, sometimes that’s a little unclear most of the time When you look at the skill tree thing it says okay, you can craft at this bench or that bench or whatever But some are not very clear. Yeah Some aren’t super clear. Yeah But I do agree (0:47:27) Kelly: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, it definitely is pretty good. (0:47:30) Kelly: It’s pretty good. (0:47:34) Kelly: Can we talk about the main premise of the game, which I think is the most weird and fun part is, you know, collecting your corpses? (0:47:41) Kevin: Yeah, the it’s definitely yeah the differentiator the the the graveyard itself. Yeah, let’s talk about that (0:47:43) Kelly: Because you are, you are quite literally the graveyard keeper. So you get a (0:47:54) Kelly: Annoyed little donkey that delivers corpses to you. (0:47:56) Kevin: I’m red donkey from a leftist stable [laughter] (0:47:57) Kelly: And oh my god, there was so many times where I would hear that bell and just be so far away from home. (0:48:06) Kelly: And just go running because it’s like the second you hear that bell that corpse starts, you know, deteriorating. (0:48:12) Kevin: Yep Yeah, that’s that’s an interesting aspect that the forps is deteriorate and it affects a lot of things And yeah, they’re kind of deliver just at random times. It feels like I didn’t detect any pattern Umm… (0:48:22) Kelly: Yeah. (0:48:23) Kelly: Yes. (0:48:27) Kelly: No, they can definitely be whenever. (0:48:31) Kelly: And they can pile up too. (0:48:34) Kevin: Oh my gosh, I don’t think I’ve had that happen yet, but I could see that happening. (0:48:35) Kelly: Yeah, no, they can definitely pile up. (0:48:43) Kelly: I mean, this game goes in depth. (0:48:48) Kelly: I have freezers for bodies. (0:48:53) Kelly: So, you know, it’s like you are literally treating it like a morgue, like… (0:48:57) Kelly: But I think one of the most fun parts is removing the organs, (0:49:03) Kelly: but also the most hard to understand initially. (0:49:06) Kevin: Right, so yeah, let’s talk about that because as very early on you’re introduced that you have options to do the corpse One you can bury them in your graveyard. It has a prettiness rating you how you decorate it Well, you bury them and whatnot You can even just throw it in the river or cremate them or You can take them into your morgan Do a little bisection, you know see what you can poke around and find in there pull out a skull some blood What? (0:49:36) Kevin: A bit of flesh. (0:49:38) Kevin: It’s fascinating that they gave you this option. (0:49:43) Kevin: There’s… (0:49:44) Kevin: I haven’t gotten too in-depth with the body parts. (0:49:47) Kelly: So, I’ll explain it. It’s a lot. (0:49:51) Kelly: Basically, your corpse, so when you bury a corpse, you want it to be as high rated as possible because it impacts your cemeteries overall like beauty rating, (0:50:05) Kelly: which is a whole different aspect. (0:50:07) Kelly: And that’s a big part of the game because it kind of roadblocks you if you don’t keep up with it. (0:50:11) Kelly: But so you want to make sure you’re removing. (0:50:14) Kelly: If you remove certain organs, it makes your corpses… (0:50:17) Kelly: …that’s how you can remove them. (0:50:19) Kelly: If you remove other organs, it decreases it, and they don’t really tell you at first. (0:50:23) Kelly: You have to unlock skills on the skill tree… (0:50:25) Kelly: …that tell you. (0:50:25) Kevin: Yeah, I mean they tell you like there’s bad organs, but you don’t you can’t tell which ones until you go get that later (0:50:29) Kelly: Yes. Yes. (0:50:34) Kelly: And so you can remove organs, and you can also try to put the organ back. (0:50:38) K

Ronnie Raviv joined Leah to try and figure out if he has any favorite things. We talk about cocktails, cocktail bars, books, TV, great meals and our friendship origin story. For someone who claims to have no favorite things, there was no lacking in conversation. Like my beloved Zouks, Ronnie is not on twitter. Show Notes Second City Conservatory  Quipfire Improv  Sally Albright Chicken Pot Pie origin story  Mexican Mule Journeyman White Whiskey Jasper Fforde  OCD TLV Taizu  Fantastic TLV  Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde Blind Barber Duck Duck Goat Aviary Rosemary Tango Sur Bar Roma Frasca Monte Verde Dear Margaret  Yom Tov Deli (Tel Aviv) Harry's Epic Israel Food Tours Transcript follows Ronnie Raviv  0:00   Hello, my name is Ronnie Raviv. And I don't think I really have favorite things, but I have a lot of things that I like a lot, and you can hear all about them. In this week's finding favorites. ----more---- Announcer  0:10   Welcome to the findings favorites Podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones. Leah Jones  0:23   Hello, and welcome to finding favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. It's Sunday, August 27. Really a beautiful, perfect day in Chicago after that brutal heatwave earlier in the week. Nice to have the windows open and to eat dinner outside today. Not too much to report other than my shoulder MRI shows a what seems to be a completely boring, small rotator rotator cuff tear. So hopefully, I will have some resolution to my shoulder pain soon. The orthopedist I saw last week said shit your shoulder is jacked. Which I think is sports for let's take this injury seriously. This week on the podcast I am talking with my one of my very dear friends Ronnie Raviv. You have heard about him on the podcast for years because he kept me company during a lot of chemo therapies and steroid Saturdays. We went to Israel on overlapping trips recently, so we just had that fabulous dinner in Tel Aviv. We talked about that a little bit. So I twisted his arm and said, Come be on a podcast. Now he does not listen to podcasts. He's not a he's not into the audio medium of podcasting. So I don't know if he will ever listen to this. But we have a fun conversation. Just sitting around bullshitting on the couch for an hour or so. And hit record. So without further ado, wear your mask. Wash your hands. Get your booster. I know a new booster is coming out soon. So I guess, wear your mask more diligently while you wait for the new booster to be available. And keep enjoying your favorite things. Leah Jones  2:43   Hello, and welcome to finding favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. Today I'm joined a rare in person interview for finding favorites. With my own personal algorithm. You do all the research that wire cutter doesn't do for me. So I don't have to do it. Yeah. What do we just found out recently? You didn't know what wire cutter Ronnie Raviv  3:08   was? No, I had no idea. You introduced me to wire cutter. Leah Jones  3:11   Right. So wire cutter is consumer a modern consumer reports. Yeah, basically. And then anytime I need a new phone. You are my Consumer Reports. Ronnie Raviv  3:23   Yeah, I would just from like the one article that I read or the one article with all the links to the other articles that I read. It it I wouldn't describe it necessarily as the modern consumer reports. I would describe it as the less nerdy Consumer Reports. So let's let's charts and figures and more. Recommendations. Leah Jones  3:49   Yes. Ronnie Raviv  3:50   It's a curated fair Consumer Reports. Leah Jones  3:57   I'm fine with him doing all the research for me. Sure. Because I am too lazy. Yeah, I would rather buy it. It'd be the wrong thing. Never return it and buy another thing. I wouldn't rather that but that's more likely how my life goes, Ronnie Raviv  4:10   right? Yeah, no, I'd much rather would buy the right thing to begin with. Leah Jones  4:14   Yes. Right. Which is why every two years when I'm a Verizon, it's time to buy a new phone. I call you with no warning. And I'm like, What phone am I buying today? Right. I've done that for 15 years, at least. Once I went away from my Blackberry, Ronnie Raviv  4:29   which I think we're all happy for. Leah Jones  4:31   Yeah. So Ronnie, usually, this is when so this is like the time of the podcast where people get to know the guest. And often we're I'm getting to know the guests because usually they are a complete stranger. Right? And you're not No, Ronnie Raviv  4:48   no, we've known each other for I was trying to do the math. I feel like 21 or 22 years we've known each other. Yeah. And we've known each other well, for maybe 18 years. Yeah, we know each other very well for 15 years. Yeah, maybe that's I think Leah Jones  5:06   that's about right. I moved here in Memorial Day 2002. Okay. And started going to open mics immediately. Yeah. And very quickly. Got to the tequila Roadhouse. RIP, RIP tequila Roadhouse and Ronnie Raviv  5:25   their crack fries. Yeah, they were surprised that were I don't know what they put on. There were so bad. Leah Jones  5:33   Well, there was my cousin's Friend's Boyfriend maybe wasn't conservatory with you? I don't remember. Okay. I think he was Greek. Okay, or he had a friend and I don't remember. Somehow I want to but one of your conservatory shows Ronnie Raviv  5:55   site. Yes. Second City conservatory Right. Leah Jones  6:00   Which quickly led to tequila Roadhouse. Yes. Ronnie Raviv  6:03   Because my many of the people I would go into group and that improv group, not only did stuff but also held an open mic. First tequila Roadhouse, then they went to Weiss fools. Yep. Neither of which are around because this is over 20 years ago. Leah Jones  6:19   Yeah. So it was a mixed bag. Open Mic. Yes. Very. So I did stand up comedy. And you were reading your as of yet unfinished novel Ronnie Raviv  6:31   as of still yet unfinished novel? Yes. And you would read a chapter a week? Yes, that was probably the most productive time because I had the actual deadline to like, do the chapter, right. But the way I write I don't outline or plan ahead, I sorta have to get into the, into the fugue state, which means that every time I sit down and write I don't necessarily remember what it was that I wrote, because I'm in a bit of a fugue state, right. And that's generally how I read books as well. I don't remember things after I just sort of get the good feeling. Yeah. And so I, so now it's just become this daunting mountain, because as the chapters pile up, every time I sit down, I have to read the whole thing to get into that flow. And it's just like, you know, if I have an hour to write, that's all well and good, but it'll take me like three or four hours just to read the thing to like, get into the meat into you know, and I don't have three or four. Let's be honest, I probably do. I just don't have the, Leah Jones  7:28   you don't have it set aside. You haven't scheduled in, right. Reread the novel, Ronnie Raviv  7:33   right? Before I read a new chapter, right? You know, so I'll like read, I like spend three hours rereading it to the right, a few pages. And then the next day, I have to like, reread a bunch to get into, this doesn't really happen. Maybe one of these days, I'll outline what I actually want to have happen. And that will help spur me on to like, Oh, now I need to read. Now I need to write this thing that happens. But I don't even know what will happen. It just sort of happens as it happens. Yeah. That's why I always wrote short stories when I was in college. Yeah, Leah Jones  8:06   I was gonna say maybe your short story guy. Ronnie Raviv  8:08   I am. But I don't like I want to write a novel. Yeah. I like I'm better suited for short stories. It's the same. It's the same thing with improv. Like, I did improv in college and we did short form improv improv games. And then and that's what I was good at, because I'm like, I'm good at that kind of quick joke thing. And then I went through the conservatory program at Second City, after many different things like twists and turns of my life and then ended up there. And I appreciate improv long form. Improv is an art form. And I sort of denigrate short form improv is just gimmicky, right? And so I don't like the short form improv as much. But that's the thing I'm better at I'm not good at the long form. So now I can't really do improv because the thing that I like, I'm not as good at writing that I I'm better at I don't like as much right. Leah Jones  9:01   But do you have? When's the last time you I don't I've never I don't think I've ever seen you do short form improv. I've seen you do sketch. Yeah. No, you haven't because I don't even know if I've ever seen you do long form improv. You have. Ronnie Raviv  9:13   I think, Okay, what if you? Well, I guess no, because it's because the seconds are the conservatory shows were more your sketch. They were born they were born out of improv to do with the improv in the class. And there was, there was a certain amount of improv, improvising on the stage. Like we make beats, we didn't have anything written out. Right. Sketches weren't, weren't scripted. But we sort of knew what was going to happen. A little more like, Curb Your Enthusiasm type. Leah Jones  9:37   I remember I guess I mostly remember your musical numbers. Yeah. White people brown line. Yes. Ronnie Raviv  9:43   I did not write that one. No, Leah Jones  9:45   but somebody asked you that you look at your watch. And somebody asks you the time and you were like, I don't know what time it is. And you put your hand down. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  9:54   You have more memory than I do. Leah Jones  9:56   I think because of the time I lived on the brow, I took the brown line about Each and every time I get on the Brown Line, I would think about the song. Yeah. So Ronnie Raviv  10:04   yeah, no white people brown line. That was that was a brilliant piece of work. I did a song that was a parody of modern gender. Yeah. That was a mouthful. It was like a victim of the new new economy or something, which at this point is like, three economies ago. Because this was in the early aughts. Yeah. It's been awhile. It's been a lifetime. It's been so long. So yeah, so the last time I did improv, I think is when my undergrad improv group. This is pre pandemic came through Chicago, they would come through Chicago, New York or LA. So every three years it comes to Chicago. And then they, they they did a little show to basically no audience is just really for us. Yeah. And then they called on the alums to come. And I thought they were gonna just kind of, we were just gonna do a quick little scene, like what we would do at reunion is like a world's worst. I like my women or men, like I like my blank or whatever. Yeah. But no, they then said, Okay, now you're going to do now, all the alarms now you're going to do a long form improv. Which, so when I was going through that group, it's called quickfire? Yeah. When I was going through it, we only did short form improv, right? Leah Jones  11:21   Because it was before UCB. It was before the Herald had New York. Ronnie Raviv  11:25   Yeah, this was this was in the mid in the early mid 90s. So we only did short form improv. And so the only reason I even knew like, luckily for me, I had gone through the second city experience. So I had had experience with long form, right. But so this was in I think, 2017. Okay. And my last experience with long form improv was in 2002. Yeah. So, and I was by far the oldest alarm there. The next oldest alarm was from the class of 2009. Okay, so the next oldest alarm was sort of complaining that they hadn't done improv in a while. had done it at like at that point. quickfire had done long form improv when they were in school. And so they had last done in 2009. You know, I had last done it before they were even in school. Leah Jones  12:22   Right before they were in grade school. Ronnie Raviv  12:25   Not quite that far, but they weren't probably Junior High. Last time I did long form improv, right. And that only by like luck, because previous to Second City, I'd only done short form improv. So I was like, I felt like it was a fish out of water, but somehow didn't. Didn't crap the bed too bad, I guess. I don't know. We did. Okay. It was only for us. So it didn't really matter, right. low stakes, no stakes, stakes improv. Leah Jones  12:50   I did. Eventually I gave in and I did the five classes at annoyance when I was managing the ice cream parlor, right? Because so many lifetimes ago, many, many lifetimes ago. Because I was so tired of people asking me if I did improv, I was like, I do stand up comedy. Sometimes, Ronnie Raviv  13:12   ironically, because literally everybody who does improv their families all assumed that their stand up comedian, right, right. Oh, do some do some stand up comedian comedy Ford's like, that's not what I do. I do improv. Okay. Well then do improv. Right? No, it's a group thing. Right. Stand up here and do improv. Leah Jones  13:27   I know. But you did have me come out once and do stand up comedy. For your parents friends. For Param. Yes, I remember that. Ronnie Raviv  13:37   I wasn't, I don't think you would not have gone without No, I wouldn't you did it. And you were brave. They were they were they were welcoming audience. Leah Jones  13:48   They were welcoming audience. You had Ronnie Raviv  13:52   you had my favorite joke, my favorite Lea joke. But it will have been we don't necessarily have to. Leah Jones  13:58   Was it about the date with a little person? No, I remember that one being Ronnie Raviv  14:02   No, it was the learning Hebrew. Oh, yeah. That you the needle pointed for me. And I still haven't hung but I will in a minute. Yeah. Leah Jones  14:10   Right. So Ronnie helped me. When I was learning the alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet. We would like go to Jack's for chicken potpie. And sometimes I would drag out these giant workbooks and make them help me with Hebrew. And when I had finally gotten really confident that I could like, kind of like know the alphabet in order. I was like, Ronnie, I have learned everything from Alif to Zion, Ronnie Raviv  14:37   which you know, translated from A to Z except it's really more like if you're familiar with the Greek alphabet from alpha to zeta, and that's like the seventh letter. Right? But Leah Jones  14:48   you know, yeah. So I for Ronnie's 40th birthday, I cross stitched him something that said met LF Ronnie Raviv  14:57   Zion Yeah, from A to zeta Right. So essentially, Leah Jones  15:00   right, I've learned everything from A to F. Yeah. Which honestly appropriate. Yeah. Because I had not learned Hebrew from A to Z like, No, probably not. I can. I can't even function anymore. I used to use my Hebrew used to be better, but everybody in English, everybody in Israel's English got way better. And also technology got way better. Ronnie Raviv  15:23   Yes. Not as important anymore. No. But I remember that crowd really liked that joke, right because it was a crowd of Hebrew speakers. Right. So they, they were all right there they that was the that was the crowd. That Leah Jones  15:36   was the only crowd I didn't have to explain the punchline to Yeah, yeah, like we just did here. Right. Ronnie Raviv  15:43   But you know, jokes are always better when you have to explain the punchline. Leah Jones  15:46   Yeah. Right. So I did improv it annoyance. But I've never performed it outside of a class. Ronnie Raviv  15:57   So that's alright. That's fine Leah Jones  15:58   with me. Yeah, it's okay. I understand it. And I understand I don't want to do it. Ronnie Raviv  16:04   Yeah. Yeah, I'm sort of I'm sure I'm right there with you. It took me longer time to understand that. Leah Jones  16:10   Yeah. That you didn't want to do it anymore. Or that or to understand it? Ronnie Raviv  16:15   Both, I guess. Yeah. Because I was in a more because they started with the short form, right, which is like the games and the, the joke Enos right. Leah Jones  16:23   The Whose Line Is It Anyway, who's that's exactly boarded for puns and jokes and dad jokes and quick thinking, right. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  16:30   Which is what we were, which is what I was really good Leah Jones  16:33   at. Yeah. So you're still really good at? Yeah, Ronnie Raviv  16:36   I think so. I'm okay that for sure. Yeah. But you know, when it comes to like, improvising long scenes where you have to like, react and have emotions and whatever, I'm not as good as that. Leah Jones  16:51   Till we met, and then comedy ended, comedy didn't really end I got transferred to London. So I was like, and you finish conservatory. And I think by the time I was back from London, I think the tequila Roadhouse might have been closed. Ronnie Raviv  17:09   I think it was around for maybe a little longer than that. But we were but they were no longer doing the open mic. Yeah. Leah Jones  17:15   Yeah. And we ran into each other at a board game. It's a bar on Addison started with a G threes. threes. Ronnie Raviv  17:23   I have no recollection of this. You know, me. I'm, you know, me. I sort of have no recollection of things. Yeah. Leah Jones  17:30   I remember it clearly, somewhat clearly. And then I recently searched my blog to see if I had when it happened. Okay. And I reference people that I'm like, I referenced someone named Jamie. And I'm like, Who the fuck is Jamie? Jamie Allen? Probably no, no. Like I was there with my friend Jeff from high school. Were Jeff from college. Jamie might have been his girlfriend at the time. Ronnie Raviv  17:52   Oh, girl. Okay. Yeah. Leah Jones  17:55   I don't know. Like, I don't know the description of the people that I say I walked in with Oh, okay. And then you watch because I moved to London and quit comedy. And we figured out like, Oh, hey, what's up? Sell your number. And so then we went for chicken Popeye. Nice. Shortly thereafter, Ronnie Raviv  18:14   yeah. Chicken. Popeye was so good. Yeah. Last, Leah Jones  18:19   so rip jacks. Yeah. And long before they were closed. Rip the chicken pot pie. Ronnie Raviv  18:23   Right. Rip that chicken pot pie. More so than jacks. Yeah. And then the Diag. Yeah, it's Leah Jones  18:28   rip. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  18:31   Yeah. But yeah, the chicken pot pie was gone long before that. And that was really the big tragedy of the whole thing. Leah Jones  18:39   Was the chicken potpie gone before your ability to process? Dairy? Ronnie Raviv  18:45   No, it was worth it. Ya know, my ability. My inability to process dairy disappeared before the dream pop. I did. But it was worth it. Leah Jones  18:53   Yeah. That's another conversation locked in my brain because it was so insane. Because you picked me up from the 14th station. And you pretended like I had any choice about where we were going to dinner. Right? Which was nice of you to pretend. Right? And then you said, Leah, you know, the type of chicken Popeye that you dream of? And I was like, I do not dream of chicken pie. I Ronnie Raviv  19:14   see. You remember this as dream of I feel like I wouldn't have put it that way. Maybe I did at that point. But I sort of always see it as you know, when you have a hankering for chicken, Popeye. And you sort of have in your mind's eye. What? You're sort of picturing like, Oh, I could go for that. Right? And then you order it. And it's like, oh, well, that's not really what I was picturing. Chicken Popeye, but it's not the chicken coop I had in my brain. Yes. This place had that chicken. Leah Jones  19:45   Yeah. And I was very skeptical. Of course, Ronnie Raviv  19:49   as was everybody I told this story to right there. Leah Jones  19:53   And you were of course correct because they they baked it an individual that you had a cross pinched on To the top of your bowl. Ronnie Raviv  20:01   Yeah. But it was just it wasn't it was beyond that it was I think it was like the way the sauce that like Allah King sauce or whatever it is. It's like the like just the chicken, the combination of vegetables, the proportions, the sauce, the flavor, the cross, like all of it. It was like the platonic ideal of a chicken about pie, right. And I had many a convert to that chicken. Popeye was good. It was great. And then the chef left and they could not recreate it. No. And then it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And then they closed and it became a sports bar. Leah Jones  20:38   Yeah. And then somehow that was the last time we went I think was probably my 40th Ronnie Raviv  20:45   Yeah, I don't know what's been called for a while. Leah Jones  20:47   Yeah. But we went that's where we went after. That was where the after party was okay? Was Diag. Okay, because it was walking distance. So, according according to the pictures I have. Yeah, I don't I don't recall that either. No, I don't have a lot of memories. Right that night. Ronnie Raviv  21:07   Yeah, no, that and that was a bit of a blur. Yeah. Yeah. Leah Jones  21:12   Um, yeah. So that's the origin story. Yeah. Is comedy. And then happened to happen? Chance happenstance, happenstance. Yeah. Yeah. And people were listened to the podcast have heard about you, Matthew. David brozik. One of your good one of your best friends from college has been a guest. And people have certainly heard about you on steroids. Sunday. Steroid Saturday's one of my Mayo Clinic. Road trip buddies. Yeah, the OG hospital host the OG hospital husband. Yes. And you still probably wear your pen. That was that was really sweet. Leah Jones  22:02   So one of the things when we talked about favorite things, like what would you talk about? As favorite things first, you're like immediately I don't have anything. Ronnie Raviv  22:12   No, I still I've been racking my brains. And I have. I have no favorite things. I have a lot of things I dabble in and things I like, right. Like a lot of things. Yeah. I'm a fairly easygoing, sometimes guy. Usually going in a sort of very high maintenance way. Leah Jones  22:31   I joke last night about you being Sally Albright. But you are Sally Albright from When Harry Met Sally. I mean, I'm you are easy going in the way that Sally Albright is easygoing. Ronnie Raviv  22:42   I think maybe not quite that heightened. But yeah, there's just there's no, there's certainly some truth to that for sure. No, I'm, I like a lot of things. Yeah. I also hate a lot of things. But I like a lot of things. And I'm sort of, you know, generally fairly open to whatever. Is there a certain way Leah Jones  23:01   you'll eat almost anywhere as long as you can order around the menu. Which is true. Ronnie Raviv  23:06   Yeah. Because you're a lot of picky eater. Bit of a super taster. Yeah, not an adventurous Well, no, that's not true. I Leah Jones  23:14   don't think that's fair. Ronnie Raviv  23:15   You know, I'm an I'm adventurous. I just picky. Leah Jones  23:18   You are adventurous. If you trust the chef. Yeah, that's true. Because we could just talk about, we can even just talk about great meals we've had together. Yeah, we've had some good ones. Yeah. Because Thai zoo and Tel Aviv last year. Yep. And OCD. Yep. Are both to where it was where? You would? I mean, they both places where they took our tastes seriously? Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  23:49   Yeah. We said what we liked and didn't like whatever and pointed them in a direction, right? And they said, Okay, trust us, and they delivered. Leah Jones  24:00   Yeah. So I think if the chef can't deliver at that level, you are less adventuresome. Right, for sure. Or you will amend the menu to make something better than they have on them. And yeah, Ronnie Raviv  24:13   well, I mean, I try not to be as annoying about it as Sally. I try to, I generally try to say, just eliminate these one or two things that I don't like. And also like if there's like a thing that I have to eliminate five things. I'm not going to get that thing, right. I'm gonna just get the thing like okay, I can have this like just take out the raw onions and avocado and I'm good. Yeah, you know, just like the things I don't like. I don't try to like have them do a concoction. Except for if there's mac and cheese on the menu and there's chili on the menu. That's a thing where things have to be put together. Yeah, because that's amazing. Chili Mac is the best thing ever. And I don't know why any restaurant that has chili and then has mac and cheese does not have Have a chili Mac. Yeah, option. It's silly. Leah Jones  25:03   Yes. I do think we have to get the purchase doesn't have Mac and mac and cheese right? Ronnie Raviv  25:09   I don't believe so they have an amazing chili. Chili was so good. Chili was so good, but I did not see mac and cheese. Yeah. Leah Jones  25:16   So we'll have to get it to go and then take and then go to the mac and cheese. Max. Yeah, yeah. Be like don't worry. We have purse chilly Ronnie Raviv  25:28   we got chilly to go. Leah Jones  25:30   Yeah. Um, I don't know, do you wanna talk about with CD? We could. Or something? Ronnie Raviv  25:37   Oh, no, I could. I could. I could throw this back on you. Okay. I mean, the name of the podcast is finding favorite. Yes. So find my favorite. What's my favorite? Leah Jones  25:51   Well, your favorite liquor right now is Mezcal. True? That is? Yes. It's Mezcal number is affirm. Number one. This Ronnie Raviv  26:01   girl is affirmed. Number one, but with a huge caveat. Like the bartender was mixologist. Whatever has to be Mezcal is pickier. It's harder to blend. Okay, well, so if I don't trust the bartender, I will fall back on tequila, which is easier to deal with. But if the bartender is really good in Moscow, they can do a better job. Leah Jones  26:29   Right. So the the Mezcal meal has been your go to cocktail this summer? Ronnie Raviv  26:37   Yes. If I again, if you trust them, trust them. Otherwise, I'll go with Mexico meal because that's a lot more right. Reliable, Leah Jones  26:46   yeah. But I don't know when that because not you were never really you're not really a Gen drinker? Because that's a little too aromatic. Yeah. But for a long time, it was like vodka or rum, but like tequila, I feel like is new on like, in the last five years has gone up your list? Ronnie Raviv  27:11   Well, I think it probably was, realistically, it was there longer than that. Maybe afraid. Like I figured, because I'm like, I don't love the taste of alcohol, like vodka is my thing. And I like you know, and if you go to a bar that doesn't have anything, like you go to a like, an event, right? And all you know, they had the most basic stuff, then I'll get a vodka cranberry, right, you know, splash soda and some wine. Ronnie Raviv  27:40   But if there's a place that and then for a while, I was like, oh, but if you have ginger beer, I'll do a Moscow Mule. Yeah. And then I discovered the Mexico mule. And that is so much better than the Moscow Mule. Right. And then I was also like, at that point, I was like, But wait, but also if there's a margarita, I will go for a margarita. Yeah. And it's like, well, maybe, you know, really the only vodka drink I like is the vodka cranberry. And I like the Mexico mule as my fallback, right? You know, my my go to and I like the the the margarita, right? Maybe, maybe tequila is my favorite. And so then I'm like, You know what, maybe I want to kill a guy and I didn't know and then like, and then I discovered the Moscow Mule. And I'm like, wow, that elevates the, the Mexico mule to a whole new level. But you go to a bar that doesn't know what they're doing a Moscow Mule is gonna be hit or miss. Yeah. Leah Jones  28:33   I also I mean, mezcal has come into its own in America in the last few years. So Ronnie Raviv  28:38   it's more popular. You it was there, there were times where you there are a lot of bars that still don't have it. Yeah. Leah Jones  28:44   And they also suspect as you and your friends as like all of our paychecks have changed. And our base level to Keela has changed in our houses. Like in the I think there's like grote, we're older. We're middle age now. So we're not getting like the cheapest tequila and none of your friends have the cheapest tequila in their house and and so like I also think there's something to be said for like access to better quality. Yeah, I Yeah, that's a killer you were introduced to at 21 You probably want to drink today. Ronnie Raviv  29:25   Maybe or maybe it's about the mixers the quality of the mix. Like ginger beer just really solves a lot of problems. Yeah, alcohols in general. But also think that vodka is a much, much more consistent thing. So you know, there's bad gin and bad tequila and certainly bad Moscow. Yeah, vodka. It might be mediocre you know, but But by the same ticket there's excellent tequila is an excellent Moscow's right and excellent gins. And there's not really an excellent vodka. Maybe there's a few I have a very Leah Jones  30:00   nice vodka right now. Ronnie Raviv  30:02   Exactly a very nice vodka. Leah Jones  30:04   It's a Polish. It's the buffalograss. Polish vodka. Ronnie Raviv  30:08   Very nice vodka. It's not an excellent vibe. But it can't be excellent because there's just not enough complexity there. Right? It's like the best vodkas are the ones that taste least like anything. Right? Like the bad vodkas are the ones that like tastes a little bit like gasoline and the ones that the excellent bikers are the ones that taste less like gasoline fare, whereas tequila has the complexity of the brown liquors that I don't like right without being the brown occurs and I don't like Leah Jones  30:34   right, because the brown look, error is not on my favorites. No. Ronnie Raviv  30:40   But it's not just a bitter there's it's just that gasoline, turpentine sort of alcohol it tastes Yeah. And I don't know there's the peatiness I don't know there's something the barrel. Yeah. Because I because journeyman, we're plugging so many should get. You should get all sorts of free stuff. Leah Jones  30:57   Oh, I don't link to all of it. And they they give me nothing. Yeah. But Ronnie Raviv  31:02   journeyman, in three oaks, Michigan. They have a white whiskey Leah Jones  31:10   that's aged in glass, Ronnie Raviv  31:13   or it's not aged. They distill the whiskey but then they don't agent in the barrel, maybe a moonshine? No, it's whiskey, right? But it just doesn't have that PD. Yeah. Woody, barely taste or whatever it is that I don't like about it. That makes an excellent mule. And they also have this drink called OCG. The old country goodness, it's like an apple cinnamon, nice cider that they do either straight up or is a frozen slushy. And it's really, really good. It's good. Yeah. So with a white whiskey, that's the only whiskey to drink. Unless it's like a really, really cool, complicated, right drink where the whiskey sort of really balanced out by other stuff. Like get at the aviary. Yeah, plug plug plug. Leah Jones  32:05   Right so that the aviary and like less so the violet hour or what's the one on Damon? Ronnie Raviv  32:16   Violet hours on Damon? Oh, what's Leah Jones  32:18   the other one on Damon? closer to me? Damon on LinkedIn. Victor or Victor Victor bar? Ronnie Raviv  32:24   Yeah. Just like the sticks. Used to be Yeah. Leah Jones  32:28   So you do you also have I would say also a favorite thing of yours is a well crafted complex, very Ronnie Raviv  32:35   well crafted. Interesting cocktail. Yes, I do like that. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Well crafted, interesting cocktail or fantastic. In Israel. Yeah. Or bellboy? Right? In Israel in Tel Aviv, Leah Jones  32:53   Imperial. Ronnie Raviv  32:55   Imperial was good. Like Ultra. Yep. also has very good cocktails. Leah Jones  33:04   Yeah, I do Ronnie Raviv  33:05   have one Barber has good cocktails. Yep. There's another place that has had really good cocktails. I can't remember. There's a lot of places with good cocktails. Yeah. Leah Jones  33:17   So I think that is I think, like if you're in a new city, not that you go to new cities often, right? No, I don't if you are returning to a city. So like my friend Dave. He uses hardrock cafes as like, an excuse to go to a city. He collects going to them just because it gives him a reason to put a city on his itinerary. Ronnie Raviv  33:41   In and of itself, that's a terrible excuse. But if it gets you to a new city, it gets you there. But it's terrible underlying excuses. Leah Jones  33:49   Check off boxes. Yeah, right. There's a list you can check out against the list. Okay. So that is not, you know, not implying it is. So if you are returning to a city you've been to before Tel Aviv, New York. Chicago, I think you will seek out a new interest. Like you will seek out a cocktail bar. Yeah. Something to do. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  34:16   I'm usually if I'm if I'm there on my own. No, that's not true. I'm usually there with somebody. Visiting somebody seeing somebody. Yeah. So I will get from them. What's the good? What's the good cocktail, right? So I went to business. I went on business to Copenhagen. And so I made sure that our business contacts told me where the good cocktail bar Leah Jones  34:39   right was. Yeah, yeah. So all right, so there I've already found Mezcal and fancy pants cocktail bar, Ronnie Raviv  34:51   Fancy Pants cocktail. Yes, girly drinks, girly, girly drinks. Leah Jones  34:56   I was just reading an article this morning about how sometimes men to freak out when they're served something in stemware and will like make the bartender put it in a rocks glass. Oh, my Ronnie Raviv  35:08   friend Bob hates coupe glass. Really? I don't like martini glasses because martini glasses are stupid. Because they spill everywhere. Right? But a coupe glass that doesn't spill as much as a little bit because it's up to the rim. Yeah, but no, my friend Bob hates Kool Aid. He like will reject cocktails if they come in. Like he's not if they come to him that he won't reject them. But he was like, sometimes if you if you remember his he'll say, Is that coming to coupe? Like, oh, and then I want it? Leah Jones  35:33   Yeah. I mean, I will sometimes say like, is it up or on the rocks? And I will often ask for something that's served up to be served on the rocks. Yeah. But that's because I love ice. Right? Yeah, that's a whole different thing. And not because I hate Well, it's I love ice. I will drink it way too fast and a coupe. Like if there's not ice in it. It's just might as well just be a shot. Right? So Ronnie Raviv  35:57   I don't know why I feel myself to ice. I do a good job of sipping when it's in the coupe glass. Yeah. Something about the coupe glass. Not that I love it or hate it and anything else but something about it always. Like if it's in a tall glass. I will down that like nobody's okay. Yeah, I'll go and like down. Yeah. Whereas in the coupe glass that's like, oh, it's like I can see the whole thing. And I can sort of take little, little dainty sips and none of Leah Jones  36:25   its hiding behind the ice. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And they're not served with a straw. Ronnie Raviv  36:30   Which I never use. I very rarely use. Yeah. Only if it's like, really, really like impossible. Like it's piled high with ice and other things like, like sticking out of the rim. Leah Jones  36:43   Like the so we had a drink at fantastique in Tel Aviv with Ronnie Raviv  36:48   Chuck flowers, electric flowers, look them up on Google, which are Leah Jones  36:53   I have smuggled them home. They're in my purse. Ronnie Raviv  36:57   They're crazy. Yeah. It's just this little. It's like It's like almost I don't know how to describe it. It's Leah Jones  37:07   not quite a thistle. Yeah, because it doesn't. It doesn't poke you hurt, right? It's kind of like Ronnie Raviv  37:15   it's like the dandelions like the inside of the puffball. Dandelion. Yeah, before it's opened. No, after after it's open. When you've blown all the puffs off. It's like the round ball. It's a little bit bigger. And it's a little bit fuzzy, Leah Jones  37:28   right? Oh, you know, it's kind of like a pussy willow. Like the Yeah, Ronnie Raviv  37:34   but yellow. Yeah. And you bite into it just a teeny tiny little, tiniest, tiniest amount. It's bitter, and it's not great. And it doesn't taste good. But you just the tiniest amount just a little tiny nibble, like Alison Wonderland noodling on, nibbling on it and mushroom, just the tiniest little nibble. And then for the next, depending on how big the nibble was. 1015 minutes. Your tongue feels like it's constantly licking a nine volt battery. And as you drink something, it enhances that. Yes. And it's really, really interesting and cool and different and bizarre. Yeah. And unpleasant and pleasant at the same time. Leah Jones  38:18   I think you have been telling me about it for like four years. Ronnie Raviv  38:21   Yeah. And you and you still didn't quite picture it in your head. Leah Jones  38:25   No. Even in my mouth. I did not. It was so in SAM. It was you are as giddy right now as you were in the moment. So wonderful Ronnie Raviv  38:35   to see. For the look of a horror and shock on your face of like, what is this? What am I done? What is happening to my insides in my face right now? It was so awesome. Leah Jones  38:49   It was so weird. Yeah. And then it was right like a tequila based drink with a lot of ice. Yeah, a lot of drama. Oh, yeah. Ronnie Raviv  38:57   There was a plan sticking thorns. I'm all sorts of stuff. It was. Yeah. I think the drink was called like, dangerous. Something deep something like danger in the world in the name, Leah Jones  39:06   right. But it was very, it was it was very fun. Ronnie Raviv  39:12   Yeah, yeah. It was really, really tasty drink, too. Yeah. Leah Jones  39:18   I think that was the I think you did a better job or I got whatever. Oh, might have a good and plenty, isn't it? Ronnie Raviv  39:25   Well, yeah. Because you wanted something that tasted like licorice. Leah Jones  39:29   Yeah, but it was such a literal interpretation of tastes like licorice. It was was good. And plenty is melting in the bottom of a whiskey drink Ronnie Raviv  39:37   with some bitters that you could inject with? Yeah, syringe? Yeah. Leah Jones  39:42   It was dramatic and creative, but not delicious, right. I mean, it was fine. Yeah, it was but I'll never order it again. Ronnie Raviv  39:50   No. My drink was better. But honestly, the best drink was the one that we went with the electric flower. Yeah. Leah Jones  39:59   Was very funny. It Ronnie Raviv  40:00   was just for the gimmick would be fine. But it was not just a gimmick. It was a really, really good drink. Right. Really well balanced with the gimmick. Yes. Leah Jones  40:06   Yeah. So that was that's That was great. And I had gone to loutra earlier in the weekend in Tel Aviv and had some very nice cocktails to I don't remember what they were. Because it was all tequila. Yeah. And Ronnie Raviv  40:24   very few Mexican restaurants in Israel. Yeah. A little surprising. Yeah, but I mean, just from like, the palate like you would think like spicy foods and right. Cilantro. Yeah. It's like all these things. Oh, yeah, it's all rice. You'd think that it would be really popular in Israel and for some reason. There aren't that many of them Leah Jones  40:50   for many years. When I would like check a huge bag instead of checking a small bag or three Ronnie Raviv  40:57   small bag, three medium sized. Leah Jones  41:01   Um, and I would take like my friend David, when a trash bags like Benji and tall Tali both wanted like, El Paso taco seasoning. Like my friends were like, bring me like envelopes of taco seasoning. And American trash bags. And American toothpaste. And aspirin. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  41:24   And then what would you bring back? Israeli ketchup? And my friend who is a modern Orthodox would ask me for Doritos, because Oh, because they're kosher isn't Israel. They're kosher. Leah Jones  41:39   I I remember, early trip bringing you back like olives. Ronnie Raviv  41:44   Yes, you brought? Yeah, but now you can get them. Yeah. I still have those olives and pickles because they were the wrong ones. They're the cracked olives that are bitter, as opposed to the sort of the more the Arabic olives that are bitter as opposed to the kibbutz olives that I like, and it was the the cucumbers in vinegar instead of in Brian. Leah Jones  42:11   I still I still have entries been at minimum 10 years that I gave you those possibly longer Ronnie Raviv  42:20   I think more like eight but yes, it's been a while. During the probably not. They're not. I'm moving in six weeks or so. Leah Jones  42:28   Yeah, I will sneak in and take them and throw them out for you. You're not moving them? Ronnie Raviv  42:36   Probably not. But it's against my religion to throw food away. Leah Jones  42:40   I understand. I understand that. Ronnie Raviv  42:42   I know. I know. It's possible I gave the olives to my mom because she does like those correct olives. Yeah, but none of us like the pickles and vinegar. Brian, Leah Jones  42:52   it's also sweet of you to wait eight years to tell me that I brought you the wrong thing. Ronnie Raviv  42:57   No. It was like it was so sweet of a gesture I'm not gonna I didn't have the heart to tell you know, beggars can be choosers I don't like the free thing you got me. Leah Jones  43:09   Um, when my nephews were of a certain age, which is much younger than they are now I would bring back I would go to the shuk and Jerusalem and buy like all of the fake Kinder eggs like I would go to the Kinder Egg store that had like all the off brand unlicensed Kinder eggs Ronnie Raviv  43:30   because they were legal here for a while. They're still Leah Jones  43:31   illegal here. Ronnie Raviv  43:32   I thought they weren't I thought they just thought they figured out how to because now you can buy it now they just buy them but they suck. Right because they don't have because they they've been protected for the litigious American mark. Yes. Leah Jones  43:43   So there were times when I would like have an entire layer of Kinder eggs and bootleg Kinder eggs for the kids of Leroy, Illinois, for the O'Briens and the DeVivo is to have like a Kinder Egg Unboxing party at my sister's house. Nice. Yeah. Leah Jones  44:12   Okay, other favorite things of yours. You consume a lot of TV for someone who is not a TV critic. Ronnie Raviv  44:21   Right? I do. I used to consume a lot more admittedly. I consume less nowadays. Yeah, still consume a lot. Leah Jones  44:28   Right? For sure. When we met you had three VCRs. Correct. Ronnie Raviv  44:32   And then you worked on a client on the TiVo account and the TiVo account. And so I got a TiVo that can record six things at once. Yeah. Which I still have. Yeah. Actually, no, between those I had a DVR I had like a I had a Windows Media DVR that could record four things at once. Yeah, but the hard drives kept going out. Yeah. And then I got the TiVo. I have that to this day. But now I'm not going to have cable in my new place. Right? So I'm gonna have to figure out what's going on with that whole new era. It's a whole new era. Yeah. Because YouTube TV isn't going to quite do it for me, but I'm not sure that ATT DirecTV is going to do it for me, but like, I can get you like I can get internet for sort of free because the building has internet, but I don't know if it's reliable enough, and it won't have the 18 T. Like, I'd have to pay extra. So do I want to pay the extra it's a whole big thing that I have to Leah Jones  45:30   sort of figure out it's, it's going to be a major lifestyle, it is going to be a major lifestyle change. But how what is your origin story with TV? Like, how did you become? When did you go from one to two to three visa like when I've only ever known you as someone with a huge queue of TV to watch, but I don't know why you watch so much TV. Ronnie Raviv  45:56   I don't either. Um, because it's good escapism, I always like watching TV. Like I had a TV, I got it, I got a small little TV. Like, I don't know, like a 13 inch TV or something for my Bar Mitzvah that I had in my room. So I'd watch TV there sometimes. And then I took that to college, and then we would watch Whose Line Is It Anyway, like we'd all crammed right, and we didn't have cable, freshman and sophomore year. So I would like take speaker wire and toss them out the window, click attach to the rabbit ears in hopes of getting a decent signal on. Because that's how old we are Lea. And so yeah, so I was watched that and then and then I guess maybe after college I started recording things on on the VCR so I wouldn't like because, you know, I'm I have friends who will not have plans because they want to go do something they want to watch TV or something. So I would like record whatever because why not? And so maybe a little bit after college that started but then it really was in earnest it during business school. That's when I collected sort of like a second and maybe even my third DVR. VCR. Yeah. In business school. So I could record things but not miss out on social occasion. Right. And also, there's an additional advantage of that is because if there's an hour long show that you record, you can zip through the commercials and watch it in 45 minutes very efficient. So yeah, so I think it's, I'm all about if you if I had to pick a favorite thing would be efficiency. That's which is really the polite way of saying lazy. But yeah, so it was really the efficient thing to do. Leah Jones  47:50   Right. And when and when, like comedy so much of it wasn't right. Yeah. I mean, classes might have been during the day, but like so much of comedy was Yeah, evenings and yeah, Ronnie Raviv  48:01   so I wouldn't be never home but I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to miss out on things. Like you know, I'm, I'm a very much a homebody, right and need an inordinate amount of me time, right? I don't like having plans day after night after night after night after night after night. Right? Even if I'm enjoying all those plans it just like I get stir crazy. I need my time. But I don't want to be the kind of person who misses out on plans with friends. Because Oh, no, I have to watch this at home. Right? That's I feel like, you know, that's You can be addicted to the thing, but not make it ruin your life. Right. So, yeah, so I just like started recording anything that was vaguely interesting. And I would watch it. Yeah. And my bar for vaguely interesting is pretty low. Right? Leah Jones  48:51   It's not reality. No, I Ronnie Raviv  48:52   don't I don't do reality TV. And I don't like shows about unpleasant people making bad decisions. Leah Jones  49:02   It's a madman. Ronnie Raviv  49:03   Yeah. Madman Breaking Bad. I watched a few episodes and like, succession. Haven't you watched that? Yes. Like at this point, I kind of know, oh, this is a show about shitty people making bad decisions, right? I'm not gonna like it. Because if it's a good person making bad decisions, okay, if it's a shitty person making good decisions, like an antihero kind of a thing. You know, like a Dexter or whatever, fine. But if it's like a crappy person who's making bad decisions and gets in trouble for their bad decisions, like I'm not gonna root for them to get out of trouble. Like you just you do this yourself. Yeah. Why do I care if you get out of it? Leah Jones  49:38   That's how I felt. I feel like I watched the pilot of girls. The TV show it was on HBO. Lena Dunham. Yeah. Adam Driver. Yeah. And I think I watched the pilot and I was like, Oh, I agree with the parents. This show is not for me because I think the parents should be kind Putting her off. And then I think that was like one of like five episodes of the whole series that I ever watched because I was like, No, I think I think she should be cut off and have to like, figure it out a little bit better. Yeah, I Ronnie Raviv  50:13   think that was on during the years that I didn't have HBO. Yeah. Because I had HBO for many years while I was, you know, when I first moved into my apartment, because for some reason, the cable company screwed up and it wasn't scrambled. Great. So I had free HBO and Showtime and then one day they caught on and they re scramble them and it's not like I could pick up the phone and call them and say Hey, how come he scrambled the free Why am I free cable that I'm not taking away? Yeah, so I you know, watch the first several seasons of sopranos and the first couple seasons of Kirby enthusiasm, and then I lost HBO so then I didn't watch those shows anymore. Well, sopranos Leah Jones  50:51   was on Sunday nights right before the tequila Roadhouse. Open Mic. So sometimes people would watch it at kill Roadhouse in the front and the bar and then go to the back for the open mic. Yeah, maybe I recorded it. Yeah. Right. You're gonna have to find a whole new system. Ronnie Raviv  51:10   Yeah, well now so they all it's streaming DVR, so you could just have hit it, but from what I read, they're not good about time shifting. Yeah, like in my current on the on the TiVo, I can say, okay, record this show, like when it supposed to be but then keep recording for another, you know, three, five minutes, another hour and a half. Like if there's a baseball game on before a football game before? And they're gonna like start it late. I can just keep recording. Yeah. But now with these online, these these streaming DVRs. You have to sort of set to record the show after it because he can't like extend the show. They don't know well enough, and but you might be able to go back and I don't know. It's a whole complicated thing. Yeah. I'm gonna have to figure out yeah. So yeah, TV is sort of a favorite. Yeah. But again, okay. I have a lot of things I like but none of these are my favorites. The the cocktails is probably the closest Yeah, but like people ask me, oh, what's your favorite show? If you watch too much TV? I don't have a favorite show. Just like I watch a lot of shows. Yeah, I don't favorite. Yeah, efficiently. I don't have a favorite though. Yeah. I have a bunch that I like. So I like more or less, where I'd be hard pressed to even say what those are. Yeah. I also like with books, I watch a TV show or a movie or a book. And I get the good feeling of it in the moment. And I appreciate it. I enjoy it in the moment, but then asked me what it was about. Right. When I'll have a tough time. Yeah. I just like it goes out of my head. I'm like, Oh, I remember I liked that book. What's it about? I don't know. What happens and I don't know. I just remember that it came away thinking it was a great book. Leah Jones  52:49   Do you ever come away thinking it's a bad book? Yeah. Okay. Ronnie Raviv  52:54   But I'll still read it. i There's only there's only, I think, two books on my list that I have started and not finished. Which are Moby Dick. And gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Which is weird, because there was a time period where I was when every book I was really enjoying and reading. Everyone was describing it as pinching ask. And I'm like, well, it's weird that the one book that I didn't finish is by Thomas Pynchon. But all these bitchiness, yes. I liked Leah Jones  53:30   I thought you were gonna say Moby Jack, either because you have told me before or because in the airfare she is sentence to live until she finishes the most boring book in the world. Ronnie Raviv  53:46   Book airfare and I don't remember. I have no, Leah Jones  53:49   not in airfare. It's it's further along in the series. Ronnie Raviv  53:53   I've read the whole series, and I have no recollection of what you're saying. This is what I'm talking about. Right. No recollection of these things? Leah Jones  53:58   Yeah. It is. It's one of my top topics I recommend to people. Ronnie Raviv  54:06   It's a good it's a good series of books. Yeah, sure. Leah Jones  54:08   Especially if people are readers. You're rewarded for being a lifelong reader. Yeah. And in his books, yeah. Ronnie Raviv  54:16   And there's good wordplay. And there's just clever. Yeah, yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah, Jasper Ford is very good. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to eventually reading the sequel to my favorite book of his the great. The shades of grey shades of grey. Yeah. Not to be confused with 50 Shades of Grey, right. Shades of Grey is an awesome book. Again, don't ask me what it's about because I don't remember. I just remember thinking it was an awesome book. Let me tell you what I know. I know. It's I vaguely know it's like some people can't see certain colors, but some people can see certain colors, but not all of them. But then some people can like the more of the spectrum we can see. I don't remember what it signifies. But I just remember there are people who can like see greens and People can see reds. And there's like, sort of, but I don't really remember anything beyond that. Leah Jones  55:04   The it's the caste system is based on how much how colorblind, you are right with the people with the best cut the best vision at the top, and the most limited vision or at the bottom. Ronnie Raviv  55:18   But even the best limit, even the best vision, it's like, you only see one spectrum of colors, Leah Jones  55:23   right? And it's a coming of age story because of the age 16. You take the test, right? You're allowed to live without a caste until you're 16 or whatever. And then you take the test. And it is is the protagonist, I believe is realizing that if his parents are who his parents are supposed to be, he should not be able to see what he can see. Right. So they his mom stepped out to get his to get the kid better vision of a chance of a better future. You don't remember any of that that Ronnie Raviv  56:06   part? I don't remember. Yeah, no. No, I like read the book I enjoyed in the moment. And then I just come away with a good feeling. Leah Jones  56:14   Yeah. No, I'm excited for the sequel to Yeah, yeah. Ronnie Raviv  56:20   Yeah, it was really? Yeah. Because for a long time, it looked like he wasn't gonna do the sequel because it didn't sell that well, even though it's his best book, like by far. Yeah, the goal is because all of his books are good. But that one is the best book by far. Leah Jones  56:32   I think I've heard about him a lot during this current war in Ukraine. Why is that? Because a detail you don't remember from the era fair, right, is that the Crimea, the Crimean War has been ongoing for 20 years. Okay. Everybody in the UK eventually fights in the Crimean War, and it's unending. Ronnie Raviv  56:54   Yeah. I bet you remember something about the Crimean War? Yeah. Leah Jones  56:58   And so when it when it was annexed ahead of the war, a couple years ago, I was like, this Jasper Ford, like, actually, psychic, because it was like that. There was something wild that happened with Amazon and Kindles and like the deleting of content. And, you know, you don't really own your digital content. And so it was like Crimea, digital content going away, and something else and I was just like, what is Jasper Ford on? Like, how can he, as a futurist, and a science fiction writer have such a clear vision of where things are going, Ronnie Raviv  57:43   especially since it was written in such an almost absurdist fantastical way? Like nothing here is even remotely close to reality, right? Leah Jones  57:52   Yeah, I forget what your airfare is from. Ronnie Raviv  57:59   The 80s? Maybe? Oh, no. Like when it was published, or when published? Oh, like takes place in like, what feels like the 80s? Yeah. But I think it was, yeah, I Leah Jones  58:09   think I'm looking at my early aughts. I'm looking at my bookshelves as if it's there as if I haven't loaned it out for the 50th time, right. I've given it to so many people. Ronnie Raviv  58:19   I mean, I can Oh, takes place in alternative 1985. Right. Publishing 2001 According to Google, July 19 2001. So So pre 911, but Leah Jones  58:34   yeah, a pre Kindle. Ronnie Raviv  58:38   Yeah. You know, yep. Leah Jones  58:42   Amazon was only Amazon existed. But barely, barely. And only for books. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cocktails, efficient TV watching. chicken potpie. That doesn't exist anymore. Right. Trustworthy chefs. Yeah. So which dinner do you think was better? tysew or OCD, OCD by far? Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  59:09   I mean, he was great. But OCD was amazing. Yeah. OCD was some of the best food I've ever read. Leah Jones  59:13   I was so nervous. I got so anxious that week, leading up to it that we oversold that we had oversold it. Ronnie Raviv  59:22   No, no, no, no, I wasn't nervous about that. I knew no matter what it was going to be good and fun and an experience and interesting. Yeah. And what was all those things, but it also was delicious. Yeah. Leah Jones  59:34   It was it was just a remarkable. Yeah. And every bite with one exception was phenomenal. For me. There was just that one salad. That was a little too sour. The chard? The chard, lettuce, chard greens. Yeah. And like the lemon sauce. Ronnie Raviv  59:55   Oh, yeah. You have you have a thing with sour right now. Leah Jones  59:58   Yeah, yeah. I made a face. I made a face when I tried it and I saw the staff see me make the face. And I was like, Oh, it was like unintentional, right? Because everything had been so perfect. Yeah. And even that one I appreciated but like just my Ronnie Raviv  1:00:16   I'm just off, ya know, just hit your jaw. Yeah, sour in the sour spot. Leah Jones  1:00:20   I mean hard in the sour spot. I still am thinking about the the freeze dried parfait the cloud? Oh, yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:00:30   Which you would think that the top layer of it would be the melty part would be the melt in your mouth part. And the bottom layer would be sort of like the, but it was the opposite for me. Like the bottom layer was the stuff that melted and disappeared in your mouth like candy. Almost. It wasn't. And the top layer was sort of like it crunched down like those like, green plant. You know, the green Styrofoam look really thick. Yeah, Styrofoam stuff. Leah Jones  1:00:57   I know. You're talking about floral, floral Styrofoam. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:01:01   Yeah, so it was like it's sort of that just got dense. So I would, I was expecting that top layer to just melt away like cotton candy. But it got dense. Yeah, and really good. And the bottom stuff, which was like more ice creamy sort of that. I figured it was going to just be like sort of become liquid and it just sort of disappeared. I don't know how Yeah, that was that was really good. Leah Jones  1:01:22   Yeah. And then like cuz it started with like, that was like a celery. Grenada. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:01:30   And the creme brulee that mean made out of potatoes. Yes. With like little potato chips on it like yeah, like shoestring potatoes, but sweet. Yeah, that was and what was the ice cream with that? Leah Jones  1:01:45   It wasn't it was non dairy. I think it was salted like a salted caramel maybe. Ronnie Raviv  1:01:50   I feel like it was also something that was savory. Yeah. Like a savory like some of you would expect to be savory but they made it a sweet Yeah, ice cream. Yeah, potatoes, but like some like not potato ice cream. But like some other kinds of something like turnips. Yeah, like something. Yeah. Leah Jones  1:02:08   And now they've already changed. We were we went for the smoke and fire menu. They're already on a new menu. And it's like, Ronnie Raviv  1:02:22   yeah, we have to we have to go back. Right. So good. It was so good. Leah Jones  1:02:25   I think Thai zoo because it was so I think Thai zoo is what unlocked for us. Like, we can have a nice time if we don't have plans. Yeah. So Thai zoo was like a friend of your cousin's got us a last minute reservation. It's hard. it hard to get reservation but not impossible. Like OCD, right? We went a year ago. And it was they interviewed us at the beginning of the meal. And we were like, Yeah, take it away. Like what they ordered for us. Yeah. And my only the only thing I told them about me was like they serve like whole fish like racinos like whole fish. And I was like, I don't face. I can't deal with a face. I'm already embarrassed thinking about how to eat that in public. Right. So like, I don't want the full fish. But other than that, like, I'll try anything. Yeah. And that was such an amazing dinner because it was just like, didn't know it. We didn't know what we were gonna do. Yeah, Ronnie Raviv  1:03:29   we didn't know what to expect. Yeah. Yeah, we were very good at the sponge. We've had incredible luck with the spontaneous. Yeah. dinners in the last few months. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like your birthday was awesome. Leah Jones  1:03:44   We couldn't if we had planned if we had made all those reservations, it wouldn't have worked. Ronnie Raviv  1:03:48   No, we couldn't have planned that. Yeah, the one thing we did plan like we did plan Yes. But we just decided to skip it at the last minute. Yeah. And go completely plan LIS Yeah. To like the most the busiest part of town for like restaurants like where you can't get reservations for anything. No. And we just went to four different places all without reservations. And ended up being we just went from place to place to place all within like a block and a half. Yeah. Leah Jones  1:04:21   Because that's all I could do at the time right? Yeah, blind barber for drinks. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:04:28   And then Duck Duck go duck duck go for a last minute dinner right Open Table reservation Yeah, yeah, that Leah Jones  1:04:34   we did make a reservation but then like literally just walked across the street. Two minutes later. Yeah, we looked Ronnie Raviv  1:04:39   looked like oh, look, they have a table. It's 15 it's six. Let's go. Yeah, we put our name down. Yep. Went Leah Jones  1:04:46   and then and before every stop. We've went to aviary and tried to get an aviary Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:04:54   So tried to start the evening at aviary. We were denied because it was closed for private event. Yeah. So We went to get drinks at blind Barber. Yeah. And we went to dinner. Then we tried to go back to a beer. Yeah. And we're denied again. So then we went to to get dessert. Leah Jones  1:05:08   And we said, where would you go for dessert? And they told us about rosemary. This Croatian restaurant. Yeah. It's like what do you have now been for dinner? And I have not been Yeah, Ronnie Raviv  1:05:15   it is. Really good. Yeah. Leah Jones  1:05:20   So then we just like so rosemary, also very hard to get a table at Ronnie Raviv  1:05:24   like I've looked. Yeah. And I might, it's not an easy get. Leah Jones  1:05:28   But we just waltz in. And they Ronnie Raviv  1:05:30   sat us like, at the kitchen. Yeah. Like, at the counter at the kitchen. We were the only ones and yeah, had dessert there. Leah Jones  1:05:38   So we have like three, we ordered two. And they brought us a third because it's my birthday. Yeah. So we had these amazing desserts there. Ronnie Raviv  1:05:45   And as soon as they pop them down, we get a text from the aviary saying okay, you can come over Yeah, so we just download desserts and went wander over the aviary and had a nightcap there. Yes. A really good evening. Leah Jones  1:05:57   It was a fun night. Yeah. Yeah, so we've had good luck and we had good the night before your birthday party. We went to Frasca. Ronnie Raviv  1:06:06   Yeah, fresca, fresca. Braska fresco Frasca? Yeah Leah Jones  1:06:10   oh my god, we ordered so much food we Ronnie Raviv  1:06:12   ordered so much. Leah Jones  1:06:16   Delicious. Got it got a table right before it started to rain again. Right before everybody from the patio had to come inside. Yeah. Tremendous luck. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:06:28   A few other like one or two other places to that we just lucked out on. Leah Jones  1:06:32   Yeah, like we went to Tango sore after we saw Oh, yeah. Heimer. Yeah. Ronnie Raviv  1:06:35   And that's like, yeah, we're just like, hey, let's walk towards your car, and then maybe go drive somewhere. It's like, oh, or we could go into here, right. Oh, and then. Oh, and a few months before that we had we went to Barbara Roma. Yes. Where my friend is my friend's husband is the headshot. And so we went there and just like got a table there. Also not a particularly easy get that's pretty popular place. Leah Jones  1:07:01   Because it was a day after Ronnie Raviv

Do women still need to get on the course to progress their careers in major programmes? Does The Boys Club still exist in 2023? Inclusivity and ambition—how are they connected? Navigating Major Programmes podcast co-host, Corail Bourrelier Fabiani, shares her Oxford Saïd Business School dissertation's insightful findings in this week's episode. Riccardo and Corail take a deep dive into equality, diversity and inclusion in the infrastructure industry uncovering the taboo topics that have been avoided for decades.   “In the research, you can see that women's interests are not really accommodated in major urban transport infrastructure programs,” says Corail. “And there is a big gender data gap, which is kind of reinforcing inequalities in this space. In my opinion, all this is reinforced by the fact that we don't have enough women at the top. So I thought, how are we changing this?”   Corail, the accomplished programme manager behind projects such as the Paddington Square Public Art Programme and the Shard Quarter Public Art Programme in London, concludes the discussion with four steps to solve this complex, systemic issue.   Key Takeaways:  The seven gender-related challenges in major programmes and how to solve them.How language labels leaders as men and how applications can encourage the women talent pool to apply.How to alter networking and affinity bias in order to better support women in infrastructure and why women-designed networks with male allies are so vital.The scarcity mindset and what happens to women at the top.  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. The conversation doesn't stop here—connect and converse with our community: Riccardo Cosentino on LinkedInCorail Bourrelier Fabiani on LinkedIn Transcript:Riccardo Cosentino  00:05You're listening to Navigating Major Programmes, the podcast that aims to elevate the conversations happening in the infrastructure industry and inspire you to have a more efficient approach within it. I'm your host, Riccardo Cosentino brings over 20 years of major product management experience. Most recently, I graduated from Oxford University's day business school, which shook my belief when it comes to navigating major problems. Now it's time to shake yours. Join me in each episode, as I press the industry experts about the complexity of major program management, emerging digital trends and the critical leadership required to approach these multibillion dollar projects. Let's see where the conversation takes us. Hi, welcome back to another episode of navigating major programs. Today I'm here with a recurring guest and co-host of this podcast.   Corail  01:03I am with Corail Riccardo Cosentino  01:04l, how're you doing? Corail  01:06I am doing great. Thank you, Riccardo, Riccardo Cosentino  01:08Thank you for joining us again. Really glad that you're here today. Today, we're gonna talk about your dissertation from your master's degree at Oxford. If I remember correctly, you did a dissertation titled, "do women need to play golf in order to lead measure programs?" really catchy title? But maybe you can tell us a bit more why you picked that dissertation? And what dissertation was all about? Corail  01:39Yeah, sure. Yeah. So yeah, this title was kind of a humorous reference to an HBR article, which said that basically, many women in male dominated industries feel compelled to play golf to access to the top leadership network. And my research was about women's network, and how can those women network help change the culture of major program, which are notoriously male dominated environments? And I thought it was funny that some women would think like, Okay, I'm gonna play golf, so make the most important contact, and I was like, okay, is this still happening? Do we still need to go on, on the course to get this important contact. So I did this research as part of our MSc in major program management at the Said business school. And it was really like, out of had the like, how out of an impulse after an event that happened during a master's degree. And I don't know if you remember that. But basically, each year, the program gets the opportunity to do a debate at the famous Oxford Union. And during our cohort, we have Ella a brilliant change manager, men's leader, who proposed the motion for that debate, which was around the importance of gender diversity in major programs, team versus versus experience. And we were all quite excited to debate this topic at the Union. But basically, the university got back to us and said, it's too late volatile as a topic. So they brushed it off, and they say, maybe debate another topic. And at the time, I was really shocked. And I think we were all the women of our cohort. I think we were below 30%, maybe around 28% 25% 28% of women in the cohort. And we were all pretty upset about this decision. Because we didn't understand it. We were like this is the Oxford Union the Union debates corruption slavery, things like that. And we can talk about that, you know, gender diversity in major program, but I saw Okay, that's that's say something right about our industry and about the I think the leap that we have to make to make it an OK topic, you know, to talk about that. So we decided to self organize, and to redo that debate, just organized by students. And it was a great, great moment. And I thought, Okay, I want to look deeper into all this EDI questions on major program. So I started like looking a little bit into what the UK Government says about gender diversity in major program. So I looked at the infrastructure and projects authority report at the time. And what I found was quite upsetting when you look at the budget, although major programs represent like astronomical budgets in the UK, but first of all, only 10% last year were classified as likely to be successful, and most of them only had just thought So you think there is an issue they are right. And in the IPA report, they acknowledge that the main issue was with capacity and capability of the teams and of the leadership in the UK. But there was no mention at all about, you know, the fact that we are losing opportunity, because we're not leveraging women's talent pool. And I looked deeper into it. And I looked at the appointment process for senior responsible owners, you know, the leader of this major program. And I found that although there is a mention about diversity, in the report, it's very, like there are no real KPIs or practical ways to do it, or methodologies or anything, and when you look at what they're looking for the SRO usually in, in a biased environment, you would, it's more oriented towards male. So there, we have something like, You should possess strong leadership and decision making skills, that's fine. But when you are in a male dominated industry, leadership resonate with a man. So that's where we'll come to your man. Mind. Sorry. And that's, you know, for example, Bent Flybjerg, called the major program leaders, Master Builder, Master Builder, as a word, I think you will think about a man rather than a woman, just just with that simple words. There are other things that I thought were interesting in the way they said this the label thing, for example, they say, you need to have the experience, the character and personality that are right for the program. And I think this is all well, but it's very subjective, right. And in unbiased environment, it's subject to bias. So I think there are lots of different things like that, that will, that are not not laid out in a way to promote women as leader in that in that environment. And what effectively, when you look at how many leaders of major program in the UK are female, it increased a lot recently, you have about 30% of SROs, that are leaders that are female leaders. But actually, they're only managing about 10 to 15 15%, of the major program budgets. So you realize that they, you're increasing the number of women at the top, but in effect, the budget that they manage is so much smaller than the budget and then manage. And really, in the research, you can see that women's interests are not really accommodated for in major urban transport infrastructure programs. And there is a big gender data gap, which is kind of reinforcing inequalities in this space. And in my opinion, all this is reinforced by the fact that we don't have enough women at the top. So I thought, Okay, how are we changing this. And I looked at what was suggested as the best way to improve gender diversity in leadership roles. And I realized that in research networks are always mentioned as one of the ways and in some research, it's mentioned as a way like a hidden gem. So something that is really useful. But that is not really, that male leaders don't think is really is actually useful. But let me say it's again, because network has shown are shown as hidden gem in the literature, because men leader don't really think that they are that useful when female leaders think that they are really useful. And I thought it's an interesting is one of the most interesting points to look at. Because when you have a strong network, that a lot of the other the issues that you can that you can solve. So for example, if you have a strong network, and you want to have more role models to improve your gender diversity, you can find this through your this network. And so that's how I started looking into it. to remit to continue, Riccardo Cosentino  09:22no, let me let me jump in. So it's interesting. So you talk about network and I understand anecdotally how important they are. Because I've seen my level, you know, when you're recruiting for executive talent, the first thing you do is you go into your network, you know, I mean, the day is when you get a certain level in our organization, and so the seniority, you know, you do post a job, but you typically make sure that people within your network, see the posting and apply and so it is about networking. Because when you hire the certain level you need, you know, the compensation is high, the responsibilities high. So you really want a second opinion even before you start the process. So yeah, I can see our network. Very, very important. So it's interesting that you, you got to that conclusion for your research as well. I guess my question is, does he have to be a woman network or does just have to be a networking, we talked about this in the last podcast as well. As you change as your research actually has a different view than the previous answer you gave me in the previous podcast? Corail  10:37Now, my my, I think, my research says that it does need to be a women's network as in the people who need to, to design it need to be women. But obviously, men need to be involved in it massively. And it's, especially male leaders need to be actively involved in the network and give feedback, etc. But it's all about women designing this network and women using systems thinking to think about their situation and think about how to improve it together. Before you know like talking about it was male leaders and receiving and, and having the kind of reverse mentoring, interaction with male leaders, I think why it's important that it's that we use Women's Network is that obviously, men and women don't benefit from networks in the same way. So in, in the research, in paper, academic papers, you see a lot of research about men network, and what we call weak ties. And I think it's a, you know, Granovetter, who was like one of the first in social science to talk about networks, who said something really funny, he said, It is remarkable that people receive crucial information from individuals whose very existence they have forgotten. So it means like you you get crucial information to get a job from your loose ties for people who are not like in your closest process network, because the information that your best friend knows you already know. But you know, it's the friend of your friend who's going to have the information that you need, or you know, and all this loser ties that you have in your network. And that's really true for men. But for women, research shows that is slightly different. women really need strong ties, as well as weak ties, not only the weak ties on the don't surface, just because they don't have enough of them, and they don't, they can't have as good network with men because you have a homophily bias. So you will want to connect, or you will naturally connect faster with someone who looks like you and who is like you and has the same gender, etc. So there is a sort of imbalance and because we men generally at the top are a bit lonely, a way to, for them to basically catch up with men is to have strong networks, both men network and female network. But when they're alone at the top, they need to develop strong ties with the men who are the top but then if they want to change the system and change, you know, the culture of this environment, then they need to proactively create networks to connect with those women that they wouldn't meet otherwise, and to rethink the way we're doing thing together. I think Riccardo Cosentino  13:40there's a very interesting finding, I'd like to take you back actually, to the beginning of this conversation when you were mentioning about the biases within even the job postings having that that's a very interesting concept. And it's something that I read in literature where even the adjectives used to describe things. You know, I think you mentioned master builder, right? If you think of a master builder, the first thing that comes into mind is a man with a beard. And probably a hat, right, a pointy hat. And so your mind I mean, this is probably deviating a little bit from your research but I think it'd be interesting to know your view is how do you remove that bias when even the who writes the job posting is probably a man or maybe recycling a job posting that was already you already developed by another man so how do we break that cycle? Corail  14:40Yeah, I think I think that's that's a good question. It's really difficult you know, and what is interesting is like some research even show that depending on your language, if you're French for example, or if you're a Italian like you Ricardo, we gender everything is gender, right? We say he we say her and if you say Speak, you know, or if you write, you know, whether it's a woman or a man. Whereas you have some languages that are non that if you say, my friends, you don't know whether it's a man or a woman, etc. And it's funny because it does something that the tricks our brain and induce countries, usually you have less issues with gender inequalities than in the countries that really differentiate in the language, whether you're a man or a woman. And I think there has been a lot of work done on this to try and neutralize as much as possible, the adverts. So that it there is no gender assigned to the advert and the terms employed by the employers are really gender neutral, and try to bring to your mind like a gender neutral candidate. But I think beyond that, some, well, companies like need to improve that the pipeline and try are trying to go directly and look at the you know, train women from from, you know, create specific programs for women from earlier on, so that there are more women in that pipeline, etc. There is something really interesting as well, is that research shows that women will only apply when, you know, they fit all the criteria. And I think you know that whereas men will apply when they feel only 60 I think it's around 60% of the criteria. So I think there is something as well, In that which you see more and more now, it's just a simple line saying, if you don't feel all this criteria, please play anyway. And that that helps you getting more female candidates who will match the male candidates because they will be encouraged to apply no matter you know, even if they feel a bit overwhelmed by the by the description. Riccardo Cosentino  16:47That's very, that's very interesting insight. And I knew of the problem, but I didn't know the solution. So thank you for the firm, thank you for the solution. I will definitely make sure my next job posting has that additional line at the bottom. What What else? What else? Are you finding your research? I think you had 7 to seven points of conclusion, I believe in your research, well, what are the what are the points? What are the conclusion do you draw from from what you researched? Corail  17:19Yeah, so I have seven several layers of finding. So the first the first findings was indeed, like I found seven gender related challenges in major programs. One group of challenges was feeling older, you know, feeling like the oldest gender bias unfair expectation that you find in male dominated industries. And catalyst actually refers this as the double bind dilemma. Expectations put upon women are higher than men, despite lower compensations. Women are perceived as too soft, too tough, never just right. And women leaders are perceived as complete, competent or likeable. But rarely, both of them. That's what catalyst says. And that's what a lot of the women in that I interrogated, told me. And I found that most of the time, the way that they respond to that is with personal ways of responding or personal ability. So some will train super hard will take extra lessons will work so much harder, you know, stay at work, while while their male colleagues are having the drink outside. Some will say, Oh, no, I decided that I have a really strong personality. And I tell off everyone, and I don't care if I don't. Some nice. Some of them just said, like, I just help everyone to make sure that I'm like, you know, it's a, it's all about themselves and trying to transform themselves to manage to navigate those difficulties. And that's why again, I was interested in bringing this back to the network because this is a systemic issue. And you can't fight a systemic issue on your own, or you can but you get into a situation that we have today, which is you just have a few women at the top but the one that they're yet the second issue that they talked about was the boys club. So a lot of them were partner at partner levels in a big corporate companies and said that that they could still feel this boys club that they weren't included in. They were in part of it. And sometimes they found out that, you know, the the other leaders had been out for for some events, and they were not aware of that. So they're still best systems. Some mentioned the anti role models and it's funny because it's also the strongest female leaders. We talked about this about the fact that in their career, they've they've been really defended difficult to work with women. They were in higher level than them at the time. And that is very well researched. And that's a phenomenon that is understood. And that is completely structural, which is the resultant of, if there are not enough women at the top you are made to feel special, unique, etc. And you want to dissociate yourself from the lower class group, let's say, which are women at lower levels. And so that creates a sort of divide between lower levels, women, women and top level women. And it's not predictive. And some, some people think it's a women thing, but it's not a women thing. It's something that is just the result of numbers. And effectively, in every situation where you have groups that are dominant, and groups that dominated people will move from the dominated group, if they join, the dominant group will try to distance themselves from the dominated group. Women talk also about some women choosing respite over ambition. And so it was hard for me to accept because obviously, I feel like I only know really ambitious women around me. But that's what came out in my interviews. Some said, Well, women just don't have the ambition, they just don't want to go to the top. I don't know if this is true, or if it's a resultant of the culture that is difficult for women. And there are some research. And I think it's it's interesting to look into that, which says that in environments that are really inclusive, women and men have the same level of ambition, in environments that are not inclusive, there is a big gap of ambition. So I think it's important to take this into consideration, even if you will feel like it's a bit of a chicken and an egg situation. Riccardo Cosentino  21:56I had a guest on another podcast and we talked we you know, one question I had for her, because it's not an it's, I think, is a known phenomenon. That is this women tend to exit like a career, you know, especially after giving after having children, some don't return to the workforce. And the ones that return to the workforce don't might not have the same career ambition that they had before having children. And I was actually thinking, because, you know, the way even the way I just described is almost like the women made this decision. But I was also I was actually wondering if is if the environment actually is driving women away, rather than the run into the woman making this decision? I mean, you know, it's already hard enough, the environment is really not conducive, are going to do something else with my life. Corail  22:50Absolutely. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And I think this fan phenomenon of women exiting the workforce at mid mid level, is mainly you see it mainly in male dominated industries, such as tech, for example. And I think some women leave because yes, they, you know, they, they have this babies and suddenly maternity like, you know, is this isn't, isn't there, they're cooling and, but a lot of them just leave to go somewhere else to go into a different industry that is much more, you know, flexible, much more inclusive, much more adapted to their needs, as you know, working moms, for example. And I think to me, a way to to solve this issue is really looking at paternity leave. That's That's what that's the only that's the last way to change this, this. This phenomenon. If you if you look at that, and it's live, and you and you increase it and you make sure that men and women are both involved equally, in this early stages in early process of building a little human, anything a little human, you basically involvement and it means that they are much more concerned about later on when they come back to their career about those ideas of flexibility in working of being available to get that kid out of school and working late, you know, later at night, for example, having a different work attended than women. Because at the moment what you're seeing is companies that afford like that are inclusive and propose flexible working in the tech industry. I want to be more inclusive this way. Unfortunately, the what you see is only women take these offers, you know men don't take them. And so then it's badly seen that you're going home to too early and working in the evening at home or it's seen as you're less committed and that creates a whole dynamic. That just reinforces the bias. You know that women are not committed women don't have the same ambition etc. So I think if you make sure that men are as involved as women on the early stage of raising a child, you suddenly men more interested in changing this way of working. And to make it work for everyone. I think Riccardo Cosentino  25:18I have to say, I mean, it's so it's actually, I agree with you that we need to, we need the systems in place to allow men to take paternity leave. But to be honest, in Canada, we have that, and he's now making a lot of a difference. What, uh, what, you know, what I'm noticing is, is the societal pressure and the societal norms that really need to be changed. I always say, why is always the woman taking the 12 months off in Canada, you get 12 months, right, you can get up to 12 months. And and I think the policy is that it doesn't have to be the woman, right? I mean, it the paternity leave is leave of absence. And especially public sector employers have very, very accommodating terms and irrespective of that is always the worry, you know, I understand the woman has to take the time off after childbirth to recover. But you know, after four or five months, does this really have to be the woman's their home white? Why is the man cannot stay at home? And I think it's societal pressure, I think there's a big component of societal pressure. Corail  26:23Absolutely, I would be I would be in favor and the the podcast is thinking really radical, but I would be in favor of, you know, in some countries, If men don't take the paternity leave, they get fined. And that motivates you to actually take that time off. And I think, obviously, yeah, if you have the option, but it's not mandatory. Because we're in a society that's not there yet. It's obviously it's, it's badly seen by your colleagues, you again, you look less committed, you look and so you don't take it. So yeah, as you said, the system needs to change. Riccardo Cosentino  27:02So okay, so we started the conversation with the title we dissertations, which was Do woman need to play golf in order to lead major programs was the answer. Corail  27:12Yes, they still need to play golf to live major program 100%. Unfortunately, we're not in a perfect world yet. And at the moments, women have to work harder on their networks to get the same benefits as men. And the way to work on your network and break this boys club that we're talking about is being there being on the field. Obviously, if you hate playing golf, don't totally send to me don't do that, if it's not that bad for you just yeah, get the motivation go on the green. Riccardo Cosentino  27:46I think I think use golf as a figure of speech, but it's, you know, it's, Corail  27:51yeah, get it means get out there. And if we want to talk if we want to go back a bit more into women's networks, and how they should be formed and shaped, when we talked about them with my interviewees, I had really two different narratives about them, I had some really positive narrative narratives. And I found that they can be a way of conduit to reveal gender bias issues to yourself to others, they can be a way to receive and give support to other women. They can be a way to learn and teach etc. They can be a way to, to inspire other people, other women. But mainly and more strategically, they can be a way to have a voice. So have you know a bit of a strategic impact on the leadership team of your organization. And they can be a way to where they can define and design an inclusive workplace. So as I said, women need to think about what is the like, what is the system we want to design to create a more inclusive environment, environment, but I also found out that there are also a lot of negative views about women's network and a lot of my interviewee mentioned that there are serious issues with women networks, which are sometimes unfit for purpose. They said like it can be a manifest some sense, you know, and for them it's not conductive of anything if you're just like, or sometimes it's just unstable because it's it's on the shoulders of one volunteer and doesn't last Some said they was it could be hypocrite if it's used as lip service but your company as a marketing tool, it just don't feel like it's actually useful is just like the company trying to to show that they're more intrusive without doing the work. Sometimes they said it could be biased and that goes with the with the idea That's, if you're if you're promoting meritocracy, for example, through your network, when you know that meritocracy is not the issue there, that you know, that's not helpful. Or if you're trying to throw the network shape your team so that they fit into a mold, then you're not leveraging your diversity, right? So it's not useful, either. Some study could be pernicious or even risky. And that is because they felt like sometimes there could be a backlash, you know, men feeling like, Oh, why are we not included in this? Why? Why are you rejecting us? And that can create some tensions that are not conductive of anything positive and risky. Sometimes if you're seen as like the leader of a movement or of protests in your company, right, at some point, you know, it's not good for your career, you can be blocked just because you're too vocal or too militant. So the idea of that the research was like, How can we focus on the positive impact the women's network can have? And how can we try and reduce those negative effects. And I think, to really make those networks strategic and interesting, basically, you have, you need to almost use the rules of change management, and make it a full like enterprise. And so I think if violet listeners, if there are four things that I'd like them to remember, for their networks, is, first one, the professional women network should be led by women, and mainly designed by women, supported by change consultants, maybe to help them design the change. But they need to take ownership of this network. And some women will tell you, I Yeah, but you're just adding a lot more work on to our work. And it's, it's another assignment on top of all our assignments, and I totally agree, but I see it as a necessary evil, let's say to get to a better a better environment. And they need to create sessions where they use system thinking, I think system thinking is very important, because it's a very practical tool, it helps you you can create maps, that shows the issues of a system that you can then share with the leadership teams, you know, you can bring your map that you've worked on in a session, and you can say, look, with Matt, the issues there. And here are the intervention that we think will improve that system or it or change or resolve, at low at low cost or at low budget, you can do this and that and look how it impacts our system, the system. And I think this is a powerful tool, a tool that needs to be leveraged to induce networks. So that's step one. Step two, is that as we discussed, male leaders need to be actively involved. And feedback session must be organized to present how like how all these measures will benefit not only women, but also the organization as a whole. And it's, it creates trust. And it's it's good to communicate like what you're doing. But also it helps women having a bigger purpose than just themselves if they see themselves that, that what they're doing is benefiting the you know, the organization itself, they will themselves be much more buying it, you know, they will want to do it more. Step three, is that you need to use reverse mentoring. For the senior leaders, I think it's it's, it's really important that senior leaders get a better understanding of the battles that women are facing in the major program industry, and that they themselves become female advocates like you are Ricardo. And this is like basically giving effective training to male leaders so that they understand the issue. And they and yeah, they become allies. And the final step is that results of those networks need to be properly measured with inclusion indicators like KPIs, etc, rather than just number of memberships. You know, we don't care if you're, if your network has 15 members, where we one is like, what are the results of it? What are you producing? What is the impact? How is it measured, etc. And then you need to communicate this results like really enthusiastically, via maybe professional communication campaign, and that you need to get obviously this report of your organization for that. But I think the more effective the communication, and the more you can see effective results, the better. Riccardo Cosentino  34:40Well, it makes it sound so easy, just four easy steps to solve all the equity and diversity issues that we have in the industry. Corail  34:50I'd really want to see it, you know, try it out. Try it and test it and then we can improve on that as well. You know, Riccardo Cosentino  35:00I think there's a good movement. I'm optimistic, and particularly not very optimistic. But I'm optimistic that as an industry, we are trying to move in the right direction. I think the next so well, first of all, the problem is being understood, accepted that there is a problem. I mean, probably 20 years ago, there wasn't even an acceptance or recognition that we had a problem. Atleast Now we know that we have a problem because we don't have the diversity because we have established that diversity is important for business. So I think there is a will. And it's important people like you doing research about how to do it. Because you know, one thing is to, to admit that we have an issue, but then how do we solve it? And having a systematic review, and research done on the topic is going to improve the way we go about solving this issue? Corail  35:55I hope so. Yeah. Thank you. Riccardo Cosentino  35:59Okay, so I think we covered what I wanted to cover today in the podcast, I was really looking forward to this. I really, truly enjoy your dissertation. I'm not sure if listeners are interested in seeing your dissertation. Are you able to see somewhere, have you published? Are you going to publish? Or can they just reach out? Corail  36:21Yeah, we will definitely trying to publish it with my supervisor Chantal Cantera. Lee, who is amazing and amazing professor at Cranfield University, and who's been supporting me throughout the entire process and is pushing me to get another updated version of the reserves so that we can finally get it published in a journal. So hopefully, very soon. You'll see it, I'll share it. Yeah. Riccardo Cosentino  36:47Perfect. And I will provide updates to the to the listeners if and when you publish, actually, when you publish. Corail  36:54Thank you. And it's on it. Riccardo Cosentino  36:57Yeah, I mean, you're you're being it's being recorded. You're being recorded. You're going to be publishing so having we now have witnesses to well, Corail, thank you very much for joining me today. Really enjoyed our conversations. And hopefully I'll see you again on a future episode of navigating major programs. Corail  37:18Thank you so much Riccardo   Riccardo Cosentino  37:20By now. That's it for this episode on navigating major problems. I hope you found today's conversation as informative and thought provoking as I did. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider subscribing and leaving a review. I would also like to personally invite you to continue the conversation by joining me on my personal LinkedIn at Riccardo Cosentino. Listening to the next episode, we will continue to explore the latest trends and challenges in major program management. Our next in depth conversation promises to continue to dive into topics such as leadership risk management, and the impact of emerging technology in infrastructure. It's a conversation you're not going to want to miss. Thanks for listening to navigate the major programs and I look forward to keeping the conversation going                                         Hashtags: #GenderChallenges #WomensNetworks #MajorPrograms #Inclusivity #Diversity #EmpowerWomen #Leadership #EqualityAtWork #CareerAdvancement #SystemicSolutions #WomenInTech #GenderDiversity #CorporateCulture #ProfessionalNetworks #Advocacy #GenderEquality #BreakingBarriers #WomenEmpowerment #WorkplaceDynamics #GenderBalance #GenderChallenges #WomensNetworks #MajorPrograms #Inclusivity #Diversity #GenderBias #Leadership #SystemicSolutions #CareerAdvancement #WorkplaceEquality #ChangeManagement #GenderDiversity #WomenInTech #GenderEquality #ProfessionalNetworks #WorkplaceDynamics #WomenLeadership #CorporateCulture #GenderBalance #Advocacy Music: "A New Tomorrow" by Chordial Music. Licensed through PremiumBeat.DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy, opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Disenyo.co LLC and its employees.

Prepare to journey into the heart of the Hip's 2009 album, "We Are the Same." This week, we're pulling back the curtain on an album that made fans wait an extra year for its release. We're not just talking about the music; we're delving into the nostalgia, the reception, and the adventure of listening to this collection of songs. TracksMorning Moon - Studio versionThe Last Recluse - Montreal 2009The Depression Suite - San Fransciso 2009Frozen in my Tracks - Syracuse 2009TranscriptTrack 1:[0:01] For the first time in over 20 years, hip fans had to wait longer than two years for new material. It was three years after we got World Container that Bob Rock came down from the mountain with the Stone Tablet Masters of what appeared to be a campfire album called We Are TheSame. Although it launched with a cool promo, the hip, performing live at the bathhouse, beamed to cineplex theaters across Canada, and it debuted at number one, I have absolutely no memoryof this album entering the zeitgeist. In fact, I could tell you that only Love Is a First made it to my ears before the Fully and Completely podcast. My first full listen of this album was followed by a visit to the grocery store where I bumped into my co-host Greg, and I remember us casually throwing around terms like milk toast andbeige when describing what we were getting into with this springtime release. What followed though is something amazing and it's something only music can truly do. [1:05] You see, I gave this album its due and by that I mean a good solid listening session. On walks, at my desk, on my patio, the beige started to turn into a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. The album was making me feel nostalgic for my 1977 El Camino. I could envision loading up the back of this hog with camping gear and taking this record to the cottage for the May long and listening to nothing but. Yes, I had become a fan of We Are The Same. Today it's an album I reach for when I feel wistful and I want to reminisce with my past. I adore Morning Moon and the Depression Suite, but the deeper cuts do it for me too. Will the love that Pete and Tim felt on the Bob Rock produced World Container spill over onto this record, or will their first experience be like mine? We're here now, so we may as well be getting hip to the hip. Track 4:[2:31] Hey it's JD here and welcome back to Getting Hip to the Hip. I'm here every week with my friends Pete and Tim and what we do is we talk about the Tragically Hip one album at a time week over week trying to understand what it's like to hear thisband for the first time again. Pete, Tim, How the fuck are you guys doing? Ola, como estas? Buenas tardes. Bueno, bueno, bueno. Los fanes de Tragically Hip. That's how they would say it here. I'm not culturally appropriating. That's how people talk here in Spain. In Spanish, you mean? Yeah, yeah. And they wouldn't change the name of Tragically Hip. hip, they would just say tragically hip, just like they say. See, see, see. Cloud, cloud, or cloud, or cloud. I don't know where he's went to, but there was a guy on Facebook. He's in the Facebook group. And his name is Luca Tadia, I believe. And he's Italian. And he discovered the hip out of, he's an Italian, he's in a band. He's a singer-songwriter. [3:47] And he was at a really low point. And he discovered the hip. And he, he really feels so strongly about them that he's rewritten, rewritten. [3:59] The lyrics like transcribe, like not transcribe them. What word am I looking for? Translated them, but in many cases he's had to write his own because there's so many turns of phrase he's, he's having to write like his own sort of stuff, but, but to fit in the melodicstructure and then, you know, he, he alters the melodic structure a little bit, but he's released a whole whack and he's coming out with a record and everything, but I haven't seen, I haven'tseen anything about him in a while. So what a fucking surface, Luca, come back to it. I'll point out, I'll send some stuff to the thread later this week, but, um, I'm getting way, uh, way caught up in the weeds here because we're here to talk about a record we're here to talkabout, we are the same, uh, released in 2009, which interesting tidbit. This is the first time that a hip band had had to wait more than two years for a record since the band emerged in 1987. They had to wait three years. So it was 2006, then 2009. Was that the longest three years of hip's lives? Or what was going on during that time? I'm guessing the diehards were losing their minds. Yeah. Are they breaking up? What's going on? Like, Gord was doing solo stuff. Rob Baker was doing Stripper's Union in 2005. So he might have toured Stripper's Union in 2006. [5:22] I don't know, they did their usual stuff, but they, like, to my... [5:28] To my knowledge, they, I mean, the record still opened at number one, um, for the week that it was released, which was consistent with what the hip had been doing. I think they had eight in a row or something like that, but they just weren't part of the zeitgeist, you know, they weren't part of, or maybe it's just, they weren't part of my zeitgeist. That, that might be it. Uh, they, they might've been, but, but I feel like if they were as big as they were in 96 in 2009, then they would have never fell off my radar, sort of. And it wasn't that they fell off my radar. They, I just started listening to other music. I just, you know, I- Were you aware of their whole, their whole bathhouse performance at the end or before the release? Like they played at the bathhouse to, they played a show? I would have lost my, like, I would have lost my mind. So I, yeah, I don't, I don't know. [6:24] It was just out of my reference point. Yeah, so I read that they played at the Bathhouse and it was screened, I guess, at Cineplex Theatres across Canada. It's like, these guys were, you know, celebrating for sure. Do you know what Cineplex Theatres owns? One of the things they own is a branch of places called the Rec Room. And one of the Rec Rooms is in Toronto, where we're going to be hosting our event. And we hope you all make it. Get out of fucking town. Wait, what's this event? What are we doing? [6:59] Come on be on board I hate the pull it out game That's gonna be a fun night. I just can't wait. That's gonna be a real fun. Oh, don't lie Jay Jay D Your pull-out game is great. [7:15] Oh my gosh He's got like 12 pockets on his outfit right now he's pulling shit out of her. Oh man. Yeah, I know, the event's going to be great, tickets are selling through, so get themwhile you can. Hit them quick. Get more information on our Twitter feed or send any of us an email, JD, Pete, Tim at gettinghiptothehip.com you can do all of that and more. So let's get into this Bob Rock produced record. This one's recorded entirely at The Bath House, which is a stark contrast from World Container, which was recorded at a big studio in Vancouver and a relatively large studio in Toronto. This was now The Hip on their own ground. I feel like as a result of that we get a very different sounding record. It's got like the nuances the nooks and crannies that the bathhouse records are sort of becoming famous for but it's still like holy shit is this record produced. Like it is depending on what side of the fence you're on it's either intricate or too busy you know like in terms of some of the arrangements. [8:34] The general, I don't know, gist of it that I was kind of reading about is a little bit of a love-hate. I don't know. I also read that that extra year they're waiting for Bob Rock to returnfrom a carnival cruise. Like a really extended long carnival cruise. Oh, wow. That's boggers. That's my joke right there. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, I got that, it took me a second. Yeah, me too. Sorry. We'll dial it in, we'll dial it in in post. I'll test my new editing tools on that one. Punch up the laughter. Okay. No, I really, I read a bit about this album. It is very much highly produced. I feel like it's, the all music reviews, three stars. Yeah. Which is lower, you know, by at least half a point than usual. And one term they used about it was a creative bankruptcy. Like, they pulled out all the stops. All of the stops for this album and tapped the tank. So I thought that was a pretty fucking harsh review. That's very harsh. Considering three years, man. Yeah, no, no, don't be sorry. I just, I don't see that it's, it's, yeah. [9:59] I like this. I like this record. I'll tell you guys. I didn't. The first time I heard it, did not. So I was the same. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear about your experience listening to the record. I was kind of the same. I listened to it. Well, I listened to parts of it. I couldn't sit through it all thefirst try. It was like, I don't know, it was like reading a series of books and getting to the next book and it's like, oh my gosh, this book's going to take me forever. That's what it just felt like to me and finally got through it. I'll say finally. [10:32] And wasn't so sure, but you know there were songs, I'll just say that there were songs that grew on me after repeat listens and I and I got to a point where I thought I could see howhip fans either embraced the whole trajectory of the hip and continued to absolutely love this band and I could see how some hip fans were like Like, what the fuck? When are we going to get this Bob Brock guy out of here? Yeah. Because, I mean, I feel like that's still, I don't know, still a thread going through it. So yeah, that was my take. Listened to it kind of everywhere. [11:11] I just, I gave this album some real attempts. But I listened to it also, I think, less than other albums in general. Okay. Pete? You know, I say we get into it cause I got a lot to say about the, you know, the record as we go. And I'll leave my comments to the record as we move on. Okay, well then kick us off here. Let's start right out with Morning Moon. I mean, I thought it was, I thought it was, let's see. It definitely a different tone to begin the record on with the acoustic vibe, the melody was really cool. I was surprised by the strings, but as we'll talk about as we go on here, the strings become a thing. Hey, that's a good way of putting it, Tim. [12:12] There's a really cool country lick with the electric guitar, I like it. Chorus is catchy, heavy harmonies, twangy guitar. I got some, I got some like a little bit of Eagles vibes on this too. Sure. Clearly hear it. My note that I, my note I wrote down was, it's got an AM radio chorus. Yeah. Yeah, totally, totally. But, but. In a good way. Yeah, in a good way. But I wasn't like, I wasn't like, ah, ah, fuck. This is, yeah. I mean, this is not... [12:49] This is not music at work. This does not grab you by the balls and punch you in the face and then throw you down the fucking hill. It doesn't do that. [13:02] Not to say that I want that, but yeah, interesting start. That's all I'll say. Track one. We'll go there. We'll talk about Bob Rock as we keep going. Oh, Bobby, I thought, you know, this is an interesting start as well. It's got this country rock ballad, you know, it's like, are we jumping into a good condition 90s Chevy Suburban driving through Nashville in this one, like heading to the barbecue place? I don't know. But it also felt like, you know, I was listening through and I also thought this is so singable and it's kind of lovely and it's balladish and And it feels a little country. There's slide guitar. There's some, I don't know, cello or something that comes in. There's strings happening. And then I thought, I could rewrite the lyrics of this song and play it for anybody, and they would like it. I could actually turn this into a country music song. Or you could turn it into, dare I say, a Christian rock song. It just felt really mainstream, stream kickoff song to this album. It was like beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I like dug it, but it felt like programmed, I felt kind of programmed. [14:26] I would never suggest rewriting Gord Downie lyrics. I agree. But the music merited a feeling of, this could be a song played on different types of radio stations. It just, yeah. I wanted, you know, the kickoff on an album for me, it's got to be gripping. And it puts you in the seat. And you put on your seat belt. And you go. And this one was like, OK, what's number two? [14:56] Which, before we get into number two, honey, please, which, from each of you, song would you have used to kick off the record if you were sequencing the record? Is there a song on there that does that, that throws you down the hill, or grabs you by the throat? I know which one I would not, out of all of them, but I'll take it. It's a good question, but to be honest with you, I feel like this record, there are songs on. There's even notes that I'll say when we get into other songs. I feel like there's songs that don't belong in this record. Gotcha. Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, they kicked it off the way they kicked it off. And I think it's, you know, you can't argue with what's been done. And I can't make their fucking decisions. But yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's a tough question. It's a good question, but I can't answer it, JD. All right, honey, please. Oof. Here's another one I thought that kind of had this R.E.M. feel. I have East Street Band written down. OK. I also had. The beginning just reminds me of that piano lick at the beginning. Just reminds me of Springsteen. [16:08] It just feels like it's going into a Springsteen song. OK. This one, it somehow made me think of the band Big Country. I think they were, where were they from? Were they Scottish? I don't know. It just, Gord comes in softly, you know, I kind of felt like, oh, I wonder if they do this one live and he's angrier. Like it just, it just, I felt like there was a shift that wasn't in this song. Like it just felt like a great radio song, but at the same time. It was also playing in the ceiling speaker system when I was in Vancouver, BC getting my teeth cleaned. You know, like it just, it was really, it like, it was like I couldn't figure out what it was. It was that, or it was almost a wedding song. Like I couldn't figure out what this song was supposed to be. I just, it just kind of stumped me. It was good and sing along and everything, but it was also like, where are we going? I know, it's hard. This is that song, this might be the album that got kicked in the balls at the show on September 1st. Somebody might just walk up and kick me in the balls. Oh, there are big fans of this record. This might be that album. I'm wearing a cup, dude. [17:33] On Amazon, like, no fucking way. I'm wearing a mouth guard. I'm wearing a wig and I'm going to have like a voice modifier on my throat. I can just set you guys up behind the screen like so nobody can see you. You know, one of those things like silhouette. The old cage. You remember like watching fucking Roadhouse where the band played behind like a fucking like a chain link fence. And that band was? Jeff Healy and the... Fuck, Jeff Healy and the... I can't remember the band. I would have just said Jeff Healy band. Fucking shadow puppets. Here's my shadow puppets, Pete and Tim. Jesus Christ, man. Great fucking man, though. You know, we've been drinking the Kool-Aid and sometimes you get a little gherpie from, you know, too much Kool-Aid. I think that's just kind of... It's funny you say that, Tim, because I'm reading my notes for this song and it's... And honey, please... You've got gherpie written down. No, no, it didn't matter. This is my complete notes on this song. Heavy production. Producer is really mixing the Kool-Aid here. [18:44] Even how the drums are mixed, I mean, I just, I could not, I could not listen to this fucking song enough to even see, like, I just was like, yeah, dentist's office. I'm at, I'm at a fucking Sears or, or I'm at a Hallmark store and I'm just like, what the fuck, man? I just want to get out of here so I can put on fucking Black Sabbath or the, or fucking, or fully and completely in my fucking car. Like I just, Christ, excuse my language, but yeah, it justwas not taken, not taken. The, the, I'll just, there's more, but the, the, you're right about the drum mixing because there were a couple times where I was like, there's nothing wrong with this drummer. Why are we doing what we're doing here? Oh, it was like fucking the right tom went from the right ear to the left ear and then the kicks going back. I'm like, what the fuck are we doing? Why? Like, just give me the fucking drums. I don't need a ping pong set in my ears. It was just too much. I hear you on the E Street Band JD, but yeah, other than that, could not, oh, yeah, that's all I got. That's all I got. you. [20:05] J.D. we need to rerecord the start and you're going to be like, this is where I lost my friendship with Pete Dibb. And they were banned from the roof of the United States. No entry. No entry. [20:22] The first time I sat down and listened to the record was for Fully and Completely, the podcast. By the way, Pete, it's Fully Completely. Fully and Completely was our podcast. Whoa, easy, JD. Okay, now you're cut. Okay, all right. Mr. Details. This is episode... He's gotten our back. This is like, I mean, we got one record after two records. I should know this, you're right. I should know this at this point. I don't know if I can say this. So I listened to it then and I like absolutely, it did nothing for me. It did nothing. Like, I was just like, I don't even, I didn't pick up anything. I can't even say, oh, well, the Parchment Suite I really liked, you know, like, no, it just washed over me. And that really disappointed me and so I gave it like a session listen. Probably two or three weeks later, where I sat down and listened to it two or three times in a row. And that's when I latched onto a few songs. I won't say what they were, but I latched onto a few songs. And then picking it up again for this podcast and listening to it, it's like I'm finding some of these songs feel weirdly nostalgicnow, you know? And Honey Please, I like the tone of of his voice, like, I like what he's doing with his vocals on this song. Yeah. Uh, like he's, he's really playful. Like Jimmy's like, no, not like that. [21:51] Well, I was just in shock because I thought for a second, Gordani was sitting across from me. Oh, I thought you meant Tim was having a fucking seizure. No, it's, it's what I've been doing around the house when I need a refill. It's like, No, this, you know what, I'll tell, I'll tell you something, this, this is a really weird analogy, but like, I'm not a, I'm not one of those guys who's, I mean, I think the last time beforethis time I had been to a strip club when I was like 18 years old, you know, when you're 18, this is the first thing you can do. You go to a strip club. Yeah. Uh, and I had gone to one, one time after I was in a very committed and loving relationship And it was like, I got there and I was like, there's this beautifulwoman and she's talking to me and she smells nice and everything. And she's like, it's not doing, it's not, it's not taking. [22:44] And then like, you know, the night goes on, I have a couple of beers and I'm like, still not working. I don't understand what it is. And, you know, turns out, at least in terms of the strip club, it was because I love the person I was with and I didn't want to be there. I was not happy about where I was at. But that's how I felt listening to this song, is that no matter how much I tried, it did nothing for me whatsoever. Wow. It wasn't because it was your aunt, Shirley? I mean, for art, for art, that is the most harsh criticism you can give, right? I hate to say that. I hate to say that. This song is- No, no, I'm fine. This is what this is, right? This is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that you're being honest rather than pandering, you know, I'm not going to pander and I'm going to be honest about this. It means the stuff that you have loved is that much more real to me. You know, thank you. Yeah. I mean, when you go back to, I mean, talk to me about fucking trouble with the hen house and I'm Christ. [23:52] Well, and just wait for next, next week. Ooh. Okay. I'm, I'm, you know, I don't want to get to the last recluse. [27:09] Oh, so, you know, fun chorus, lots of oohs, aahs. You know, I like a good ooh-aah section in a song when it works. I don't mind it. It can make it fun. But this song is so loaded. It's like tons of instruments. I don't know if there's an accordion in this song. I don't know. There's keys. There's tons of layers. It's got this ominous start. Um, it's a really bridge. Yeah. Bridge is so ominous. This chanting. Yeah. Yeah. I, which I thought was kind of cool, but, uh, you know, the keys fade out at the end and, and Gord's just, who are you? Who are you? Who are you? And it's, uh, I don't know what the song is, is about or who, or I don't know. It just, it just was like, whew, this, this song's loaded. Did you watch those videos I sent you guys? There's a trilogy from this record and Gord produced the videos and I sent them as a link. I don't think I think I said I was going to watch it because I wasn't in a place with Wi-Fi and thenI never watched it. I think that's my excuse also. [28:23] I don't remember getting it from you. You have to resend it. I'll resend it. I would watch it. Yeah, I want to read my notes verbatim here. Okay, um because yeah, I I really cool opening. I got YouTube vibes, a little Alice in Chains with the acoustic. [28:46] Guitar. The melody is good but it's very Coldplay. I got a lot of Coldplay vibes from this song. Not that I'm a Coldplay fan but unless you've been living under a fucking rock, you know what Coldplay sounds like. [29:00] And not to say that Coldplay's bad. There's a market for them. I like the keyboards but again with like the chanting and everything like I wrote down I do not recognize this band and it's no it's no surprise to me that Bob Rock did not produce the nextrecord because I feel like the whole time this guy Bob Rock whoever he is I don't know how he sounds I don't know where he's from but he's like listen guys nah this is the way it's gottabe I've been in the business for years I did this Metallica group you hear of them you heard of them they're from they're from California I know how to do it. It's just what you got to do to make this record sound good. Okay, I'm a big time record producer here. Like, I mean, the whole band is just like, Gord, what do you think? Do you know how much this haircut costs? Yeah, I put my my my pants on the same way as everybody else. The only difference is I make gold records. Like, I'm like, just like, fuck, dude, I'm the band must have just been sitting sitting there like, okay, all right, we'll do this. [30:08] Hey Gord, we're taking a coffee break right now. Hey Gord, I just ran into fucking Bob Rock coming out of the bathroom and he says we should put some Gregorian chants on thenext song. And he's like, you said, you said what? Okay, I guess we'll try it. Like it just, I don't know. Yeah. I, let's, can we go to Coffee Girl? Because it's not just. Sure. Can we? Can we? I promise, I promise this is gonna get better, but not with this song. Yeah, it is, it is. Not with this song. [30:43] It's a rollercoaster ride. This song. I'm reading I'm reading verbatim here feels like a song used for a scene transition in a romantic comedy when the guy and the girl break up before the final act where they get backtogether. Coffee girl. It's like I'm just picturing like, ah, fuck, he broke up. It's a montage of like her at work alone, pissed off because the guy fucking broke her heart, whatever the And, and, and like the trumpet, it's like, it was cool, but it was just like, what thefucking trumpet? Like, what is, what is going on right now? [31:24] And, and I mean, maybe it's supposed to make you feel like you're in a, like, give you that, that so I made her an expert or so I married an expert vibes. You remember that? Yes. Yeah. Like with a trumpet, like a lowly coffee shop in San Francisco, like, I don't know what the fuck's going on, but I'm just like, okay, this band is takingdirection. This is not, not to say it's not the same guys, but they're just like, they're led astray on some songs with this record, I feel. That's all I'm saying. Interesting thing. Yeah. I'd want this, this song, I got this, like, I agree with you pretty much, but I got creepy vibes from it. Get to the back door, look around, then turn the key, turn on all the lights, take down the chairs and make things neat. One night he'll make you choose. I mean, what? This is... Well, the beginning part is her opening the coffee shop. This song's creepy though. It's, I don't know. There's, there's... So I had that little sentiment about it. And then I was like, I remember when you could walk in Starbucks and you'd hear like like a catchy song. And then they had CDs for sale next to the cash register. I remember those days. And you can like take from, you know, the holiday Starbucks playlist, but it was on CD for sale right there. Right. I wondered, like, yeah. [32:51] You used to have a song you could download too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, was this a Starbucks song? I don't think it was a single. Tim's all creeped out and JD's like, no. JD's like, no, I've worked at a coffee shop. I've worked at a Starbucks before. You turn the lights, you turn the fucking key, you put the chairs out. Tim, what the fuck is the problem? Yeah, the problem is one night he'll make you choose. What is that? Like there's... You gotta watch the videos. Watch the videos, all right? I don't... Fucking... Okay. All right. Homework. Homework. Now, I agree with you. This song is very milquetoast. Milquetoast. Good work. You know? Yeah. It's fine. But it's enhanced significantly by this video. You enjoy it a little bit more. But... Well, in that essence, do you feel the song was kind of made for video, hand in hand, kind of? Well, I don't know why it wouldn't have been a single then, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Like, back in the day, they were releasing six, seven singles a record to give those record legs. [34:06] Well, it's got, I think, second biggest plays, or third biggest plays for this entire record on Spotify. Definitely a single category as far as listening is concerned. And I said it at the top of the fucking conversation about this tune is that it feels like it's made for a movie, you know? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I thought of the same. Only played 77 times live. So it's not really a big live song. No, it'd be super rare. Yeah. You guys are such data whores. Such data whores. You started it with your Spotify. I really wasn't with this album until yesterday. I usually do some research along the way in this album. I really just tried to listen to it, and I tried to listen to it. You weren't inspired. And then yesterday, got into some of the data stuff. All right. Let's go to track number five. Let's go. So, the acoustic guitar feels kind of played hard. Like, I don't know if you caught this, Pete, but it felt like. I don't know. I don't think it feels forced, but the strumming of the acoustic guitar in the beginning feels a little bit annoyed or something. I don't know. There's some sentiment in there. [35:33] Drums felt kind of simple, and then everything kind of thickens up, and there's big solos in here. It's over a six-minute song, So it's building us up in song length. I mean, this is a long song for the hip. [35:52] What else did I have in my notes here? Oh, there is, you know... Sorry, I have to read this real quick. You know, the importance of this one is just how it is all about the reference of the residential school system. We actually watched a kind of docudrama film about the residential school system up there and all the government's policies towards First Nations people. And that's some heavy, heavy stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just the song, let's see, I read the song is a response to this basically a cool you've apologized. Oh no, no, this was a Gord quote, I believe. Cool you've apologized, but nothing has really changed. The damage has been done. People are still suffering as a direct result of the government's policies. You know, that's, it's, it's not an apology song, but it's sort of. This one's just big. It's just a big song. Another one. [37:06] Yeah, before I speak about the song, I'm going to go back to one thing I said in the previous pod. I really wish to God Gorda was alive today, because I feel like the governments of the world, specifically the United States government and the Canadian government are just fucking itspeople in so many ways. Not making this a political thing, but like, Absolutely, I just I feel like that guy is a guy who would speak out and and you know, it's funny because I remember watching like video ofTrudeau when he died and Saying what a great guy he was and him actually tearing up but thinking like god, man I wonder if Gord hadn't died and what he'd be saying about some of theshit going. Yeah, no doubt the war or, you know, anything that happened during COVID, all that shit. I just really, you know, that guy is an important voice for the people in Canada. And I think, I don't know, I say North America, although there's not a lot of Americans that know the hip, but I sure shit do now. So, but getting back to the song, I liked this one. I, Tim, I certainly felt the same vibe. acoustic guitar in the beginning sounds extremely dated so that's where I think you got the vibe. [38:28] There's a lot of chorus and a lot of reverb it's just like way too like is this is this 1991? 92? It sounded like the same guitar tone on the song More Than Words by Xtreme. It just but strumming instead of that Like it just was too much. That being said, again, the strings come in, but there's a lot more of that on this fucking record. Rob Baker kind of saves the day. Solo starts coming in. The hit is great. The chorus is awesome. I love it there's some really cool arpeggios that are done in the second verse that just mix up the the sound of the song and then Rob Baker's solo it I Mean, I don't know dude. I'm willing to think he's probably the biggest fucking Pink Floyd fan in all I thought the same thing! That motherfucker, it's just fucking David Gilmour. I mean, I'm like, is Gilmour playing on this fucking record or is it Rob Baker? I mean, it's not even like, if you heard it, you'd be like, oh yeah, it's David Gilmour playing guitar. Like, no, it's actually Rob Baker, which is cool. I like it. And then Paul Amois doing like a Beatles thing, like with the guitar, like bouncing back and forth. [39:57] But in the end, I felt like this song had literally, I don't wanna miss a thing, Aerosmith, Armageddon vibes. Like it was produced to that level. Like it was good. Cinematic. But it was just, yeah, like, whoa, like, did I see this on the IMAX? I've got to listen to this song in IMAX. Yeah, to really appreciate it. Oh my gosh. I had the Pink Floyd reference, not so much of the guitar playing, but more as the all-encompassing feel of this album and the journeys throughout it, because it felt like it was trying to belike this massive Floyd production. That's one thought I had relating to the Floyd. [40:44] But the song, it made me wonder. This is where I dove into the story a little bit more. I wanted to know who Honey Watson was. Did you find out who Honey Watson is? Anybody? The reference here. So Gord apparently was watching a CBAE, CBC news story about the residential schools and started to write this song about it. And then the news story shifted to some story in Haiti and the news correspondent's name was Connie Watson. And he heard it as Honey Watson. And he thought that was funny, so he incorporated her name, Connie Watson, as Honey Watson into the song. Just thought it was cool and wrote it down. So he's like going through this really heavy topic, like one of. [41:36] Canada's maybe, you know, top three heaviest topics, residential school system. And he's throwing in these funny little, I thought they said, honey, Watson, her name's Connie Watson. I'm going to put this in this fucked up story, you know, it's like, God damn what this guy can do. And Pete, I completely agree with you. We, we, if I could choose, of course, any of us to have Gord still around. Yes. But we also need the band. Like, this is something I kind of want to save to the end, but of the whole, all of our experience, but like, we don't have art in the form of music that isscreaming about issues going on right now and making people angry. We don't have like, I can't name a band right now that has death threats against it from groups of idiots. [42:31] You know, I just don't know, like, there's a lot of- Hang tight, Tim. Our record comes out in December. Yeah, there we go. I was just going to say, there's a lot of, there's a lot, there are many lesser known, but on the rise, you know, kind of post-punk stuff coming out or going on, you know, like there's a lot. I agree with you though, man. There's just like, there's no- There's no mainstream people out there who are really screaming about issues going on around the world and ruffling feathers. [43:07] Like so much. Where's the song War Pigs, dude? Fuck, I've second time I've mentioned Sabbath during this fucking podcast. But like, where's the song War Pigs? Right now. Right now. It's on my hard drive. Back off. Hey, no, but like, I mean, I mean, here we are. [43:27] You know sending Billions of dollars to fund war all around the world and where the fucking dude, you know what? Um, there's a great fucking tiktok or whatever the fuck it is And it's some guy like i've seen it. Don't pretend like you don't tiktok all the time. No, I don't I don't have it But I wish I did um for that purpose, but there's a guy's Sitting in his car. He actually has his own account. Yeah. Look it up at pete. Um, it's all about his hair No, dude, there's a fucking guy sitting in his car and he's just like, you know, you guys in your punk bands and you were young, you were fighting against thesystem. [44:06] But somewhere you got old and you got fucking soft and you joined a party and it dude, he just fucking nails it. This guy fucking nails it. Wow. He fucking nails it. And it's like when I see shit like people like Henry fucking Rollins, like supporting the Democratic Party, which is like, fuck the Republicans, fuck the Democrats, fuck them all. Your job is to be against the system. You fuck. Excuse my language, but it's just like that's yeah, that's how I feel like, like a guy like Gord had. I don't know. The interviews I've seen with him and so much integrity, he wouldn't waffle. He'd tell he'd call a fucking spade a spade when he saw it. And if he smelled bullshit, he'd call it out no matter who it was. I don't know. That's how I feel, man. And yeah, you're right, Tim. We need the band. We need the band. We do. We need the band. Because the music's... Because not everybody watches the news and not everybody watches interviews. You hear music, though, man. You hear fucking War Pigs and you listen to those lyrics and you think, yeah, Smedley Butler was right. If you don't know who Smedley Butler is, listeners, Google him. He's not either. No, he's dead, but he wrote a good book. War is a wreck. Anyhow, too soon yet. He's been dead a while. It's a depression suit. [54:35] I had no idea what I was getting in store for when the song started, right? I mean, I was in the car and the display in my mediocre sound system, M-S-S. Clearly not my sound system. Fucking premium audio shit. My stock sound system. Anyways, on my screen it doesn't show the amount of time the song is. It just shows the amount of time it's been playing. And I just kept looking over. Like, I'm driving across town and I keep looking over. Like, god damn, how long is this song gonna go? The last song was like six minutes plus, right? Is this one a rock opera? Like, what is going on? It has this lovely start, but you really don't know where it's going. [55:26] The lyrics, I just, I was a little bit confused. The first listen, I thought we were really going to end around three and a half minutes, because that's when I was looking over. But we just kept evolving. It shifts gears, it speeds up, it gets more intense. Gord gets more loud. The strings get more loud. It just like, it's really climbing up this mountain. [55:50] And you know, part of the lyrics is, is what if the song does nothing? What is it doing? You know, what if the song does nothing? In one of the reviews of the song, which I later read, some of the hip fans who aren't as much into this album, they, you know, their, their response of what if the song does nothing waslike, yeah, what if it's not doing anything, you know, it's just confusion maybe? I don't know. Some fans were were like, no, I don't want to see how it ends because Gord's lyrics kind of ask for that. There's this, um... Kind of painful guitar solo at like eight minute mark. I mean the strings that loop and have this abrupt stop it's just this song is... It just goes. I've only listened to it three times I will listen to it again but the song to me was just... I just wonder what everybody was trying to do because it just was magnanimous. [56:59] It's giant. All right. Well, I will say I fucking love this. I thought I thought it was fucking magnificent. I think, you know, I finally with all the strings that are on this record was like, OK, I can dig them on this song. You know, I mean, it's a very, this is a very emotional record. It sounds like just lyrically, I don't feel like any of the first five songs really moved me that way. But there's a lot of musical references that he makes in here to like things like perfectfifths. The chorus is fucking amazing. When he starts warming up his voice, when he really starts digging his fucking heels in and he starts repeating, if this song does nothing, with the strings backing him up, I think are superpowerful. [58:03] They move me in this song, especially I listen to this song a lot in the car. I've talked about it once or twice, but, you know, it's a different experience when you listen to a song, when you listen to hip in my car or any music but you know I have a, The soundsystems, you know, it came with premium, but it's it's you know, it's it's a good It's a good audio system in my car. Frothy and quiet. Pete's premium sound system There's When the strings there's a cool syncopated rhythm that happens in the song and then when it when it breaks There's a part, because this is twodifferent songs, it's like 9 minutes and 27 seconds long and when this song breaks and it changes course, there's a part in it that is Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed. Has anybody heard that song before? Yeah, sure have. It's that, it's fucking that, fucking it's the hook in that song they fucking use. And Gord's vocals are exactly that. [59:16] He smokes and drinks and don't come home at all. That's the lyric in the Alice Cooper tune. But it's fucking, I dig it. And then, you know, I liked Rob Baker's solo. It was very emotional. This is a really emotional tune. And I don't feel like I'm like, ah, this is fucking amazing. I just think it's, it clearly took a ton of work and a ton of work. Yeah. But I do feel like the band starts to come together on this track. You start hearing, okay, this seems more tragically hip than before. [59:58] So anyway, that's what I got for this tune. They played this, they played the song live 86 times. Like I wanted to look that up to see, like did they play it 10 times, six times? Theyplayed it 86 times. That's like not a ton compared to all the shows they played in their entirety, but that's a handful of times at this. Well, considering it's a later album, I mean, obviously they played the earlier ones more. Yeah. So to experience it and to know it and experience it live was probably fucking epic. Yeah, but who knows if it was with the strings too. [1:00:35] Yeah, I don't think they toured with strings for sure. Okay, okay. If you're playing like Royal Albert Hall or something, yeah, you're gonna have fucking strings, but like, youknow, otherwise... That didn't happen for sure, JD. [1:00:48] I don't remember. I don't remember that being... Like, this would have been around the time in their career that that would have been something that you might expect them to do. You know, like, we're going to do a tour with a full orchestra to get different venues on board and, you know, things like that. Bands do that kind of shit. The Cineplex Theater video. Would have been perfect for this record. Yeah, that Sinplex Theater air didn't include all the Strings people or whomever, do you know? Was that just the band? I can't imagine it would have. I'll try to find that. Yeah, if you know, send me an email, jd.gettinghiptothehip.com. That would be really cool. But let's go to the exact feeling. I didn't have a whole lot on this one. I felt like it had the DNA more, a little more so, of a hip song. Like a standout was the wah pedal going on and kind of this faint background guitar playing fade out at the end like I Honestly didn't have a whole lot not many exact feelings of this oneNot that I didn't like it. It just felt like a filler spot to me. I just kept rolling. Okay. I Yeah, okay. There. This song is the one that starts with the Castagnets, so very Spanish. Yeah. They wrote it for me. [1:02:15] I like the rolling melody, like the chord progression, the way they do it is really cool. It just it drops and then it comes back, it drops and it's very circular. The chorus is fucking amazing on this song. And the way it builds to the chorus is like, it definitely has more of a hip vibe. Like I said last time, I feel like they really start to like becomethe hip again. It's like, whoa, who's that other fucking band the first four songs or whatever, you know? And now there's like, okay, we're warmed up now, fellas, sit back and relax and enjoy. So I dug it. But then, you know, it just kind of doesn't know where to go, fades out. Tim doesn't like fade outs. the time I don't. Yeah, sometimes they're okay. Yeah, in this case, I just feel like the song was really cool. They had some cool ideas, and then there was nowhere to really go. They painted themselves into a corner and we're just like, okay, we're just going to stop painting the room. [1:03:18] You know, but yeah, but I got I got stuff to say about the next song. Yeah, go. Let's go. Queen of the Furrows. I love the beginning. I thought it was fucking awesome. This song is fucking Led Zeppelin three. It is Led Zeppelin three. I think Rob Baker's playing the mandolin. I don't know if Gord is. I don't know who's playing the mandolin. Would love to get some get a line on that. If you know anything, Pete at getting it at the hip.com. You like what you see what I did there? That was that was very professional. Did it sound natural? My boys all growed up. [1:03:57] I dug this song. The way the fucking chorus, the way the chorus comes in is like, it's just so different from the song, which is not very Led Zeppelin 3 because it's so heavy. It's fucking rad. And then the solo by Rob Baker, I'm going to read notes for Vadim here, Rob Baker melts dicks off people. He doesn't even melt your face, he melts your dick. I mean, this solo is fucking screams. It's so good. You can just tell he's in the zone and he could hear that he wanted to play that solo and he just wanted to fucking destroy it. And he just did. He delivered, I don't know if he did that in one take or if they mixed different solos together to make that, but it just sounds so good, dude. Goddamn, it's so good. I love it. Good song, good tune. Good tune. I'll pretty much agree with that. You know, it's one, I'm not going to add much to what Pete just put in, but what I did want to know what, you know, what this queen of the furrows is. And, um, it's actually a crown awarded annually to quote an agriculturally-minded young woman of Ontario. [1:05:23] And I'll just show you guys real quick. This is Kieran County Queen of the Furrow 2020 as part of Ontario's Plowman's Association. Can you see? Oh, yeah. What do you think? She's nice, you know, it's so to give everybody You know some insight into that photo. I would say she's dressed like a like you would think she'd be wearing overalls or something likethat, but she's dressed like a beauty queen. She's got a lovely dress on. She's got a sash and a tiara that looks, you know, like, that looks all beautiful and like prom queenie. Not at all what I would have expected the Queen of the Furrows to look like. Which for real... Not at all what I expected the Plowman's Association to be doing. Easy, Tim! Easy! But I didn't know, furrows is the word for the lines, you know. That's right. In the farm from the machines planting seeds or doing whatever you do. I mean, now I know when I'm sitting in the window seat on Alaska Airlines, covering the West Coast as I do. [1:06:37] I thought the guitar solo, it hearkened me back to some GNR. That's all I'll say about that. Certainly. this I guess just lastly the ending had this noisy but kind of quiet background guitar feedback something like there was something something playfulhappening with some guitar noise and the congos like this was one of those interesting enders but but kind of a cool song. Speed River. So, Speed River, I was like, ah, okay, I'm kind of digging this one. This felt a little more like what I was hearkening back to, Liking of the Hip. This was a single. Yep, yep. This has, again, a big guitar solo, which quiets down into keys and some rim shots from drumsticks happening. [1:07:34] This house sounds like a bomb hit it is a fucking cool lyric. I didn't know if that was referencing the feeling of recording and just being in the zone. This is what I was imagining, just being in the zone of the music just feeling so good with yourbandmates. You know, this house feels like a fucking bomb hit it because we are destroying with this music. But this song is kind of cool. a little more, I don't know, a little more fun in an easilysingable way. You know, it has a somewhat fitting, abrupt ender to it. It might have been... At first glance, it was like, this might be my song on the album. I'm not sure. Don't give it away, buddy. I didn't. I left it hanging a little. All right. He said it might. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I stand corrected. Speed River. I'd love to agree with Tim, because I love agreeing with him, but the tonal licks were cool. [1:08:45] Overall, though, not impressed. I feel like this song was written to play live. I mean, literally, they wrote it and were like, yeah, we don't care how this fucking sounds on the record. It's just gonna be a fucking banger to play live. Yeah, I'm sure it was great live. How many times did they play it there, Tim? Let's look. It was probably like a- Oh, I thought you had it pulled up hard. I do. It's just on, I got it right here. It probably was awesome, you know, to play like the fifth song of a show just to keep the crowd going. It was played 11. This was played 11 times. So this song was probably a treat for people who do it. You know, it was probably a fucking treat. Yeah. I guess so. I heard the rim shots and the keyboards, it's just felt so country pop, like, I felt like I felt like I should be at, like, the lake with my, like, pseudo country Republican voting friends, like, 12Bud Lights deep being like, yeah, this is fucking mad, right? Yeah, this is fucking cool. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. [1:10:00] So that was Bobby and. Yeah. You know, I don't know. It's just the vibe I got. I don't know why, but I felt. I felt like if I heard the song live, I'd be like, fuck, yeah. But on the record, it was just. It was like a bad Viagra pill, not that I've ever taken Viagra, but I don't know why. That's why. That's what I thought of. But it's like somebody selling you like a, like a placebo and be like, yeah, this will, this will do it. And you take it and you're like, I didn't do anything. [1:10:35] I think it was 2009 that we went to Mazatlan. That's kind of throwing me back to bad Viagra pills. Okay. I just thought, because you know, songs, you want to say this song to getmy engine going. That's why I did that. Anyway. If you look at the blueprints of this song, though, it should work like it should. It should all be there. Yeah, yeah. It's got an interesting chorus. But you're right, the sum of the pieces don't add up. Now, there are people that will love this song and tell us why you love it. It'd be great to hear. You could love it, but compare it to the shit that they've done. [1:11:19] And we're not in the compare and contrast game. We're not comparing apples and and oranges, groeries and forges. But I mean, dude, like. You're going to put this up against fucking fireworks, go fucking freak off, as Ricky LeFleur would say. Freak, freak right off. I mean, Christ, I mean, not even close. Right. Just I. But you're right, Judy, the sum of it, you know, it has all the components. It's like, Hey, babe, I was going to make this amazing soup for you. I put all the ingredients in, but for some reason it still tastes like shit. Yeah. Yeah. I won't go. Yeah. I won't, I won't go that far, but yeah. [1:12:08] Well, you know, you know where I'm going. Yeah. Well, with it, with this album and where we're at now and with, with all these journeys of these songs, I mean, we've gone fromlike three minute songs to nine minute songs, these, these past two, Queen of the Froze and Speed River, they feel like kind of placed in there to fill it out a little bit. But they also feel to me a little bit like past albums filler songs. So yeah. To me, they were good and they represent. But in this particular album, it's almost like, guys, we had 10 days book to record. We're at day four and you're feeling done. What do you have? They were part of this for two months. What do you have that we could pull in here? Jesus Christ. What about that song, Speed River? I just hope Bob Brock can retire after this. Yeah. What was that? [1:13:02] I just said, I hope Bob Rock retired after this or, or no, no offense to Bob Rock. Cause he produced some great shit, but just like, or found a band that he was more compatible with because it just. Yeah. I feel you. I feel you. I don't feel, and that's, you know, you guys dug the last record and that was him. And, uh, and, and you turned me back onto it by your, by your digging of it. You know, it's, it's just, it's just interesting. It's it sure is. I mean the last record I I it kind of won me over quickly and I believe I said this, you know, I went online to see how I could get it on vinyl and And then the more I listened to it the less Ilooked into Getting it on vinyl. I'm watching literally watching a crow in my backyard right now I'm going to destroy. [1:13:59] An old crow? I have a crow right now, destroying. Hey! Go! I love birds. I'm a birder. And this crow is destroying my cover over my... It's too complicated. I didn't know that crows in Portland speak English. Did you know that, Jamie? I did not know that either. That is a fact. I would have assumed they spoke Croatian. Oh shit. Fuck man. JD takes a sip of his fucking whiskey and says, I'm out bitches, finish the podcast on your own motherfuckers. I printed out the article, I didn't really, but I printed out the article about dads who throw out dad jokes are better dads than dads who do not throw out dad jokes. That may be true, but I'll tell you what, um, uh, camera, wait, what was it? Pigeon camera? Pigeon camera. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be cool if we, they did a crow camera. At least you havealliteration. [1:15:08] I guess crows weren't as smart, but crows are supposed to be really smart. They're fucking smart. And they, they have face recognition skills. They, they remember people. Frozen in my tracks. [1:18:58] You know, I think it's kind of a pleasure. It's a little bit of a gift, or maybe it's a huge gift, when Gord does his, what do we call it, when he speaks over... Spoken word! Yeah, when he does a spoken word fucking poetry, trippy stuff, like this song has it, and we got it, and I'm happy at this point on any hip song to get that. It's got kind of a... That's cool. Yeah, I mean, come on. It's got somewhat of a spooky start. The snare on this one's a bit tuned up, and the bass is like, lack of a better term for thuddier or deeper. It's like the drums felt a little bit different to me. [1:19:43] This, you know, Gord at the one minute mark, he's already screaming in this song. [1:19:48] I thought that, I don't know, with the bridge at like two minutes, this kind of locomotive feeling, I thought this song reminded, it made me wonder if Bob Rock, look, can yousqueeze call him Bobby? Because if he listens to this, I just want him to be Really upset. It's called a 

DoorGrow has changed a lot in the last few years. We've added tons of new features and perks for our clients as well as new coaches… including Sarah Hull, COO and property management growth coach. Join property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull to learn more about Sarah's role at DoorGrow, operations, and how you can scale your property management company. You'll Learn... [02:47] Sarah's Property Management Experience [05:19] Improving Operations and Cutting your Staffing Costs in Half [15:38] Why You Need an Operator in Your Business [22:02] Personality Types and Their Roles in a Business [27:24] The Clue that You Need a Better Team Tweetables “You can't build the right team around the wrong person.” “Here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day-to-day is something you don't enjoy doing every day.” “Is the bruised ego worth a better, more profitable business that takes, a lot more off your plate and is less stressful?” “The most important person you'll ever hire in your business will be the operator.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Jason: Here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day to day is something you don't enjoy doing every day. If you're still wearing hats that you don't enjoy doing and you've built an entire team around you, and you're the wrong person in the roles that you're sitting in, then you've built the wrong team around you. You can't build the right team around the wrong person. [00:00:18] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow hacker.  [00:00:36] DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate gateway to high trust, real estate deals, relationships, and residual income At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their business businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host along with Sarah here, property management growth experts, Jason Hull and Sarah Hull, the founder and CEO and the COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show.  [00:01:22] All right, so I'm already messing up the intro as I'm reading it because I'm looking and seeing her here in the screen, and I find her highly distracting. So, we were talking before we talked last night, we're like, what are we going to talk about on the podcast? And and then this morning, I said, what are we going to talk about? She says, I don't know, we only talked for like five minutes about last night, and we didn't come to a conclusion. So, I said, let's talk about you. Can I intro you and brag about you first? Sure, go ahead. So I wanted, I thought we would talk about Sarah today because she's probably a lot more interesting certainly to look at than myself and maybe to listen to. So I thought we would talk about her. So, I'll tell you a little bit about Sarah. So what's really amazing about Sarah and what I really like about her is that her wrists are really tiny.  [00:02:10] Sarah: That's really, it is true. It's not not true.  [00:02:14] Jason: My hands are not enormous. Dude hands. I buy child bracelets for her. I'm just kidding. All right, so  [00:02:19] Sarah: I have a five inch wrist. So like I can take, I can actually wrap my my pinky and my thumbs and touch. That's about, and they overlap. So it's about this big.  [00:02:31] Jason: Oh yeah. I can do the pinky as well. That's, yeah. Very small.  [00:02:34] Sarah: I train a lot on the rest. Get them that way.  [00:02:37] Jason: I do actually like that. I think it's a cute trait. All right. But I'm joking. What, what I really want to say is, so what's interesting to the audience is that Sarah has managed her own property management business. She has exited that. She sold it. Great job, by the way. Mm-hmm. And she managed a decent amount. At that size, most property managers have a team, like a full team, like five to 10 people I've seen. And usually at the stage, these companies are very unprofitable. Like this is the worst profit margin stage they've been at in their business. And they get stuck. And I call this area the second sand trap. They can't afford to really like expand or do more marketing or, and they're just not able to take a lot out of the business and, and their profits are all getting eaten up by staffing costs. Now Sarah had one part-time person, boots on the ground part-time and managed her business remotely part-time. Part-time, yeah. She was bored. Very. And people are like, well, these must have been really nice properties. These were C class properties? Duplexes, small plexes. [00:03:52] Sarah: Yes. We had a good mix of single family, duplex, triplex, and then I think we had maybe two that were like 10 units, which was kind of big for my area, but  [00:04:03] Jason: Okay. Yeah. And so, what was your profit margin?  [00:04:08] Sarah: Over 60%. Okay. 60% was a not great amount.  [00:04:12] Jason: Okay, so a lot of you dream of that, right? And you think, how's that even possible? It's possible because one, Sarah is very efficient. She's a very good operator. That's why she is now the COO of DoorGrow. And everything in the business is better as a result of having her in the business. Everything's improved. But I wanted to qualify Sarah as a badass. Like she's really good at what she does, and she wasn't really connected to the property management industry. She just did what made sense to her. And she didn't really want to be talking to tenants and she didn't really want to be dealing with talking to the owners very often, and she just set up her business in a way that was very efficient. And so we'll be talking about that in the priorities training. So, Sarah also has come into DoorGrow and she runs all of our operations. She runs I everything that I've taught her that I like I've developed DoorGrow os and how we plan our cadence. She just knows it to the point where she can teach it. And she learned it all very quickly. And now she's the one that coaches clients how we did our hiring. She like has improved on that and built it out even more and teaches clients how we do hiring and so we help clients get all these systems in place to become more profitable and more efficient. Sarah does all that. So as an example, why don't you share the story of maybe Jade and Andrew. I think that's a great story. Because they were at a similar size of a business as you had had.  [00:05:46] Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Well, they had about 188 units and they had 11 team members total, like 11. So really, really overstaffed. And some of them were in the office and some of them were VAs and we just really had to like dive in because they said, well, like, what are they doing? And they kind of gave me like a surface answer. Like, oh, well this person does this and they do this. And I said, yeah, but like, what are they really doing? Because with 188 leases, like, let's just pretend that. We had all hundred and 88 due in the same month with, which isn't going to be the case. We're going to, spread that over the course of multiple months. But if we had all hundred 88, due even in one month, I still can't figure out what, two or three leasing agents are doing with 40 hours a week every single week. So we are just really going through and trying to figure out like, who's doing what. And sometimes I find that either no one's doing something or two people are doing something. And if two people are doing it, just know that it's not getting done.  [00:06:56] Jason: That's a 17 to one ratio. I just did the math. [00:06:58] So that's, that's for each, for every 17 doors, they have a team member.  [00:07:04] Sarah: It was really bad. So we just kind of went through with them and figured out like, what is everybody actually doing? What should everybody be doing? And then how many people is it really actually going to take? And they they had a lot of meetings and discussions with each other and then like we kind of met a couple times throughout this process and they came to the conclusion that they needed to let go of about half of their team. And they did. And then once they did that, all of a sudden they're like, Hey, we're like profitable and we're making money. But when we first started talking with them, they said like, actually, we're losing money every month. Like we can't pay ourselves. We can't take anything and we're losing money. Like this business is costing me money to run every single month. Yeah, little uncomfortable situation to be in, especially because property management isn't, it's not easy, it's not a cake walk. You're not, like doing nothing all day. So if you're in a business like this, And it is complicated and it is challenging. Then the least you should be able to do is like get yourself a decent profit margin so that you can make sure that you're paying yourself and that your business isn't struggling to keep up with. [00:08:14] Jason: Drive this home. Sarah did one call with them and the result of that one call was, what? What are all the results?  [00:08:21] Sarah: Well, on the one call, they realized, I have no idea what most of the people are actually doing. Like, they gave me the answer and I'm like, yeah, but how do you spend 40 hours a week doing that thing? [00:08:32] Yeah. And from there they realized like, we need to make major, major changes to our team. And most of these people are going to have to go. On the second call, that's when they actually decided to take action. Okay. And they got rid of, so. [00:08:47] Jason: The second call, which is she did this one call after that. [00:08:51] Mm-hmm. They fired half their team, half their team then, and as a result, their profit margin, which was not very good, which was negative, losing money, was then what? What did they get to? I didn't get their profit margin. Okay. It was significantly improved. Oh, no. Significantly improved.  [00:09:09] Sarah: I know they weren't losing money anymore. [00:09:10] Jason: Yeah. Yay. All right. We'll have to get some stats on that cause I want to brag during the priorities training about that. All right. So, Sarah has been able to dramatically improve our clients' businesses and lives. One of the things she's also helped a lot of clients with is completely restructuring their teams. Mm-hmm. They just did two of them last week. Okay. Why don't you explain Yeah. Kind of what you've done.  [00:09:37] Sarah: Mm-hmm. Well, all right, so one of them had about 360 doors and there were 1, 2, 3, 7 people on the team total. Which to some of you might sound like, yeah, that makes sense. And to me it's just, I'm like, there's too many people. And it was kind of like the same thing where everyone is saying like, oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy, I'm so busy, and I'm looking at things going, I just don't understand what actually is is happening. Like, there's a lot of work that has to be done. It's like busy work. It's, it's like grunt work, but it's not, super helpful. It's just the things that are going to keep you afloat and that's like a bare minimum. So what we ended up doing is this client had one BDM, three property managers and then three assistants that were basically like assistant property managers. And we, he's like, I don't know if a lot of them are like good fits. [00:10:37] And I just, I, I really don't know what they're saying they're doing because they all tell me like, I'm so busy. I'm so busy, but what's actually happening? So when we kind of like dove into things, we realized like, you are overstaffed and very similar situation. He wasn't able to really take a lot out of the business because there was not a lot left. [00:10:57] Jason: Who is this? Kevin. Okay, so Kevin had three property managers. Mm-hmm. Each property manager and they were portfolio style. And each property manager had their own assistant. Yep. Because they were not, for some reason able to get done what they needed done. [00:11:13] And Kevin himself was having to do lots of things, put out lots of fires, and be involved in micromanaging everybody. And when I first shadowed, and--  [00:11:22] Sarah: he wasn't micromanaging anybody, there was nobody leading the team.  [00:11:25] Jason: Okay. Kevin wasn't leading the team then? Nope. So what, Kevin? No one was leading the team. [00:11:30] Sarah: Team was just kind of doing whatever they thought was the right thing to do.  [00:11:33] Jason: All right. Well, Kevin seemed pretty stressed out and what, yeah, and Kevin didn't have any personal support at all. Like nobody was helping Kevin with anything. He didn't even have his own assistant, but he got assistance for three people on the team that weren't very productive or efficient. So, what's the plan with Kevin? [00:11:53] Sarah: Yeah. So, half of those people are going too. So we decided the BDM is excellent, so we're going to keep the, the bdm. He is taking one of the people who was a property manager and she actually tests okay as a property manager on our assessment. But she tests better as an operator. She is like, is a better fit for kind of this operator position. So we're going to shift her into the operator role. We're going to keep one of the property managers to do all of everything. And then one VA who's going to be like an assistant property manager.  [00:12:29] Jason: Where'd the BDM come from? [00:12:30] Sarah: The BDM was already there. Oh, okay. He was one of the seven originals. Got it. So he had three property managers, three assistants, and one bdm. Those were the seven.  [00:12:39] Jason: Got it. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Who's the other one you said there were two? Josh. Josh? Yeah. What's the deal with Josh? [00:12:46] Sarah: Josh had about 300 doors and his whole team was kind of like a hodgepodge of people. Not that he was super overstaffed, but just people weren't in the right seats. And when you have the right people, but you're not putting them to the best like use, then you kind of still run into issues. And Josh, same thing, no operator. There was no operator on the team and largely he was kind of handling operations and he is like, I don't mind doing it. I like doing it, but I don't want to be the only one doing it, and I don't want it to always fall on me. Mm. So what we're doing with him is he had a VA that he had let go, like right in the middle of our talks. And he said, Hey, I'm hiring a new va. I said, great, let's like test the new VA to see if they're going to be a good fit. And then he decided, like we shifted his team around a couple of times and like through the assessments realized and he had talked with you. This was the one that we took who he thought was going to be the property manager and then put her in the BDM role instead. Mm-hmm. Because he is like, well, I don't know how to like, make everything work. So now he's he's going to have like a whole different team structure. Not that he had to let anybody go. He wasn't like crazy overstaffed. It's just he still wasn't super profitable because he didn't have the right people in the right spots. And he didn't have anyone doing the operations. Mm. You can get as big as you'd like, but if you don't have someone handling the operations, and this is that back end piece, this is not front end stuff, like everyone always, this is what we start with, is we start doing front end stuff. Because when you start your business, you are doing the front end stuff, you're doing the leasing, and you're doing the showings, and you're talking to tenants, and you're handling the maintenance.  [00:14:37] This is all the front end stuff. This is the stuff that absolutely must be done just to make sure that the business runs. When your business reaches a certain size, you now need to have someone doing the backend stuff. Mm-hmm. And if you're not having anyone doing like the backend stuff, which is like, hey, making sure that everyone on the team is following the same direction and everybody is contributing to the vision of the CEO and running things like your daily huddles and your strategic planning and doing hiring and firing and getting job descriptions, doing team reviews like. For those of you that are hearing all of this and you're going, blah, that sounds horrible, then it means you're probably not the operator. And at some point, if you're not an operator, it's okay. Jason's not an operator, like he doesn't like that. It's not his brain functions. So you need the counterpart whose brain does function like that, and that would be me. [00:15:29] Jason: I like to build out the systems and I must have been mis mixing up Josh's team. I think you did team with Kevin, so I think you did. Yeah, I remember Josh. So the most important person you'll ever hire in your business will be the operator. That's very true. And because visionary entrepreneurs do not like the details. I like building out the systems. I like creating DoorGrow, hiring and DoorGrow os and these systems. But I don't want to run them in my own business. I want someone else to run them because running those things is not as fun and it actually, the results are not as good because especially with planning, if I run all the planning, it's not as good. Bad, and so bad. [00:16:09] Sarah: There was one week where I couldn't run the planning meeting because I was on a flight and I said, can you just run the planning meeting? And he did it. And I came back and I was like, I don't know what happened in here, but this is bad.  [00:16:20] Jason: It was okay. I did just fine. It was bad. So the issue-- just fine. The issue is it's not fun for me to run the meetings, but also when it comes to like actual strategic planning, we as the visionary or as the main leader of the business, or even as the operator, we have to be the last to speak. Otherwise, we influence things. And if I run the meeting, it's really hard for me not to say certain things and not to steer things a certain way. [00:16:48] And so I don't get as valid of feedback from the team. I don't get as valid of information. So what happens is as visionaries, a lot of times we think we have all the best ideas. And it's not generally true, right? Our team members are closer and more connected to what's actually happening on the ground, and they can see things we can't see, and they have ideas that we don't have, and they can share these things with us, and we can get their buy-in into the plan if they help create it. [00:17:16] But when we are just top down pushing everything, because we think we're the visionary, and this is one reason I really don't like EOS. One of the big fundamental flaws in EOS is they intentionally overinflate the ego of the visionary. The visionary has all the best ideas and they're so important, and that feeds the ego and it helps them to sell integrators, which in their accountability chart, they place the visionary at the top, and then they have a line going down. And this is just a fancy name for a stupid org chart that doesn't make sense, but you have the visionary connected to the operator. Which they call an integrator. And the integrator then is connected to everyone else on the team. This is one of the most flawed structures I've ever seen, and nobody runs their business this way because integrators or operators are not the people that should be over sales and marketing generally. They're not the people that, because they have a very different personality type, they're opposite. And they want to conserve and they want to make sure money is handled well and they don't want to take risks and they don't want to, like, this is more stuff for maybe your head of sales and marketing or maybe your BDM or whoever you want to place in your executive team. They're really usually equals, but they have to report their stats. Everybody reports their stats to the operator. And so the challenge is we have to have a system in which the team can all give feedback and give information first, and it isn't top down. It's really bottom up. And this is how we designed DoorGrow Os and why people that come from the EOS system get a much bigger result and a bigger yield from their team and much more profitability than they were able to get under u s or traction or rocket fuel, right? [00:19:00] These are some of the things that Sarah's able to do with some of our clients. And I have to say, it's amazing to be able to have somebody that I can trust to not just understand all this stuff. Because she, she's super sharp but also to be able to teach it to clients and to be able to help clients work through all of this and trust that it's just going to be handled and that's really what we want in a great member of our team or in a business partner. [00:19:25] Or with anybody that we work with, we want people that we can trust to just handle stuff and to do it well. Sarah does it really well, so, what else should we say about you?  [00:19:36] Sarah: I think that's just how my brain works. Like every job that I've ever worked before I owned my own business, I would be there for a little bit and it was super clear to me like, Hey, if we make these changes or if we do these things differently, or if we just shift this a little bit, it's going to be better and here's how it's going to be better and why. [00:19:55] And it's so frustrating for me when you know, like I was at multiple insurance companies. Before like I kind of got into property management and I on all of them, I was like, oh, we could just do it like this. Well, we don't do it like that. I'm like, I know you don't do it like that, but you should do it like that and here's why. And when it's frustrating for me where I'm like, oh, you could just make these changes and you could do things like this. And this is just how I think my, my brain is just wired to work. because I can like look at the overall picture of things and I'm like, well, why do we do things like this? You could do it like this instead and we should change this and this should be different. And that's really good. This is really great. Keep this, but change this little thing. And then these are the results that you'll have. And at all of the insurance companies I had worked with prior, I had like made some suggestions and they're like, oh no, we're not going to do that. We can't do that, we can't do that. So I think looking back, it's funny for me because I'm like, oh well yeah, I was kind of, almost like destined to like get in and, and run my own business because then if I think, Hey, we should do things like this because of this, then I can just do them. I don't have to go and ask like, oh, hey, can I really think this would help your business? Like, we can do it. And they're like, no.  [00:21:08] So now, like, just looking back, I'm just able to kind of pick it apart and see things that sometimes other people don't see because you're just, you're too close to it. Mm. And, and it's it's personal for people too. They're like, oh, this is my business and I'm really proud of it and this, I worked so hard and I know, like, I know what goes into running a business. Like I know it, blood, sweat, and tears doesn't even begin to cover it. I understand that. And that being said, I think that's one of the reasons why you should be looking to improve it. So if you can make a few small changes, like your, your ego might have a little bit of a bruise, right? But is it worth the trade off? Like, is the bruised ego worth a better, more profitable business that takes, a lot more off your plate and is less stressful? So for sometimes, sometimes people are like, no. I don't want that. I just want to know that I have all the answers and I'm right all the time, and that's okay. [00:22:02] Jason: All right, so what's unique about Sarah, and some of you might identify with her a little bit. So in Myers-Brigg, she's probably an INTJ.  [00:22:13] Sarah: Well, not probably, I'm like the epitome of INTJ. [00:22:16] Jason: So INTJ. Is very intuitive. They are introverted. They're a thinker and they're judging. Now INTJs are because they're super intuitive. They're called the strategist because they're logical and they figure out solutions to things, but what's I think really in interesting, and I think there's women's intuition and she's very intuitive. She just knows things without knowing why it's true. Mm, yeah. Like she's like, there's a problem over here in the, in our business or there's a problem over here and I don't know why, but it, something's not right. So. And what's frustrating is I will say no. I don't see it. Like everything's fine. And she's always right. She loves when I say, you were right. She loves it a little too much by the way. But she's usually right. And so I've learned to trust her intuition tuition and sometimes I think our unconscious. Has a lot of information and can process a lot more than our conscious mind can and picks up on little details and things. Mm-hmm. And has worked some things out and just knows things and it bubbles up to the surface of our conscious mind and we're like, Hey, something's off here. And she gets these flashes of intuition that when there's like some sort of threat and things like this as well. So I've learned to trust your intuition because it's proven accurate multiple times. And I've always considered myself fairly intuitive in the business, but her intuition is kind of next level. And so I think being able to trust your gut and having a partner in the business or some, or an operator that you can trust, their gut can have a significant impact as well. [00:23:52] So I'm a bit opposite of her. I'm an ENTP. So we both are the intuitive, which is the n and we're both thinkers. Thinkers. But. I am a bit more extroverted probably. Even though I really feel like an introvert a lot of times, but I like need to be around some people occasionally. [00:24:12] Sarah: Well, I know, but you usually like will kind of, you'll you'll break in that arena before I do. You're like, we like I just want to get out of the house and be around people and I'm like, oh, I don't.  [00:24:22] Jason: Yeah. And then I'm definitely more, we think very differently. Like very differently. Mm-hmm. I'm perceiving and you're judging and perceiving means my desk is chaos right now. If you could see it. And it means I love pulling in ideas from lots of different places. I have a crazy variety of books on the bookshelf over here. I've like, I pull in things from a lot of places to formulate my thinking. Then I'm able to formulate some new ideas and I'm very creative that way. And that's part of, I think why we have such great IP at DoorGrow. I get a lot of coaching and a lot of input from different sources and we improve those ideas and we have, I think, the best ideas and innovate the quickest in the coaching space in this industry period, maybe out of a lot of coaching businesses. We consult and share ideas with other coaches and coaching businesses as well that we're in Masterminds with. I don't want to do all the implementation. I don't want to make sure everything gets done. And so I'll be like, Hey, here's this great idea, but Sarah also brings really great ideas to the table. She's like, Hey, I had this idea. And then she'll just rapidly implement, like she just gets it done. She's like, Hey, let's do this premium Mastermind event and have people, we'll rent out an Airbnb and we'll get people to go and we'll do this and it'll be awesome. And I'm like okay. And she just makes it happen. Sells all the tickets to it, gets everything organized. I just showed up and got to look cool and she made it all happen. [00:25:50] He's like, what are we doing at this event?  [00:25:52] I showed up, I'm like, so what are we doing?  [00:25:54] He's like, what are we even doing? I'm like, just-- [00:25:56] I'm like, okay, Sarah's leading this. So that was our last DoorGrow Live too. Like Mar-- Yes, that's true-- my assistant who did a lot of planning and Sarah like, handled some of the details and ideas and I was just like, all right, I'm just here. I'm the tech guy. [00:26:11] Sarah: Just when we call your name, get to the stage, just go up there.  [00:26:14] Jason: Yeah. When, when it's your turn, Jason, you go speak and talk about something and I did. So that's kind of how we work together. So, what else should we say about Sarah? She's still working on getting her last name changed because it was Hall and she's switching it to Hull. [00:26:31] Sarah: Well, right now, I really don't know what it is. Yeah. Truly. I don't know because the Social Security office has me as Hull.  [00:26:39] Jason: So you got to change. Yeah. To my last name.  [00:26:41] Sarah: Yeah. But the DMV is like, so super booked out.  [00:26:46] Jason: So not, not in Texas yet. Your license doesn't say it yet.  [00:26:50] Sarah: No, no. Not my license doesn't say it yet, but my social security card does. [00:26:56] Jason: So, and your social media, I think you've changed most of it. I changed it before. Long before this. Yeah. So, but Hall's her ex-husband's last name, so yeah. So I'm trying to like, he's trying to buy a vow. I'm trying to buy that vow. I think I paid for that vow. What's on your neck and on your finger. And I think I've, I think I've accomplished that. I don't know. I don't know. So, cool. And I don't know what else, what else should we say?  [00:27:24] So Sarah's one of the key coaches in our business here at DoorGrow. Our mission is to transform property management, business owners and their businesses, and she does that like, she helps to do that. She runs a lot of the group coaching calls when I'm focused on other things in the business, which is awesome that I have somebody I can trust to do that at a really high level and to do it really well and clients really appreciate her test.  [00:27:49] Sarah: When you're busy, I run the whole scale call. Yes, every single week. [00:27:54] Jason: Well, you do. You go beyond that. You also run some, some of the other calls that I-- Yeah, for sure. I used to run every call. You can run every call. So, yeah, which is awesome. All right, well I think, for those of you that you want to experience some of the magic of Sarah and improve your operations, you're struggling with things, your profit margin is not what you wish it would be, and you think you need more kPIs and micromanaging and to like squeeze more juice out of your team. That's probably, there might be a little bit of truth to that, but generally you'd probably need a better team or you need to optimize your team and that's one of the most profitable changes you should make first before you start messing with micromanagement, KPIs, more pressure, stuff like that. You need to make sure first you have the right team, and here's the clue that you don't have the right team: your day to day is something you don't enjoy doing every day. If you're still wearing hats that you don't enjoy doing and you've built an entire team around you, and you're the wrong person in the roles that you're sitting in, then you've built the wrong team around you. [00:29:05] It's pretty obvious if you look at it from that perspective. You can't build the right team around the wrong person. Can't build the right team around the wrong person. So, we can help you make sure first, who are you, we can help you figure that out, and what do you really enjoy? And we have processes for that. And then we can start to build the right team around you so that you are supported and you get to move closer and closer to having more fulfillment in your day-to-day. More freedom, more contribution, and more support. And then your team members will be able to have those four things and you'll get probably three times the output from those team members. And that's the biggest expense and that will give you the biggest profit in your business if you can get these systems in place that we can help install. With DoorGrow OS and DoorGrow hiring and DoorGrow Flow and DoorGrow, CRM and DoorGrow. What am I missing? Flow hiring, crm, you said all of software. Those are our software. Okay, cool. Which we call our super system. So we're going to be doing this event on the 22nd, talking about priorities and how to increase your profit margin and how to decrease operational costs. We hope to see you there and or watch the replay if you see this later. Make sure to reach out to DoorGrow if you would like to experience some Sarah Magic. And until next time to our mutual growth, everyone.  [00:30:26] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow!  [00:30:53] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

Franchesca Ramsey, also known as Chescaleigh, is an American comedian, activist, television, and YouTube personality, and actress who has appeared on MTV and MSNBC. Join Michael Jamin and Francheca as they explore her path to success, lessons learned, and what it takes to make it in Hollywood.Show NotesFranchesca Ramsey's Personal Site - https://www.franchesca.net/Franchesca Ramsey on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchesca_RamseyFranchesca Ramsey on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chescaleigh/Franchesca Ramsey on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@franchesca_leighFranchesca Ramsey on Twitter - https://twitter.com/chescaleighAutomated TranscriptFranchesca Ramsey (00:00:00):No. You, you never, you never know. And, you know, on the topic of Nose and Failures, I went to the red carpet for the Emmy's in 2008 and I swore that was gonna be my big break. I thought, I was like, I'm never going back to the chamber. Like I, I remember my boss.Michael Jamin (00:00:15):So you went as what?Franchesca Ramsey (00:00:17):As I was a red carpet reporter for.com. Oh yeah. I was on the red carpet. I interviewed like Kathy Griffin and Neil Patrick Harris. And I sang with Josh Groin. Like I had the best time. Right. And then I had to fly back to Florida and go to work. And I was heartbroken. I thought I was gonna get an agent. I thought I was gonna, I just thought like, this is it. I'm, I'm making it. And I did not make it.Michael Jamin (00:00:42):You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jamin.(00:00:50):Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I have a wonderful special guest today and she's extremely inspiring. And if you want to be a screenwriter, you need to hear how this woman broke in because it floored me. I'm here with Franchesca Ramsey and she has all, she's a multi-talented person cause she's an actor or writer performer. But she started as a YouTuber.Franchesca Ramsey (00:01:13):I started on the internet. It's honestly, it still blows my mind when I say it. But the internet opened so many doors for me and I could not be more proud of the career that it's helped me build.Michael Jamin (00:01:26):And you have so much. But I think what's most, like, I wanna talk about all your successes, but to me, what I really interested by are all the failures that led up to yourFranchesca Ramsey (00:01:35):Success,Michael Jamin (00:01:36):. Cause this is not overnight. No. that you made it.Franchesca Ramsey (00:01:39):No, absolutely not. And I really try to be transparent about those things because I know how it is when you're on the other side and you're watching people have all of these wins and you're comparing yourself to them and you're suing that everything is going their way. And the reality is, more oftentimes than not, there are so many nos behind the scene before they got to the yeses that you're getting to watch and experience. Right. So I, I've had a lot of them. ,Michael Jamin (00:02:09):We're gonna go through 'em, but lemme just tell everyone how we met. Cuz we only met on, on Friday. On Friday. I'm not big on Twitter, but I checked it for some reason, fate told me to check it. And someone had tagged me in a tweet saying, there are two screenwriters you need to follow me and you and your your, your Twitter is tr is is ChecheFranchesca Ramsey (00:02:26):Lee. Yeah,Michael Jamin (00:02:27):Chely. Which is, which is Lee's probably your middle name.Franchesca Ramsey (00:02:29):Lee is my middle name. Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:02:31):Okay. And so they tagged me and you and I, I didn't know you, so I was like, oh, look at her. And I clicked on your link and then I, and I realized, oh, what, you got a huge following and you have some interesting, you talk about interesting things. So I follow you. And then later that day, literally that day, I'm picketing cuz run, strike the Disney lot. And then you call out to me cuz you recognized me.Franchesca Ramsey (00:02:49):Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, I, I mean I, so I started following you on TikTok. It's been a while. I'm still pretty new to TikTok. I think I've only been on there like a year. I'd begrudgingly joined. I was one of those mm-hmm. . and so there's not a lot of TV people on there. Right. And the thing that I was saying to you at the Disney lot was, I appreciate that you have demystified the, the process and the business because there are a lot of people who love and enjoy television, talking about the business, and yet they have never worked in the business. And you come from a place of, yeah, I have sold shows. I've worked in hit series. I, you know, you've done so many things. And just being able to see someone who knows what they're talking about, but again, is making it accessible, is really inspiring. And it really is in line with the ethos of my work.Michael Jamin (00:03:39):And and you do all of that. I wanna talk about, jeez. Well, actually, actually, I should probably say how everyone knows you. Okay. Yes. You've done a ton. You first of all, you were a correspondent on the Nightly Show with, with Larry Wilmore, who Yes. It's funny I know so many writers and he, I, I think of him as a sitcom writer because he's written, he's a writer. Yeah. But he's also a performer's. Like you're singing yourself. He's a multi-talented person, but also decoded on m comedy Central. Mm-Hmm. Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:05):Mtv. Mtv. Decoded. Oh,Michael Jamin (00:04:06):Mtv. Yeah. Okay. I, Carly, which you did one season on Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:09):The reboot. I, yeah, I did the first season of the reboot.Michael Jamin (00:04:12):Right. And that must have been, oh, I don't wanna talk about that. Yeah,Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:16):Yeah.Michael Jamin (00:04:16):We'll talk about that. We're gonna get into all that. You, you wrote for the Oscars in 2020. Mm-Hmm. you were, you were recurring on superstores an actor, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:24):I was, yeah. I was recurring, recurring for 12 episodes in season six.Michael Jamin (00:04:28):Wow. That's, that's, that's,Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:29):Yeah. And I did that and I did that while I was a writer, producer on iCarly. So I had They didn't let you leave? They did let me leave. And I had many a times that I was on set at five o'clock in the morning to shoot, to go to shoot a superstore. And then I still had to get my outline and on time , and I did it. Oh my God.Michael Jamin (00:04:51):But, but Oh, and but you started mm-hmm. , even before this, you had a, you had a viral video Yeah. That went on YouTube.Franchesca Ramsey (00:04:58):Yeah. So I, I started making YouTube videos when I was in college. Not to date myself Right. But my senior year of college, YouTube was founded and I started making YouTube videos. And I had my very first viral video in 2012, which was Shit, white Girls Say to BlackMichael Jamin (00:05:15):Girls. Oh, you started, but you didn't start in 2012.Franchesca Ramsey (00:05:17):When did you start? No, I started in, I started in 2006.Michael Jamin (00:05:20):And then, right. So you had many, you did years of not making viralFranchesca Ramsey (00:05:25):Videos. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I was working as a graphic designer. I worked I worked in beauty and fashion mostly. So I worked at Maybelline, I worked in the package department. I was Photoshopping eyelashes on packages. The mascara does not make your eyelashes that long. , that was me. And then I also worked at Anne Taylor and I was working at Ann Taylor when I went viral in 2012.Michael Jamin (00:05:50):But did you not, did you, like when you were in high school, in college, did you want, I mean, guess, did you wannaFranchesca Ramsey (00:05:55):Be a writer performer? Yeah, no, actually I wanted to be an actor. I went to a performing arts middle and high school. There are a number of alumni from my high school. The person that most people know is Eric Andre. He's a comedian. Right. He was a year older than me. And there are a lot of us from my high school that are still in the business. And I went to college for acting. I went to the University of Michigan, but I left largely because I was struggling after losing my acting scholarship. I had a scholarship my first year, my second year I didn't. And I got a job. DidMichael Jamin (00:06:26):They, could you a scholarship for only one year? IsFranchesca Ramsey (00:06:28):That how works? Well, it was so it was not a need-based scholarship, meaning that it was not based on your parents' income. It was a talent based scholarship. So I auditioned for the school. I got a scholarship my first year. And then after that, the whole faculty voted on who got the scholarship. And because I was only a sophomore, I didn't know everybody. So most of the people that got the scholarship the next year were like juniors and seniors. So I was working part-time at school. I worked for the School of Public Health. I was working on their website. I was a self-taught designer had a bootleg of Photoshop and I'd gone to H T M L camp in middle school. And so I was like uploading files and shit, and I was getting paid 20 bucks an hour. And I was like, yo, this is it. I was like, maybe I should be a graphic designer. . So I left Michigan, moved back to Florida, which is where I'm from, and went to design school and was Oh, really? Studying graphic design. Yeah. And, you know, just I always kept a blog. I'd had a website since middle school. And when YouTube came out, I was like, yo, this is, this is really neat. ButMichael Jamin (00:07:34):This was just cuz you wanted personal expression.Franchesca Ramsey (00:07:37):Yeah. I just thought it was cool. I'd always, I was on live journal and I had dreadlocks at the time, and so I was always like taking photos of my hairstyles and like doing tutorials and just writing about my daily life. I mean, before, before there were digital cameras, I had like a scanner. And so I would go and get my photos developed and then I would scan them and I would post them on my little website. And it was just, I've always been a journaler. I've always like really loved, like just keeping track of my life. I am an only child, so I, I just like, I, that's just always been my form of expression. And so when YouTube came out, I felt like it was the perfect combination of all the things I was already interested in. Right. So I started making YouTube videos in 2006.Michael Jamin (00:08:21):But, and some of those, cause I went, I I scrolled down. You got a long list.Franchesca Ramsey (00:08:24):Yeah. I have so many .Michael Jamin (00:08:26):And some of them were just like, oh, here's, here's how I do my hair. And here's like, yeah. But then you started venturing off into more scripted, you know,Franchesca Ramsey (00:08:33):Compliment stuff. Yeah. I mean, so honestly what happened was I was watching Eric become a successful standup, and I remember him calling me and him saying, there are no black girls in New York doing standup. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. Oh my, this is my bad Eric. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it. You got you. They're so funny. You should be doing this. And I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, I've never done standup. Right. And so I got a copy of the Comedy Bible, which is a great book that I recommend. Okay. And I used it to write my first standup set and was doing comedy in, in Miami and was making sketches and trying to promote my comedy career via YouTube. AndMichael Jamin (00:09:14):Was that working? I mean,Franchesca Ramsey (00:09:15):Yeah, it was. I mean, I was, it's so interesting because where we are with social media is just like, it just feels so accessible now. But like back in my day, I didn't know anyone that had a website. Right. And I had business cards that had my website, my YouTube on them, and I would go to comedy shows and I would say like, oh, you should watch my YouTube channel and like, get on my email list. And, you know, when I would do competitions at the Hollywood Improv, like I would send out emails and I would say, please come to my shows. And did people I Yeah, they did, they didMichael Jamin (00:09:51):Come. So these are your fans would come basically people who were on your email list? JustFranchesca Ramsey (00:09:55):People that I would, I would, I would, if you met me somewhere, I was asking you to be on my email list. Really. And after I graduated college, I got a job as the communications manager at the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. So I was doing all of their graphics and PR stuff. And so I was learning how to write press releases. And so like, I was using that to build my online community for my YouTube channel. Right. And I, yeah. And I entered a YouTube contest in 2008, I guess. Yeah. 2008. It was the Red Carpet Reporter contest. Really? And I went to the Emmy's. Yeah. And I I You,Michael Jamin (00:10:33):You entered and you won?Franchesca Ramsey (00:10:34):I entered and I won. And I, I , I really used the things I learned at the Chamber. Like I sent out a press release about myself, , to like, local news. And news was on like my local news. Wow. I threw a party so people would vote for me. Like .Michael Jamin (00:10:52):So this is like, it was a lot. Cause so many people say, well, you know, how do I get an agent? How do I, people expect agents, managers, producers to make their career. And that's not what you are doing. No,Franchesca Ramsey (00:11:03):No.Michael Jamin (00:11:03):You're doing it yourself and you're not asking for permission, you're doing it.Franchesca Ramsey (00:11:07):No, I, working at the Chamber was really eye-opening for me because I learned so much about the power of networking. Right. I always had business cards. Every time I would meet someone like a tip that I learned was I would keep a little sharpie in my bag and I would write a interesting tidbit about them on their, on their business card. And then I would email them and I would talk about something that they had said to me. So like, if you said, oh, I gotta leave for my kid's soccer game, I would email you and I'd say, it was really great meeting you at the, the Coffee with the President event. I hope your kid, you know, killed the soccer game. You know, some, just something like that. And then people would be like, oh my gosh, she was so thoughtful. Like, yeah.Michael Jamin (00:11:44):But these are people who you, you don't, are are these people that you think that can help you? Like, who are these people you're meeting that you want their business card, that you wanna wanna email them? No, they'reFranchesca Ramsey (00:11:52):Not, they're not people that I think can help me. Like, I, I just think of it as, you know, when you meet someone and you connect with them, it's not necessarily that they're gonna help you get further mm-hmm. . But like, if, if we have a connection and we like each other, like maybe there's a world in which we work together, or Yeah. I've got this, I'm doing this contest and I need as many votes as possible. And I met you at an event and we got along, or I'm doing standup now and I'm like, Hey, you know, remember I was kind of funny when we met, like come to the standup,Michael Jamin (00:12:22):But how often would you, if you met, I don't know, let's say, I don't know how many people we've met in a month, let's say it's a dozen. How often are you contacting them to stay in touch to let them know they'reFranchesca Ramsey (00:12:32):Live? So I was, so, so again, I was working at the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce, which is a membership organization for small businesses. Mm-Hmm. . And we would put together events. We had a weekly coffee with our president every Friday. We had dinner galas, we had golf tournaments. We would go to like, opening of businesses. Like we were doing events all the time. And at every event I was just like, hi, hey, nice to meet you. And I was just meeting as many people as possible and I was doing some of this on Company Jam. I was sending emails and being like, Hey, I met you at this event, can I put you on my email list? You know? Right. soMichael Jamin (00:13:06):I How did you get to be so smart about this though? I mean, like, like did someone teach you this or is this like, I'll just gonna, I like thisFranchesca Ramsey (00:13:11):Idea. I, I will say I learned a lot from the Chamber because we had we had like a women's group and we had like a young professionals group. And because I worked at the Chamber, I was there for all of these events. And I will also add, this was my first job outta college. I am still friends with the people I worked with at the Chamber. I'm still friends with the members that, you know, I met when I did my book tour in 2018, I was able to do it at a bookstore that was one of the members of the chamber when I, you know, I was like trying to get something together. And the bookstore was like, yes, we will absolutely buy copies of your book. We remember you. Right. And right. And it's, I think oftentimes people think about networking for like, these selfish, you know, I'm gonna move forward.(00:13:57):Right. But if you come from a genuine place of just getting to know people and, and showing real interest, my dad always says, be interested. Not interesting. Right. Actually, just like getting to know people and connect with them, you will find that people are like, yeah, you know what? I could throw you five books. You know what? I got a place that you can host a comedy show a actually I will buy a book. Like, people wanna help you. And I was really fortunate I got that job not knowing what it was. And I say all the time, it really like laid the foundation for me when it came to the power of networking and that people like who, you know, really does help you get ahead. But it also enriches your life and your career.Michael Jamin (00:14:38):But how else did it help you knowing any of these people later? Like how, how else did it, you know, materially Okay. I get, yes, you had a and you could, you could do a signing at the store, but how else did it help you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:14:50):I think just helped me to see people that like believed in me. You know, when it was time for me to have comedy shows and stuff. And especially there's so many places where you have to ha bring 10 people. Oh, okay. You, you, you gotta do a bringer show if you're gonna get on stage. And so, you know, kind of corralling my email list to get people to come and support me when I did that YouTube contest and I needed people to vote for me. Right. I, there was a member who had a nightclub and so I threw a party at the nightclub and it was genuinely me just being like, can I throw a party here? And they were like, yeah, no problem. Your, are your friends gonna buy drinks? Right? Yes. . So I set up little laptops and I had people voting for me at the party and Wow. And I, and I won the contest.Michael Jamin (00:15:35):So these are just so small, little, little unexpected ways that just pay that just pay off. But you don't know how or whenFranchesca Ramsey (00:15:41):Yeah. Pay off. No, you, you never, you never know. And, you know, on the topic of knows and failures, I went to the red carpet for the Emmy's in 2008 and I swore that was gonna be my big break. I thought, I was like, I'm never going back to the chamber. Like I, I remember my boss. WellMichael Jamin (00:15:57):You went as what? AsFranchesca Ramsey (00:15:59):I was a red carpet reporter for people.com. Oh yeah. I was on the red carpet. I interviewed like Kathy Griffin and Neil Patrick Harris and mm-hmm. , I sang with Josh Groin, like I had the best time. Right. And then I had to fly back to Florida and go to work and I was heartbroken. I thought I was gonna get an agent. I thought I was gonna, I just thought like, this is it. I'm, I'm making it. And I did not make it. I went AndMichael Jamin (00:16:24):How did you get that job to begin with? The, you know, the red carpet shop? I, because you didn't have an agent?Franchesca Ramsey (00:16:29):I, I entered the YouTube contest. So theMichael Jamin (00:16:31):Contest that was just from that.Franchesca Ramsey (00:16:31):Okay. Yeah. So you had to send in a video of you doing an interview. And I interviewed like my boyfriend at the time and my dog. And then I, you know, I was in the finalist and then I went on the streets of Miami Beach and I just interviewed people. Right. And and then it was voting. So then I, you know, I was doing all, I was hustling to get votes.Michael Jamin (00:16:50):It's so funny cause you are not shy. I mean, no, like, that's how I met. I mean, right. And good for you and good for you. I mean, who else is gonna advocate for you, if not for yourself? I think people want agents. Like they want an advocate. Well be your own advocate. HowFranchesca Ramsey (00:17:02):About that? No. Yeah, no, it's totally true. And look, I, I, I did that red carpet reporter contest and I, you know, I was kind of thrown to the wolves in that nobody was helping me. Right. interview people. They gave me a list of potential celebrities and I watched as many shows that were nominated as possible. I wrote jokes. There was a person under the camera poking me in the leg being like, you gotta hurry it up, wrap it up, wrap it up. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I just was going for it. And I really thought, and my videos were, they were funny, the clips were viral. I was doing great. And then nothing happened. Like, it was it,Michael Jamin (00:17:39):Did they ask you back the year later? Or No?Franchesca Ramsey (00:17:41):No. Nothing. No. They didn't even do the contest again. It just, it just was over. I thought people, people.com was like, we loved you. And I was like, great. Do you wanna hire me? And they were like, no, ,Michael Jamin (00:17:53):No. What makes you, why, why would you think we wanna hire you ?Franchesca Ramsey (00:17:57):I was so heartbroken. I moved, I moved to New York the next year, Uhhuh, and I did kind of like the little tour. Like I went to the people offices. I got all dressed up and I was like, remember me? I won that contest. And they were like, yes. When like, what, what do you want? I was like, I, I thought I would get a job. .Michael Jamin (00:18:14):Really? Yeah. And so then what happened? So, okay, good, good. , you got, you're here and then you fell back a couple pegs. That's fine. And then what happened?Franchesca Ramsey (00:18:21):Yeah, so I was kind of pounding the pavement in New York. I did all sorts of jobs. I stuffed envelopes for like a a temp agency. And, you know, I'd gone to school for graph graphic design and I was going to lots of events in New York. Like I went to social Media week in New York. Right. And I met a guy at Social media. He probably was trying to date me in, in hindsight, I had a boyfriend. Right. But I met this guy at Social Media Week and he worked for a creative temp agency. And he was like, oh, well I can help you find a job. And I was like, really? And he was like, yeah. So as this, at this temp agency, I was just doing design for a bunch of different places. So I did some design for the botanical gardens. I had to ride a hour plus train up to the freaking Bronx. Mm-Hmm. . And I was, you know, pushing pixels around for the for the botanical garden. I also worked for this place that did like a big book of I guess it was like a, it was like a fashion book that got put out every year. I, I don't really remember what it was, but I was, you know, just doing a lot of photo editing and stuff. And that's, and then I got the Maybelline job through a friend.Michael Jamin (00:19:32):But that wa I, I wanna, but Okay. But then all the while you're still putting out YouTube videos, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:19:36):Yeah, I was still making YouTube videos. I was usually like waking up early and editing. I was stealing my neighbor's wifi so I would upload before I went to work because Uhhuh, that was when nobody was on the internet. Youtube was very slow back then. So Yeah. You to like, leave your computer uninterrupted to upload videosMichael Jamin (00:19:57):And, but, but pe people were slowly finding you at this point, or no?Franchesca Ramsey (00:20:01):Yeah. I mean, I was building a little bit of an audience cuz I was making those hairstyle videos. And remember I had had a website in middle school and high school. Right. So I had, I was building my audience. Like I was in this live journal community called, oh no they didn't, which was like a gossip community. Uhhuh . So I posted my videos there. I was in a dreadlock community called Get Up, dread Up, and I would post my hair videos there. And, but atMichael Jamin (00:20:28):Some point you, you decided to make a leap Cause you you had that one video that went viral.Franchesca Ramsey (00:20:32):Yeah, so actually before that, I entered another contest in 2011 called the YouTube Next Up Contest, Uhhuh . And and I won that contest. It was a contest to find like YouTube's next big stars. Right. And it was me and 25 other people. And we each won $35,000. Nice. And we spent a week at YouTube learning how to like better produce our videos and we got new cameras andMichael Jamin (00:20:57):Out here YouTube and, and my, inFranchesca Ramsey (00:20:59):New York? InMichael Jamin (00:21:00):New York. Oh, New York. Okay. Yeah. You know, my partner and I ran a show by from Renton Link.Franchesca Ramsey (00:21:04):Oh, well yeah. I love them.Michael Jamin (00:21:05):Yeah. They're, they had a show, YouTube offered them money, like a lot of money to make a sitcom and they hired us to, to be the right to run.Franchesca Ramsey (00:21:11):Oh, cool. Yeah. No, I love, I love them. I was in one of their, I was in the old collab video with them years ago. Oh wow. Yeah. So I got to meet so many YouTubers from that, and actually my current writing partner, I met her through the YouTube. Next up she was a freelance producer at YouTube and they put us in little teams and had us make YouTube videos, Uhhuh. And she and I, she and I really hit it off and we stayed friends. And the, the year after I did next up is when I had my first big viral video. And I really believe that next up taught me a lot about, you know, tentpole content. Like thinking about my content around holidays and special events and trending stories and finding ways to infuse my personal voice. And so I started kind of like changing my content right. Where I was just doing hair stuff. Right. And I was doing random comedy things, just being more focused.Michael Jamin (00:22:03):And what was your focus?Franchesca Ramsey (00:22:04):Well, my focus was more of looking at trends and finding ways to infuse myself in them uhhuh. And looking at what everybody's talking about and how can I put my own unique spin on it. Right. And so what happened was, there was a viral video called Shit Girls Say. Right. And it was a guy in a wig just doing a bunch of different things that girls say. And there were lots of parodies. There was like, shit, black girls say shit, moms say shit, dad say, and I was trying to figure out, I was like, I wanna do one, but I don't know what I wanna do. And I had gone home for the holidays and I was at a party, a Christmas party mm-hmm. and everyone was drinking and I was not, because I was the designated driver. And as my friends were getting drunker, people were starting to say some things to me that just were at the time things that a lot of my white suburban friends would say to me.(00:22:57):And I wouldn't think twice about, but because I had this video in my head, I was like, oh, maybe this is the video. People were like touching my hair and, you know, just saying things that I don't believe were coming from a bad place. Right. But I was like, something is in this. But I was like, I don't know, like, I don't know what to make this. It's like, I was like, shit black girls say, I was like, shit, white girls say, and I hate to even say it. My ex was like, maybe it should be shit white girls say to black girls. And I was like, no, that doesn't make sense. The the meme is shit. Girls say so it has to be that. And my ex was like, why, why does it have to be like that? And I was like, I dunno, I don't, I really wrestled with it. And then I thought, well, maybe that's what it'll be. So I wrote down all of the things that people had said to me. Right. I shot the video, I uploaded it before I went to work. And by lunchtime it had like a million views. And my email was just like blowing up. My phone was just like going nuts. No one at Ann Taylor knew I made YouTube videos, Uhhuh . And I was like freaking out. It was like, what? The frick is happening?Michael Jamin (00:24:02):Freaking out. Because you were worried you were just in trouble, Atara, or what? No,Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:06):No, I was just freaking out in the sense that I was feeling overwhelmed because my inbox was suddenly, you know, NPR wants to interview you and the Huffington Post wants to write something about you. Yeah. And like all of these agents and S n L reached out to me and they were like, we would love for you to audition for S N L. And I was like, what the f I was at work while this was happening. Wow. And I was like crying at my desk and, and my coworkers were like,Michael Jamin (00:24:31):What is all like tears of joy. No tears.Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:33):Yeah. Tears of joy, but also tears of like, I'm very emotional. I was very, I was just overwhelmed. Like, I don't know how to handle this. And, butMichael Jamin (00:24:43):That video is, is wonderful. Yeah. obviously I watched it, but were you, I mean you were making a statement?Franchesca Ramsey (00:24:50):Yeah. I mean, I don't think I knew I was making a statement. I thought I was just genuinely, I thought I was making a video about being from West Palm Beach, going to private school, where oftentimes I was the only black person in my class. And having my friends who were well-meaning say things to me that I knew made me feel uncomfortable, but I wasn't really sure why.Michael Jamin (00:25:14):You weren't sure why?Franchesca Ramsey (00:25:15):I wasn't sure why, but I knew I, but I knew there was something funny about it. Right. And I, and I think my surprise was realizing that I had captured a universal experience that other black people and just marginalized people in general experience where people in their lives are like, you're different from me. And they're acknowledging it in a way that is not necessarily malicious, but it does still feel uncomfortable.Michael Jamin (00:25:39):But, but some of them were kind of cringy. Some were like, Ooh, did someone, some of them really say that to you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:25:45):Like, oh my god, really? Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. And, but that's also what was incredible to me about it is because the comments were like, this is my life. The comments were saying, I am the only black girl in my school in Idaho, and this has happened to me. And, and I'm, I'm watching these comments coming come in and realizing like, oh, I did something with this that I didn't anticipate. Yeah. I, you know, I got invited to be on Anderson Cooper. They did a whole segment about me in that video. I had never been on national television before. And, and, and I, I was like, I had no agent. I had no help. I did my own makeup, which mm-hmm. I think I did good. But like, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. And I stillMichael Jamin (00:26:25):Have How did your friend, how did your friends react to it though when they saw it?Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:29):Oh my God, they thought it was amazing. My whole, I I mean this was, butMichael Jamin (00:26:32):But they were the ones who said these things to you.Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:34):Yeah. And they were like, this is really fun. One of the girls that like was the main culprit came with, with me to Anderson Cooper .Michael Jamin (00:26:39):But aren't they supposed to apologize for, I mean, they're not supposed to think it's funny. They're supposed to say, I'm sorry. I said those things.Franchesca Ramsey (00:26:45):, you know, I, I I think it's also just a symptom of where I was in my life because at that time now we talk about privilege and microaggressions in a way that feels, you know very forward thinking and, and progressive. And in 2012, we were not. Right. And so again, while I knew that those comments made me uncomfortable, I did not have the language to explain why. Right. And I, and I did not believe my friends were malicious, and I still don't believe that they were malicious. It's just a symptom of your privilege. And that is something that people do all of the time, right? Mm-Hmm. , like straight people do that to gay people. Right. Gay bodied people do that to disabled people. Like cis people do that to trans people. It happens across every dynamic and, and every identity. And so I don't think my friends, some of them did feel like, oh my God, this makes me like look bad. Right? But I didn't have anyone that felt like, oh, Francesca hates me. Like, everybody knew I was making comedy content. Mm-Hmm. . And a lot of my friends that were sharing it across all backgrounds were like, oh my God, this has happened to me. Or Oh my God, I need to check myself. Because Right. In the context, this doesn't seem great. Right.Michael Jamin (00:27:59):Do Now I imagine putting yourself out there, cause I know what it's like, it exposed you to backlash too. And myFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:07):God. Oh my God, yes.Michael Jamin (00:28:09): What, what and what was that like for you the first time? And what's your advice? For me itFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:13):Was r it was really hard. It was really hard. So that video got about 12 million views in the first week. Right. And, you know, again, today 12 million views maybe. Doesn't seem like a lot.Michael Jamin (00:28:24):No, it's a lot. It's aFranchesca Ramsey (00:28:25):Lot. I mean, I, I, you know, TikTok, people are blowing up all the time, but it was really big for me. Right. But again, because I was talking about race, there were a lot of people that were uncomfortable and there were people that were calling me a racist. They were saying that I hate white people and you know, this is not right. And if it was reversed and, and I, for better or for worse, am very accessible. So I was in the comments, like fighting with people. I was arguing back and forthMichael Jamin (00:28:52):And why? So that's the thing.Franchesca Ramsey (00:28:54):Yeah. And I, and I do youMichael Jamin (00:28:55):Should you do that?Franchesca Ramsey (00:28:57):No, I, I think you really have to pick your battles mm-hmm. . And I think that, I think that there are some people that are always gonna dislike you no matter what. And they always have, they already have their mind made up about you. Yeah. And so you have to decide like, what is the purpose of me engaging with this person? And for me, especially on Twitter, even if I engage with someone who I disagree with, if I think I can make a broader point about the misconception, or I can clarify something, or I can use them as an example of how to better defend yourself on certain topics, I'll do it. Versus there are a lot of people I just don't engage with at all. ButMichael Jamin (00:29:37):You, I I'm gonna guess I'm taking a wild guess though. I'm gonna guess that you've never once changed anybody's mind.Franchesca Ramsey (00:29:45):I dunno that that's, I don't, I I'm gonna push back and say I don't necessarily think that that's true because I got a lot of emails from people that said that I did change their minds. Really. But I think, but I think it's, again, it's also a matter of what your approach is. And it also has to be somebody who actually wants to have their mind changed. There's a difference between somebody that just wants to argue. Right. And someone who genuinely says, I don't understand this thing and I want to, and I think whether it's online or in real life, we have to be better at gauging the difference because it is a waste of your time to argue with the person who already has their mind made up. Mm-Hmm. versus to engage with the person who says, you've made me think about this differently. I'm not sure I agree yet, but I'm like close to figuring out if, if I could be.Michael Jamin (00:30:31):And that makes you feel good knowing that, I mean,Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:34):Yeah. I mean me, it'sMichael Jamin (00:30:35):Exhausting. That's all. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:37):It isMichael Jamin (00:30:37):Exhausting. It really is.Franchesca Ramsey (00:30:39):It is exhausting. But I think what that video taught me about myself, and it really kind of shaped the direction that my content went in Yeah. Is that there's a lot of, that comedy is really powerful, that we can tell stories that we can tell the stories of people that don't necessarily see themselves represented and feel like they're being heard. We can expose people to new ideas. Mm-Hmm. , we can get people to think about the world that they inhabit and how they move through the world differently. And I realized like using comedy to talk about serious stuff is something that I wasn't seeing other people do on YouTube. And so I really started like shifting my content Yes. In that direction.Michael Jamin (00:31:19):That's almo. Would you say that's kind of your brand now? I mean, what? Whatever that means.Franchesca Ramsey (00:31:23):Yeah. It was, and I'm, I don't know. It's hard. I'm trying to get out of it if I'm being honest.Michael Jamin (00:31:28):Why? Okay. Yeah. Why?Franchesca Ramsey (00:31:29):Because it is exhausting. Because, because as a black woman moving through the world, I'm constantly being asked to justify my existence and educate people mm-hmm. and talk about serious topics all the time. Right. So then to do that for my job is, is dually exhausting. And, and I, I struggle with it because I know I'm good at it. Right. And I know it's important, but it takes a lot out of me. Yeah. It ta and, and you know, like, I'm dealing with this right now with the writer strike where I'm making a lot of content about the strike because I think it's important. But I'm also being asked and pulled and every direction where people like, explain this will tell me this, well, it makes sense, da da da da da. And I'm like, this is actually my livelihood. Like this is not just a trending topic on Twitter. Like this is about how I'm gonna continue to make a life for myself, you know?Michael Jamin (00:32:21):But Okay. So you're, are you're still, are you still making original content on YouTube? No. No. Why not? I think you should Franchesca Ramsey (00:32:29):I have, I have a, cause I, I have a complicated relationship with YouTube Uhhuh. I guess the, the best way to say it is, you know, after, after, after I went viral, I got an agent. I left my day job, I started auditioning and, andMichael Jamin (00:32:45):The, and the, I say want, I wanna slow it down. The agent reached out to you?Franchesca Ramsey (00:32:49):Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. And I will also add that prior to that, I had made DVDs of all my standup and all my sketches, and I had mailed them out to every agent in New York. And not one person got back to me.Michael Jamin (00:33:03):This is exactly what Okay. So I do a, a monthly webinar, free webinar where I talk about Hollywood and how to break in, this is exactly what I talked about yesterday. Yeah. Is that you have to make them beg Yeah. If you're begging them, it's not gonna happen. Right. It's not gonna happen. Right. They have to look at you like you are, like you have dollar signs on your face Yeah. And you're a big bag of money. And when they see money on your face, they'll come after you. Yeah. Which is what they saw with you. Okay. This isFranchesca Ramsey (00:33:27):Someone, it was like the, it was like the year prior I had sent out those DVDs and I did not get one person to get back toMichael Jamin (00:33:33):You. Same person, same talent. Yeah. You just didn't have the platform yet.Franchesca Ramsey (00:33:37):Yeah. And then suddenly everybody wanted me. So then I, you know, I got this agent and, you know, I got the opportunity. I, I met with a manager and she said like, what's your dream? And I said, I want my own TV show. AndMichael Jamin (00:33:50):She What kind of show, by the way?Franchesca Ramsey (00:33:52):Well, I didn't really know. I just knew I wanted a show. And she looked at my YouTube channel and was like, well, we should pitch like a sketch show. So I was out pitching the sketch show, nobody bought it. Mm-Hmm. . And one of the places I went to though was M T V. And M T V was like, well, we really like you. We have this show about feminism and and pop culture that's doing really well. Would you be interested in developing something similar about race? And I was like, yeah, that sounds cool. So I met with this production company called Corn Neighbor Brown. Mm-Hmm. , we started developing what then became M T v Decoded mm-hmm. . And, you know, I, Dakota has opened so many doors for me. I'm, I'm so proud of that show. But I dealt with so much harassment because of that show so much. And YouTube, for Better for worse, did not really support me. And, and I, and I, and I really struggled with that becauseMichael Jamin (00:34:45):What kind of support were you hoping to get from them?Franchesca Ramsey (00:34:48):Well, people were making death threats. Oh. People were taking my content and they were editing together videos of me to make me say that I hate all white men and I hate all white people. Oh my God. And I think people should die. And, and, and, and YouTube was like, well, you know, it's not a copyright violation. And I was like, how is this not a copyright violation? Like, soMichael Jamin (00:35:07):What do you do when that hap what do you do when that happens?Franchesca Ramsey (00:35:10):I mean, what I did was I ended up walking away. I mean, I did it for six years. And again, I am so thankful for all the doors that it opened, but I had to ask myself like, is this worth it in terms of what I want? And what I want is to be a comedy writer. I don't want to be a professional educator. I don't want,Michael Jamin (00:35:29):But I imagine you were also monetizing this from YouTube. You were making monies, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:35:32):Well, it was MTV's content. So I was not making, I was making a flat rate on every episode. I was credited as executive producer because I had developed the show. So I was being paid as the host and executive produ producer, and I was paid anytime I wrote an episode mm-hmm. . And I wrote about, I'm gonna say I wrote about like 50% of the episodes, and then I got hired on the nightly show. Right. So I was on TV and I was doing Dakota at the same time. So we brought in writers. Right.(00:36:02):so I was making a flat rate. I wasn't making, I wasn't making a ton of money. I I I, I worked part-time jobs. I worked as a writer for Upward for three years. Mm-Hmm. , I was speaking at colleges, I was doing like little TV things here and there, but I was M T V was not paying all my bills. Right. and so when I really like took a step back and looked at where I wanted to go in my career, I was like, I just don't wanna be an internet personality for the rest of my life. Mm-Hmm. . And I don't wanna be the girl who just talks about race. And I was like, I'm glad that this is given me a platform and opened all these doors for me. But I would meet people and they would, they were surprised that I was funny. And, and I would say, well, I'm a comedian. They're like, no, you're not. I see you onde coded. And I'm like, right. Well, Dakota is like an educational show. I'm, I'm not, I'm not know. But the thingMichael Jamin (00:36:54):Is, people say to me, I'm afraid about, like, they're not even in the business yet. I'm afraid about being put into a box. Right. I'm afraid of about doing this one thing that getting stuck in the box. And my attitude is get in a box first. You know, you need to get work.Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:06):Yeah. Get in the box first. Yeah. And thenMichael Jamin (00:37:07):You worry about getting out of the box.Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:09):Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I, and I would, yes, I, I agree. Like, and if, for me, I didn't know I was getting into a box. I was following what was being successful for me and what I was enjoying and what I was good at. And I did that for six years. You know, I was on the nightly show. And, and even that, like, I started for a minute. I was like, oh, I think I wanna be a late night host. And then I was realizing like, oh, this is really hard. Like mm-hmm. talking about the news and, and, and writing about news, writing about what's happening in the world and trying to put in a funny spin is just a, it's hard. It's so hard. And again, I learned so much, but I think what I really learned was, I was like, if I have a TV show one night a week, I don't wanna do five nights a week, .Michael Jamin (00:37:51):But even on your channel, which I poked around, I was like, oh my God. Like you interviewed Michelle Obama. I was like, what? Like what? How did that come about? ?Franchesca Ramsey (00:37:58):Yeah. I mean that was, that was through YouTube. I, so, because I was so active and I had won that Emmy's contest and I won that next step contest, like I had a relationship with YouTube, like I would speak at events there. Mm-Hmm. one time they had this party where they had an airplane circling LA with like celebrities. And I hosted the plane. Like I was speaking over like the, the speaker in the plane. It was so weird. It was very fun. But like, that was because of YouTube. And so they would regularly reach out to me and say like, oh, we're doing this event which you hosted, or would you speak on this panel? Or whatever. SoMichael Jamin (00:38:36):Leaving, it must've been very hard for you because on the one hand, they were good too. You on the other hand,Franchesca Ramsey (00:38:41):Yeah. I mean, I wasn't getting paid for a lot of those things. Like I Oh really? No, no, it was justMichael Jamin (00:38:45):Exposure.Franchesca Ramsey (00:38:46):Yeah. It was just ex it was exposure. And that was also part of it. Like, that was me making a conscientious decision that I wasn't gonna do unpaid work anymore. Uhhuh. . But I started saying like, okay, cool. Like, you guys are happy to have to fly me out and have me speak on a panel, but I then have to run back to my hotel room and like write these articles because I'm, I don't have money. You know? And like, my visibility, I think a lot of times people think like, oh, I see you everywhere. So that must mean you're making a lot of money. That must mean you're, you're, you're crushing it. And that's just not always the case.Speaker 3 (00:39:23):Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.Michael Jamin (00:39:47):But even on your videos of, on your YouTube videos, you were mon like, cause you can't monetize them. Yeah. You just didn't, you weren't getting a lot. That'sFranchesca Ramsey (00:39:53):No, I wasn't, I I was never one, I was never consistent largely because I always had a regular job. Like I, I tried being a full-time YouTuber and I just, the money is so inconsistent. It's a once a month paycheck. Yeah. And you don't know how much it is because some months you have a really good month and your views are really up. Other months your views are really down. The, I don't know what they're like now, but at the time your ads did not automatically come on your video. Sometimes the ads wouldn't show up for like a day or two. Uhhuh . So if you got all your views in those first two days and then they dropped off by the time you got ads, you didn't make any money.Michael Jamin (00:40:30):Oh, interesting.Franchesca Ramsey (00:40:31):And then there's like certain times of year that were really good, I was always trying different things. Right. Like I was making Holiday vi, I made these Christmas card videos. I made these videos that you were supposed to send to people for their birthday. I did Parodies, lady Gaga came out with a song. So I did a video for like, you know, I stayed up all night like editing this video. So Yeah,Michael Jamin (00:40:50):You did Gwen Stefani, you sounded just like her. Yeah. I was like, that was great. I wouldFranchesca Ramsey (00:40:53):Do all these impressions and I was, I was just realizing that the amount of hours I was putting in were not, it wasn't paying off for me is what I was realizing. And that was a big part of my transition into like, I want to be in tv. Right. That's always been the goal. You know, I, I went to acting school. I didn't know I was gonna become a writer and, and I was so glad that I was doing that, but I was like, this is, I don't wanna be on YouTube for the rest of my life. I don't wanna make videos in my apartment. I don't wanna make videos about my life. I want to work in tv. So really focusing on that, and again, doing Decoded was awesome, but I realized what I have to do is I gotta get a sample. Right.(00:41:36):Like I have to, I have to put together a packet. Like I have to start doing the things that are gonna move me into the next phase. Mm-Hmm. . And I think kind of to your point about being in a box, I think you have to be open to, if you're in a box or people are seeing you one way, being open to saying, what else can I do? And like, how can I show people that I'm more than this one thing? Mm-Hmm. and taking that risk and believing in yourself is really scary. But it's essential because I could have done decoded for the rest of my life and I don't want to do that ,Michael Jamin (00:42:11):You know? But then, so iCarly was prob was your first scripted? Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:42:15):And then it wasMichael Jamin (00:42:16):What, so how did you get that? Cuz that's a big leap you have toFranchesca Ramsey (00:42:19):Write. Yeah. So before iCarly, what did I do before iCarly? So I did the nightly show and then I sold a pilot to Comedy Central. Mm-Hmm. . And the pilot was with the same producers that did Decoded and it was kind of like a late night sketch type show, Uhhuh . And we didn't go to series. They actually gave us a mini room and I did not know it was a mini room at the time. I was just happy that I was getting a writer's room. And so we wrote 10 episodes of the show. We didn't go to series. I wrote a book. Right. I did a book tour.Michael Jamin (00:42:54):And how, how did the, how did the book come about? Which the book is called, well that escalated quickly, , which I imagine and the memoir and memo, it's memoir Mistakes of an Accidental Activist, which is Yeah, that's a perfect idol. Cause I think that's exactly what you were, right?Franchesca Ramsey (00:43:08):Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it really was a collection of essays about a lot of the mistakes that I had made in communicating with other people on the internet and talking about things that were important to me and all the lessons that I had learned along the way. And after Shit White Girls say Went viral, I had a number of people reaching out to me, asking me to write a book, but I just didn't know what I wanted to write a book about. TheseMichael Jamin (00:43:32):Were agents or publishersFranchesca Ramsey (00:43:34):Literary agents saying like, you should write a book. And I just didn't know what I wanted to write a book about. I kept putting it off funny. And then after I was a nightly show was still on the air and I, I decided, I think I wanna give this a chance. And I finally had initially I wanted it to just be called Accidental Activists and that was gonna be the title. And I started putting together a book proposal and meeting with literary agents. And I met this great literary agent and she gave me like really good notes on my proposal. She really ripped it apart . Mm-Hmm. . And I was so happy because I had felt like she was the first person I talked to that wasn't like blowing smoke up my ass. She was the first person that was like, this is good, but it could be better. Right. and so she and I worked together for like two months on the proposal and then we went and did a number of meetings. I think we met with like six publishers andMichael Jamin (00:44:28):I And you didn't wanna write it first, you wanted to pitch it first as get it sold first?Franchesca Ramsey (00:44:32):Yeah. So in with non-fiction, you don't have to write it first. With fiction, usually you do have to write it first. Right. If you've written a book before the fiction proposal usually don't have to write the whole thing. But for non-fiction you usually write like two or three chapters mm-hmm. and then you do like a summary of what the book is about and a bio and who you are and, and why this book and you know, what are books that are in the same family as yours and Right. What your plan for press would be and all that stuff. And I'm, you know, I went to school for graphic design, so I made like a really beautiful book proposal with like photos and Oh wow. Artwork and I drew all these little charts and graphs and stuff cuz that's kind of like, I love infographics. And so yeah, we went to maybe six or seven publishers and I got four offers. Wow. And they went kind of head to head and my agent was pitting them against each other. Wow. yeah. And I got a six figure book deal, which was a big deal. .Michael Jamin (00:45:30):That is a big deal. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:45:32):And thenMichael Jamin (00:45:33):Did they help you, what, you know, promote it, put you on tour?Franchesca Ramsey (00:45:36):Yeah, so I mean, that's part of when you work with a publisher is they have a a publicist, like an in-house. I was at Grand Central Publishing, so they had a publicist and we did a photo shoot for the book. And I spent my own money, like I got a publicist. I also had a website built for the, for the book. And then we did an eight city book tour and I got cities added because I really wanted to do something in Florida where I'm from. And that was where I reached out to some of my contacts from the chamber and got my local Miami bookstore.Michael Jamin (00:46:09):Why these, the only eight cities, though. Like, what, when they say they're putting on tour, like, I don't know.Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:14):Well, they looked at, they looked at the analytics from like my Facebook and my Instagram and, and my YouTube to see like where my audience was at. Okay. And they used that to pick what citiesMichael Jamin (00:46:25):And then people came out. Yeah. And, and you read, you read and signed books.Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:28):Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of, I picked, I reached out to friends in different cities and I had different people as kind of like my co-host in each city. And it was awesome. But it was, it was exhausting. It was really exhausting. And I was doing that at the same time that I was doing my comedy Central pilot. And all of this is to say that like, in that moment I thought like, I'm making it. I was like, I'm making it. I'm like, I'm about to be like a star .Michael Jamin (00:46:55):That's what I would think. But you know,Franchesca Ramsey (00:46:56):It wasn then my showed didn't go. No. Cause then I showed it didn't go. ButMichael Jamin (00:46:59):That's normal. Most shows don't goFranchesca Ramsey (00:47:01):Right. But I didn't know that didn know that. I, I, I didn't know that. I, I thought I'm a failure. Especially because, like, really think about it. Yeah. Well, think about it this way. When, when you, when a pilot gets announced, right? I, this is my first time having a, having a pilot ever. Mm-Hmm. , a pilot gets announced and people that don't work in TV think that means you have a TV show. They're like, where is the show? And I'm like, oh, well I'm making the pilot now. And they're like, well, when does it come out? I'm like, I don't know. It hasn't been ordered a series. So like, people were writing articles about me, like 10 Reasons Franchesca's gonna change late night. And like, we need Franchesca's show. And like, she's amazing. And Larry Wilmore had gotten canceled. So it was like Franchesca Ramsey's gonna be the only black woman late night host. And like all of this hype was coming for me, and my book was coming out and, and, and, and my publisher was really like, this is it. We're gonna time it with the show. And then, and youMichael Jamin (00:47:54):Were believing this too.Franchesca Ramsey (00:47:56):And I was believe of course I was, of course I was believing it. I was like, oh my God, I want this so badly. Yeah. You know? And and hindsight is 2020. Like it was not the show for me. I'm glad that I didn't end up making that show because I, I really don't wanna host a late night show about identity. Right. I, I thought I did, but I don't want to anymore. And so like, when it didn't go to series, and then, well, we, we did the mini room and, and that was kind of like a consolation prize, but even then I was like, it was another year of staffing and, and, and putting the room together and trying to figure out what the show was, and then waiting around for Comedy Central. And then they said, we're not going to series. They were like, well, let's sell it somewhere else. So I was like, shooting these sketches. And we,Michael Jamin (00:48:44):That doesn't, that doesn't happen. . Right. But that so rarely happens, but, okay.Franchesca Ramsey (00:48:47):Right. Well, especially because other networks are like, well, you didn't want it. Why do we want it?Michael Jamin (00:48:51):Yeah. We don't, they don't want damaged goods. You don't,Franchesca Ramsey (00:48:53):You don't. You didn't want it. So now you think I'm gonna make the show. Like, yeah. Right. Again, and I'm just kind of like, I, I'm just like, I'm just going along. Right. Like Right. I'm going and taking these meetings and, and you know, you have meetings and they're like, we love you. You're amazing. You're great. We're passing, you know, .Michael Jamin (00:49:09):Yeah. Yes. I know. All those meetings. .Franchesca Ramsey (00:49:11):Right. And so I was just like, I was just like, oh my God, my career is over. And I got a writing job on yearly Departed, which is was a late an end of the year comedy show. Mm-Hmm. . And that was through Twitter. BES Calb, who was our showrunner, followed me on Twitter. We were friendly, and my reps were like, Hey, there's this late, this end of the year comedy special, do you wanna take a meeting? I took the meeting and Bess was just like, I love you. I think you're super funny. She had read my sample and yeah, it was kind of, it was like a series of eulogies for different things throughout the year. Uhhuh .(00:49:54):And we did it over Zoom Oh, wow. During the Pandemic. And I was still auditioning, and that's when I booked Superstore. I booked Superstore while I was doing Yearly Departed. So I went to LA to do Superstore and it just worked out that it was at the same time that yearly was gonna film. So I got to go be on set and, and Seeba happened. And and after being here for Superstore again in the middle of the pandemic, I was like, I don't really wanna go back to New York. Right. What if I just stay ?Michael Jamin (00:50:25):Well, you, but you're married, aren'tFranchesca Ramsey (00:50:26):You? I was, I got divorced. You was? Okay. I got divorced in 2019.Michael Jamin (00:50:30):Okay. So you don't have to worry about your husband coming overFranchesca Ramsey (00:50:32):Here. No, no. We got divorced before, before I got hired on that show. Yeah. I mean, right. Like the year before the pandemic. Right.Michael Jamin (00:50:42):And then how did I, Carly come about then?Franchesca Ramsey (00:50:45):My managers were just like, Hey, you know, I, I told them I wanted to staff. Right. And so, yeah, I took a meeting with Ally Shelton, who was our showrunner, and again, she read my sample. And I think what she really appreciated was that I had this background as an internet person and mm-hmm. You know, Carly is an internet person personality, and I had actual experience and dealing with trolls and dealing with going viral and Yeah, of course. Live streaming and course bands and social media course. And so Allie was a perfectMichael Jamin (00:51:18):Choice. Yeah.Franchesca Ramsey (00:51:19):Yeah. Allie was like, you really understand this world. And I I came, I went into my meeting and I had watched episodes of iCarly and I pitched some ideas as for what I felt like would be the direction that I would be interested in going in. And and prior to that, I had my friend Shameka that I mentioned that I had met through YouTube. She and I had sold a pilot to Fox. And so I learned a lot about the scripted process through that. Right. Just through development. It was with Kay Cannon and and Kay is amazing. I learned so much from her.Michael Jamin (00:51:55):But was it intimidating for you to be, cuz now you're in out of your element again, you haven't done scripted, soFranchesca Ramsey (00:52:01):It, it wasn't intimidating. I, and I, again, I really feel very fortunate because I was able to work with a friend of mine that I had known for, you know, almost 10 years. And she and I had made YouTube videos together and we had come out to LA for pilot season as actors and we got an apartment together. And through the audition process we were like, all of these scripts are bad, we could fucking do this. Right. We were like, we could write a script better than this. . Yeah. Right. And so we wrote like a treatment. We didn't even write a full script. And then we, through our agents, went and took a bunch of meetings and we met with Amy PO's company. Mm-Hmm. . We, we went to Kay Cannon, which is K and l. We went to a whole bunch of places, but Kay and Laverne, her business partner, we just, we just loved them. And they were like, we wanna develop this with you. And so they really taught us how to develop and structure a scripted pitch. ThatMichael Jamin (00:52:57):Was the Fox show.Franchesca Ramsey (00:52:58):Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I had never pitched a scripted project before. Everything was like sketched late night. Yeah. Variety. And so yeah, off of that, again, we didn't go to series, but we wrote the pilot. And so I used that as like a sample, even though I'd written it with someone else. And then I had a sample that I'd written by myself, and then I had like all my decoded videos and I had sketches from my Comedy Central pilot an

Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast, we're talking with Sean Caldwell, a seasoned investor based in North Carolina who generates a lot of business by sourcing off-market deals from distressed homeowners. We had a great conversation about his success using direct mail and cold calling, and we looked at his offers to help homeowners who are struggling financially. We also talked about how he finds and uses the data that help identify potential buyers and the data needed for investors to stay ahead of the various foreclosure procedures. This market is constantly changing, and it's interesting to hear Sean's approach to success while helping people in difficult situations.   HIGHLIGHTS Seasoned real estate investor Sean Caldwell sources off-market deals through demographic prospecting and finding distressed homeowners. Strategies include direct mail and cold calling, identifying homeowners over 65 who receive government assistance, have a mortgage-free property, and have a dated house with needed repairs. County governments provide data on delinquent property taxes, allowing investors to identify potential buyers. Various solutions for financially struggling homeowners include partnering with a reverse mortgage company or crafting an effective letter series to engage with them. Understanding the schedules of each county for foreclosure cases helps investors stay ahead of the curve. Approaching homeowners compassionately and providing guidance during tough times is crucial. Creating an educational guide for homeowners on when to refinance can help identify those who would benefit from a reverse mortgage or selling their house. Engaging with distressed homeowners through innovative marketing strategies for foreclosure prevention can make a difference in their lives and grow the investor's real estate portfolio. Understanding the homeowner's real desire and approaching them in a way that makes them feel safe and secure is essential. Investing in real estate with empathy and providing solutions for struggling homeowners can lead to personal and financial success.     Links: Show Notes GoGoAgent.com Be a Guest Listing Agent Lifestyle Book Listing Agent Scorecard                                                                    Transcript   Dean Jackson Sean. Sean Caldwell Good morning. Dean Jackson Well, there we are. How are you? Sean Caldwell Well, how are you doing? Dean Jackson I am good. Well, here we are. We've got the whole hour And I'm excited to hear what you're up to. Diane is telling me just a little bit about what you do, but I wanna hear as a whole the whole story here. Sean Caldwell Sure. So I am a real estate investor I'm based here in North Carolina. Dean Jackson Mhmm. Sean Caldwell And we typically will either wholesale bills or we'll buy them and keep them and then owner finance them.   Dean Jackson Okay. Sean Caldwell And we're typically sourcing our deals off market. So our marketing is this is geared toward more, I would say, demographic prospecting of -- Mhmm. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell more to geographical. So we're looking or, you know, signs of distress, whether that be issues with mortgage or taxes or dealing with tenants that have evictions or not she is  Dean Jackson the Sean Caldwell tenants, but dealing with landlords, dealing with eviction, and just any kind of distress situation that a homeowner would find themselves in. Those are typically the people that we approach. And our offers usually, it's you know, we'll send them a letter or a postcard and you know, it's just an offer to purchase their house, and we go into all the details about you know, all the benefits that we offer to them. Mhmm. It's it works, but I mean, for what for the effort that we have to undertake, it's I mean, it's just so much just from the cost of it. Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell The response rate is oftentimes really low. We get a lot of people calling us out. It just it just Dean Jackson You're not the only investors in North Carolina looking for Sean Caldwell No. No. That's not that. No. Dean Jackson There used to be and it used to be a little less competitive, but there are so many people now that are doing the same thing. So especially when you're using trigger data, you don't you're not you don't have a clean runway. There. Right? You've got everybody all over it. So are you so what's the kinda go-to thing now? What's the thing that's working the best for you?   Sean Caldwell Well, direct mail, it it it's what's working best.   Dean Jackson Right. Especially when you have visible prospects. Right? Like, if you know somebody -- Right. -- gotta tell you, you know, whatever. Mhmm.   Sean Caldwell Right. Yeah. So that's work that's worked well. Mhmm. And we've also had six successes with cold calling. I don't like it. I prefer for the prospect to reach out to us when they're ready, but -- Mhmm. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell we have had success with it. Dean Jackson So Uh-huh. So how do you let's talk a couple of things that you know, who's the ideal prospects for you here? Like, who is what's the if we could, you know, find the right -- Yes. Person. So who's ideal?   Sean Caldwell So our best prospect is someone who is on the verge of a tax foreclosure. Mhmm. They are typically sixty five or older, sixty five years or older, they may or may not have some adult child that helps them out. Mhmm. Typically, they own their home, free and clear, are receiving some form of government assistance, whether that be Social Security or any other kind of benefit. Mhmm. And that's the primary source of income. Mhmm. On occasion, we'll run into a widow. And, you know, her husband was the one that took care of everything and now she's kinda stranded and doesn't really know what to do. Okay. These houses are typically dated. And these are oftentimes  Dean Jackson these are people who are living in these houses. They're living in the house. Sean Caldwell Correct. Yeah. Dean Jackson I didn't. So Right. Okay. Sean Caldwell Right. Yeah. So these are owner occupants who lived in the home for you know, typically thirty years and longer. Mhmm. And with that has come, obviously, a lot of deferred care. Things are just you know, they got the same bathroom and kitchen set up than they had in the seventies. I mean, it just you know, so they it's dated. It's functional, but it's dated, or if, you know, if they do if everything outside of that, there's typically some repairs that are needed. You know, they need a new roof, but they don't have the money or, you know, the grandkids, you know, were playing and they kicked the hole in the wall and there's a big patch of that kind of thing. So tend to be a lot of deferred care. Mhmm.   Dean Jackson And so do you what triggers them as a prospect for you? Like, how do you get your data? Okay. So this is somebody yeah.   Sean Caldwell Sure. So we we're able to source it directly from various County level governments. Mhmm. Use it to tax the tax assessor. We'll we'll make those lists available of people who are delinquent in their property taxes. So we're able to    Dean Jackson Mhmm.     Sean Caldwell to source it that way. Mhmm.   Dean Jackson So this is just this is you can get a list of like, all these things are knowable. Things. Right? These just what you -- Right. -- source. We build a list of people who are sixty five plus who are hundred percent equity -- Right. -- no no mortgage have been in the property for a number of years. And have tax arrears?   Sean Caldwell Yeah. So so we the counties will just give us the list of the properties and all those deep the details regarding the property tax situation. Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell From our from us having talked to a lot of these folks and sort of build out a profile of them, we've been able to get all that other data. Okay. There's there's yeah. They don't they don't give us all of that sort of personal -- Right. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell that I don't find it. They just say, hey, this person this property as five thousand dollars in unpaid taxes. Uh-huh. And, you know, six to eight months, they're gonna you know, they they're gonna pay it or we're gonna auction our house off. Dean Jackson And so how long does it take for somebody if they're in tax arrears how long will until they sell? Or what is that? Mhmm. Sean Caldwell Yes. So, typically, you have to be at least a couple years behind And the county will typically work with you to, you know, to try to resolve the situation. And if within, let's say, two to three years, the homeowner fails to pay their delinquent property taxes. Accounties will then assign that property to a third party, usually legal service, or in most cases, a law firm. And that law firm will then carry out the actual foreclosure Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell Mhmm. -- once it gets a Dean Jackson tax lien certificate or whatever? Sean Caldwell Correct. Yes. Mhmm. In North Carolina, we're a deed state, but, like, in Florida, it's an I know it's a lien state. So, yeah, they'll sell the deed at the auction. Okay. And that and that process, once it gets so we we typically will target those people that we know once that case has been assigned to the attorney. Mhmm. Typically, counties will move forward with the sale between six to eight months. That's the average. Okay. Dean Jackson And how much are the homes worth typically? What's the range that you're looking at? Sean Caldwell Oh, I would say somewhere, maybe around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Mhmm. In some areas because we like I said, we don't target, like, specific neighborhoods. In some areas, that have been gentrified, some of the property values can be, you know, two or three hundred thousand dollars. But I would say, typically, for these properties, somewhere right around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Dean Jackson Okay. And how broad an area do you cover? Like, where where Sean Caldwell I cover yeah. Mhmm. So I cover Western North Carolina. And within that territory, they're we cover about twenty different counties. Mhmm. But like I said, we don't the reason we cover so many counties is not by choice, but by default because these are these law firms that are handling these foreclosures, they are responsible for those areas. So -- Mhmm. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell we get the data from them, and that's kinda how we make the decision about you know, what areas are focusing on. Dean Jackson I got you. And so how what's the scope of this? How many how many boxes homes are there, you know, that -- Yeah. -- get data for it. Sean Caldwell Sure. We so right now, we get our data from two sources and between those two sources. On any given month, there's maybe five hundred properties that are within that tax foreclosure timeline.    Dean Jackson Okay.   Sean Caldwell Where Dean Jackson So five hundred of them a month in those twenties. Counties.  Sean Caldwell Yes, Dean Jackson sir. Yeah. And then when you get those five hundred, you put them through another filter looking for that they're sixty five, that they've got a hundred percent equity left there. You don't you just go no matter what -- Yeah. -- if everybody is. Sean Caldwell Yeah. And right. And the reason why is because again, we've collected so much data. We interview a lot of these people when we're talking to them. So you know, just based on what we know about the average person that we talked to, Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell You know, we kinda have that profile. But to answer your question, we do have software that will we'll upload the addresses in and -- Yes. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell from there, it'll tell us, you know, what the equity position is, if there's Dean Jackson Gotcha. Sean Caldwell Any liens or anything like that? How, you know, how long they've had to home, all those kind of details? Mhmm. Dean Jackson So how do the numbers play out from with your current system there? So you get five hundred of them. Right now. And then what is that trigger for you? What do you do with those five hundred? You mail them Yeah. We'll mail them. Email them. Yeah. Letter or postcard, what it will email them right away? Sean Caldwell A letter. We'll mail them a letter. And we'll send them that piece, and then we'll every month, we'll send them another piece is kind of, like, a continuation sequence. Mhmm. And we'll do that over the course of six months. And every month we'll sort of track in the system to see, you know, where they stand in terms of the tax foreclosure process. Dean Jackson I gotcha. And so is there when what kind of response do you get to the letters that you mail now. Your offer you mail. The letter, if I -- Yeah. -- summarize it, is hey, we'd like to buy your house or, hey, we noticed you've got tax problems and we'd like to buy your house. Uh-huh. Sean Caldwell Correct. Yes. Dean Jackson Okay. Sean Caldwell And so in terms of response rate, we're usually at maybe half of one percent. Mhmm. No. I yeah. I wanna say that was the last one we did. So, like, yeah, I mean, Dean Jackson we're three to return responses for the five hundred letters? Sean Caldwell Correct. Correct. Dean Jackson Uh-huh. Sean Caldwell And it's I mean, it's that that's a lot of pressure to, you know, to produce something when you only get Dean Jackson the letters how many letters do you think they got? Just I'm curious. I'm interested in that. Yeah. Like, so in North Carolina. You know, I wonder I wonder how many people got the data that you're getting and mail them a letter. I wonder what their mailbox looks like. Sean Caldwell It's it's it's crowded. Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell I would say so I'm just outside of Charlotte and Charlotte is, you know, it's I wanna say we're in the top five market in terms of real estate in the country. So they're they may get ten twenty, you know, solicitations. Dean Jackson We got many people saying, hey. Choose me. Choose me. I'll buy your house. I'll buy your house. Right? Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson And what do you think is the range of the approaches that people are taking? Like, do you think that you know, is anybody have you seen any of the Sean Caldwell the marketing that Yeah. Dean Jackson Have you have you Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yes. I have. So so historically, what what people do is they will they'll go to an online print shop. And -- Mhmm. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell they've got the pre made templates and you just pick a template, upload your list, and they take care of the rest. So -- Yeah. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell in many cases, the homeowner's gonna receive the same marketing piece and same message and Dean Jackson Yeah. You think, like, ten people in the same coaching program or something. They they read the same book or took the same course, and they're saying cut and paste the same letter. Yeah. And then Yeah. We did a yellow envelope for one of the pink Sean Caldwell envelope for what Yeah. No. We we did Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell Yeah. We did take it a step further. I did have a copywriter to actually put together a letter series for us, but Uh-huh. It just didn't seem to make much of a difference. I've gotten, you know, positive responses from people, you know, they'll say, you know, I, you know, I appreciate your letter. It's you know, it's well crafted. They most of their comments are about sort of structure of it and how well put together it is. Nothing about selling the house. It hasn't it hasn't account that has not it led to any increase in business. Dean Jackson Okay. Sean Caldwell So and and that's why that's why I started looking into to your Gogo agent program because -- Uh-huh. Looking to do something that's gonna be different. Dean Jackson Right. I hear you. So I'm interested in if we were to take And is it pretty consistent, like, just five hundred a month across the board, plus or minus, or is any is there a particular time of year that's that's Sean Caldwell No. But no. If you count yeah. So each county, you know, they have their own schedules for how they wanna move forward with cases. So it's really sort of based on each county. Dean Jackson So what happened with these people this is what I'm curious about. If we were to go back to December of two thousand nineteen, we'll go back you know, we're in January twenty-one now. So we're to go back to, like, the or even the class of January. Of two thousand and twenty. What what's happened with those five hundred? People who you would have shown up on the list in January last year. What sort of, you know, happened to them? Sean Caldwell Yeah. So the event that typically takes place is some loss of income that could have been that you know, they were tired and they're on, you know, like I mentioned, fixed income. So you know, what they once were able to afford. They're no longer able to afford. It may have been a situation where a spouse was responsible for paying a certain number or say certain percentage of the bills. And because that spouse is passed away. They no longer have that. Mhmm. I've had folks call who you know, they had to take care of a an ill relative and that put them out of work. And so, you know, they've had a tough time sort of been able to manage their financial responsibility. So it's usually someone being becoming ill job loss. Dean Jackson Yeah. Yeah. No. I understand that. I was asking -- Okay. -- what's happened to those five hundred homes in about twelve months since they showed up on that list. But I appreciate you telling me how they got on. Okay. Sean Caldwell That's good. Dean Jackson But what I'm asking is in if it's been if it's five hundred a month, then, right, in January of last year, one year ago, there were five hundred people that showed up on that list for the first time. And what I'm curious about is what happened with those five hundred people between men and now. How many of them sold the house? How many of them rallied and, you know, saved it or whatever would be the outcome -- Sure. -- for those five different people.  Sean Caldwell Okay. So -- Yeah. -- was able to get data from an attorney that deals and foreclosures. And what they said is that they told us that about thirty percent of those people that are on that list will end up having their property foreclosed on so that the option. The remaining seventy percent we'll do usually one of three things. They'll borrow the money from a family member or a friend and keep the house. They'll get a loan from a bank or something like that. They'll sell it. Or they'll file for bankruptcy. Mhmm. Dean Jackson And how many of them would sell the house? Do you That Sean Caldwell part that part I don't know. We haven't tracked it that far out It do all Dean Jackson are you to do for you to see you've got access to the MLS. Yes. Right? So it'd be interesting for you to track the that list of people, those addresses, versus the sale records for two thousand and twenty and see how many of them have actually sold. In the twelve months. And when to give you a sense of what the timing is between when they show up on the list, and when something happens. K. Because that to give you a good sense of how to intervene sort of thing. Have you thought of partnering with a reverse mortgage company in terms of the partnering for the marketing stuff because they're either gonna do one of the two things. Right? Like, they're either gonna that could be a solution for people. Do you think some of them go down that path? Sean Caldwell I'm certain that there's a percentage of them that do. I've just not ever, you know, had a conversation with them. But I've I've heard about people looking in a reverse mortgage. So I'm sure there's an opportunity to collaborate there.   Dean Jackson Right. Because these people they've got equity and they've got they need to do something. Right? And they're they old enough to qualify. And it's nonqualify. I mean, the only thing they need is age to qualify. Age and equity is really all that stuff. That matters, I guess. But I suppose they've gotta be able to pay the taxes. But that could be an interesting you know, way to do some joint marketing there. Right? Because that's why I'm curious about what the other what possible outcomes are so that you can see you know, kind of filter people into the things. If they're going to be foreclosed, that means that none of the guys like you would have got those properties. Is that right? Or would you buy it in foreclosure? Your goal is to buy it before Sean Caldwell for Dean Jackson free foreclosure. Yeah. Sean Caldwell Yes. Yeah. So if we if we don't if they don't sell to us before the auction, then, you know, then yeah. There's guys that will buy at the auction. Dean Jackson Yeah. Sean Caldwell But we, you know, we like I said, just having done it enough times, you know, most of these people, this is this is their retirement. This is the next day. This is all that they have. So we tried to you know you know, create an opportunity for them to get a benefit from that equity before they lose it at the auction and get nothing. Dean Jackson Right. Right. And so is that the because they're not gonna get anything at the auction. What kind of a price discount? Are you buying the properties? What are you finding?   Sean Caldwell Yes. So we'll typically you know, if we buy it too to keep it, we'll typically buy I mean, we can buy up to a hundred and five percent of the value if we're gonna hold it and own or finance it. Mhmm. If we wanna just flip it to another investor. Usually, we're gonna be somewhere around fifty sixty five cents on the dollar. Dean Jackson Uh-huh. And Sean Caldwell And so that's those are the sort of the metrics that we look at -- Mhmm.  Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell and then on what strategy that we're gonna use.  Dean Jackson Mhmm. And most of the time, I mean, if they're if you're gonna pay a hundred and five percent or pay marketing value, it's pretty much a property that is in good shape and is ready. Sean Caldwell Yes. Dean Jackson Ready thing? Yeah. Mhmm. Okay. So that's great. Now, so I wonder what one of the things that's kind of a an opportunity, I think, is to think about what's going on in their minds. Right? Like, if you think about if you take the position of someone who's going through this right now. They're getting first of all, before they got it's been nothing but bad news for a long time, right, to get to this point. Because how long have they been in arrears Sean Caldwell years. Dean Jackson Before they get to the point that they officially on the list or whatever that you know, they escalate to that level. Sean Caldwell Yeah. It'll have been a couple of years. Those three years. Dean Jackson Right. So so there's been nothing but if it's, you know, government tax stuff, we're not gonna call them, but there's gonna be nothing but bad news in the mailbox. For two years. Right? Notice. Final notice. This is urgent importance. Right? This is your final warning. Following that to us. So they're used to getting that bad news, and they've probably built a calus on their soul from being the negative assault of all the stuff. Right? They're, you know, adrenaline resistant on that basis. And so here now when it switches, now they're on the list and all of a sudden that unleashes this flood of, you know, lettuce by your by your house, there's. Right? Mhmm. Sell to me. Like, what what's the reasoning? What would be the most common letter if we were to take the letter? Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yeah. So the most common letter that an investor would send to a homeowner would be, you know, we pay cash. We close quickly. We buy as-is no real estate commissions. You know, you know, there's usually some Top dollar. Dean Jackson We pay top dollar. Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yeah. You know. Mhmm. And usually there's, you know, there's the use of certain colors and certain language to -- Mhmm. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell to, I guess, to get them to wanna take action immediately. Dean Jackson Right. Sean Caldwell So there's usually some kind of limited time offer or Dean Jackson Call today. Yeah. Oh, we're trying to reach you or hand written or I wanna buy your house or they're -- Yeah. -- doing all of that stuff. And are they getting text numbers and stuff too? Or Sean Caldwell Yes. Yes. They're doing it's the real estate business, it it's changed so much. And -- Yeah. Dean Jackson -- Sean Caldwell because there's so much money that's made, there are people that see this as a business opportunity. So there's all kind of service providers offering text messaging, voice conferencing, all that -- Yeah. Dean Jackson --   Sean Caldwell tracing, door knocking, social media stuff. I mean, you name it.   Dean Jackson Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder, you know, if you think about the we had a lot of success when in kind of the first refinance, you know, buzz. When interest rates are going down, down, down, maybe just ten, twelve years ago. When the interest rate everybody was refinanced, refinanced, refinanced. Right? Everybody's screaming. Rates have never been lower now at the time. Refinance, no closing costs, you know, save money, all of that stuff. Everybody getting that message, they didn't really know what the whether it made sense for them. Right? And we did a we put together a report called how to know when it makes sense to refinance. And we started offering that as a way that's really a you know, an education kind of thing for people. Because now they're not you're not saying you know, you're not trying to convince people to refinance. You're offering them a guide to know if it makes sense. Right. And so I wonder in this situation here is do people really know what they're options are, you know?   Sean Caldwell No. No. No. They don't. Typically, they'll they'll say I know I'm in a rough situation. Yeah. I wanna keep my house Yeah. But I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to how to solve this problem.   Dean Jackson Right. And it's kind of an interesting like, if that's where they're coming from, wouldn't it be an interesting situation to approach it that way. Like, if the five hundred people, they're you're mailing out saying, let me buy your house. And you're getting half a percent, you mean, two or three of them because you're reaching out to them about your selfish desire. Right? That's what you're you're taking your position on it. Right? And even though you're catching it in a way that's making it seem like it's an advantage for them, that if they do wanna sell, that you are, you know, go pay cash and you close quickly and you, you know, all of that stuff. But their if their real desire is to stay, what would be some of the paths that you know, like, if you're thinking about how would you be able to like, if you partnered with a reverse mortgage company, even just as a joint venture from the marketing standpoint. That you're going into those things that if they're at least if they feel like the homeowners, that there's a chance that they might be able to keep their house this way. They might be willing to engage in the dialogue. Right? Which is really more important. And if there, then figure out that that's not going to work that you've already started a relationship with them and just say, well, we could just buy your house. You know? Now that that's really I think when you think about it, that way of starting down the path that they really that they want to go on. Like, imagine that your depends on your approach to it or you come from whether you look at it as you look at them keeping the house as your competition or whether you look at it as your opportunity to build relationship with them. Sean Caldwell I get what you're what you're saying. Dean Jackson Like, is that when you say that immediately, like, is your thought though that, well, I don't wanna make it easy for them to keep the house because then that's I'm not gonna be able to buy it. Sean Caldwell Well, no. No. And again, it's because, you know, we just we talked to so many of them that I know that that their ability to come up with the money is when to not. Dean Jackson Right. Sean Caldwell You know, if you're sixty five years old, you're retired, you're living on a fixed income, we got core credit, where would the money come from? Right? And so I know that the chances of it happening are slim to none. Right. So so, yeah, I I I understand, you know, your thought process behind that to sort of Dean Jackson -- Mhmm. -- Sean Caldwell sort of have that be the sort of the beginning of the building of the relationships. Dean Jackson Yes. Is leading to where they are, which is keep your house. Right? So I'll I'll tell you, like, I'll share something with you years ago. I wrote a book with a marriage counselor. He I met this guy in Texas who'd been doing nothing but saving marriages for forty five years when I met him at me at seventy six. And we wrote a book called stop your divorce. And if for somebody because in most divorces, one person doesn't want it. Most of the time, it's somebody you know, in a lot of cases, it's a mutual that, hey, well, let's just go our separate ways kinda thing. But in many cases, it's one person wants the divorce and the other one doesn't. And that person is billing and wants to do everything they can to keep the merits, to stop the divorce to win them back. Right? Now the the words when you see that stop your divorce, are really attractive to somebody in that situation. And The thing about it is that what Homer did was counseling with people. And the thing that was the magic of it was everybody was completely happy at the end because that's ultimately, what they really want is they don't he gets them to see that it's not that they wanna stop the doors. They wanna be happy. First of all. Right? And so in order to stop the divorce, in many cases, which they were able to, you have to get to a point where you don't need the divorce. You mean, you don't need it to work out. Right? And most of the time, people are frantic and addicted to the other person. But then if they can get to a point where they don't need them, to come back, but they would prefer them to come back. That's the position where the other person now feels safe enough or in the you know, that they can work on the relationship. But when the person who's being left is pursuing and chasing, and trying to convince the other person, you know, don't leave me. I'm I'll change. I promise I'll change I can do better ideas. What about the kids? Come on. Think about the kids. Think about our family. All of those things trying to convince them that they should do something other than what they wanna do, which is to leave right now. And what Homer suggested to people is he would explore that first to get rid of that, you know, neediness for it and then be in a position to make a rational decision. Because often when they get to that point, then they rationally realize that that person's an asshole. That's not the person for me. Right? And there's plenty of people that would be much better for me, so they're happy. But they weren't ready to hear that message early on. Right? That's not the message that they're really looking for right now. And so I think the same thing could apply here that if you were somehow keeping the message of keep your house and helping to educate someone on all the options that they could have to keep their house. And then when they realize none of those options are viable, that there you are as the option for getting rid of the house, getting rid of the problem. Sean Caldwell Gotcha. Dean Jackson Okay. Like, is anybody is anybody approaching them with a message of keep your house? Sean Caldwell No. No. No. And we and to your point, I've actually put together it's a it's just two pager. Dean Jackson Mhmm. Sean Caldwell But it actually goes into detail about the different ways that a homeowner might be able to keep their home. And Dean Jackson -- Yes. Sean Caldwell And so we go through, you know, one of the options being to get a loan, bankruptcy, you know, appealing their tax value. Their -- Yeah. -- different counties have different deferment programs where you know Like, when people are Dean Jackson mhmm. When people are act looking for options, like, I might take an approach of this of putting together that guide or putting together information that would be the twenty twenty one North Carolina foreclosure rights guide or something like that. Right? That is showing to people what they can and can't do our tax sale rights or guidelines? Or yeah. You see what I'm saying? That it's like I'm sorry. I just I need to get this I need to look for a loophole here kind of thing. Right? That's we need to be saved by a technicality. It says right here that you can't You know what I'm saying? Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yeah. Dean Jackson So people know their rights or know their things. In that way, you say that's why you can you know, if you or your spouse are have received a notice of tax deficiency or a foreclosure. Notice read this, you know. Almost like it's a you're an advocate for them. Right. You're yeah, you're sending a message as an advocate for them. Because it what we're looking for out of those five hundred people, you've got to find five star prospects. Right? And so when I look at it that I'm looking for five star prospects who are First of all, willing to engage in the dialogue. And number two, they're friendly and cooperative. And number three, they know what they want. And you know what they want, and they're it's realistic, what they want. Right? Then number four, that they're ready to get it, and number five that they'd like us to help. And so the approach that all these letter centers are taking is starting at the bottom with the prescription. Let me buy your house. Sell me your house. No. Sell me your house. But we pay top dollar. We do too. I mean, they're all you could switch out the letterheads and just put the content of the letters, and it wouldn't make any difference to anybody, they're all saying the same thing. Right? Sean Caldwell Yep. Dean Jackson And it just feels to me, like, if you could get fifty of them to engage that, that would be a better outcome. Right? Sean Caldwell Yes. Yeah. You know, it's funny you bring that up. I was I was actually What's it? Nestle Balioma? I I I mean, Nestle Balioma. Look. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And looked at their model as far as what they do. And they do a lot of the attorneys will offer up a guide, and it's all the in and out about it. And -- Yeah. and then at the end, it's, you know, you know, if if you've got this situation here are the things you need to do and here's what you need to pick out for. Yeah. And that that it's fun. That's actually what I was working on. It's So you just you just confirmed that I that I'm moving in the right direction because it's actually something I've been thinking about doing and I actually started putting it together. Dean Jackson Well, good. Wow. So you're on your way. If you can make it seem like it's a, you know, an a neutral information objective source of information. Sean Caldwell Yeah. Yeah. There's no really though. Mhmm. Yeah. There's no there's it's very little selling in there. But it's -- Right. like, I think we put, like, in the beginning, just, you know, what is tax foreclosure you know, what are, you know, what are the what's the timeline? What are your rights? You know? Mhmm. So stuff like that, I mean. And then at the end, I think that's kinda where I was tripped up. It's like, well, how do you like, how do you hire a ball on this and, you know, move to the next, you know, the next conversation. Dean Jackson Well, it's much easier to keep a conversation going when you've engaged with someone, when you have their attention. It's much easier to shift a conversation somewhere once you've started it. Harder to start it. You know? That's why when you start somebody going down that path, of keeping the house or the options for exploring those options. You have their attention because that's what their attention is pursuing right now. Sean Caldwell Okay. So I guess, just from a, I guess, like, it's just a mechanical standpoint. So let's say we put together, I put together a report a twenty twenty one North Carolina foreclosure Drive. And -- Mhmm In that you know, make it, as you say, neutral and just provide a lot of information that that they would be interested in knowing. Dean Jackson Yep. So they have their state and federal government information that's available, that's copyright free that, you know, is freedom of information that you could use and distribute. Sean Caldwell Right. So let's say if we once we let's so let's say we set up a landing page and let's say, sort of follow the Gogo agent model and put together a postcard. Dean Jackson Yep. Sean Caldwell With that report as the lead, the lead, the generator -- Yeah. they can call in or they can request it through the landing page. How would you continue that conversation on after they have requested that report. Dean Jackson Yep. So that then you wanna engage with someone. Right? So once somebody raises their and then the next thing that you're gonna want is to like, if I the mechanism that I would use when you've got their physical address. So when they when you mail the postcard, I would send them to a landing page where they can fill out their information to get the the guide, which would include their email address. Which you might not have in this record. Right? So now you respond then to them. Now you can, you know, engage in a dialogue by email. What Sean Caldwell what I guess that's where I'm where I'm going. This is Dean Jackson -- Yeah. -- Sean Caldwell what like, how would I educate what would I educate them on and, I guess, try to motivate them on? Because would I would it be a situation where you didn't you know, you'd say, you know, continue to sort of talk through all the particular about all the different options that are available to them? Or Dean Jackson Yeah. Exactly. That's the thing, you know, is that if but if you ask them a question. Like, what I would do is to think is immediately when they respond. You can, you know, send them the guide. And along with the guide, you can send them you know, the option also of, you know, here are some options for you. If you wanna do this, here's a government agency that you could talk to. If you wanna explore a reverse mortgage, here's somebody that you could talk to. If you wanna just sell your house, we could buy it. We could sell it. We could buy it within twenty-four hours. Would you just presenting it as an option? Sean Caldwell Right. Dean Jackson Now it seems like what would that up? What would that look like? How much would you know, then you're saying to people, it gives you a we give you a pinpoint price analysis. We'll give you tell you exactly what we would buy your house for. Sean Caldwell K. And just and just kind of and mimicking the goggle agent. You've got three different a three different Yeah. Dean Jackson Whenever you're ready. Yeah. Whenever you're ready, there's three ways we can help you. Sean Caldwell Okay. Okay. Dean Jackson I might look at putting all that information in the guide into an information, and they do, like, a Zoom webinar, you know, where you could bring a foreclosure attorney and a reverse mortgage specialist. And you all on there to kind of educate people. You know? They may wanna take their chances and put their house on the market traditionally, you know? Sean Caldwell Right. Dean Jackson That's an option. Sean Caldwell That right. And that was again, that's what sort of interest me in the Gogo agent -- Yeah.  Sean Caldwell program was because I said, I think it, like, Well, if somebody's in this situation and I and, you know, obviously, that's probably not the conversation they're having right now. But my thinking was, well, if they're looking to if they're in a tax foreclosure, and they're thinking about selling. You know, maybe I you know, maybe the poke maybe they're finding out what their houses worth would you know, would work. Right. From what you're saying, it sounds like perhaps approaching it from a different angle and sort of focusing in on the different way that they might be able to keep their house might be a better way to go,  Dean Jackson especially to get the conversation going.  Sean Caldwell Right. Right. Okay.   Dean Jackson Right? Because they're gonna that's what they want. They wanna pursue that, and it'd be into your advance to be and make you feel good to be helpful if in case -- Right. -- they can save it. Sean Caldwell Sure. Okay. So in that, like, in the follow-up, would you take that time to sort of discuss, I guess, more in-depth -- Okay. some of the different options that they have to keep the house? Or would you talk about just, like Dean Jackson I would. I could yeah. We could still cover  Sean Caldwell that overall.  Dean Jackson Talk about the well, you talk about all the logistics, the how it happens, what the exactly what the options are. But then you then you're transitioning now into advice or strategy or, you know, an approach to figure out what they're going to do, you know? Sean Caldwell Okay. Dean Jackson Okay. Yeah. And I mean, if you said if somebody asked the thing was if somebody downloaded the guide, then you send them the initial message that here's where you can download the guide and here's some other videos on this and whenever you're ready, here's three ways I can help you. And then the next morning, send a quick message to them, like a personal message, you know, to them saying, you know, hey, Sean, are you gonna be selling your house or are you hoping to keep it? Just something that's short, personal, and expecting a reply, you know. And that might not be the right words, but something like that.  Sean Caldwell Yeah. Okay. Okay. Dean Jackson And it may be, you know, but that's the thing is you're ultimately a sorting question, you know. Yeah. Is your house for sale now, or are you hoping to keep it? Sean Caldwell Okay. Dean Jackson Or are you going to be staying? Or once, you know, you start thinking playing around with what those options are? Sean Caldwell K. Dean Jackson And I think that might be a good way to like, I would expect you would get more than half a percent response to something like that too. Sean Caldwell Yes. I do. Dean Jackson Just because it's so different from what they're used to getting. You know? Sean Caldwell Okay. Dean Jackson It's almost like you're on their path. That's oh, what's this as an option? And it's so different than what everybody else is saying to them too. Sean Caldwell Yes. It is. K. Okay. Well, it sounds like I've got some work to do. Dean Jackson Yeah. What I would also be interested in for you. Is to take the five hundred from January of last year and do a little analysis and see how many sold in foreclosure, how many sold on their own, how many stayed, you know, what happened? Sean Caldwell Okay. Dean Jackson Yeah.   Sean Caldwell Here we go. And   Dean Jackson maybe you don't need to take all five hundred, but you take a sample of a hundred.   Sean Caldwell I I get you.   Dean Jackson Yeah. Just to get a sense of what the reality is, you know. And if they haven't, so that may make sense to reach out, back out to the ones from last year.   Sean Caldwell Yes. Yeah. That it would be. Because, you know, like I said, these these are these people have lived in the home, out of them raised their children, and it it's you know, they're connected to the neighborhood. Yeah. They they wanna stay there. Yeah. They just don't know that they're not prepared to do what it takes to stay there. They just they're not there yet. They haven't come to that realization yet. Right. So I like it. I like I like entering their that conversation that they're having which is I wanna keep the house. How do I go about doing that? Right. I'm opposed to being about selling it. So we'll make our adjustments to our marketing. Excited to see how it all how it all turns out for us.   Dean Jackson Right. Awesome. Well, I would like to see I'm gonna be interested to see how it all plays out because you may have something that'll be a new approach for your industry there, you know?   Sean Caldwell I I I do. I believe that it would be because, as I mentioned, just the amount of money that is made in real estate investing. If there's something new, something different that's working better than what everybody else is doing. Yeah. It it it'll catch fire. But yeah. So I'm I'm excited to see how it all works out and we'll let you know, you know, how how how it goes.   Dean Jackson Awesome. Well, I've had fun. This has been a good conversation with your very thoughtful guy. I think this is I love that you're gonna played out. So we'll be connected in Go Go agent. We can, you know, connect in the forum and on our calls there. So I wanna see what's happening as you're doing it, and we'll be able to work it all out.   Sean Caldwell That sounds like planned. Thank you, Dean.    Dean Jackson Awesome. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon.   Sean Caldwell Alright. Bye. Bye.      

In this week's episode, we explore the fascinating world of the human brain and its impact on stress management, parenting, and relationships. We had the privilege of inviting Dr. Alison Roy, a licensed clinical psychologist, and a bona fide brain enthusiast. I first heard Dr. Roy speak during the pandemic, and her insights on the brain, trauma, stress, and parenting were truly impactful.In our conversation, Dr. Roy sheds light on the science behind our reactions to stress and provides practical advice on how to maintain control and leverage our executive function skills—the skills governed by the pre-frontal cortex, a term you've probably heard me mention quite often. The aim? To improve and maintain our relationships, make parenting a bit easier, and in general, navigate life with a better understanding of our own minds.I urge you to listen to this episode, even if you're not a parent or caregiver. Much of the advice that Dr. Roy shares is universally applicable, and her passion for educating others about the brain is truly infectious. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I relished being a part of it.Here are some relevant resources related to the conversation:Dan Siegel's Bookshttps://drdansiegel.com/books/Hand Model of the Brain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-m2YcdMdFwPolyvagal theory in practicehttps://ct.counseling.org/2016/06/polyvagal-theory-practice/YouTube Video of Dr. Stephen Porges explaining the polyvagal theoryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec3AUMDjtKQMaslow's hierarchy of needshttps://www.thoughtco.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4582571Dr. Alison Roy's websitewww.dralisonroy.comSlides from Dr. Roy's Presentationhttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Pk9stUBGV0L0X4ES6Csb5_BXTjbGndfZBeyond BookSmarthttps://www.beyondbooksmart.com/Contact us!Reach out to us at podcast@beyondbooksmart.comIG/FB/TikTok @beyondbooksmartcoachingTranscriptHannah Choi 00:04Hi everyone and welcome to Focus Forward, an executive function Podcast where we explore the challenges and celebrate the wins you'll experience as you change your life by working on improving your executive function skills. I'm your host, Hannah Choi. Hannah Choi 00:18Yay, I am so excited to bring you today's show. As a parent and an official member of the brain nerd club, I am totally geeking out about my guest, Dr. Allison Roy. Allison is a licensed clinical psychologist, and she loves the brain and teaching people about it even more than I do. I first heard her speak during the pandemic, and her presentations on the brain and trauma and stress and parenting were just exactly what I needed at that time. And I still use what I learned from her even today, when I had the opportunity to see her speak again recently, I knew I had to get her on Focus Forward so you all could listen and learn from her, too. In our conversation about stress and how our brains are impacted by it, Allison shared some really practical things that we can do to manage that stress and stay in our thinking brains, you know that prefrontal cortex, you've heard me mention, oh, a billion times. This way, we can use our executive function skills to improve and maintain our relationships with the people in our families, and make parenting a little easier. If you're not a parent, or a caregiver of kiddos, I encourage you to listen anyway, especially to the first part, most of the advice that Allison shares really does apply to all of us. I truly hope you enjoy this conversation, as much as I enjoyed being a part of it. Now on to the show. Hannah Choi 01:55Hi, Alison, thank you so much for coming today, to talk with me about the brain, and parenting and executive function skills. I am just going to share with the listeners a little bit about how I met you. I during the pandemic you gave some presentations, virtual presentations through our public school system. And I'm not kidding when I say that those presentations and the way that you presented it made just like a massive difference for me and my family during the pandemic and actually get emotional when I think about it. Because like that was such a difficult time. But learning, learning about the brain and learning about what some actual, like real things that I could do that would make a difference made such a difference. And it also really informed my coaching. And it just informed my, my I already really loved the brain. So it just like reinforced that. So thank you so much for that. Yeah. And then we were reconnected recently when you spoke again, at our for our parent presentation. And again in our school systems, which was excellent. And so thank you so much for coming on the podcast,Dr. Alison Roy 03:09Of course, I'm really excited to be here. And it's so fun to be able to do stuff virtually. When you're not, you know, I'm in New Hampshire. And it's not always, you know, right down the road. So it's nice to be able to connect to different places and areas of the world. It's one thing that pandemic gave us.Hannah Choi 03:26Yes, yes. Yep. And it's amazing. You can still have such an impact on someone's life even virtually so. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so would you introduce yourselves to listeners and explain a little bit about your background?Dr. Alison Roy 03:43Yeah, so my name is Dr. Alison Roy. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of New Hampshire. I'm located in Exeter, New Hampshire, which is right on the seacoast area of New Hampshire. And I've been a psychologist for about two decades now. And I've practiced all over the world, I've had really cool opportunity to live in Europe and live in Asia and learn a lot and see a lot and experience a lot as a psychologist but also as a mom and as a family. So to my kids were born overseas. And so it's been a really fun adventure to kind of just see the world and learn a lot about human brains everywhere. As Hannah said, I'm a total brain nerd. I love understanding the neuro psychology or neurobiology of what's going on. When we're having real life experiences. It's validating to know that there's really things happening in our brain as to why we're feeling or thinking or doing in that moment. I specialize actually in post traumatic stress disorder and trauma. And that's how I got called upon quite a bit during the pandemic because we were all kind of going through something it was the first time we could really say that we were had a global trauma or stressful event and so a lot of districts, school districts did right by the parents. In our district and invited experts in to talk about why this was really hard. And it continues to be hard. We're all still healing from those couple of years. So I'm excited to come on today and talk about what that might look like in your own home. And hopefully it's validating and acknowledges, you know, some of what you experience every day. And and yeah, we'll do a little little brain learning together, too. Hannah Choi 05:22Cool. Thank you. Yeah, that validation piece was really important. For me when you gave that presentation, it made me feel better about like, why am I feeling this way? Oh, okay. It made a lot more sense. And I felt like, yeah, and then I felt like I could forgive myself a little bit, which, which felt really good. Dr. Alison Roy 05:40So good. Good. Like I said, so I'm a parent, too so I get it. I get it. I have three little guys. So yeah,Hannah Choi 05:46Yes, yes, you do get it. Yeah. So I would love for you to kind of just maybe even just do the same presentation that you did before. Because even though I knew a lot of what you shared, just hearing it, there's something about the way that you present all the information that just makes it really accessible and understandable. So would you share with our listeners, what you've taught, so many people about the brain and stress and how to manage it all. Dr. Alison Roy 06:18iI would love to. It's my favorite thing, to talk about the brain, I'm gonna pull up some slides, just mostly, as I was, you know, we were chatting before we got on today and started recording, I really just need help staying on track, actually, so. So it's helpful for me to have some slides to look at, so that I stay focused.Hannah Choi 06:39So I will, before you start, I just want to say that I will share these graphics in the show notes for anyone who's listening. So you can look along if you'd like.Dr. Alison Roy 06:49Absolutely, yeah, there's not gonna be there's gonna be three slides, I think three or four, maybe that will be good to kind of check out so. But I'll do my best to make it feel like you're looking at something even if you're just listening to us today. So so let's talk about this human brain of ours, and what happens when we experience stressful events. And these stressful events can come in a variety of ways. So certainly, you'll hear me talk about, alright, this is really what we're going to talk about today is that fight, flight, or freeze reaction that we have. And so we think about this a lot when we think about life threatening situations. So I always use the universally scary situation for all of us of being chased by a bear because I feel like I don't know if there's a human on this planet that would find that to be intimidating. So if you're being chased by a bear, you want this system to kick in and save your life. However, which is great, right, we have this great human system to do that, for us to to save our lives. However, your human brain does that reaction that fight flight or freeze reaction for many different reasons. And it could be that in a singular moment, you've something alerts your brain, and we're going to talk about how that would all the things that happen in that millisecond in your brain allows your brain to think, Oh, this is a life or death situation, when it's not actually and you have that reaction, your brain can also be pushed into that fight flight or freeze mode very gradually. So I call it the slow build or the fast punch. So it can happen in a fast punch type of way, like being chased by a bear or having a in the moment reaction. Or it could be that slow build, where you're you've had a stressful week. And just one more thing happens and you feel like you kind of fly off the handle or go into that fight flight or freeze mode. So again, this this part of our brain is is really amazing. And we want it to work because it saves our lives, it just can be a little frustrating when it's a really active system that fight flight or freeze systems activating a lot or too much. And we're being pushed into this red brain zone that we're going to talk about in a minute. So let's talk about these three zones. If you're a listen to this podcast regularly, you know a lot about that green zone up there, that executive functioning zone, that frontal lobe, that's where all of our beautiful executive functions are housed. And we only have access to our whole, all the colors of the brain, when we're at rest and digest. We call it rest and digest when we're at rest, when we're not stressed or not thinking of a million things or running around or doing a bunch of errands or you know have a project do at work and all the all the things are happening. So when we're when we're at rest, we have access to our full brain. So in other words, you don't need to have a diagnosis of ADHD in order to have the frontal lobe part of your brain be impacted and have a difficult time with some error executive functions. Because stress stress interferes with your ability to really access those at their full potential. So that's the green part of the brain as the first part of the brain that comes offline when we start to become stressed unfortunately. So the next part of the brain next part down is called the kind of the blue brain or the emotional brain. This part of the brain is all All about feeling, not about rational thoughts. So I like to call this part of the brain, the toddler section of the brain, about a toddler, right? They're all about big, big emotions, zero rational or logical thoughts. So that's really what the Blue Brain is all about, and needs the green brain in order to have that more rational or logical thought process. So when that green brain comes off line, you're left with a lot of emotions. And those emotions dictate your fight flight or freeze mode. And as you can probably imagine, if you're not connected to ration or logic, and you start to have an experience that might be overwhelming that emotion can overwhelm you and send you into that fight flight or freeze mode pretty easily. And then there's the red brain, the red brain is our survival brain, our reptilian brain, you've probably heard it called these things. Its sole job and purpose is to keep us alive. And so again, really cool part of the brain, really frustrating when it's in the driver's seat too much. And so what that part of the brain is engineered to do is be in control of our heart rate, our respiration, our blood pressure, our sleep wake cycles in our satiation queues, whether we're hungry or thirsty. And that's it. So as you can probably imagine, you've heard this used before, right? Like I can't even think about tomorrow, I just have to get through today. This is the kind of language we use when we're in that red brain, or we're just not hungry. Because we're just so focused or so stressed on getting through that part of the day. Dr. Alison Roy 11:33And so the red brain, when it takes over really only wants you to focus on those kind of survival functions, it doesn't want you to focus on doing math or being organized, or quite frankly, having empathy or compassion for others. So you can see how when you think about how you are as a human, when you're really stressed, we're not our best selves. And so we when we get pushed down into that red brain, that's the reason why that happens. So let's take a deeper look at how that happens. It's not something that we have control over, and nor do we want to have control over it. Because again, we want this to be the most instant automatic function that we have, because it's survival based. And so again, if a bear pops out of the woods, when you're hiking, you want to not think at all about your pot, you know, what you could do to get away you want your body to kind of react naturally. And hopefully, you freeze, right running away, or fighting a bear is not the option that your body wants you. And we're going to learn that we can go either way fight or flight or freeze, and that we all have the ability to go either way it as I'm talking a minute, I'm going to talk about those two kind of options, and what they look like in real life. And you can think about yourself or your spouse or partner your own children and kind of think about where they might fall, because some of us tend to have an automatic stress response of either fight or flight or freeze. But we have the ability to go either way. And sometimes it's dependent on the stimulus or what's happening in our environment that pushes us into that red brain. Okay, so when our amygdala, which is a very tiny structure is a tiny but mighty, very tiny structure in our brain that is working constantly. It works about three to 10 times a second, if you've never experienced any traumatic event, if you have any sort of traumatic event in your history, or you're just having a really stressful week, your amygdala is hyperactive hypersensitive, so it can be up to a scanning the room that you're in up to 100 times a second, so very, very active. So it's, it's like a smoke alarm or smoke detector. So its job is to scan your environment and decide if anything in that environment is scary, upsetting, worrisome, overwhelming, uncertain, even, like exciting. So even really positive over like big emotions can cause this amygdala to react. And the amygdala gets all its information to make this decision from your five senses. So it's use very, very connected to your five senses, meaning it uses smell, it uses temperature, sense of touch, temperature, sensing, Sight, Sound, so I like to give the example of one time I was I was talking about this with I work a lot with educators. I was sitting in a room with educated with a group of educators. And we all I'm, I'm quite literally talking about this slide and the smell of gas started coming into the room. And so you can see all the rooms kind of gets a little wide eyed and let's start looking around. That's your amygdala kind of going, um, something's going on here and like smell the gas and I know that means that this could potentially be a bad situation. So again, it's are five senses that tip off the amygdala. And have it kind of sound the alarm for lack of better words in our brain. And a cascade of actions and reactions happen very quickly. So again, this activates very quickly, you can think about when you get really upset, I was talking the other day about, when I get really upset, or my kids get really upset, we're a family of Door-slammers. So we'll kind of stomp off and slam the door. And of course, if you had rational, logical thought happening, you would know not to slam the door. But in that moment, that's the way your body's releasing that reaction. So that this cascade of actions and reactions start happening. So the amygdala says, "Oops, something's going on". It shuts down the green brain, and most of the Blue Brain, it kind of stops, I've seen the brain scans is stopped sending neuronal activity there. So those areas of the brain, when you look at like an fMRI or an MRI, you can see that the areas of the brain where there's neuronal activity happening, it's all colored, it's all lit up. And when this happens, it goes completely dark. So we kind of shoot go right down into this red brain. Because our brain is saying, I need to survive, right now I need to spend all my energy, all my neuronal activity, just within this red brain of focus in this very moment on survival. So green brain and Blue Brain mostly kind of shut down activity. Also, our left side of our brain goes completely offline as well. And the left side of the brain is where all the else so if you've ever read anything I learned with Dan Siegel at all, he's a great, he's a great person to look up and kind of explore a little bit, the whole brain child is his book. It's one of his books, he has many by great parenting books. But he talks about all the ELLs are all housed on the left side of the brain language, linear logic, all these beautiful ELLs while you lose them all when you go into the stress mode. And so you lose your words, you can't put good sentences together, you can't have a good linear sense of time. So you're kind of mental timeline gets all messed up. And so, so all of this is, believe it or not, all of this has happening in that moment, when you start to become stressed. Your memory processes also shifts. So the way we remember things shifts very much to our five senses. And that's where we get kind of trauma triggers from as our brain latches on to those five senses. In that moment, it doesn't remember things with language, because the language centers aren't accessible. And we lose our words, like I said, we lose our ability to have language in that moment, and certainly, this is one of my favorites, ways of looking at all this beautiful executive functions. So all of what you're seeing on this screen is all of the executive functions list. So impulse control, be able to take turns focus, concentrate, attend, have perspective, taking have empathy, all of that is, is beautiful, and a beautiful part of our human brain will all of it goes out the window when we start to go down into this read brain. And so as you can probably imagine, as an adult, you know, you know this, we have a fully developed frontal lobe by about 25 ish. And so we have the best frontal lobe we could possibly have. So when we lose a lot of this in a stressful moment, we still have more capacity than a child does. Because a kiddo doesn't have that fully developed frontal lobe yet. And so when they go into stress brain, we really see some big reactions with very little logic or rational thinking. And they tend to go on much longer, think epic temper tantrums, because they don't have this ability to access any sort of frontal lobe functions. Okay, so last little part I'll talk about today. And maybe one more slide. But this this is, so this is not my image. But you can see that the website that's on there, they have some great information as well around mental health and just they have these graphics that they produce, to be able to help people be able to talk about this stuff more, they just want to promote people talking about it, which is great. And so what I like about this is it shows in real life, and I'm going to talk about this what it looks like when we're having that red brain reaction that fight flight or freeze reaction. And this is based on the polyvagal theory of the stress response system. And that's Porges' theory. And again, if you Google polyvagal theory, you'll come up with lots of really fascinating information. There's volumes and volumes written about it. And it's my favorite way of kind of thinking about or talking about the stress response because I feel like to me when the first time I learned this, it was so incredibly validating because it just made the neuroscience make sense for real light. Yeah. So let's look at this for a second. So In the middle, this, the person you see in the middle is at rest and digest, meaning there is no alarm bells going off with the amygdala, all parts of the brain are online. And she's quite literally at rest and digest, which means she looks happy or relaxed. She looks happy. Yeah, this is what we want to be at, right? This is where I would hope we would spend most of our time. So you know, she's able to have a heart rate, that's nice and even blood pressure's in good shape, respiratory systems in good shape. And she's quite literally able to digest her food, actually heard a really interesting NPR story, just coming out of the pandemic. So probably late last year, when they were talking, they're interviewing primary care doctors who said they were prescribing and acids or digestive aids at like a very high rate. And it's makes sense because we spent so much time being stressed our digestive systems, one of the first systems that will be implicated in that. So we can't digest our food if we're not if everything else isn't at rest. And so it is going to see if you have heartburn, indigestion, belly aches, tummy aches, and we hear this a lot from our kids when they're stressed. It makes perfect sense because the digestive system gets very complicated.Hannah Choi 21:17I remember when I was in graduate school, I had really bad acid reflux. And now I know.Dr. Alison Roy 21:23Yes. Oh, absolutely. And terrible sleep patterns. Probably. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The two biggest disrupted system. So yeah, yep. And they're always my biggest red flag. So I always when a family comes to me, I do a lot of work. So I have a private practice as well. I do a lot of work with adolescents and young people and their families, I do a lot of family work. And that's one of the things I asked first about what are your sleep patterns, like what are eating patterns like, because often I can find a lot of clues within there, that the family system might be stressed. So if we're not at rest and digest, and we've seen over the past several years with what we've all been through, with a pandemic, and everything that has brought with it, that this window of rest and digest should be about here, and it's been it's shrunk, it's a little bit smaller for all of us, because we've just spent so much time being stressed. The beautiful part about the human brain, which you probably also know if you're a brain geek, like me is the human brain has neuroplasticity. So just because it's shrunk over the past couple of years doesn't mean we can't expand it as well. So that's good. That's a really great part. Yeah, it's a really beautiful part, you just have to work on it. And we're going to talk about so I'm on the left hand side, you see what looks like this same character in the middle who's at rest and digest has now been pushed into what we call hyper arousal, which is fight or flight. So you can see her kind of running away from the situation, which is a lot of our reactions. When we get really stressed either we physically run away, or we feel like I don't know if you've ever had that feeling where your body feels so agitated, like you just want to get out of the situation. Or yeah, yes. Or it comes out in aggression of some kind. Not all of us don't slam doors, like maybe my family does, but you feel like your fists might be clenching up, you feel your body tense up. So that is because in that hyper arousal fight or flight mode, we're producing so much adrenaline and cortisol, that our body to quite literally get ready to run away or fight something off. Our body doesn't really know what to do with that. And that produces certain symptoms, like irritability, anger, frustration, crying, again, stopping slamming doors, yelling, screaming, crying tantruming. So any of those over the top kind of emotional reactions, that's hyper arousal. Now I'm sure there's some of you out there going right now. Oh, yeah, no, that's me. I definitely do that. Just hyper aroused, stressed person. So if that resonates with you, that is real, and there's a reason why that's happening. So, or if that resonates for your kiddos, if you have a kiddo that becomes very overly emotional when they're upset as well, that that hyper arousal reaction. Now on the other side of the screen is our character kind of curled in a ball, head down, looking pretty sad or withdrawn. This is hypo arousal or freeze mode. So freeze doesn't always mean quite literally freeze, it means your body is shutting down in order to survive by reserving all of its resources. So your blood pressure is going to drop very, very low, your heart rates going to actually slow down, your breathing is going to slow down because your body's preparing to survive in a very different way. And so that's what we're seeing here and this looks very similar to depression. It looks like we don't want to engage with others, we want to kind of shut the world out, we want to just kind of go to sleep or sleeping in too much sleeping is often a sign of a stress response. So shutting down in that way, or I do see, especially some of my high achieving adolescents that I work with. And also we do this as adults a lot is what we call fawning or robotic compliance, where we're just like, everything's fine. I'm totally fine, everything's fine as one of our legs is quite literally on fire. So. So we do that, too. We try to avoid the stress and pretend like it's not happening, but then it almost always bubbles over in some way. So this is a polyvagal theory. So check it out, get some more information about it. I do really like it. And it makes sense to me. Okay, last slide. Like I promised, I just wanted to highlight. Again, if you're having some sort of stress in your life, some overwhelming stress in your life, there's systems that are most impacted by stress, our sleep, eating and digestion. So if you start to see disruptions in any of those areas, so sleep, having a hard time staying asleep, falling asleep, having nighttime disturbances, like nightmares, or night terrors, or sleeping too much. Usually, it's to avoid that might be a sign of stress eating, we either eat too much, because we're trying to sell suit or make ourselves feel better with food, or we're not eating enough because we're not attending to those social social cues that you didn't get the eating cues, association cues. Also, I just read a really interesting study about "hangriness". I don't know if anyone gets hangry. Yeah, I do. And so my kiddos, well, there's a good reason for that our cortisol levels are inversely related to how full or hungry we are. So we get really hungry. Our cortisol levels skyrocket. And so it's all about glucose and cortisol levels. And so there's a real again, a real reason why we get hangry.Hannah Choi 27:04That's also validating, to hear Yeah, right.Dr. Alison Roy 27:08Not crazy. There's reason why I get hangry. So bring snacks always bring snacks, and then digestion. And so if you have a kiddo, or yourself who's got some tummy troubles going on, you just always feel like you've got an upset stomach, even we feel this in very small amounts, if we're going to give a presentation or we have something that we're quite anxious or nervous for, right, we get that butterflies in our stomach. So all of this just kind of combined, is I find it validating. It makes me feel like okay, there's real stuff going on, when we start to become really stressed and go into that stress mode. So, yeah,Hannah Choi 27:44Great, thank you. I feel like something that I just have noticed in my life. And just everything that I hear from people is I feel like people talk sort of peripherally about sleep and make sure you sleep enough, make sure you eat enough, make sure you know, you're exercising or whatever. But but it almost feels like it's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know. But it's true. You really do need to, it's that conversation. I feel like needs to be taken more seriously. Or something. We need to change the message somehow this is not just Yeah, yeah, thing like, need to, like really address it.Dr. Alison Roy 28:25Yeah. And if you think about if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs another really great accessible thing to Google will really resonate with a lot of listeners, I bet. But Maslow's hierarchy of needs is all about how do you achieve your full greatness, essentially, and you have to start the bottom part of the triangle, the bottom part of that triangle, the first step to achieving greatness is taking care of the most basic of needs. And if you don't do that, you can't move up the ladder. And so there is very good solid research decades and decades of research around sleep and eating and just the basic needs needing to be taken care of because our brain needs rest in order to have that ability to have neuroplasticity and grow and change.Hannah Choi 29:10Yeah, yeah. Yep. Great. So how is so how does so can you give some examples of like in someone's household, like how this kind of stress might impact everybody? Yeah, parents down to kids.Dr. Alison Roy 29:26Yeah. Yeah. So I always think about, you know, I, so I, I work a lot with the director of psychiatry at Dartmouth, and he and I have become really good friends and I have a really tough situation I'm working through I often call him and I did that for one of the families I was working with. I said, I just need some help. I need some strategies on what to do next. And he's said, sounds like you've got a polyvagal storm happening in that family. And I loved that concept of that image of that poly vagal reaction. I was just describing fight flight or freeze, if you're all having it individually as a family, you're all going to be having it as a family unit. And because our brains do play off each other. So there's lots of really good research out there about mirror neurons, which are also part of our frontal lobe. And our mirror neurons talk to other human brains, especially ones that we're very connected to. So our family members, all of our mirror neurons are very, very connected. And so when we start to get stressed, meaning us as parents, our kids brains are going to automatically respond to that. And it's crazy, if you were to, if you were to spend a lot of time being stressed as parents, and you looked at your cortisol levels, and even though your kids are experiencing that stressor, maybe it's a stressor at work, or you know, it's adult stuff that your kids aren't necessarily aware of, but there's cortisol levels are going to rise to meet yours. So our brains are very interconnected in that way and can play off each other stress wise. So it is important, we as parents are guilty of not taking care of ourselves very well sometimes. But if I can, yeah, it's hard if I can get you to buy into doing some self care for for you, but also for your kiddos, because the more you stay regulated, the more likely they're also going to be regulated. And you won't get caught up in that polyvagal storm.Hannah Choi 31:26Yeah, I remember that so much. Especially when my kids were younger. I I just remember thinking like, oh, yeah, this is we're all we're all like feeding off of each other right now. Nobody is helping anybody right now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember one particular moment, right after my son was born. So now. So at this point, I have like, maybe like a month old baby, and then a three year old and then me. And then my husband was working from home. And he came up from his basement office, and the three of us were sitting on the couch crying. He was like, oh, no, what happened? And I knew what happened. Yeah. We all I'm sure needed a snack. Dr. Alison Roy 32:09Yeah, and probably a nap. So yeah, we started there, or you're probably tired, or you're probably hungry. SoHannah Choi 32:17Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a strategy that we teach our clients that you maybe you've even heard of, because I don't think we came up with it. HALT stands for like hungry, angry or anxious, Lonely or Tired. And it's such a good thing to check in, check in on.Dr. Alison Roy 32:32Yeah, and one of the, one of the ways so we've we've already talked about a couple of the ways to stop this polyvagal response from happening in his tracks, is to, you know, figure out basic needs or there's some sort of basic need, because if you're hungry, if you're tired, you will trigger that red brain response. Whether even if like your amygdala picks up on nothing else in the environment. Unfortunately, your amygdala also picks up on internal cues. So even if you're thinking about something that's stressful, your amygdala will also pick up on that. So even if the environment around you is as calm as can be. So um, so yeah, we always talk about that strategy. But also, you know, if you're like, Okay, well know that they've gotten enough sleep. And we don't need a snack right now, we just had a snack connection, human connection. So let's fix that loneliness, like you just said, is actually the number one way to decrease that red brain response. Because if you remember the Blue Brain, you've got partial Blue Brain online, when you're even when you're in that red brain response. And that that Blue Brain is looking for MI loved. And if you're able to connect with someone, and it doesn't have to be very long research shows it has to be even 30 seconds of connection. So a hug, can can calm that red brain or at least bring a little bit more of the blue and green brain back online.Hannah Choi 33:56I remember learning about that. Like she called it a 20-second hug in the book "Burnout". Yeah, yeah. And as one way to, like close that stress loop. And so the other day, my son had a really stressful morning before school, and, and he was really having a hard time. And I was like, You need a 20-second hug. Come here. Yeah, I was like, Mom, I don't have time for a 20-second Hug. Dude, you need it. So, I scooped him up. I'm like, Just relax into me for 20 seconds. I think we lasted maybe 10 seconds.Dr. Alison Roy 34:30I think that's funny. So two thoughts about that. One is parents always asked me but what if they're not wanting a hug in that moment, and I and I get that I've been there. I don't have teenagers yet. But I can imagine with teenagers that's particularly hard. So sometimes I say to him, I said, Do you need a hug to my own kids? And they'll say no. And sometimes I'll say, well, I need one. And that's not untrue. Actually, there's a lot of times where we're having some sort of stress response together and I could use a hug as well. And that'll Almost always loops almost always get them so. But the other thing I wanted to say about that is I taught from the book "Burnout" for several years. And I love that book. I love that. It speaks our language, right of like the brain's response to burnout. And someone came back to me and said, you know, you talked about the 20-second Hug. And my husband and I have now decided when we get an argument, we're going to stop and do a 20-second hug and then continue the argument. And she said, It works every time to do that's awesome. It's super awkward because it's, if you actually time 20 seconds, it's a long time to be so funny. I was like, That's a great story. I love it.Hannah Choi 35:41I love that. Yeah. It's funny. That's, that's, that's great advice. And I actually learned that a long time ago when my daughter was one I was at I was in a mom's group and someone in the moms' group brought an astrologist to the moms' group. And she just did like little mini readings on all of our kids. And she told me, she said, you're Yeah, it was very cool. She said, Your daughter is not going to be a hugger. But she's going to need hugs. So you're gonna have to tell her that you need a hug in order to get her to get the hugs that she needs. So I've always used that for her. Dr. Alison Roy 36:21Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And 'cause some people aren't naturally that way. Yeah.Hannah Choi 36:25Yeah. And that reminds me of the article that we talked a little bit about the last time you presented that, or in the New York Times article, where the teacher I think, asked, "Do you need to be hugged, heard or helped?" And, and I love that, and I love that she said that she finds that most people just want to be hugged. Which which shows, yeah, you do need that physical touch.Dr. Alison Roy 36:50Right? Yeah. So most people in that I think what happens when we become stressed is or when we see a loved one being stressed. So as a parent, especially I find this when our kiddos are stressed or upset or frustrated, or whatever that big powerful emotion is. It's hard for us to tolerate that distress because we love them. And we don't want to see them hurting. And also, it's upsetting to us. So we start to have reaction that we don't like, either. So it's really hard to watch that. And so what we typically end up doing, I think I talked about this is trying to fix, because our heap, that's what our human brain does, our human brains are problem solving machines. And so they like to be able to solve the problem and move on. But as we know, most problems aren't solvable. And so when we need come up against something that's not solvable, or that's uncertain, or doesn't have any answer, it does send that secondary brain red brain reaction. And so, as parents, it's hard to pull it back and go to that. Do you need a hug? Do you need to be heard? Or do you need to be helped? Because we jumped to the helped part. And a lot of the times when we're upset, we're not ready to be helped. And I think I said this too, when we were talking earlier is that men, dads, tend to go to help even quicker, like that male kind of response. I'm sorry, that's your male brain. I'm sorry. Yeah. They are the problem-solvers. And so really helping just us as parents learn. Asking that question first helps to slow things down. To give that hug to hear them out to validate validation doesn't mean you agree, you can say I'm sorry, you're sad. Sounds like you're sad, anything like that, even if you think it's ridiculous at their side, and this will be up here and that internal dialogue, right, this is crazy. I can't believe I'm validating the side of this right now. Yeah, they need to be heard. And then you can get to that problem solving piece if they're when they're ready for it and you allow those first two steps to happen. Usually, then they're on board for Okay, let's move forward. How do we do that?Hannah Choi 38:58And the easiest way to do that, I imagine is if you are regulated yourself, and yeah, accessing that your frontal lobe and your executive function skills, you need that perspective taking and cognitive flexibility, right, empathy. Dr. Alison Roy 39:13Yeah, so it's always okay to take a minute. I talked sometimes about the show "Bluey". When I talked to parents, and I don't know if you're, we're a big Bluey fan in our house andHannah Choi 39:24My kids are too old.Dr. Alison Roy 39:26Yeah, oh, that's too bad. You should watch it anyways. Um, yeah, it's totally entertaining his parents, but there's an episode where the mom and the two there's two little girls and the well, they're all dogs, but they are, you know, it's after school very clearly. And the kids are like, oh, oh, and mom's making snacks. And she's looking a little stressed and the dad comes home and she's like, I need a minute. And he's like, yep, yep, no problem. And so she goes and takes 20 minutes. And chaos ensues while she's gone, but adorable chaos. But you know, it's always okay to take that time to say, I just need a minute to be able to then come back and as long as you come back around and are fully engaged. Yeah, so, and Dan Siegel talks about that as well, in his book, Parenting From the Inside Out, he does a really great job of talking about engaged, sometimes you're ready to engage, you come home from work, you walk in the door, let's do it, I want to play Legos. And I want to get down on the floor, and I want to engage, and I'm gonna see all the things you did at school today. There are other times we come in the door. Likely, it's those times when our red brains already been activated before we come in that door. And we're just not ready to go down that path with our kids. Yep. And it's okay to say I just need 10 minutes, set a timer, and I'll be right there with you, and then just loop back around with them. And that that repair that coming back around can be just as powerful if not moreHannah Choi 40:48And such good role modeling for your kids. That it's showing them it's okay to do that. Yeah. So I haveDr. Alison Roy 40:55Impulse control. Yeah, our new society is on demand. And so have prolong that reward. It's super, super beneficial for their frontal lobe. So yeah,Hannah Choi 41:09I have a friend who has shared with me that it's, she finds it very difficult to take that pause, she, she immediately reacts, she, like immediately yells or immediately wants to fix something. And it's really difficult for her to just breathe and stop. And so do you have any recommendations for parents who might feel that way?Dr. Alison Roy 41:30Yeah, so some of us are naturally chemically made that way, well, we're just more reactive. So I would say in the moment to try to take a breath to try to remind yourself to that pause, remember hug, heard or helped, right. So just in that moment, trying to remember those steps. So that's something there's also a lot to regulating when we're not dysregulated. So working in regulation to try to ease off that irritability when we're not in the moment. So that's always something I try to recommend to parents get that regular, regular diet of regulatory moments, and they don't need to, I don't need to be big. And I think that was something I needed to hear, especially during the pandemic is, you know, like I said, three to five minutes, if it's a regulatory activity that you enjoy, whether it's taking a walk, or getting some fresh air, getting sunshine, or listening to a good song or podcast, you don't need a ton of time. And it can be less 30 seconds or less if you're just doing that physical connection. So just trying to weave those in throughout your day, to kind of keep that irritability level a little bit lowerHannah Choi 42:37The baseline, get the baseline lower. Dr. Alison Roy 42:39The baseline, right? We want to keep in that tolerance there. And then the last thing I will say is, it's okay, if that's your natural personality, or if you're in it right now, you know, meaning like maybe all three of your kids are under the age of five, and you're spending a lot of time in that zone. Because what can be even more powerful is if you have that snap reaction, the moment is being able to come back around and say, I'm sorry, I wasn't my best self. And here's how we how can we do better next time and making it about the week? It's about the pair? It's about that dyad a parent child, how can we do better next time. And that is, it's so so powerful, the repair. And it's also a really good role modeling of accountability, I just read a really good article about, we want our kids to be accountable. And accountability isn't something that's naturally kind of within us fully, we have to have that modeled and demonstrated for us. And the parent apology is so powerful and modeling accountability. And then the last piece, I'll say about that, yeah, that was I was cool article for me to read. I thought, Oh, this is really cool that we want our kids to be accountable, we have to demonstrate that. And the last thing I'll say about that is is changing the way we talk about apologies and this is something I've been pretty. Ever since learning this I've really helped my kids kind of understand this and as a family understand this is when we apologize, it's we don't have to say it's okay. There are times when it's okay, and we can say that's okay. There are times when it's not okay. And so it's better to say thank you for apologizing, because it makes it more about the weight of the apology and appreciating that than it is about the action that causedHannah Choi 44:22Right, right, right. Something that I remember from your presentation, during the pandemic, you talked about how repetition like repetitive behaviors can be really calming to the brain. Can you share a little bit about that?Dr. Alison Roy 44:40Yeah, so rep got repetitive, rhythmic? Any sort of anything like that? Can be it resonates with that bottom part, that red part of our brain, and that's something that we are wired for as humans from the get go. So when we're in utero, we're being regulated by our moms, right, there's nothing that we can do to regulate ourselves. So we're being regulated by, certainly her body temperature, her way of feeding us, but also her body movements, or rhythmic movements and her heartbeat. And so we are pre programmed to have that resonate with the most primal part of our brain. And so the brain scans that they've done just show when we do these repetitive rhythmic movements, how it engages and lights up that bottom part of the brain shows us or demonstrates to us that that's really that's the language of that part of the brain. So if we want to regulate that part of the brain, so that's why swinging. So you see kids that are, you know, have those swings at school. So swinging, walking or running is so helpful. So they'll actually there's been studies done where kids with speech and language delays, they'll put them on a treadmill and have them do their like activities on a treadmill and how much more productive they are, because it's just regulating that caught in that red part of their brain and the left side. Yeah, so really cool. Drumming. So anything like that, if you can think of rhythmic and repetitive, anything, those two words are really, really regulating coloring. So even this motion of coloring, these things really do work. So again, giving science so what we're told, right, there's like these coloring books, these adult coloring books and yoga and walking and running. And, you know, why are why are these things helpful? Well, there's a real reason why they're helpful. Because it does resonate with that part of our brain.Hannah Choi 46:44Right? I love that. It really, truly does. And I've said this before, so many times on the podcast and all of my clients, I'm sure I'm like, yeah, yeah. But to learn to learn about what's going on in your brain, just helps so much understand, like, why I'm so like, why am I supposed to do these things to help myself? And just knowing that why really, for me, always motivates, motivates my, like, just motivates me in doing those things. Yeah, yeah. So as soon as like, as soon as I learned about how it never even occurred to me, but like, you have to practice your, whatever self regulation strategies you use, you have to practice them so that so that they're easily accessible when it's time to use them. And yes, and it didn't occur to me like, well, we practice walking, so that walking is easily accessible to us when we need it. Or we practice anything like anything that we need to come easily to us. So learning that about, about whatever self regulation strategies that we need to use, yeah, let's practice them. So I just like drive around doing that square breathing. And, yes, and then it just comes so much more easily to me, when I'm in a moment where I'm like, Okay, well, yeah, you know how to do this.Dr. Alison Roy 48:07I always say, practice and have any tools that you might need to regulate, like, I'll go back to the coloring have a coloring book and crayons. Yeah, whatever it is in a designated place, because you go, last thing you want to do is be stressed when you're trying to find your regulation.Hannah Choi 48:20Where's my coloring book? Dr. Alison Roy 48:22Yeah, that is and you talk about practice square breathing, just to go and we'll do one more geeky brain thing but neuronal development is, you know, it's a, if you don't use it, you lose it. So if you don't use parts of your brain that actually will, your brain will prune that area of your brain. And so we definitely want the brain pruning what we want it to prune and not pruning other things. But neurons, we say "neurons that fire together wire together". So the more we use in neuronal pathway, like square breathing, the more wired it becomes, the more quick and accessible. This is why we practice tying our shoes, we practice riding our bikes, you know, as kids, there's lots of examples of that neuronal development of creating that pathway that's quite clunky at first, and then the more you use, it becomes lightning fast, because it's well oiled machine. And so you want that to be true for your coping skills or regulatory skills as well.Hannah Choi 49:18Yeah, I give both my kids play instruments and I, they're so tired of me hearing hearing me talk about executive function skills, and the brain. But I do remind them like, you, when you first got that piece of music, you looked at it and thought, Oh, my brain, like I don't know how to do this. And now you can play it without even looking at the music. And that's such a good evidence that that it is yes, we do get better when we practice and it's so worth it to put effort into the things that we do.Dr. Alison Roy 49:47Yeah, music is part of that rhythmic repetitive. That's why so many of us are regulated by music of some kind.Hannah Choi 49:55Yeah, yeah. So you have anything else that you that's that you want to share with parents who might be struggling in the moment.Dr. Alison Roy 50:05Yeah, I think the last thing I'll end on and this is just something I love talking about, because for me as a parent, I think it changed. The way I parented when I learned this is all about temper tantrums, and where they fit into this profile. So I think I mentioned temper tantrums are red brain reactions. So when we're having one of those temper tantrums, our kids are having one of those temper tantrums because we have we have them as adults. We don't ever stop having temper tantrums. That's a big myth, no, we always have them. But it does look different depending on how much frontal lobe we have. But when our kids are having those temper tantrums, when I was an early parent I was always told to ignore leave them alone, have them leave the room. And what that actually does is create this secondary panic response. Because in that moment, our red brain is looking for hugged helped or you know, heard. And so I always give the example of the first time I learned this about a temper tantrum not to ignore but to actually engage. I tried it. I called I called my colleague after this is all over and said, Oh my gosh, it actually worked does not magic, it actually worked. So my youngest, he was about two, maybe two and a half at the time. And his name is Finnegan and he is fiery Finnegan Riley, and he fits that name perfectly as a fiery Irishman. And he wanted a popsicle. I was like, Oh yeah, sure, buddy. Go ahead and and went into the freezer, and we only had orange popsicles and full blown meltdown. And in that moment, his brain viewed that as a life or death situation. I'm laughing because as adults are like this, isn't it? Yeah. So I was I saying to myself and my in my head, right internal dialogue. This is crazy. But on the outside, I said, Oh, buddy, I know it's so hard when you only only have orange popsicles and you want a red one. I'm sorry, you're sad? How can we help this to go better, I got down, I just sat down on the floor next to him. And just kept kind of saying those things over and over again. And he eventually crawled in my lap and was he was still sad. But was able to then calm down. And you know, when I before I did it, I thought isn't that giving in to the temper tantrum? reinforcing it right? This is what we're always afraid of as parents is reinforcing it. And no giving into the temper tantrum or reinforcing it would be driving to the store and getting that red popsicle. In that moment. All I was doing was giving his red brain what it needed to be able to get that logic and rational thought what little he hasDr. Alison Roy 50:26Whatever he hasDr. Alison Roy 52:40To come back online. Oh, okay, I'm, I'm this is, you know, there's still popsicles just not the color I wanted. And how can we move forward? So yeah, it's not perfect. It's not a perfect science. But, you know, learning that I think, to me really changed the way I parented.Hannah Choi 53:05Yeah. And it is so hard to because we're also probably pretty, if we're not, maybe we're just in our emotional brain, but we're probably also a little bit down in our red brain. So it's hard. We have to, like, get ourselves out of there to be able to do that instead of just yelling it or just slamming the door and leaving the room. Right? Yes.Dr. Alison Roy 53:26Yeah. And I found that reaction to be calming for me to to be like deep breath. Yeah, how crazy this is. Yeah, get on the floor. Right. Right. It's really hard. Yes. You saying it to yourself to man, this is really hard.Hannah Choi 53:41I'm having a hard time. I'm having a hard time. Yeah, yeah. I remember putting my daughter in. She wouldn't she was tantruming for so long. And I was just losing my mind. So I ended up filling the tub. And I put her in clothed in the tub. And she stoppedDr. Alison Roy 54:02Yeah, cuz her amygdala needed something temperature wise. Yep. Yeah,Hannah Choi 54:07yeah. Yeah.Dr. Alison Roy 54:09Do the best. We do the best that we can we doHannah Choi 54:12That's right. That is right. Sometimes they go in the tub clothed. At least I made the water warm. At least I didn't wasn't like you're getting cold.Hannah Choi 54:26All right. Well, thank you so much, Alison. This is just I mean, we know both of us could probably keep talking about this all day. But forever as I Yeah, people probably have places to go or they have like regulating activities to go practice. Dr. Alison Roy 54:41I hope so. Go practice your regulating activities! Hannah Choi 54:44I hope so too. And can you share with our listeners where they can find you and maybe some of your favorite resources that people might want to check us?Dr. Alison Roy 54:53Of course I have a website that I'm super terrible at updating but it does have some good resources on it. Hi, it's Dr. Alison roy.com. All one word, Dr.AlisonRoy.com. And then within that website, there's lots of different links to stuff including my YouTube channel, which is where I save a lot of the good resources that I find is even a playlist for parents and educators. So check that out. Certainly. And, yeah, that's, that's hopefully some resources for you.Hannah Choi 55:25Great, thank you so much. And that's our show for today. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen, I hope you learned something new about your brain. And if you weren't a brain nerd like me and Alison already, hopefully, we've convinced you to join the official club. We'd love to have you. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to some of the topics we cover today. And you can find the links to the slides that Alison referenced. If you know anyone who might be feeling the stress of parenting. Wait a second, I think that's all parents. Please share this episode with them. You can reach out to me at podcast at beyond booksmart.com I would love to hear from you. Please subscribe to focus forward on Apple and Google podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. If you listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify give us a boost by giving us that five star rating. You can sign up for our newsletter at beyond booksmart.com/podcast and we'll let you know when new episodes drop and we'll share information related to the topic. Thanks for listening!

Maria Putnam is originally from Bogota Columbia and grew up there. She has had opportunities to study in places like Switzerland and France and finally ended up here in the United States where she did her college studies. While in college she met her significant other who became her husband. Now, long after college, she and her husband have two children and live in Colorado.   Maria says she always has been surrounded by people different than she. She has always been interested in embracing different kinds of persons which lead her to working in education. She will tell us all about that as you will hear. After obtaining her Master's degree she oversaw the International Studies program for the Denver public school system.   As often happens on Unstoppable Mindset, when we talk about the subjects of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion we do talk about how persons with disabilities are left out of Diversity conversations. Maria rightly says that this happens due to a lack of education about disabilities. I think you will appreciate what she has to say. You also will see how her DEI Leadership Institute helps to improve the education of all of us concerning true Inclusion.   One final comment is in order. We have had a number of guests who discuss the concepts around DEI. This is, I believe, our third in a row. Rest assured that this is a coincidence. Many who ask to come on Unstoppable Mindset do happen, in one way or another, to be involved or interested in the concepts about Inclusion and Diversity. These conversations are relevant and, like you, I get to hear many different thoughts and points of view. What a great learning experience for all!   About the Guest:     Maria Putnam – Co-Founder and Director, DEI Leadership Institute Maria Putnam has experienced the achievement of business success through deep connection with people and cultures. She has more than 20 years of experience supporting effective Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She holds a master's degree in Community Education and a Principal license from the Department of Education from the State of Colorado. She has led inclusive practices for hiring committees, organized global leadership conferences and guided major corporate clients (Comcast, Cisco, Ericsson, Coors, Starz Entertainment) with DEI marketing strategies and campaign execution in reaching target markets in Hispanic, African American, and Asian communities. Maria has developed leaders in global international studies programs and supported the career growth of minority candidates in teaching, social services, and administrative leadership for Denver Public Schools in partnership with the International School Network and the Asian society. Maria has also built a strong network in the business community and partnerships with not for profit and social service organizations. She is fully bilingual and multicultural. Maria is a frequent conference speaker and has served on multiple boards including the Global Chamber where she has been a global advisor since 2015. She also serves as the DEI advisor to the City of Denver Global Landing Pad, a business acceleration program that seeks to assist foreign companies to validate their fit with the US market and explore opportunities in Denver.  Maria's work has been recognized and published by the national and international media. In 2019 she was the recipient of the Champion Award for leadership in the Global Chamber and her activities associated with immigrant businesswomen in Denver were the subject of a feature article in the Denver Business Journal.   Ways to connect with Maria:   e-mail: mariaputnam@leaddei.com website: www.leaddei.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/maria-putnam-17b60ba7     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes   Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Thanks for joining us, we really appreciate you being here. Hope you enjoy our talk today with Maria Putnam, who is a co founder of the DEI Leadership Institute. Among other things, she's got a lot of awards and different kinds of things that she can can tell us about. And so I'm not going to give it all away because it's more fun to let her tell her story. So Maria, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Maria Putnam  01:54 Thank you so much, Michael, thank you for this opportunity.   Michael Hingson  01:57 And and how goes it in Denver today. November   Maria Putnam  02:01 we have a storm. You know, it's storm a last night so it's been it's snowing, so it's cold right now.   Michael Hingson  02:11 Well, we have cold weather, but we don't have a storm here in Victorville. But the weather is still cold. So we cope. Well tell us a little bit about you kind of growing up and how you started out and all that I always like to start at the beginning as they say   Maria Putnam  02:26 Perfect. Well, I am from Bogota, Colombia. I grew up in Bogota and love my city had the opportunity to actually study overseas since for my high school, I actually traveled even Switzerland and then in France and actually ended up here in the United States. Then I saw I, I did all my education here in the states in I have been always passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. I think that early in my years when I had I was surrounded by by students, my classmates from all over the world. It was my first introduction to to the i in the best way. So yeah, and I have been doing diversity, equity and inclusion for the last 20 years.   Michael Hingson  03:25 So you did college and so on in the United States. Did you go to college? Yes, I   Maria Putnam  03:29 went to college. I did my master's in education. I got a principle license. I've been in education for a while. And yes, so all my education has been in the United States.   Michael Hingson  03:46 Wow. So what did your parents think about all this traveling and so on? Or did they encourage it and support it and all that and how do they help in the process?   Maria Putnam  03:56 Oh, yeah, well, yeah, yeah. They always help me and support me especially my mom she she has been my my hero my whole life. So yeah, they always support me and I am the only one from my family who actually decide to leave a bra. My my brothers and sisters they think is travel and they may we study a year and they go back but nobody has really moved out of the country.   Michael Hingson  04:28 Well, they they obviously enjoy yes there.   Maria Putnam  04:31 Yes, very much so they love Colombia. They they do love Bogota.   Michael Hingson  04:37 It's a it's a pretty big city, isn't it?   Maria Putnam  04:39 Oh, yes. Bogota is a big city, very metropolitan. We have all kinds of businesses there. And yeah, it's a it's a really big city. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  04:54 What's what's the population do you know?   Maria Putnam  04:57 I don't know what is the population by I will find out for you. I have not, but I know I   Michael Hingson  05:03 know have big city. Yeah. I've been curious. Yeah. Well, I knew that it was a pretty large city. And it's definitely metropolitan is as big cities are. And but but she moved to the US what made you want to stay here as opposed to going back there like all your siblings?   Maria Putnam  05:18 Well, I came to school here. I mean, I did my education here. So one thing leads to the other. And when you are an international student, what I didn't know is that they give you like a green card for two years with some, somehow some way that the system kind of Recompense give you kind of break, because when you are an international student, you are not allowed to work. Or to I mean, you're supposed to have all the funding to come to study here. But when you finished actually, immigration gives you like a working permit. So you know, I got that and I started working in one thing led to the other I actually made my husband in, in college in so yeah, and then we decided to stay here we thought about going back to Colombia, and then that never happened. And I mean, like, go and move back to Colombia. And then it happened. And so I established myself here. That's been I have two kids, and they are from here. And it's hard when you have kids here. Really go back and you know, and just leave them here I am fro I am so a Colombian mom in that regard.   Michael Hingson  06:44 So are you still a Colombian citizen or a US citizen? Or do you do both? Or what? Oh, I have to citizen. Okay, that makes it easier to work, doesn't it? Oh, yes, it   Maria Putnam  06:55 does. Yeah. Because I yeah, I Yeah. Columbia allowed double, you know, to have another citizen chip. And so we have I have both.   Michael Hingson  07:07 How old are the children?   Maria Putnam  07:10 My daughter is actually very, and my son is almost 19 is going to be in an M in a month. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  07:20 So have they been to Colombia yet? Oh, yes. Okay.   Maria Putnam  07:24 Yes, yes, yes, they have been in Colombia. And I always try to take them for summer rakes and Christmas times. So yeah.   Michael Hingson  07:37 What was your master's degree in?   Maria Putnam  07:40 It was in community education,   Michael Hingson  07:43 which, of course, means that it's a great way to understand why you got involved in one way or another and the whole concept of diversity, equity and inclusion.   Maria Putnam  07:54 Yes, absolutely. And I had the opportunity to do my master, and Vermont, in Ghana College in I really liked that I was able actually to do it there. Because the people who actually go to that school are very progressive, as people who's really making a difference in the world. I think that was one of the best decisions I made was to go to Ghana college.   Michael Hingson  08:28 So when that was over, and you had your master's degree, what did you then go off and do with that?   Maria Putnam  08:34 Oh, I was working with a location at that point. So I The good thing is I was able to apply, I was doing, I was actually overseeing the International Studies program at the Denver Public School is one of the biggest largest school districts in the United States also. So I was overseeing the International Studies program. And actually, my thesis at that time was basing inclusive leadership. So it was really good to develop a program that actually gotta apply in the district at that time.   Michael Hingson  09:13 Uh huh. Yeah. What? So what was the basic premise or the conclusion? Well, in the conclusion of your thesis,   Maria Putnam  09:23 it was more into the emigrants and how, how we can Oh, he was a whole campaign in educating, educating leaders to communicate, to have a more effective communication with immigrant communities, and was all based in education equate educating the leaders so they can have a bigger impact. And in communicating with the immigrants, not only the students but also the parents   Michael Hingson  10:00 And what has happened with that? I mean, obviously, you had some ideas and thoughts as to what that should look like and how to help in educating and getting people to be more accepting. How does all that work? Well,   Maria Putnam  10:15 I think the key is, I think it has to be with redesigned the communication systems and institutions. So they have a bigger impact, such as I think that, you know, the school districts they have, they have layers of who do you know, the people who's in the central office and the people who is down in the school settings. But I think they established recruitment and start with, I mean, it started with recruiting the right leaders, the leaders, who are actually well equipped to lead with the with diversity, equity and inclusion, and how that actually goes through the school settings, and how we communicate with those leaders in the school settings, and how we help them to, to obtain all the tools. So they can, they can communicate better with teachers in the how they can communicate better with the students and how they communicate better with the community.   Michael Hingson  11:24 So what's an ideal person who you would like to see recruited for leadership positions in a school district, whether it's the superintendent or some of the other decision makers?   Maria Putnam  11:36 Oh, well, I have met wonderful principals who I think they will do a really good job as a superintendent, I think that as as a as a deposition of superintendent, that person should have been, they must have an experience in the classroom, for example, I'm talking about yesterday, because they will understand better or in a school setting, so they will have a much better understanding. Because it's all about the kids. I usually say, we all, we all have one purpose, and it's the well being of the kids. And but the kids, you know, when the kids they require the parents require the teachers require. I mean, it's a whole team that actually is helping every single child.   Michael Hingson  12:35 Yeah, it has to be more about a team than one person that the world has. Well, has, I really should learn that it's all about being part of a team. And listening to the whole team. It would seem to me, Yep,   Maria Putnam  12:50 yeah. No, I always, I always say take takes a village.   Michael Hingson  12:55 Yeah, it does take a village. Yes, yes, yes. It, the whole issue of diversity and so on, has been an interesting one. We've talked about it a number of times on this podcast, I don't know how many of our episodes you've listened to. But one of the things that I always talk about with diversity when the subject arises is the problem with diversity is it leaves out disabilities, when you ask people about diversity, they talk about culture, they talk about race, or gender, or sexual orientation, and so on. And disabilities aren't included in the conversation. Now I recognize that people have levels of expertise about their particular area of diversity. But the problem is that we leave some things out. Inclusion, we shouldn't leave anyone out. Because either you are inclusive, or you're not, you can't be partially inclusive, or, Oh, well, we do include people from foreign countries, or we include people who are black, but that doesn't include everyone. How do we change that?   Maria Putnam  14:08 Well, here's again, to someone who don't see it a different way than implication, I think we should put more in education. I think education is the key. I think that that will be from my perspective, the solution to any problem is to really provide more education all the way around, and you're absolutely right. I have here comments about disability disabilities, where people say I didn't know. Yeah, civilities was a DI, problem, or di including the DI I have here think so. I think that goes back to the roots that goes back to education, how much education are we giving? Or we are offering in the curriculum to begin with? You know? Yes, in a school settings we do we know, we have all the program for IP, you know, and those numbers are really going higher and higher. But also in the, in the, in the workforce, and the workforce. I mean, if you really look at the statistics, and the studies, a lot of people is afraid to talk about any disability because they are afraid to be rejected, to don't be to be fired, too. So there is there is that is a big proportion of okay, how we can deal with, with education, you know, in how we can incorporate education everywhere. That's why, for example, that was that was my, my inspiration to create in the DI Leadership Institute. And it was that people to educate themselves. So in that way, every leader can make better decision they are equipped with, with better tools.   Michael Hingson  16:28 Well, tell us if you would more about the DEI Institute, what it is and how it's set up what it teaches and so on, if you would,   Maria Putnam  16:37 oh, absolutely. So, the DI Leadership Institute is designed to, to help leaders to obtain the history to obtain all the education and history in data and how to measure results in in to really understand what is what is the i di is a big broad topic is a huge topic is now something that is, I always say a certification is it's Yeah, to give you a lot of a lot of knowledge about every single subject. But it's a big umbrella topic you can spend many, many years I mean, the more honestly, the more I know about the AI, the more I know that I have much more to learn, right? I mean, I when somebody come across to me and say I'm an expert, then the I will always say well, I don't know if we can ever be an expert in this area, because it's so deep and I have so much respect for the topic and for the subject of di so I'm going back to your question. The Di Di certification program is called the master Certification Program is a is an online self paced. Advisor provided program is in last six to eight weeks. And they have an advisor the whole time and the students they have to develop a project for chain. So they have to apply what they are learning in the program. This is not a checkbox certification. So that's that, that was the, my, my mission with this certification program was to really help those leaders to learn.   Michael Hingson  18:46 So, so how do you do that what what do you teach? Or how do you help them to self discover the idea of becoming a person who is more open to things that are different or becoming more inclusive?   Maria Putnam  19:03 Yeah, well, the program itself is designed in three entry levels and every level has between four to six modules. So, in every module, they they have to they have to well they start doing the project for chain. So when they start the program, I meet with the students and we talk about the expectations through the program. And when they finish the level, the first level they meet with me they by that time they have already identified a gap in their workforce, the workplace with that they can they can apply the DI any area where they feel like they want to they want to apply so so they have to self check themselves. The program is designed for them to check their knowledge self check the knowledge and then they have to develop they have to in the second in the second I'm level they have to send a draft with the their project for chain. And we we work on it, I mean the student, we are in communication with students all the time. So I am a communication asking questions, what about this? What about that, because sometimes they they don't know how to break it down, or they don't know how to just get the concept and in creating a solution for the gap that they are, they have identifying their companies. So, so they develop the whole the whole project four chain, and at the end, they have to submit the final and the final have to meet some requirements. So they have to know how to, you know, the timeline, launching the program, who who will be the people that will be supporting the everything that they have a project for chart project. And so I work with them, and I help them to identify, and sometimes they don't know, is depends, sometimes they already have identified exactly what they want to do. So I help them through the project for chain so they can finish the program with something that they can apply. And they right now actually, I have a group of people who have graduated and we meet once a month. And they it's amazing. They they launched their they launched their product for chain and is huge. I mean, they are really making a difference in their companies.   Michael Hingson  21:39 So what kinds of projects or, or programs have people started within their companies then being with the with the Institute?   Maria Putnam  21:49 Yes, actually, they have created, they have worked with the I have things one, for example, who's in the recruitment and the HR. So they have review all the recruitment, in more for retention, also. So they create a whole program with a DI perspective with the inclusive vocabulary. That's one I have another one who actually create a community at the AI community in the company. In they have 15 people in they are really and those 15 people belong, they come from different department. So they have the DI voice. And they meet with HR department, and they made with the CEO, and they meet in today they are really proactive on the DI they are the voice. I have another my students who actually, at the time that she took the certification, they they were they were a new company, but the company that she was working, so she presented her project. And that led to a whole department of the AI. So they have people in the department right now. And and they are creating the company somehow have clients so they are creating more inclusive communications all the way around. So they are making sure that has an inclusive communication system.   Michael Hingson  23:29 So when the program do you talk about different kinds of areas of difference, whether it be race, or gender, and so on, or I'm trying to understand a little bit more about exactly what you do. And of course, the question that comes to mind is and how do we make sure that disabilities become part of that conversation?   Maria Putnam  23:47 Yeah, well, the program itself. That's funny, because I will be actually talking about that next week. Yeah, the program itself is designed to cover all the areas, and one of them is disabilities. One of their sensibilities, that disability part actually. We talk a lot about the disabilities in with is with the HR, the people who's working in HR departments. And they, they are the ones who actually have talked the most about and they so that's, that's where we focus more is where are they? How the company is making sure that they their accommodations for all the disabilities.   Michael Hingson  24:40 And what what kind of discussions or conclusions do people have about that? Well, yeah, let me just ask that and then we can talk about it. But so what happens when that subject of like accommodations and so on comes up? Dealing with disabilities?   Maria Putnam  24:59 What Well, the first thing that happened, and I experience with HR especially is with HR more than anything, they usually say that they, they are doing everything. If they if they have an employee who requires specific accommodation, they, they, they do whatever is needed. But when we go, when we actually go down to talk about what kind of accommodations they have, specifically, I notice that they actually are aware, but they they actually, actually not too long ago, one of the companies actually, they did the whole investment in, there are some computer tests that people have to take. And they were not aware that there is no everybody can really go on the same read at the same level. So they actually invest in the programs to have actually people have a problem due to, you know, any disability, for reading, that they get an extra time. So, yeah. All people who actually English is not the first language, they also are accommodating a the testing.   Michael Hingson  26:25 But what about bringing someone into the company who can't even see the computer screen? And needs the accommodation of having what's called a screen reader or special software to to actually be able to know what's on the screen, much less? how accessible the program, the test is, for people with screen readers have? Have those kinds of discussions ever happened? Or is that something that could be brought to, to bear as far as educating people about those are just as valid of issues to deal with?   Maria Putnam  27:06 Yes, actually, that came up in one of our conversations. And the company, actually, who have two people, they say that they already have all the equipment because they were working from home. But companies right now more than ever, are really willing to invest in any technology to help their employees.   Michael Hingson  27:32 Yeah, it's, it's important, because a lot of times we hear, Oh, it's too expensive to go pay 500 or $1,000, to get a screen reader. For for someone, we just don't have that kind of budget, even though they spend a lot of other kinds of money for other people to make it possible for them to be happy and function at work. We could talk about computer monitors and and even turning on lights is an expensive proposition. But the fact is that, in my experience, as a society, we have not yet truly recognized that financing, what we need to do to be fully inclusive for persons with disabilities should be part of the cost of doing business that it tends to be more of a fight than it needs to be. And I think you're right, it's all about, or at least in large part about education to to change those attitudes. But there is a lot of fear that goes along with it as well.   Maria Putnam  28:47 Yeah, I agree with you. And I have seen a huge sweets after 2020. I think that companies were not that okay. Like you mentioned before putting their money on an investing in those employees who need who needed that specific accommodation. Now, they they are now they do it, the ones who are resisting or didn't see it. And and that's the conversation that I have with HR directors is the company now is very willing. And I think like I said, I think before 2020 You can you can easily hear those stories that it was too expensive. They didn't see the need or just the easy way was just not to hire the people.   Michael Hingson  29:38 Yeah. Yeah. And that that unfortunately is still all too often the case. COVID has caused us to operate in a more virtual environment. But I in listening to what you're saying. The other side of that is to just say well then You just work at home, because you've already got this at home, doesn't give people the opportunity to work in the office. And so there is still that part of it. And then there, there are also other issues like, what does a company do to make sure that its website is fully inclusive and accessible to all people. Today, still, about 98% of all websites are not inclusive. Even in the COVID era, the Kaiser Health Foundation did a study I think, in 2021. And they found and they looked at 94, different COVID websites that dealt with being able to register and go get vaccines or get COVID tests, and so on. And only 10 of the 94 had even done anything to make sure that their websites were accessible or inclusive to all. So the conversations are still not happening nearly like they really should. And kind of what I'm wondering is because it sounds to me, like the DEI leadership certification program would be a great place to have more conversations about some of that.   Maria Putnam  31:18 Yep, absolutely. And it is and open. I mean, when we are doing that, well, that's one of the reasons. And it's very successful during the project for chain, because they have to develop and then when you talk to leaders to kind of find out the ins and outs of what do they have in place and what they are missing. Like I said, in my experience after the 2020 companies are more open to invest. Of course, with the pandemic, also, a lot of people is working from home more than they were before the 2020. So so that, you know, the the overhead, the overhead, it's, it's better for companies because they don't have to spend in so many things. They don't have them, the cost of overhead is not as much as they used to. And, actually, and that goes with something else. And is that the power of inclusion. Okay, yeah, people is working in their home people, as you see in everything that they all they already have their screen reader, they have everything, but how are we including those employees? How are we making sure that those employees feel that they belong to the company they have? I mean, what are they doing? And that's something that I have in some conversation with, with, with leaders. So like, what are you guys doing to make sure that everybody, you know, is included and feel included? That is called different? You know, I think that is a difference between, you know, do you do all the inclusion You Do? Do? Do you take care of the communication, you do all these ins and outs corporate. But how is the next buyer housed is that people feeling that sense of belonging. So that's a huge part there. And I think that is very convenient to have people working from home. But I don't know. At the end, how that really is, is it's beneficial for people because we are people in we need that. That, you know, interaction with other people, knowing the screens is a whole different experience.   Michael Hingson  33:36 And maybe the way to look at it is we need sort of a combination of the two people do like to interact with other people. And there is a lot of value in doing that. But if COVID has taught us anything, I wonder if it is that it is also appropriate to let people spend some of their time working at home, in what's a more relaxed environment, so that they are able to not be distracted by so much interaction. But I think you're right, that having just totally one way or the other is really the issue that tends to be a problem. And that there's room for allowing people to interact and have time in the office but also maybe allowing people to be able to be more flexible and spend some time working virtually.   Maria Putnam  34:38 Yeah, yeah, I think that I think that the extremes are not that good. I think that's something in the middle to balance time working from home and time actually interacting with other human beings. Talking about that will lead me to think about mental health and mental health but also as a whole is is another new layer of the eye. Because the numbers and mental health issues actually were really high during the pandemic. And so we have to kind of have balance, we have to have balance. I think companies need to think about their well being, oh, the employees in? Yeah, so that's, yeah, I don't I don't think that we are not we have no machines, we are the people, we are no computers that we need to interact with people in? And yes, it's convenient. But as you know, Michael know, everything that is convenient. That's good for us.   Michael Hingson  35:46 Yes.   Maria Putnam  35:49 So, so I kind of question that. Now, my question that I asked myself some time, what is gonna I mean, a lot of real estate, the real estate, a lot of buildings, commercial buildings, you know, companies say No, I don't need that building now. Because everybody's working from home. So the question is, what is gonna happen? If, are we going back that people has to be working from the office all the time, and our company is ready for that? Because I've been that it's been it's been a big chain in the world with this doodle, commuting and not and working from home and they online. So and we have to think about with the DI land, how inclusive? Are we? How do you really have a sense of belonging when you just work from home, and you just see all your co workers in meetings and through that computer screen? Because you connect with the people and but that doesn't mean that you develop a relationship with people, when you work in person, you have more opportunities to develop those relationships to have conversations outside the meetings.   Michael Hingson  37:11 So what's the solution?   Maria Putnam  37:14 I will think that the solution is to call half and half. I think that i i I talked to someone not too long ago, that was last last week. And they were saying that they were required to be three days in the office. And then they will work two days from from home, which I seen that will read that right there, I think will be good for for people thinking about the you know, mental health and in being feeling included, included. Having the feeling of belonging. That's what I think now, if we go more into being one working from home and our communication, our connections is through online meetings. Well, I think that the companies need to put an extra effort on how to make people feel included, and how to how to get and how to do work with so many other leaders.   Michael Hingson  38:26 Should companies sponsor more social events for their employees after hours, and so on? Was that one way to do it? I do agree with you. As far as the concept of a hybrid or working some from home. And some in the office, I have a niece who works at a job where she's required to be at the company, so many days a month, and I don't even know what it is. But the rest of the time. She does work from home, which helps her because she has a son who has a seizure condition. And on the days that she goes into the office, he is really home alone. So there are some cameras and she can help keep an eye on him. And he's had some seizures when she's not at home. They haven't been too serious. But still, she likes the ability to have a somewhat flexible work schedule. And she knows what days she has to be in the office but she also knows what day she can be home and she can plan accordingly. And she would say that it does make her life a lot better that she can be around her son a good part of the time and her husband works at a job where he has to be at his workplace all day he and every day he works for an aircraft an airline actually, and he's involved out and being in mechanic or supervising mechanics, for repairing airplanes, and so on. So it's kind of hard to do that remotely. But she takes on the responsibility of working with her son, a lot more than than he does, although in the weekend on the weekends, then he he helps. But she likes the fact that she has the ability sometimes to be at home. And only sometimes she has to be in the office, and she does establish relationships with people through that hybrid environment. But it does bring up the point, should companies do more to create maybe some other opportunities for people outside of just the regular workplace to get together and socialize? Or maybe after, after work parties or something? What? What do you think about that conceptually,   Maria Putnam  40:56 I really like that idea. I think that they should be mandatory, because otherwise people don't do a little more like a requirement that they do. Part of part of the, you know, the agreement, when they sign a contract with the companies that they will attend, let's say from 10, at least five of the require meeting. So here's so that will be that will be a good solution. People who have families, it's hard for them sometimes to take time away from their kids. And from there. So we have to be also be conscious about it. Because I mean, let's say well, okay, Saturday activity, Saturdays are, you know, taking the kids to soccer rather than so their family days? So I think it's working perhaps. Well, and another thing that I was thinking when you were talking about the example that you were given is a lot of the people who's working in companies, they're not even in the same state. Yeah. I know, people who actually is in Colorado, working by their companies in New York and San Francisco. So yeah, how to make that happen? Because if everybody's in the same city, okay, perfect. So it's a little bit tricky, but but I think will be so beneficial. In I think that it will be it will be, it will help tremendously. I mean, some people have families, but some people don't have anybody, and that people who don't have anybody, it's hard. Sometimes. The workplace is the only place where they see people. Yeah. Otherwise they're at home by themselves the whole time.   Michael Hingson  42:48 It becomes their family. Exactly.   Maria Putnam  42:51 Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, I think that we're thinking about the eye and thinking about mental health. And there is a balance there that I I hope that it, you know, we are leading into that we are leading to be more conscious. That's the word consciousness.   Michael Hingson  43:12 How many people have gone through the DEI Leadership Institute and graduated?   Maria Putnam  43:18 We have about, like, 120 people right now.   Michael Hingson  43:23 Uh huh. When did it when did the institute start?   Maria Putnam  43:27 officially start in 2020? Even Yeah, 2020. We started with the certifications.   Michael Hingson  43:34 Did you start because of COVID? Or was that just a coincidence?   Maria Putnam  43:38 It was a coincidence. That's funny, because they sleep was the sign to be in person. We were actually we were not that we make a switch because we were already doing some in person trainings like the whole program, we have a place where the people were going and in the specific amount of hours in studying so we have to chain the whole model to do it online. The nice thing is the two before 2020 did not start online. It was in person and it was here in the in Denver, Colorado.   Michael Hingson  44:20 So with it opening to being a virtual program. Have you found that that has opened the opportunity to bring people in a lot more from other states or even other countries?   Maria Putnam  44:33 Oh, yes. Very much so. And very interesting. We have we have actually a few from London. We have from India. Canada. So yeah, not only from the States. So yeah, I think that and I really liked that idea of Ah, I think that the internet, the technology has really help a lot with education. And we can reach to people that we weren't able to reach before. So I think that they're online, and then the model, the model is really high, it's really good because people can have the mean, everybody had jobs, and they can accommodate eight hours a week to study in their own spare of time. So when they have time, they accommodate their schedule. And so it's very convenient. And I think that we are going that direction, because that made me think about education, because a lot of people is studying more online right now, taking classes online that go into a physical building.   Michael Hingson  45:57 And if they've come to the institute, they're more motivated to do it, because they're obviously paying for it, or somebody's paying for it. So there's a little bit more incentive in their minds to actually do the studying and do the work.   Maria Putnam  46:10 Yep, yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And, but   Michael Hingson  46:15 because I'm thinking about schools, you know, we read all the time about how students Elementary in high schools and so on, have not necessarily kept up and they're, they're at a lower level than they were pre COVID. But it makes you wonder, Where is the incentive on their part, or on the part of their parents to really help them understand the value of doing it remotely? And I understand that, especially with children, there can be a lot of attention issues that that don't help. But so the the incentive isn't there, in the same way that there is for somebody who makes the conscious decision to do something like attend the institute?   Maria Putnam  47:03 Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's a that's there and really help with the program actually really helps to have an advisor because the advisor is right there actually checking on you check in on Okay, how are we doing? Do you have any questions that you want to so sometimes that to have that is not only the program that you just signed in and when your time is up, you are not allowed to get into the program? You are not allowed? Well, I mean, if there is there is there is programs where you buy the program, and you do you have a specific time, let's say one month, and you don't you you sign in or out in you, you perhaps did your time is up in you try to get in, you're already out because your time is expiring. So nobody really cares, did you really get information or no nobody cares. So do the easy to test completely different because you have an advisor who actually is checking on you is like okay, do you need any help? That is any question because we can see if the person where is the person in the process of their assignments or everything that he they have to do so. So they are not alone? They Yes, the pen the money that they pay. But also there is someone working with them.   Michael Hingson  48:36 And people can somewhat work at their own pace. So they may not complete it in exactly eight weeks.   Maria Putnam  48:42 Yes, they are. We have we have students as well life happened, like happen or holidays happen, you know, and and so people ask for more time. And yeah, we give them more time in the areas that they really finish with something that they can they can use. So yes, they Yeah, it's yeah, sometimes it's you know, we send messages in a you know, did you know you're about to have a week's let me know. I mean, and they usually go okay, now I have been busy now. I will do these and so we accommodate the people so they can finish the program? Yeah.   Michael Hingson  49:26 So tell me once the program is over the DEI Institute leadership program is over for someone they've graduated, then what happens with them?   Maria Putnam  49:35 Well, then they are automatically invited, and part of the network of people who has graduate so we meet once a month is a DEA Master Practitioner Network. And they have the opportunity to meet other people to learn what they do and to support each other And we keep learning that it's actually a really good learning dynamic that we have in that group. And also, once a year, we have the DI Leadership Conference. So they are invited to showcase their product for chain and to keep making connections. So, I mean, the certification is the first step, because they keep learning.   Michael Hingson  50:30 And so, have you had one of those programs where everyone gets together yet?   Maria Putnam  50:36 You're Yes, yes, we have. We have the network, and everybody really loved the network, because because the I could be, especially when you are trying to make a difference in companies, sometimes it could be a very lonely place. So it's really good to connect with other people who are, you know, working in the same direction with the AI, and having people to support each other, and to can have a sense of community. So that's very, that's very important, plus, you know, asking questions, things that are happening in their in their workplaces, and they come up with questions, so everybody gets to get to support each other.   Michael Hingson  51:28 Have you had the conference yet? For 2023? Where you get everyone together?   Maria Putnam  51:33 No. 2023 The conference is gonna be in August. So we will have that one. Well,   Michael Hingson  51:42 what have you learned since you started the institute? What? What kinds of discoveries have you may personally?   Maria Putnam  51:52 I have more respect. Now, more than ever, about DEI ? I have. I have learned that we have to take the DEI very seriously. And that's that's it, we had to walk our talk? And da,   Michael Hingson  52:18 where do you think that dei is falling short the most? Or what would you like to see change in terms of all of our observations and thoughts about dei   Maria Putnam  52:29 recruitment? I think their recruitment. In and I think HR, I would like to see more accountability in HR departments, the HR industry to the process of hiring, and the systems of retention. That's where I think we need to, we need to work more hiring the right people, helping the right people to to educate themselves. So yeah, I would like to see more, more the AI in the HR industry,   Michael Hingson  53:18 in the HR industry. How do we make that happen?   Maria Putnam  53:24 education, awareness, consciousness, I think that conscious leaders can really make a difference. If I am the CEO of my company, I want to make sure that my HR really has everything that they need to have in the operate and they weren't they walk the talk. I was reading an article not too long ago about how actually even changing the language of how to recruit people will actually attract better candidates. And, yeah, I think that when we communicate with human beings, we get better results.   Michael Hingson  54:05 Do we need to change some of the the language around the whole concept of diversity and inclusion or like when I talk about disabilities, some of the language needs to change around that?   Maria Putnam  54:18 Well, yeah, that's big part of the communication aspect. You know, I think that I mean, with less talk about loss, you know, that is, we have new laws coming every year. And with that, you know, the language change also. So it's all about communication, Michael.   Michael Hingson  54:41 Yeah. One of the things that I say is disability does not mean a lack of ability. And I think too many people still think that oh, disability means you're just not as able and when we deal with disabilities, I think we have to get over that disability does not mean a lack of ability. It's a characteristic and It is something that we should get used to, because everyone has some sort of a disability compared to other people, you know, from my perspective, you have a disability because you need light in order to function, you could probably learn well, you could probably all you could learn to deal with the world without light. But that's not what you do. And we have enough lights to allow you to be able to function pretty much all the time. But it doesn't mean that your disability of being like dependent has truly gone away, be it it's just that it gets covered up. Because there are a whole lot more people that need light than those of us who don't. And the result is that it gets pretty well covered up. But unfortunately, we haven't truly gotten to the point of accepting that disability, as some of us are classified as having me doesn't doesn't mean a lack of ability. And so, again, it just seems to be that it's all part of, we really need to change the language. And we need to allow some of the terminology that we use to change to mean something different than we thought it did in the first place.   Maria Putnam  56:13 Oh, absolutely. I agree. 100% with you. Yep.   Michael Hingson  56:18 Well, if people want to reach out to you and learn about the DEI Leadership Institute, and if they want to talk with you, or whatever, how do they do that?   Maria Putnam  56:27 They can go to the website is, you know, it's www leaddei.com.   Michael Hingson  56:34 Leaddei L E A D D E I .com. Okay,   Maria Putnam  56:38 leaddei.com. A. Yeah, you know, all my contact information is there. I am also in LinkedIn, so they can find me, and I always, I am very good at getting back to people.   Michael Hingson  56:52 How do they find you on LinkedIn?   Maria Putnam  56:55 I'm Maria Putnam. And so that Dei Leadership Institute.   Michael Hingson  56:59 Can you spell Maria Putnam, please?   Maria Putnam  57:01 Yes, M A R I A P U T N A M  Maria Putnam.   Michael Hingson  57:10 On LinkedIn? Yes. Well, great. This has been fascinating. And I know I do tend to talk about disabilities because it's what gets left out. But I really appreciate the insights that you brought to all of it today. And that we had a chance to really discuss it. Because I think it makes perfect sense to deal with all of this. And so I want to thank you very much for being here. And hopefully we can do more of this in the future. If you'd like to come back, we'd love to have you if you can think of other people who should come on our podcast, I hope that you will get us together because we're always looking for guests. And for you listening out there the same thing. We're always looking for podcast guests, so please let us know. You can reach me Michael Hingson at Michaelhi at accessibe  A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. And wherever you're listening, please give us a five star review. We really appreciate you doing that. And we hope that you'll tell us what you thought of Maria has insights and so on today, but again, Maria one last time. I really appreciate you being here. And thank you very much for your time today.   Maria Putnam  58:25 Thank you so much, Michael. Really great. Thank you for this opportunity.   Michael Hingson  58:36 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Join us for a lively SNL Hall of Fame Roundtable discussion with our esteemed panel of SNL aficionados - Darrin Patterson, Jamie Burwood, Victoria Franso, and Deremy Dove. We dive into the credentials of our SNL Hall of Fame nominees, including the impact of musical guest Paul Simon and iconic cast members like Dana Carvey and Bill Murray. We also ponder the lasting effects of writers like Paula Pell on the show's legacy and debate the influence of guests like Christopher Walken, Conan O'Brien, and John Belushi.Our spirited conversation takes us through the contributions of John Goodman, Jim Downey, and Candice Bergen, considering their potential induction into the SNL Hall of Fame. We reminisce about Goodman's versatile performances and chemistry with fellow cast members, Downey's daring comedic choices, and Bergen's groundbreaking legacy as a host. Throughout the discussion, we examine each nominee's lasting impact on SNL and the comedy landscape.As the debate heats up, we touch on the credentials of beloved cast members like Molly Shannon and Bill Murray, and consider their iconic characters and performances. We also discuss the underappreciated talents of Anna Gasteyer and Cheri O'Teri, and explore Darren's outside-the-box pick for his ballot, Jan Hooks. So, prepare to laugh and reminisce with us as we celebrate the legends who shaped SNL and consider who deserves a coveted spot in the SNL Hall of Fame.Transcript0:00:08 - Speaker 1It's the SNL Hall of Fame podcast with your host, Jamie Dube, Chief Librarian Thomas Senna, and featuring Matt Bardille At now. Curator of the Hall, Jamie Dube. 0:00:41 - Speaker 2Yes, hello and welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame Roundtable. This is the show in which we invite SNL Hall of Fame voters, in this case all former guests on this podcast. We invite those voters former guests to share their ballot and their thought process behind their choices. So this is always an interesting exercise to get the psyche of some of our voters. So in previous roundtables as well, we've had panelists even cut deals with each other for votes. We've had panelists change each other's minds. So there's going to be some like, willing and dealing. There's going to be a lot of that going on, maybe tonight, maybe with our esteemed panelists that we have on this particular SNL Hall of Fame Roundtable. So why don't we get to it? Let's introduce our wonderful panel And I'm doing something a little different just off the top. I'm going to let the listeners know that I'm doing a little icebreaker question to just kind of briefly get to know each of our panelists. So the question is which current cast member not including Kenan Thompson, because he's the obvious choice? So which current cast member not including Kenan Thompson could you see in the SNL Hall of Fame one day? So that's going to be our little icebreaker once I introduce our wonderful guests. So let's get started. Darren Patterson. Cohost of the SNL Nerds podcast. Darren, thank you so much for returning. You were on our Tom Hanks and Dana Carvey episode. Tom Hanks and SNL Hall of Famer. We'll see about Dana Carvey. Thank you so much, darren, for joining me today. 0:02:19 - Speaker 4Thanks for having me, Tom. This is fantastic. 0:02:21 - Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, we're excited. So the question is aside from Kenan Thompson, which current SNL cast member could you see in the SNL Hall of Fame one day? 0:02:32 - Speaker 4I can only pick one, because I kind of. 0:02:34 - Speaker 2Well, I don't know. Let's see. Well, who's your main one? 0:02:38 - Speaker 4The main one from this cast, I probably would say Colin Geo's. Just because he's been on this show for so long, he's written so many, he's written a ton of called-opens and he's Him and Che have been the longest running SNL Weekend Update anchors, news anchors to date. That's why I was thinking, just and Che probably the duo I could definitely see making it into the Hall of Fame. I could also see Boan making it into the Hall of Fame in the future. I mean, you know, first Asian cast member and he's made so many memorable, you know, snl Weekend Update. 0:03:27 - Speaker 2Oh, the classic instant play, the Iceberg sketch alone. 0:03:30 - Speaker 4Just exactly, Yeah. And even before that, I still remember when he made his first appearance he wasn't a cast member. It was in the Sandra Oh episode where he had to keep playing. I forget who he played, but he loved and impressed a lot of people's minds. People were like who's that guy? That guy is hilarious. And then the next season he became the cast member, So I could see, I could see Joe's Che Boan. There you go, That's a little. I like that. 0:03:56 - Speaker 2I think Eggos is a good choice. I think Joe's and Che some day going in as a duo is interesting. It'd be like the Al Franken and Tom Davis, they kind of be on the ballot together. So yeah, wonderful choices. I can see all three of them some day. So next we have on our panel from TV show graphs. I say from TV show graphs, but I don't know if you are TV show graphs, if you just have taken on like that's your persona, like you are TV show graphs, or you're just from, or the creator of, tv show graphs. 0:04:28 - Speaker 5I'll take it either way. 0:04:30 - Speaker 2Just taking it either way. Yeah, so Jamie Burwood, who was a previous guest for the Molly Shannon episode in season one, also my guest for Will Ferrell, who is in the SNL Hall of Fame, and somebody who's on the ballot right now, christopher Walken. So, jamie, thank you so much for joining me and you got to answer this question. 0:04:48 - Speaker 5Yeah, the icebreaker Okay. So I feel like those were all really good answers. Bowen was my initial just like gut reaction. I feel like just in terms of like having that like it factor where I feel like he'll continue to have that like longevity and like association with the show. I would say my other like maybe future looking pick would be like JJ, just like thinking about where I could see things going in the next few years and just like how unique it is, i think, for someone to come in with such the positive reception that he had and I feel like there's just an element of what he's doing that feels like really timeless comedy that like people could continue to appreciate for many, many years. So I would throw him into the mix but agreed with the other, with the other options as well. 0:05:42 - Speaker 2Yeah, i could definitely see JJ master impressionist. I feel like we'll be talking about his impressions for years to come, like how we talk about Darrell Hammond, for instance. I think that's a really good choice. So, thank you so much. Jamie Next we have, who is the co host of the bigger than the game podcast, which is a really great sports and pop culture kind of podcast that I enjoy listening to, and he was my guest this season on the Dick Ebersol episode, which I found fascinating. He's going to be a really fascinating one here on the ballot. So, mr Jeremy Dove, thank you so much for joining me. Jeremy. 0:06:21 - Speaker 6Thomas, i'm so pumped to be on with everybody. I'm honored honestly to talk about SNL Hall of Fame and see if my ballot can measure up to everyone else's and I'm open minded. So if someone brings up a great point and maybe I'm like I got to add this person or cut someone off, so I'm excited. 0:06:39 - Speaker 2That's what we're doing here. We're willing and dealing. 0:06:41 - Speaker 6We're willing and dealing. 0:06:42 - Speaker 2Yeah, you can. You can exchange votes. You can talk somebody into or out of a vote. It's going to be yeah, you can do it this as you please. So, Jeremy, which current cast member not named Keenan Thompson Could you see in the SNL Hall of Fame someday? 0:06:55 - Speaker 6For me it was the slam dunk and you kind of made that point of the way. Like Franken and Davis are duo and they're always going to be remembered as that duo. But Colin Joest and Michael Che just what those two, the chemistry that they have, the way that they bring I always love it when someone makes weekend update appointment television And those two have really done that and they've really, you know, brought that to the zeitgeist where I know plenty of people who don't watch SNL but want to watch those two and see what they're going to do And I think also what they're doing, as you know, head writers and behind the scenes. I'm interested in, once they're done with the show, to kind of look at their legacy and see like they're going to be in that category where I don't know if we fully appreciate it all that they've, you know, put it to the show. So those are my two that I look at as slam dunk. Hall of famers. 0:07:49 - Speaker 2Yeah. So it sounds like when it's time for Michael Che and Joest to be up for consideration for the Hall of Fame, jamie do and I are going to have to have a conversation about should we put them in as a duo, right? Should we put them in together? So that, yeah, that's going to be interesting. You and Darren both brought up really great things for consideration. So, yeah, jeremy, thank you so much. And finally, we have someone who's an improv and sketch performer, currently based in Chicago, also a frequent guest on our good friends at the Saturday Night Network. She's a frequent guest on their network and also my recent guest on the Amy Poehler episode of the SNL Hall of Fame. So, victoria Fronto, thank you so much. Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame round table. 0:08:36 - Speaker 3I am so excited to be here. This is my first, hopefully not my last, but this is a. It was very difficult to try to rank these people because you think everyone deserves not everyone, but deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. 0:08:52 - Speaker 2So, aside from Kenan Thompson, who we can all agrees the obvious choice among the current cast member, who from the current cast could you see in the SNL Hall of Fame someday? 0:09:03 - Speaker 3So I'll be really honest and say that this current cast is killer. They have some really awesome folks on here And I think, besides Kenan, the obvious would be as mentioned a few times here would be Colin Joseph and Michael Che, but I'm actually stuck between Chloe Feynman, heidi Gardner and Ego Newotem. I think yeah, i think Chloe Chloe's impressions and characters is are really one of a kind and really unique to her. And then, of course, heidi and Ego I think arguably too, could potentially be a duo as well, kind of like a teen and Amy situation. But yeah, those are the three I would say could be up in the Hall of Fame one day. 0:09:52 - Speaker 2Yeah, especially, i think I hope Ego and Heidi especially I think, they've turned in with a lot of. Chloe is still potential, but I think, with Heidi and Ego, i think they've already started to establish a body of work. Yeah, i hope they get their proper dues. So yeah, thank you so much for. 0:10:09 - Speaker 3I do want to give an honorable mention to James Austin Johnson Like I think Jamie just said too, because he did his first episode, was the first person we saw in a cold open. I don't think we've ever seen that. 0:10:23 - Speaker 5Or if we have. 0:10:24 - Speaker 2If we have, it's been a while, so that's in itself, i think, hall of Fame, where they Yeah, when he was a newbie he just came out and just did Joe Biden an impression of Joe Biden like immediately. 0:10:36 - Speaker 5Yeah. 0:10:36 - Speaker 2So, yeah, that has to be points once a long time from now, maybe, when James Austin Johnson is up for nomination, i'm sure that'll be mentioned. So thank you all of you panelists. And now I want to ask you guys. So we changed the voting process a little bit this time around. So now voters are required to vote for at least one person in each of the main categories. So we have as the categories cast member, host, musical guest and writer. So voters have to vote for at least one person in one of those categories, and then you have 11 votes to do as you please. You can just vote for four nominees and that's it. You can use all 15 votes that you have at your disposal. It's up to you. We've had a wide range over these last few voting cycles, so I'm going to start with you, victoria. How many votes Did you use on your ballot and why? 0:11:32 - Speaker 3I used all because I'm a sucker, i can't choose. 0:11:38 - Speaker 2You're just positive, putting pretty positivity out into the world. 0:11:41 - Speaker 3I mean it's, if you're on Saturday Night Live, you're on there for a reason, right? they don't just choose anybody. So I think it's hard to not use all of my votes. I had a hard time, so yeah. 0:11:55 - Speaker 2So Victoria, yeah, victoria, 15 votes that she's going to use on her ballot. Jeremy, how many votes are you using? 0:12:03 - Speaker 6I used all 15 as well. So I'm with Victoria. I went off 15 and for me it's just. I mean, this ballot is, i start to feel now for people who have to really vote for people in Hall of Fame, like you know, in Sports Hall of Fame, like I'm always getting on them, how could you leave this guy out or how you leave that person out. But it is hard and for me, being a lover of history and I love looking at things in a historical aspect, so there's like the heavy hitters who are like the automatic slam dunks on the ballot, but then there's other people who maybe they don't get the recognition from the public, but their historical value to the show and what the impact that they made. I take that into consideration big time. So I used all 15. 0:12:48 - Speaker 2So Jamie Burwood. how many votes did you use on your ballot? 0:12:53 - Speaker 5Yeah, so keeping it going, i used all 15 of my votes as well. For me, this was just a super stacked ballot, honestly, even more so than the last voting round. I really struggled to even narrow it down to the 15. And I think, for me, just realizing how many different ways people can contribute to the show as well like looking at the list of writers, looking at hosts it's just, it's so hard to compare apples to apples. So, yeah, i had no problem using all 15. 0:13:22 - Speaker 2Yeah, and I do have a feeling that most of our voters will use all 15 of their votes. I know I'm a voter as well. I think I'll probably use all 15 votes. It's just kind of a stacked class and there's a lot of tough decisions to be made, so I think you all are not alone in using all 15 votes. So let's get to it. I'm going to name the nominees just to just to reiterate again for our listeners, and then we will reveal everybody's ballots. So the nominees for this this year's class. For the cast member category, we have John Belushi, dana Carvey, jane Curtin, jan hooks, bill Murray, amy Polar, maya Rudolph and Molly Shannon. For hosts, we have Drew Barrymore, candice Bergen, john Goodman, elliott Gould, buck Henry, scarlett Johansson, melissa McCarthy, john Mulaney, paul Rudd, emma Stone, justin Timberlake, lily Tomlin and Christopher Walken lot of hosts on the on the ballot this year. Musical guests we have Beyonce, elvis Costello, miley Cyrus, dave Grohl, paul McCartney, tom Petty and the heartbreakers Prince, rihanna and Paul Simon. And for the writer category, we have James Downey, al Franken and Tom Davis, jack Handy, the Lonely Island, conan O'Brien, michael O'Donohue, paul Appel, herb Sargent and Robert Smigel, and we also have kind of a wild card nominee here. So it's not. He's not part of one of the four main categories, so voters do not have to vote for him. There's no separate producer category, but if somebody chooses, they could use one of their 11 remaining votes to vote for Dick Ebersol, who is on the ballot. Darren, he's giving the thumbs up. He was my guest on the Dick Ebersol episode and I'm curious to see what what you all have to say about Dick Ebersol when we get to him. If we get to him, i feel like we will get to him, though. So now's time where we reveal your ballots, so I want to start with Darren Patterson. So, darren, who's the first person you would like to talk about from your ballot? 0:15:39 - Speaker 4First person I'd like to talk about. I hmm, maybe we'll go with musical guest, just because it's like I only chose two people from there, really. So yeah, musical guest the first person who. I think it's a no brainer that they should absolutely be in SNL Hall of Fame, mr Paul Simon, you know he was there. He's been there since the beginning. He's good friends with Lorne. He's always sort of been, i guess, sort of the the fact or the fault musical guest, like when the show was first starting. Of course there was. You know he's been in a few sketches here and there. It was the famous sketch where he had that sort of reunion with Garfunkel and you know kind of you know, maybe not nice word for said. You know, of course there's a they called open waves like a dress or the opening monologue. Rather, we dressed good turkey for Thanksgiving episode, like he's always just sort of been, you know, this sort of old souls, old presence of the of the show for forever. So yeah, number one musical guest Paul Simon. 0:16:46 - Speaker 2And, as I told my guest on that episode, maddie Price, were kind of playing fast and loose with the criteria for Paul Simon because he was only billed as a musical guest eight times I think, but he played music on the show about 15 times. So I think we should probably I would import voters to maybe take into account all 15 of those times he was host and he performed music. He performed music when he wasn't billed as anything on the show. So Paul Simon, maybe Lorne Michael's best friend and just part of the fabric of SNL. So wonderful pick, darren. Do any of you have Paul Simon on your ballots? 0:17:27 - Speaker 6Yes, yes, he was my slam dunk musical guest as well. I think about two things the what happened after 911 and him singing the boxer and that whole moment kind of helped to In a way heal the country and such an iconic moment in SNL history you know, with Giuliani and all the firemen You know behind in Lauren coming on stage. And I also think about the SNL 40th And the fact that I think Paul was touring I forget where but Lauren pretty much saying like I need you here, you have to come. So Paul Simon flying in like on the red eye to be there for that event, but just kind of showing how important his place is, not just for Lauren but SNL history. So Paul Simon was my musical guest, slam dunk now very good. 0:18:17 - Speaker 2So, jamie, victoria to either of you. Jamie, do you have Paul Simon on yours? 0:18:22 - Speaker 5Yeah, i did, and I struggled with the music category a bit as well, but I did end up including him. I think Something that comes into play for me and it's there's so many different factors, but I think, like impact across decades is something I talked a little bit about last time and I think, for all the reasons that were said before, but also I think for that like Longevity and like having impacted different types of ways, was what pushed him over over the edge for me. 0:18:51 - Speaker 2Yeah, his first appearance was in the second episode of the show And if that was basically the Paul Simon show, which is in 75 in season one, and then his most recent, i believe, was 2018. So you're right, i mean just spanning eras, more so than almost anybody in the show's history. Victoria, what do you think Paul Simon make your cut? 0:19:10 - Speaker 3You know what He did not, but that doesn't mean I don't think he's eventually worthy. I mean, i do think he's worthy, but I only had. So no. For my musical guest I chose Beyonce. Has the most Grammys, has, you know, played such a significant part of SNL outside of her physical appearance on the show has made? She's a global icon. And you know who's are we gonna forget? like the Justin Timberlake, you know Lonely Island sketch No Beyonce. So double dipping, triple dipping. 0:19:47 - Speaker 2Yeah, a musical guest, though. That's great, and we I've noticed in the past that musical guests have been kind of shut out. I mean, they have been shut out as far as voting goes. So it's kind of neat to see all of you have at least one musical guest, if not more. So, specifically to Beyonce, jamie Dermey Darren. Do any of you have Beyonce on your ballot, jamie? why not? 0:20:13 - Speaker 5I didn't. I think it was just a limited. I feel like there's folks where I'm like, okay, next time, like next time, i'm getting them on and then we'll see what the battle looks like next time. I feel like it's always super crowded, but I'll keep her on my shortlist for next time. 0:20:27 - Speaker 2Jeremy, are we, are you on Victoria's side or? 0:20:31 - Speaker 6sorry, victoria. So for three, i gotta Not go with Beyonce on my list. It's just, she's iconic, she's great And, like Darren said, no disrespect to the beehive because they're always listening, but I just don't associate her For SNL Hall of Fame. She hauled very good, but not the Hall of Fame. So I have those. I got tough standards, so no, no Beyonce on my list. 0:20:58 - Speaker 2So if we're taking this four-person sample size, beyonce may have to wait Next voting cycle and we'll see unless, unless the unless the beehive kind of gets wind of this And I'm sure they'll push her over the edge. 0:21:12 - Speaker 3All in that one tweet it just takes one. 0:21:14 - Speaker 2Oh no, that sounded like a threat. I heard that. I heard that in your voice, victoria. We'll see. Alright, mobilized the beehive, let's go. Jeremy, i want to stay with you. Who do you want to talk about? 0:21:28 - Speaker 6I'm gonna go with the host category and mine might be a little bit different, i don't know, but I'm going with someone on the first ballot It was this season, i believe episode 2. I gotta go with Buck Henry. For me he was my slam dunk for the host For just the way his impact was on those initial five years and I'm someone who is Very partial to anything that's like the foundation of something I'm gonna give a lot of credit to. And when you think of there's two people in that era who were hosts and a Lot of people get confused and think they were a part of the cast and obviously that's Steve Martin, number one and number two It's Buck Henry and just for a long time, until I think, like the 88 89 season, had the most hosting Appearances than anyone else. So I mean, we talked about five timers club and how big of a deal that is for SNL lore. We got to give it to like the OG of that and that's, you know, buck Henry. And even just it was his suggestion for recurring characters, which is, you know him telling like to Lauren and all the writers, like that Belushi samurai sketch. We should, you know, got to do it again And you know just his impact on the show and his impact with influencing the original cast. Buck Henry is my slam dunk for host. 0:22:50 - Speaker 2All right, buck Henry the first go-to host in SNL history. He hosted twice a year the first five seasons of the show. Pretty good and understandable choice. Jamie, how do you feel about Buck Henry? 0:23:04 - Speaker 5Yeah, so I did include him as well. I think just really being like first member of the five-timers club for me was like okay, that's, that's a big credential like that. That really holds a lot of weight, i think. And it also was thinking about like when he was hosting. So like he hosted multiple like series, or season finale is, i Feel like for him like it wasn't just about frequency either. It was really like the role that he played and how people saw him as part of the show and just really being Integral to like the feel that the show had in in those early years. So yeah, for for me He was Not like the very top of my overall list, but definitely like made the cut for the 15. 0:23:44 - Speaker 2All right, darren, you're an SNL scholar, i believe. how do you feel about Buck Henry? 0:23:50 - Speaker 4Yes, yeah, i feel very good about Buck Henry. He actually made my list, um, for a lot of the reasons I dare me said he's just one of the. You know, key integral host has been there since day one. I mean, i mean the man got hit with the samurai sword mid-sketched and kept on going. I mean that's, that's dedication. I mean I don't care what you say and yeah, you know, he's always been there. You know some, some of the characters he played me Maybe, maybe have an age as well. That uncle. 0:24:21 - Speaker 2Roy. 0:24:22 - Speaker 4Yes, i'll go. 0:24:25 - Speaker 2Yeah, let's yeah. 0:24:28 - Speaker 4But uh, yeah, like you know, he's been, he was, he's been there for so long, has a longevity. 0:24:34 - Speaker 2Yeah, for me, yeah, he does all right buck, henry, on three ballots so far, victoria, are we making it four for four? 0:24:41 - Speaker 3We sure are. He is part of the foundation of this show and, as Jamie mentioned as well, the first five-timer, i mean he's a ten-timer at least. So I mean he's, he's iconic, he's a legend and you know, if you're an SNL nerd, you know who he is. So He, i mean, i feel like that's a no-brainer. 0:25:04 - Speaker 2So I guess, going into voting and the reveal of the SNL Hall of Fame this season, you've got to be feeling good about Buck Henry's chances from from how it sounds. So, jamie Burwood, i want to go to you now, and who would you like to talk about from your ballot? 0:25:20 - Speaker 5Yeah, so I'm gonna move it into the writing category Because this is one where I was really disappointed It didn't get in the first time, was even more disappointed They didn't get in the second time. So really gonna try to work on on the pitch for this one, and this is the lonely island. So for me I I just feel like thinking about the impact that they had on the show and taking it to the next era was just so huge and I feel like sometimes Isn't something we recognize enough. Just really the way that they made SNL comedy Viral friendly in a way that allowed the show to evolve and that I honestly think played a big part in the fact that We're still here today. The show made the changes with the times into this more kind of like snippet Viral friendly world. I just think about the era with them and the role that they played and like defining the tone of the The show. I could go on and on, but I will stop there, super passionate about this one in terms of just the, the role that they played in their era. 0:26:31 - Speaker 2So I have cut the the most passionate professional wrestling promos on why The Lonely Island should be in the SNL Hall of Fame and that the fact that they're not It's a really. I think out of anybody who's not in the SNL Hall of Fame who has been on the ballot before, i think I'm most passionate about the Lonely Island, so it's just kind of ridiculous to me that they're not in. so does anybody Agree with me? want to take up that mantle, that? take up that cause, darren? Yes, what do you? 0:26:59 - Speaker 4think, yeah, i'll, i will take that cause up with you, sir. I had them on my list as well, just because, basically a lot of reasons Jamie said, just the way they were able to sort of Bring in SNL to like the new era is like really pretty unprecedented, because I mean, yes, snl has had short films on the On the show before, like you know, the Albert Brooks stuff, the Shiller, tom Shiller, you know. You know Short films and whatnot, but I think the thing that separates Lonely Island from them is they were coming up around the same time YouTube was becoming big and like people were getting into that and So like it was like the sort of perfect marriage where they were coming up with these you know We are little videos and and also the music videos too, and like YouTube sort of helped, you know, elevate them and bring out, sure, snl into like a whole new era and also like the songs that they came out. 0:27:55 - Speaker 2Yeah, really, there's a chance like I'm on a boat. 0:27:59 - Speaker 4My pants, yeah, i, yeah, i mean a dick in a box. I think one of Grammy or at least was like nominated, i'm pretty sure one. I know it was definitely nominated and It was like the impact they left. You can still see it on the show today, like after they left they were still trying to do those catching music videos with Pete and Chris red and Like even now we're pleased on destroyed people. Still, they get compared to Lonely Island. Does you know? I'm time to time. So, yeah, lonely Island. They definitely left like a legacy behind when they left. I mean it's, i mean just that incredible, that incredible bad album. 0:28:36 - Speaker 2I still think, yeah, fantastic and full of bangers classic Jeremy, what do you have to say about the Lonely Island? 0:28:44 - Speaker 6I Hey, I've done it before, I'll do it again. I think I stand alone on the fact that they are not on my list. 0:28:52 - Speaker 2Oh no, I'm sorry, so the person I was yelling at in the past was you. It was. 0:28:58 - Speaker 6All right, it was, and the thing is it's it's someone's Gotta get cut, you know, that's the thing. So I'm not here to say that they're not worthy of the Hall of Fame, because everyone made great points. I just look at everyone else on the list. I want to give props to those of past generations Because I feel like the younger audience will forget them, and I want to give them their props. And I just also to what Jamie said earlier. There's some people on here who have hit like cross-generational as far as either a cast member or a writer or host, and I want to give them their love. So I think the Lonely Island if they don't make it this year, i definitely probably can see me voting for them from the next ballot. But they were a tough one, but they did not make my my top 15. 0:29:47 - Speaker 2Victoria, are you gonna agree with Jeremy, or are you on the correct side? 0:29:56 - Speaker 3I I I'm shook. I Agree with Jeremy in that we should give those who've given SNL It's name and the reason why it's here today, because it's a strong foundation, it's it set the tone for other you know comedic ventures, but the Lonely Island Emmy award winners, grammy nominated, for sure deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame. I mean they were. I don't want to say they're ahead of their time, but I guess they've helped SNL stay on course and be with the times and not be so old-school. And, you know, push forward a new way of thinking. And I Think Darren mentioned it too of you know those music videos with Pete Davidson and Chris Radd. And now, please don't destroy. I mean we wouldn't have those, quite frankly, if it wasn't for the Lonely Island and I'm a mother lover, you're a mother lover, we can love, you know, i mean catchy, like what was it called? I'm on a boat is so iconic to. I mean I Don't feel like that's really an argument, thomas, do you like? I feel like that's just like an, also a no-brainer. 0:31:12 - Speaker 2Yeah well, here on the SNL Hall of Fame, we respect everybody's opinion and it's all valid, but I should point out In order to get into the SNL Hall of Fame And the nominee needs sixty six point seven percent of the vote. Lonely Island had about sixty two last cycle. I think they're gonna get in this. That's just my prediction. Judging by, they got seventy five percent Here, unofficially, including myself. They got eighty percent, so I kind of a feeling. 0:31:44 - Speaker 6I'll say this if they get in, i'm not gonna be like what, like I'll be for it. Okay, you know I'm not like anti. Yeah, i won't do that. There's some other names on here who I might do that for, but not Lonely Island. 0:31:58 - Speaker 3I'm down if they get in, listen all it. All it takes is one tweet. 0:32:04 - Speaker 2Oh, victoria's trying to utilize, like she's trying to weaponize. Okay, he really is. Geez, victoria. So I want to. I want to see when to go back to you, victoria. Who do you want to talk about next on your list? I have zero followers. 0:32:16 - Speaker 3It's funny. Oh Man, I want to say Paula Pell. 0:32:22 - Speaker 2Paul, up hell in the writer category. Yeah. 0:32:26 - Speaker 3I mean one. Her tenure there was Long, i think, from 1995 to 2013. That's almost 20 years. Is that right? my math thing, correctly, okay, yeah, i graduate from the College of Communication where minimal math was required for a reason. But no, i mean you know the Spartan cheerleaders, debbie Downer, the omeletville Justin Timberlake character. I mean she's put up such great characters that are Stand out in SNL history. I mean it would be hard for me to not include her on on my ballot. 0:33:02 - Speaker 2And very influential to Jamie. You have Paula Pell. 0:33:05 - Speaker 5I did. Yeah, i just listened to this podcast episode the other day and Was already convinced, but it really put me over the edge. I think I talk a lot about like her era in SNL, just because I I love that era and I feel like I I maybe don't give enough credit sometimes to the writing beyond that era and I think she was such a critical Writing force of that time and I definitely have a sweet spot, i think, for writers that do a great job of creating characters and, like Victoria said, she really shown in that way. I also just think she's a wonderful Person and so she gets the wonderful person bonus point, but just impact alone for that era from the writing side. I did include her. 0:33:50 - Speaker 2Yeah, she had her thumb prints on a lot of things that we don't even realize. Definitely it was interesting to go back and research. Darren, How do you feel you have Paula Pell? 0:34:00 - Speaker 4Look, i have her on. I wrote her down as one of the writers but I didn't Ultimately choose her just because I think the writers character is like a really Stack deck. And you know, while I do appreciate Paula Pell, i love girls, five ever, i love it all But I didn't, i didn't quite choose it just because I felt there were maybe a few there a little bit more stronger. But yeah, i mean, paula Pell is fantastic. She's like you know, she, i do. Sometimes I do feel like she kind of gone, unsung in a lot of way than meets, you know, a lot more loved. And she, she got on the show, or you know. 0:34:40 - Speaker 2Yeah, and this one is tough. If you had to make that cut, i had to make some tough cuts. Man, we don't have to walk on eggshells. This is a safe space. We can bellow it out with confidence. We didn't and we didn't. If you didn't vote for Paula Pell, then and that's perfectly fine, i think. I think, with writers in general, sometimes it's hard to know what they wrote and what they did, and especially in the late 90s to mid 2000s that she was involved in. So I'm always curious to see how writers are gonna do here. But Definitely fair enough, darren Daryn, me, how about you? 0:35:12 - Speaker 6Absolutely Yes, paula Pell makes my list for what everyone else said, the sketches that are so iconic from cheerleaders Debbie Downer, like that was like all of us love SNL, but everyone had to watch those Debbie Downer sketches, her work in association with Kristen Wiig and she was really a big part of her popular sketches as well, and also in that rise in those like 2000s when Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Maya and Kristen kind of really You know, put women on the forefront of SNL, like really the first time by really taking over and not making it a boys club, and I feel like Paula Pell was a big part behind the scenes and making that happen. So for me, the way you guys talked about Lonely Island, i think it's a crime that she's on the second ballot. So Paula Pell is a definite one for me. 0:36:02 - Speaker 2Yeah, paula Pell, snl, was much better off having her voice on the writing staff. Absolutely So, darren. You have Paul, simon, buck, henry and the Lonely Island So far. So who's another person on your ballot you would like to bring up? 0:36:18 - Speaker 4Well, let's forget the person I talked to you about on the last time I was here, dana Carvey. I think it's no brainer, i think he's one of those people who maybe people kind of forgot about how impactful he was in his day, just because, like he's still around now and he's still, you know, his own late night shows and he has his podcast. But like you have to remember, like when he was on the show, how hard he hit and how much he just elevated every scene and elevated the show. Like his very first episode he came out with the Chopin Broccoli sketch which was like something he'd done in stand-up and I think, like I mentioned the last time I was on a podcast, like a cast member is lucky if they have one memorable recurring character that they can go to with a catchphrase. And Dana Carvey had multiple recurring characters with multiple, you know, catchphrases. He was the church lady, he was Hans and Franz. He was, you know, garth Wayne and Garth He was. I mean, he had the Johnny Carson impression, he was the George W Bush. He had like all these impressions, all these characters. He was just like knocking it out the park like every episode And he was just like really beloved and everybody really liked him and he was just like a great performer and I don't know like Dana Carvey, like in his prime. 0:37:38 - Speaker 2Yeah, he was a force and I have a feeling that we're gonna have a clean sweep here, but I don't know, somebody might surprise me. Let's see, victoria, what say you? 0:37:47 - Speaker 3What say me? Of course, of course, dana Carvey. I mean it was just mentioned, hans and Franz, church lady, i mean. But more than that, going to Jeremy's point, and I, you know, even though I have some recent folks on here, i do pay homage later in my ballot to those who came before us, especially women, but Dana Carvey is someone who, without him, there is none of these recent folks either. So you know it's where. So we, we keep standing on the shoulders of those before us and he is a shoulder of muscle. I don't know if that's a real phrase, but he's a shoulder of muscle, he's like his and then leave, you know Wayne's world, and then all his other stuff afterward, is, is, is killer. I don't think I feel like that. One is also an obvious one. I'm kind of confused as to why he's not in there already but, we will, but we will discuss, we will discuss. 0:38:49 - Speaker 2Well, he's not in there because this is his first time on the ballot. See at the Esenola fame. We kind of like to space it out a little bit. So this was just his first time on the ballot, so that that's an easy reason. It was no slide against Dana. 0:39:03 - Speaker 3Okay, i'll tell Twitter to back off. 0:39:06 - Speaker 2Yeah, tell him to back off. Thank you, jamie Burwood. Are you a fan of Dana Carvey? 0:39:11 - Speaker 5Yeah, definitely. I think, just when you think about like performers that are just so associated with their era on SNL everyone's already touched on just characters, i think church lady, like in the conversation, for just top one of the top tier, all time characters impressions, i feel like people will still play the like George HW clips and it just has that lasting impact. So, yeah, for me I don't think there is a. I'd be curious to hear an argument to not include him, but for me I think it's a no brainer. Agreed. 0:39:49 - Speaker 2Jeremy do have four for four. 0:39:52 - Speaker 6Absolutely. That was, for you know, the one, the four that we had to have. Dana was my cast member. For me, i look at it like on my episode when I was on with you, thomas, i talked about Dick Ebersol and that Eddie Murphy, joe Piscobo. That's the first cast that saved the show from like being done. The second was with Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman, kevin Nealon and all those And, honestly for me, if I see a greatest SNL list and Dana Carvey isn't in the top 10, that's when I'm just like throwing an outrage, i'm throwing papers, i'm going what the heck is this? Dana Carvey, to me, is a top 10 SNL cast member, so it's a no brainer, dana Carvey. 0:40:37 - Speaker 2Yeah, i think Dana is going to be. I'll go out on a limb and say he's going to be a lock. I think he's going to get voted in here on his first try And with him to me it's not just is he an SNL, snl Hall of Famer, it's, is he on the Mount Rushmore of SNL cast members? And I think that's the conversation that Dana is in. Jeremy, who's who's next on your list? 0:40:58 - Speaker 6For me this person was the writer lock. So the other three are all mentioned for my locks Paul Simon, dana Carvey. I mentioned Buck Henry. I'm going for that writer, robert Schmigel, who was brought up his own first time on the ballot, and just so many of the iconic sketches that he was a part of, from TV Funhouse to the, that finale for the 85, 86 season with the John Lovitz you know, and you know Billy Martin and Lauren, like they're burning up, like that cast and who will survive, and that's pretty gutsy, for like that was Michael's first season, and for him to kind of write that sketch, the iconic not going to phone it in tonight, that code open with Steve Martin that everyone still talks about to this day, the bear sketch. There's just so many things that Robert Schmigel has an impact on And from that initial run in the 80s into the mid 90s and then he's come back and done so many things. Robert Schmigel to me is also like, as far as a writer, a slam dunk Hall of Famer. As far as writers they kind of like what you said, thomas, it's not. If he's going to be a Hall of Famer is, is he on that pantheon of Mount Rushmore of greatest SNL writers. So for me Robert Schmigel is easy. 0:42:16 - Speaker 2Yeah, darren. What do you think about Robert Schmigel? 0:42:20 - Speaker 4I think, yes, i had him down as one of my writers to. He's like one of those writers just really defined his era of SNL. I mean, you know, like Darren me said, like with the TV fun house, a lot of those, if you go back and watch some of those TV fun, a lot of them. He's really pushing the envelope in a lot of oh yeah, like you know, the form with real audio, especially that one, i think, sex in the country which is Jesus. I mean, wow, victoria. 0:42:52 - Speaker 3Well, now that you say that, no, i completely agree with everything Jeremy said. I wouldn't change anything about what Jeremy said, but my only thing is he did not make the ballot this time around, i'm really sorry to say, as just his work is phenomenal just didn't have that much of an impact on me. That's all Nothing against him. If I had 16, he'd be on there. They only gave me 15. Sorry, so you're passing the buck. 0:43:22 - Speaker 2You're blaming me and Jamie. Jamie, do for for our, for our, oppressive rules for voting. 0:43:29 - Speaker 3Yeah, all right, i got it. 0:43:31 - Speaker 2I got it. I'll say this about Robert Smigel and Bill Kenny and I had a good conversation about it. I think if you only looked at his sketch writing, he might be an SNL Hall of Famer, and if you only looked at TV fun house on its own he might be an SNL Hall of Famer, but combined it's a pretty big argument. just the totality of it all, i think. So he would get my vote. Smits gay, I mean it's gay is one of the one of the iconic ad parodies of the early 90s. Yeah, so Robert was just behind. So much And I think at some point he may get in and it'll be very well deserved. So I want to go to Jamie Burwood find out who's next on your list. 0:44:18 - Speaker 5All right. So staying with the cast had to go with Amy. This was tip top of my list. Just no question on this one. for me, definitely like top three across my ballot overall. I think just looking at how she was like promoted so quickly from featured player to full cast member, just thinking about I think the versatility for her is what really stands out. Just thinking about weekend update, impact characters, impressions, like the political bits, like just every little piece she touched upon. And I just when I think, when people think about that era of the early 2000s, like you can't talk about that era without talking about Amy. So for me she was a definite check plus, plus, plus. 0:45:15 - Speaker 2And Victoria Franca. You were my guest on the Amy Poehler episode In this season. Do I even have to ask? 0:45:22 - Speaker 3You don't, you absolutely don't, but I just, jamie, just said it. She was the first woman to be promoted within her first season at Saturday Night Live as someone who's trying to semi-follow on her footsteps of being in the Chicago comedy scene. I don't think people truly understand what she's done. Pre-snl in this realm is such a big deal and not many people get to experience it. And then I mean this will explain why she's she was number one. I also just wanted to defend my episode. It would be silly for me not to have her on my ballot, but she, if you go to her Wikipedia page and you look at her awards it has, you have to go to a different Wikipedia page to list all of her awards and norms. So enough said she's. You know she's one of a kind, she's the first of many And yeah, i mean for my mention this in that episode that I am standing on her shoulders and I know that she's standing on others, but for me she's the one pulling me up to the top. 0:46:30 - Speaker 2So All right, Darren Patterson, does Amy Poehler get the thumbs up from you? 0:46:35 - Speaker 4She does. She was on my list. I mean it's, i don't know how you can not have her on the show. She's, i don't know, she's fantastic, she's phenomenal. You know, founding member of the UCB and the episode she didn't really show that she's like had strong improv chops from the from the jump. You know her time. A weekend update was memorable with both with Tina and with Seth. 0:47:03 - Speaker 6Yeah, that's a no brainer, It's, she's. she's someone like you can make a case kind of like it's hard not to even put her in like anyone's top 10 of all time kind of lists. So Amy Poehler's easy. 0:47:15 - Speaker 2Yeah, Amy Poehler's super beloved. I have a feeling we'll be sending her her Hall of Fame plaque here in the next few months. Darren, I'll go back to you Who's next on your list. 0:47:26 - Speaker 4Well, let's go back to host And this, this host I wrote, i wrote down, i believe one of you guys talked about on the episode Christopher Walken Let's talk about, start talking about walking. I feel like he's yeah, i mean, he's pretty much he's a no brainer just to get into the Hall of Fame again. He's one of those hosts you wouldn't think would be good in comedic sketches, just because he mainly he does drama and he has, you know, he's a bit of an odd character But somehow a Sunnell was able to like funnel that odd energy he has into all these classic sketches. You know, of course, the continental kernel Angus And you know, and of course, the cowbell sketch with the blue oyster skull, one of the most iconic sketch that people are still quoting to this day. You know, i got to have more cowbell. Yeah, it is. It is strange like how, you know, christopher Walken does have this kind of odd energy, is able to funnel that into comedy to show that he's not, you know, such a, you know, kind of weird weirdo, but he's actually pretty funny too And he's actually has comedic chops. 0:48:40 - Speaker 5So, in addition to all those points, i feel like just the way that his episodes had this like kind of total feel to them of like you had certain things you look forward to, like those opening musical numbers that were just always a little bit zamy and fun and certain recurring characters and sketches that he participated in, kind of bringing to the next level. I feel like he was always up for anything And I think like what's really what's really interesting to me about him and we talked a little bit about this in the podcast was not only did like you see him having an impact on the show, you see the show impacting how people think about him. Like when you talk to somebody about Christopher Walken, they think of SNL. Like it's just become so intertwined like his identity and SNL, that I feel like he he had to get one of my votes. 0:49:33 - Speaker 2So, darmie, does Christopher Walken's odd energy and personality resonate with you? 0:49:40 - Speaker 6It does but not for my list. But okay, he doesn't make my list. But, like, i'm a big fan of Christopher Walken And everyone has made great points and you know, got nothing but love for everybody. But I will say this, and I believe, thomas, we spoke about this like back when I was on the show with you, like off air And I might get some heat for it But if you take away in the cowbell sketches iconic top five sketch of all time if you take that away, i don't think Christopher Walken is making the impact with everyone. In my opinion I'd like to weigh everyone else is saying so I feel like there's moments That can be Hall of Fame worthy. There's those Hall of like in sports, hall of Fame type of games, hall of Fame type of contributors, in other ways. But I feel like that sketch is how Christopher Walken, in my opinion, should be in a Hall of Fame. He's a part of a Hall of Fame sketch, a Mount Rushmore sketch, but you take that away. are people really talking about Christopher Walken on SNL like is he hitting it that same way? I Personally don't think so. So Christopher Walken, i could see him getting in in the future on my ballot, but for right now he's. He's a. It's a tough one, but no. 0:50:54 - Speaker 2Victoria, what do you think I? 0:50:56 - Speaker 3Agree with Jeremy here. I outside of cowbell and maybe Colonel Angus, which is like Just recently came a top of mind, i Can't really name anything else I mean in the cowbell itself, i think The star of that was Will Ferrell, so he wasn't even a focal point really in that for me. So I mean not to say he's not talented, not to say he's not iconic, but I think when it comes to I think he deserves to be in a Hall of Fame like an actor or comedy Hall of Fame. 0:51:27 - Speaker 2But just ball. 0:51:28 - Speaker 3Hall of Fame right, but just for me, it wouldn't be the Saturday Night Live Hall of Fame. And if you're listening to this, christopher Walken And I know that you are Don't kill me. 0:51:39 - Speaker 6All it takes is one tweet. 0:51:42 - Speaker 2All right, victoria. Who are gonna be tweeting about next? who's on your list? 0:51:46 - Speaker 3This is hard. This is hard. I moved, i Took someone else out and I, as we were talking, and I replaced this person with them. I won't say it because I feel like this person can be mentioned by someone else, but a writer and, i think, someone who is, who deserves their flowers, at least from NBC The one and only Conan O'Brien. Conan O'Brien is Undoubtedly funny. He's made such an impact on Saturday Night Live and I feel like he's. You know, i think he's earned it and and how much work he's put in. And you know, we all know Conan O'Brien. He's, i think he's a staple in the comedy world low-loan Saturday Night Live and, and his career wouldn't be where it is today without Saturday Night Live. So that's so. 0:52:34 - Speaker 2I've added him in all right, team Cocoa Victoria is. Team Cocoa Is anybody else. Does anybody else have Conan on their list? And if not, why not? I'm actually want to go to Darren. What do you think about Conan O'Brien? 0:52:49 - Speaker 4Hey look, i love Coco, i love mr, mr O'Brien I I came very close to having a moment. Let's very close. Just, you know, just he is, of course, you know, in the eight. I think the 80s era as an L is the era I grew up with, right, that's why I really have an affinity for it. And so to see, like Conan O'Brien in that era, where he was with other writers, like You know, bob, odin, kirk and and Schmeigel, like that really Endured me to him. Of course He was a fantastic writer with a Simpsons. He was in the very first five-timers Club sketch, of course. 0:53:25 - Speaker 6It was a very easy no for me because I Definitely respect Conan as the performer and the late-night host and what he's become. But I feel on the show He was a part of a group of writers that like emerged, but there's not a lot of sketches that were like that's a Conan sketch, i believe. Even on, like the fly on the wall Podcast with Carvey and spade, schmeigel went on and said that the, the girl watcher that love it's in Hanks did. That was a mostly a Conan Like written sketch which I a lot of people gave to Schmeigel, including myself, that Schmeigel only helped out with. But I think Conan because who he became, we know him, i think of him writing wise, more for what he did on the Simpsons than what he did on SNL. So for me, conan not on the list. 0:54:12 - Speaker 2Jamie, do you have anything to say about Conan? 0:54:13 - Speaker 5Yeah, he did not make my list, unfortunately either. I feel like I Was like being pulled a little bit by the fact that he's like a great entertainer and human. But then I like got checked and was like, if I didn't think of him from other things, would he still make my list? and when I applied that check he didn't. 0:54:30 - Speaker 2So I think that's fair. Well, we've just caused Victoria to mobilize the beehive and team Coco, so so right, i think we're all in for it. 0:54:40 - Speaker 3I hope you're all sweating. 0:54:42 - Speaker 2Yeah, Jeremy, I want to. 0:54:44 - Speaker 6I want to know what's who's next on your list for me, i got to go with a guy who I probably would not put him on my top 10 Greatest cast members anymore but he's definitely on top 10 most important, and that's John Belushi. To me, one of the people to establish What SNL was, not just because he was there and on the show, but just that kind of rebellious, kind of anti-establishment counterculture feel that SNL had for so long and now it is part of. It is the establishment now But to kind of give it where like SNL had that cool feeling. I think John Belushi was the first one to really get that. I mean the sketches from the Blues Brothers to, you know, with the samurai, just so many things on there, are just iconic and For someone like him who at one point was on the number one, you know, late night show had a number one album with the Blues Brothers and the number one movie with Animal House, all at one point Kind of really you can say Chevy Chase But I feel like the the blueprint for that SNL star to get into movies and everything. I look at John Belushi As he's that first one to kind of be like, oh, from SNL Stardom to movie stardom. That was him and he kind of paved the way, for you saw what Bill Murray did and Eddie Murphy and Sandler and all these other guys. So John Belushi I I guess that I would got to put him as Top 10 most important cast members. He's a no-brainer. 0:56:19 - Speaker 2Yeah, jamie, is he a no-brainer for you? 0:56:22 - Speaker 5Yeah, he was, and this is where, like, i feel like I sometimes have to separate, like personal preference and historical impact. and I think, like personal preference aside and I mean no, no disrespect, amazing comedian, but Just, yeah, legacy on the show, i think a lot of folks would really have him in the conversation for Top 10, some might even say top five, just impactful Cast numbers. So, yeah, he definitely made my list. 0:56:49 - Speaker 2Yeah. 0:56:49 - Speaker 4Darren Yeah, absolutely, he made my list too. I mean he was he was the first cast member in the first cold open of the show ever. Yeah, and like a lot of things that Darren, me and Jamie already hit the two like his impact on the show, the energy brought, he brought that Sort of rebellious wild card, you know factor to the show. That that really, you know that really Resonated with the young audience at the time, while the college kids and whatever like he, you know, he just like was embodied, that just like the crazy You know party guy and and you know, just doing cartwheels. I mean just his yeah, his impact and his energy was just so Momentous and it affected future cast members too, like like Chris Farley is, you know, said on record numerous times like yeah, i modeled my whole life after John Belushi. 0:57:41 - Speaker 3The trace of him is is throughout comedy for Forever and I mean in Rolling Stone, and I have the magazine He's the cover, and Rolling Stone, in February 2015, did a ranking of, i think, all 141 SNL cast members. At that time, of course, that was eight years ago, and he was number one and I think it just speaks to him and it speaks to his comedy and you know, he's, he's, he's a legend, he's one of the goats, as as the kids say these days, and he's I'll say he's like the Michael Jordan of SNL cast members. 0:58:22 - Speaker 2Yeah, and I think he, I think he's gonna find himself in the SNL Hall of Fame. He's another one of those. When we set up the season and looked at the ballot that it's pretty sure was gonna make it. So this is almost just confirmation of that. I'm gonna go over to Jamie And find out who's next on your list. 0:58:39 - Speaker 5Yeah so Let's maybe talk about dick. Ever saw I Was. I don't want to steal your thunder, dare me, just listen to your podcast on this one as well and I Yeah, i think just when we're talking about like impact on the show and thinking about multiple Touch points where he had a pivotal role, that was what really pushed this over the edge for me. So I think, thinking about that initial role in helping to create the show and the role he played with Lauren, but then also thinking about his role and arguably the biggest save of the show And I think a lot of times we'll throw around the phrase like oh, snl wouldn't be here, wouldn't be what it is without XYZ person, but I think in this case, like it's actually pretty true. So that, to me, pushed me over the edge on this one. It's a little bit of a non-traditional, like getting outside the cast host world, but I did end up including him in my ballot. 0:59:41 - Speaker 2Yeah, dick ever saw. Super interesting to me. I'm gonna clear the the seas for you. Now dare me Tell us what you want to about dick ever saw. 0:59:51 - Speaker 6Jamie, you are amazing. This is so cool. I thought I'd be up here by myself and this you've made my week. Thank you, jamie. Dick ever saw the man who helped to co-create Saturday Night Live. He picked Lauren Michaels We all can agree the most important person in SNL history to run the show. It's a big part in forming it. Then when Lauren leaves and Jean Dominion almost threw it down the toilet and they fire her, they bring in ever saw and By box office numbers and I think it's hard to really argue it the biggest star to come from the show is Eddie Murphy. And who's the one now? Eddie was hired Reluctantly by Jean Domenion who put him in that star seat. That saved the show. That was dick ever saw and I mean those two things right there I got to give love for. But then you can also look at that Steinbrenner year Where you have Billy Crystal and Chris guests and you know Martin short and those iconic sketches that came from one year. That's also dick ever saw. So right on, jamie, dick ever saw slam dunk for me. 1:00:58 - Speaker 2Yes, jeremy, thank you so much and you're a great guest on that show and Dick ever saw just a fascinating candidate to me, victoria. I'm curious to know your thoughts. How much did you give dick ever saw much consideration? 1:01:12 - Speaker 3Yeah, jamie and Jeremy Said it that I mean it is what it is SNL like. As Jamie said, it would literally not be here If it wasn't for him. So, giving, giving him his, his flowers. 1:01:29 - Speaker 2Yes, dick ever saw. all right, darren, are we gonna make me and Jeremy and All the dick ever saw fans happy out there? 1:01:37 - Speaker 4Uh, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Just because I think I know a lot of, for some reason like a lot of purists, i guess. Only consider the Lorne Michael years of SNL, like the true SNL, just, and also, like I mean, with the exception of you know, like it's at the Eddie Murphy episode, no one really talks about the ever saw all years that much, but like I've I Gotta go back and watch them again. But like I do remember there being like a lot of Like solid shows and a lot of solid performers and sketches Happening in those years and they don't really kind of get talked about that much. It's like one of those things where, like people are surprised when you, when they hit I like Julie Louis Dreyfus was on SNL It's like, oh really, i don't. 1:02:20 - Speaker 2Darren, i want to stay with you. Let us know who's next on your list, next on my list. 1:02:29 - Speaker 4All right. Well, i mean I forgot if. Okay, all right, we all right, We got it All right. Bill Murray, we got to have Bill Murray in the SNL Hall of Fame. It's not even it's. What are we doing here? I Mean the guy came in replaced Chevy Chase after Chevy left after season one and Pretty much did a better job Chevy Chase's job than Chevy did. I mean he came out with like Nick the loud singer and did the nerds with Gilda and he just Kind of brought in this really kind of loosey-goosey, laid-back energy to the show that really people really like, really loved and fived with. You know people find him endearing and like that really enjoy working Joy working with him on the show, like I would say I mean, and also he's just gone on to be Be this really great actor and have this really great career. 1:03:22 - Speaker 2Jeremy, how do you feel about Bill Murray? 1:03:25 - Speaker 6another slam dunk. Saturday night live was a hit show. Chevy was the first breakout star and him coming on During the second season and even that sketch that kind of made him get established. Which is I'm not doing well on the show. I need your help and just even watching that clip all the time was some people call me Billy around here. I get called the new guy, like. It's just just a great way to kind of like, which I think you would see now is like not that, but back in you know, 76, 77. That was a different way of kind of like breaking the zeitgeist and saying like you know, i know you guys aren't really looking at me as the you know the audience. You're thinking of Chevy, but I'm here too. So, kind of like what Darren said, he's just synonymous. He wasn't on the first season. Well, a lot of times people associate him with the first year because he just made such an impact the next four. So bill Murray is an easy one. 1:04:19 - Speaker 2Yeah, he's a de facto Original, not ready for playing primetime player. Honestly, in most people's eyes, jamie is Bill Murray on your ballot, yeah absolutely. 1:04:28 - Speaker 5I was curious to see how long we would get into this before his name came up, so I'm glad it finally has. I think Everyone's gonna have covered it really well. But just I have mad respect for anyone who's put in that kind of like Tough position and keeping in mind how early in the show's era it was. In this day and age We're used to cast coming in and out. But for him to kind of be in that role in the second season of having to replace Somebody, so great and just how he stepped up and is now in conversations of again all time among the all-time great. So respect to him on that. 1:05:00 - Speaker 2Yeah, victoria, we got a Chicago boy here. Does he get your, your vote? 1:05:05 - Speaker 3Yeah, he, yes, he is the blueprint for all of us and I, you know, i'm not gonna add anything new to it, except he is why, partially why I am here today, and also my brother would kill me if I did not have him on my ballot as a as a Born-and-raised Chicago boy himself. 1:05:29 - Speaker 2Bill Murray clean sweep on everybody's ballots h

Are you a big fan of "Blades of Glory"? If so, don't miss out on this podcast episode featuring Dave Krinsky, "Blades of Glory" writer.Show Notes:Dave on Emmys: https://taylorwilliamson.comDave's Wikipedia: https://www.instagram.com/taylorcomedy/Dave on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2743976/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutomated Transcript:Dave Krinsky (00:00):It's so funny in animation because we would do like a big, you know, Hank football. We'd do a big football episode with a lot of people in the crowd, and James would be like, okay, this is really streaming the animators. We can't do another big one next week. So next week we'd go, look, this is a very simple episode. It mostly takes place in the house. It's a very personal story between Hank and Bobby. He's like, Ooh, that's gonna strain the animators. It's gonna require a lot of acting . Yeah. I'm like, ok. So wait, we can't do anything.Michael Jamin (00:25):You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael, Janet.Michael Jamin (00:33):Hey everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this, the podcast. I got another amazing guest today. I'm here with my many, he's been my next guest, has been my boss on many occasions. He's been my friend on one occasion, . And he's . Here he is. Boy, this guy's got good credits. So this is Dave Krinsky and he's a feature writer, show creator. He ran King of the Hill for, what was it, eight years? Eight seasons weDave Krinsky (00:59):Ran. Yeah, I think maybe seven. I can never quite keep track.Michael Jamin (01:02):Felt like eight. Right? He was a show runner, king of Hill for, for many seasons, but a writer on, I think you wrote on every single season, didn't you?Dave Krinsky (01:08):Yeah, we came in right after the first season had just aired. Right. So they were still rewriting and posting season one and starting writing season two,Michael Jamin (01:18):Jump and right in. And then also, we're gonna talk about everything, but I wanna give you a proper introduction. We wrote, co-wrote with his partner, blades of Glory. They ran a, a show called Lopez, which i, I worked on for a little bit. CRO created Silicon Valley. I've heard of that show. Also the Good Family that was a b c animated show ran Bebes and Butthead for a while executive produced movie called Extract. What, what else, what else did you, you did a lot of stuff, man,Dave Krinsky (01:46):Lady Glory. Did you mention that? Wait,Michael Jamin (01:48):I thought I said that. Didn't I not sayDave Krinsky (01:49):That? Yeah, you did. I tuned you out, Don Point. I've learned to tune you out early, soMichael Jamin (01:53):, but man, oh man, I wa how, but you also said, when we were chatting before we started recording, that you did a lot of movie rewr. I didn't even know you guys did other movie rewrites.Dave Krinsky (02:03):Yeah. So when we first came out, this was back, you know, like nineties. You really had to decide where you were. A movie writer, a TV writer. The agents didn't even talk to each other. So we had come out with some movie scripts. We just thought that was sort of the easiest way to break in. Right. And we had ended up selling a couple, we sold one to Warner Brothers. It was they bought it for Chevy Chase. And yeah. Then we got firedMichael Jamin (02:26):And they didn't make up obviously causeDave Krinsky (02:28):They, they didn't make it. We got fired and they hired someone else to rewrite. And our agent goes, that's great news. And I'm like, how's that? Great news? They go, it's not dead. If they're hiring someone else to rewrite it. And it was kind of an a-list writer, then that means it's still alive. But it ended up not getting made, although it's sort of, Ben made a few times because it was a very broad idea about a guy who, you know how we only use 10% of our brain's potential, right. While these scientists developed this serum that unlocked the other 90% instead of being injected in a, you know, good upstanding citizen like Michael Jamin. And it gets in, injected in this doofus Chevy Chase who basically becomes this like throbbing organi organism. He's got 10 times the site and after the hearing 10 times the athletic ability. So he is trying to like, make money and become famous with it.Michael Jamin (03:09):But So he was attached before there was a director or No.Dave Krinsky (03:12):So there was never even a director manager. He was attached, like Chevy Chase had a deal at Warner Brothers and Warner was looking for movies for him. So this, and then those days they were buying spec scripts left and right. Right. So they bought that from us and we spent like a long time rewriting it.Michael Jamin (03:26):So he was giving you the notes on what he wanted?Dave Krinsky (03:29):No, we never even met with him. I think, you know, I don't even know if you ever heard of it, to be honest, it really wasn't those days, Uhhuh , if you wanted a Chevy reputation movie, you bought 10 or 12 scripts and you developed until you found one that you wanted to do and brought to him.Michael Jamin (03:41):So you were dealing with his development people.Dave Krinsky (03:43):We were just dealing with Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers, and the producer. So the way it worked back then, and maybe they still did now, but the spec script market isn't really strong anymore. You would go to your agent with a spec and they'd go, okay, we're gonna send it to X producer who has a deal at Paramount and y producer who has a good relationship with Warner Brothers. And we're gonna, they're gonna go to the studios all on the same weekend and let 'em know. They have to decide. And then hopefully you get at least two offers so that you're playing 'em against each other. And that particular, we only got one from Warner Brothers, so the producer on the project we never even met until Warner Brothers had bought it. So then the producer, and it's a weird deal because we actually had a better relationship with the execs at Warner Brothers than we did with the producer. Like, we like their nodes better. So it's a weird political dynamic that you had to deal with. But we ended up selling a couple of projects that way that didn't get made. But ultimately when Blades of Gloria got made, then it was a ton of rewrite work. Michael Jamin (04:42):And then, but this was, this was during King of the Hill.Dave Krinsky (04:45):Bla Glory was during King of the Hill. I mean, we were doing our movie stuff before King of the Hill started. And, and we started looking around, you know, we sold stuff, but we weren't, we were, John and I were still sharing an apartment in Burbank and I was driving a car with no air conditioning. And I looked over at some of my buddies like Bill Martin, who was like buying a house and buying a nice car. And those guys were all on tv. And John and I were like, well, maybe we should, I mean, we always wanted to do tv but our agents just you, no, you're movie writers. So we ended up writing some TV specs scripts and then ended up getting a job in tv. But, so we were writing specs scripts, we were get assignments occasionally, or we would pitch on something, but it wasn't until Bla Glory that really was like, oh, okay, now we're getting a ton of movie rewrite.Michael Jamin (05:29):And then how did you know Bill Martin? Would you go to, did you go to college with him?Dave Krinsky (05:31):Yeah, we went to college together. So it was weird. It was like, it was me, John Bill, Peyton Reid, who directed all the Aunt Man movies. This guy John Schultz, who directed like Mike. And it was like we all kind of moved out here at the same time to try to pursue the business.Michael Jamin (05:46):Wow. I didn't even know that. And then, well, so was your, when did you decide that you wanted to be a writer? Like in high school or something?Dave Krinsky (05:53):Pretty much, I mean, I, I, this is make me sound really cool but I loved reading as a kid. I loved, you know, books. And I just loved when a story really impacted me and made me think. I was like, wow, that's a cool sort of power to have over people, to influence 'em that way. So since the time I was like 12, 13, I thought about it. And then in high school we had to write a short story for an English class. And I wrote this kind of science fiction funny story, and the teacher, you know, wrote a plus, what are you gonna do with this gift? And I was like, oh, I guess it actually could be a job. Right. So,Michael Jamin (06:24):But you think that it could be a job? Like I didn't, that didn't occur to me until I was older that you could make money in tv.Dave Krinsky (06:29):. Well, you know what I was thinking I'd be a book writer and so I went to Carolina cause I knew they had a strong English department. I took all the creative writing classes there. And since I didn't wanna really do anything else, I took whatever course I find. So screenwriting was one. Playwriting was one. And after I met John Alsk and my partner and, and David Palmer, who I worked with out here a bit.Michael Jamin (06:50):Wow. You were serious about it. Did you have to apply to those programs?Dave Krinsky (06:53):You know? Yeah, no, I mean, I, I was in the, I got accepted to the honors program, which was what I had applied for. And because of that I got to get into some of the writing classes I wouldn't have had access to anyway.Michael Jamin (07:05):So this is all or nothing for you? I mean, you, I mean, there was no plan BDave Krinsky (07:09):Well I, you know, my mom was always like, Ryan, you go to law school, you have something to fall back on. But I knew if I something to fall back and I'd probably fall back on it, you know? And, and it took us a while to get su you know, really established with Point. I could get rid of that crappy car with the o ac ac in the apartment with the oac. But if I had had the ability or the degree to do anything else, I probably would've bailed on the writing dream earlier.Michael Jamin (07:32):Right. Wow. And then, and then, so eventually you just had to move into tv and then how, I know, how did you get your first gig?Dave Krinsky (07:40):So we decided to move tv. We wrote a couple of spec scripts and I think it was Bill Martin who said, oh, you should meet Carolyn Strauss over at hbo o And Carolyn of course was, you know, at the vanguard of starting H B O when it was, yeah.Michael Jamin (07:54):Wait, he's setting up meetings for you? Like, he's like your agent now, bill? No,Dave Krinsky (07:57):It really was one of those things where it was like, we're like, Hey, we wanna get into TV doing, he goes, oh, well you should meet Ke Strauss. We like Hershey's really cool. And I think he might have told her, oh, you should meet these guys. Okay. And so we had a general with her and which was a good lesson. It was like, you know, I think we always had something to pitch. We always knew a general, everybody, you know, wants something. I can't remember if we pitched anything too specifically or not. Cuz in movies you always want to pitch an idea. Sometimes in TV it really is just a general Yeah. To see what you know. But, you know, it was a great meeting and nothing came of it. And then like nine months later we got a call from her and she goes, look, we're doing a show.(08:32): The showrunner really wants movie guys doesn't want like, just TV sitcom guys. Wow. And I thought of you guys, you, you look, look at the pilot, they shot a pilot and they sent the pilot over. It was a black and white period single camera show. David Ledon was the executive producer. Adam Resnick was the showrunner, the creator. And it was awesome. It was like the Cohen Brothers really dark funny. And we were like, yeah. So she set up a call with us. We talked to Adam for like an hour and a half, mostly about Goodfellas and the Godfather and just movies. And then they called us up, goes, look, will you the show's in New York, will you move there? And we're like, yeah, we'll move there. She goes, okay, three or four days, can you move? And we're like, yeah, what do we don't have? I don't even think we had a plant in our place, you know, our fresh food. So we moved toMichael Jamin (09:18):New York. And you got outta your rent You? Or do youDave Krinsky (09:20):Remember? We sublet Cause it was a, I think it was a 10 episode order that became an eight episode order, which is now, you know, the norm. But then was like, okay, so we're only gonna be there probably nine months of production. So we figured why give up our place.Michael Jamin (09:34):Do you think if it wasn't a good show, you would've taken, if it was a bad show, you would've taken the author?Dave Krinsky (09:40):Oh, that's a good question. You know, probably not, you know, before this happened, we were in the movie biz. We, we had a meeting with Polly Shore, right. And Polly was manager was in the meeting and his manager was a gentleman named Michael Rotenberg, who is now my manager. And, and Michael and and Sea have, you know, allMichael Jamin (09:59):Times he's our dealt withDave Krinsky (10:00):Them. He was an executor on King of the Hill. So this was before King of the Hill even. And we pitched Polly the new line, wanted to do a movie where Pauly basically, they sound of mu they wanted him to be a nanny. And we pitched like Sound of Music with Polly going around Europe and Polly was as insulting and, and, and just not a good collaborate. He was just say, Hey, who are these greasy weasels? And you know, he just goes, no, just turn the camera on and I'll be funny. And we're like, okay. But John I think had like $93 in this bank account and I might have had a little bit more. And they offered it to us and we were like, this could be our career right. Path that we don't want to be on. And we turned it down. So I think if it was a crappy show, we probably would've turned it down too.Michael Jamin (10:45):Right. Wow. You turned it down. Cuz I, you know, now you, I think now you take anything you forgetDave Krinsky (10:50):. Yeah, well certainlyMichael Jamin (10:51):It's not you, but one, one does. Right.Dave Krinsky (10:53):And it's not a bad, it's not bad advice. You gotta get in the game, you know? So we had already been in the game just enough that it wasn't like we were completely unknown. We had anything produced, so we certainly weren't a hot commodity. Right. But we really felt like, oh, this could just pigeonhole us. And it was interesting because our agent was like, okay, if you don't wanna do it, fine, but we don't really want to be rude and turn it down, so we're gonna ask for way more money than they'll ever pay you. Right. So they went and asked for like $400,000 and they were furious anyway. They're like, who the hell do you think you are asking anymore? It's just like, sorry, we just don't wanna do it. So. Right.Michael Jamin (11:31):How funny, did you, were you, when you first got on King of the, or I guess not, well I guess, you know, on Resnick's show, were you, did you, did you find it over? You were in over your head? I mean, that's how I felt when we started.Dave Krinsky (11:42):Oh yeah. Because I was always that one of those writers, and I'm sure there's plenty like that. I'm like, I don't even in college where you had to like, give your scr your scripts or your stories to people to read. I'm like, I don't wanna do this. You know? Cause I just didn't have the confidence or faith in myself. So we got to New York and we were working at a Letterman's theater. And Adam's great. I mean, he is the nicest guy. He's a super small staff. There's this John and I, this other team and this guy Vince Calandra. Right. And I just remember like sitting in the writer's room, not saying a word because I was like, I don't wanna say the wrong thing and look like an idiot. And, and in all honesty, when I got to King of the Hill, I looked around, I was like, I recognize names from seeing him on The Simpsons and you know, my judge of course. And I was inhibited there too. And I barely pitched, I think for the first couple of months I was there.Michael Jamin (12:30):Really. And then what was the moment when you felt like you could, you could test the waters?Dave Krinsky (12:36):Well, what happened was, I was just hanging out enough, like, so in the lunchroom, you know, I got to be friendly with people and people go out for a drink and then it suddenly was a social thing. And I was comfortable in that and I could start being funny that way. So by the time I got back to the room after a couple of months, it was kind of like, oh, I was just bull bullshitting with my friends, you know? And it was much easier to pitch because Right. It felt safer,Michael Jamin (13:00):Felt sa because I even remember on Kingley we had some interns, people would sit in pitching and I'm like, how did they get over their fear of pitching when they haven't been hired as a writer? .Dave Krinsky (13:10):Yeah. I mean, and it, it's a good question for young writers and, and I'm teaching a class down at Chapman now and, and I'm like, it's a tricky situation when you're a new writer, you want to talk cuz you want to prove you're mm-hmm. worthy. But if you talk too much or talk poorly Yeah. It doesn't do you any good. And it really, in my opinion, when as a showrunner, I would rather you be quiet and sort of take it all in and pitch very occasionally, then feel like you've gotta pitch stuff that ends up derailing the room.Michael Jamin (13:40):You know, I, I totally agree with you. The one thing I've said, cause I think a new, let's say there's 10 writers in a room, and a staff writer often thinks, well I better speak a 10th of the time because I'm, there's 10 people here, but they're not getting paid a 10th. They're not getting paid as much as the co-executive producer. They don't have to contribute as much. You know?Dave Krinsky (13:56):Yeah. And it's not expected. Like, I've seen plenty of horrible showrunners who are punitive and, you know, they don't make it easy for a staff writer and they're happy to fire a staff writer every season and try someone else. But John, I have always been like, look, we're gonna bring you on board. We're gonna be patient with you. You know, it's like, it's not an easy position to be in. And, and when you're a showrunner, all you want is someone to make your life easier. And if a staff writer makes your life easier one time in a season, it's almost like, okay, you know what? I got something outta you. Great. WhatMichael Jamin (14:27):About that leap from, cuz I was there for that. You were, I guess it was season 60 started running it, is that right?Dave Krinsky (14:35):Yeah, six seven was our first official year running here. Billy,Michael Jamin (14:38):What was it like for you making the le because you know, everyone, you always think, I could do this job, I could do the job better than my boss. And then you become the boss and you're like, wait a minute, this is hard.Dave Krinsky (14:47):Yeah. Well I remember when on that Resnik show, there was a consultant there, and he told us, he goes, the punishment for writing well is producing. And it's like, you know, you work your way up and you become a producer and suddenly Yeah. You're managing people, you're dealing with all the politics, the budget. And I think the, the biggest thing that happened to me was we were working, and I can't remember if you were in the room or not. Do you remember Collier's episode about that Michael Keaton did? What The Pig the Pigs are? Yeah.Michael Jamin (15:15):I was there for probably, we probably got there for the animatic part of it. So we were didn't great itDave Krinsky (15:20):Okay. So it was a really weird story and Collier's a great writer, but this was one that was trouble from the get go just because it was so bizarre. Yes. And and I remember we were working super late trying to get to it and, and I think Richard Chappelle was running the, the show at that point. And he and Greg were developing a show and they left the room and everybody left the room. There was like four of us in there, and I think Greg or Rich Dave, you get on the computer and I and King of the Hill, the room, it wasn't like a conference room, it was like a big, almost like living room with a Yeah. Scattered room. One person sat there, it kind of ran the room. We didn't have the screen showing the script, which I never liked anyway. And I was like, I don't think I can run a room. Mm-Hmm. . And I got up there and I was just like, you know, I just did what I had to do. And I remember we, you know, spent a few hours, it was late night and we kind of like gave the script rich and Greg, and they came and got, this is great, this is working. And it was like, oh gee, so I guess I can do it. Right.Dave Krinsky (16:15):So when we took over the show, yeah. I mean it definitely was like, you, so many things were harder than you would think, but some were easier too. I remember the other showrunners before we run the show would come back from pitching the story. So the network, and they go, well, we sold six outta seven of 'em. So, you know, it wasn't easy. And then when we started pitching to the network, you know, the show had been on for six, seven years. They were like, okay, good. It was like, oh, this isn't that hard. Right. The hard parts were, you know, managing the budget, managing people, managing writers, dealing with the network.Michael Jamin (16:47):How much budget were you dealing with? Like, what were you, how big was it? Like, were you what? No, I mean, like what, what exactly were you doing? You know? Oh, yeah, because I, I don't really touch the, when we were running stuff, we don't really touch the budgets, butDave Krinsky (16:58):What do you, oh, so I mean, first it was the writer's budget, which every year was like, yeah, okay. Like, who can we afford to pay? But I mean, a lot of it, you'll remember our, our line producer McKinsey would walk in and be like, you know what? Last episode had a football crowd and this episode you want to do, you know, whatever a a crowd scene at the school, we can't afford that. The budget won't. Right. You know, so a lot of it was making creative decisions based on the limitations. Although it's so funny in animation because we would do like a big, you know, Hank football, we do a big football episode with a lot of people in the crowd and Jims like, okay, this is really streaming the animators. We can't do another big one next week. So next week we'd go, look, this is a very simple episode. It mostly takes place in the house. It's a very personal story between Hank and Bobby. And he's like, Ooh, that's gonna strain the animators. It's gonna require a lot of acting . Yeah. Like, ok, so wait, we can't do anythingMichael Jamin (17:52):. There's always a reason. That's right. There's always a reason why you're gonna ruin the show,Dave Krinsky (17:57):The bank.Michael Jamin (17:58):Wow. That's so, and now and then so what ha, so then after King of the Hill, which you guys did for many years, then it went down and they then went down for, I was probably a couple years it went down. Right.Dave Krinsky (18:10):I don't remember if it was a couple years because Yeah. So the show did not get picked up. Right. And then they moved John and I and Clarissa assistant onto the lot, into this crummy little office to finish posting the shows. Right. And so we were there posting the shows and we never left. I mean, by the time we, we, it's not like we were like home and done before we left there. They, they picked the show up again for another run.Michael Jamin (18:38):What was the thinking behind canceling and then picking it up again? Like why?Dave Krinsky (18:42):From what I hear Uhhuh, it's so, you know, Fox Network ran the show. Mm-Hmm. , 20th Century Fox was the studio who owned the show. Right. And apparently the, the heads of the studio got big bonuses when they got new shows on the air that were successful. So they weren't making a ton of money.Michael Jamin (19:05):Personally.Dave Krinsky (19:06):Personally. And the other thing, apparently they owned and operated cuz everything was syndicated. You know, in those days the package was so high for them to pay. As the show got on that they were like, wow, we gotta renegotiate this deal. So when everybody started renegotiating, it seemed like, okay, let's not do it. And then ultimately, I bet it was Aria Emmanuel fought for, cuz he was always fighting for it. But, or maybe it was Rotenberg, but yes, that's whatever they just decided. Okay. They made a deal and picked us back up again.Michael Jamin (19:34):And at that point it was, it was a lot of new writers, well most of the writers had moved on, but you were still on the show. So the cause you kind of restarted the staff was almost, as I remember it was almost almost brand new. There was only a couple pre previous writers, like Christie Stratton was there,Dave Krinsky (19:51):I think Christie was there, kit was there, kit Balls, GarlandMichael Jamin (19:54):Garland was there. Sure. Okay.Dave Krinsky (19:56):Yeah. So there was definitely a core group. I remember like, I can't remember Tony and Becky came on. Right. I don't remember if that was before that or not. So I think enough people, it might have been like, nowadays there's not really a staffing season, but I think it might have been during a non-st staffing season that enough people hadn't landed somewhere that we could get, get him back.Michael Jamin (20:15):Right, right. And then after that, you guys did The Good Family?Dave Krinsky (20:20):Yeah. So that was another, you know, people wanted an animated show from us. We had, you know, we'd gotten very close to Mike on King of the Hill. So started working together a lot with him. And we had this, this show The Good Family about a very you know, PC family, sort of the opposite of Hank Hill. And I just remember, you know, everybody was like, okay, take it to Fox and it'll run for forever. And it was just like, we just wanted to do things differently. And m r c and Independent, you know, studio had came out, came after us pretty hard and said, no, we want to do this deal. We can finance it and, and you can have a better upside and more freedom and Okay. So we decided to do it and we pitched it around and a B C just made such a hard press for it.Michael Jamin (21:03):OhDave Krinsky (21:03):Wow. And yeah. And it turns out they weren't the best partners simply because they didn't have any animation on. Right. They put us on with a really bad animated show, like after Wipe Out or something. It was just like not a good fit. Right. So, but it ends up, you know, the bottom fell outta the industry right after that cuz Rotenberg would call us up and goes, you know, your numbers would be a top 10 show like within two years. Right. We would've been like, fine. But at that moment just wasn't good enough numbers.Michael Jamin (21:30):And then, and then came, then they brought back Beavis and Butthead, which you guys ran, which was so interesting cuz that was a whole different experience that, that was all freelance. That's why you guys called us, Hey, you wanna write a briefs and Butthead? We're like, yeah, we'll do that.Dave Krinsky (21:43):Yeah. I mean, who wouldn't wanna have an opportunity do that? Right. Yeah. So Mike, they've always begging Mike to bring it back and he was always like, yeah, the situation has to be right. And he just felt like the timing was right. And he had some stories he wanted to tell and he loves doing them. I mean Yeah. You know, as he always said, king of the Hill requires a ton of effort for a little bit of output. Bvis requires a little bit of input for a ton of output. You know, people just love it and it's funny. Yeah. so yeah, so I mean, the budgets weren't super high and we couldn't license music anymore. I mean, and when Mike originally did it, it was all music videos because M T V owned all those videos. Right. But the world had changed so suddenly we were doing Jersey Shore and, and a lot of other like, reality shows. Cause that was the only sort of material we could get mm-hmm. . Michael Jamin (22:29):Yeah. But we, that's, we did like, because I remember we brought, you guys brought us in, there's a, there was a woman, a couple women in Detroit, it was so cold in the deed, had a song so cold in the deed. ColdDave Krinsky (22:40):In the de Yeah.Michael Jamin (22:41):And I don't remember how it happened, but I, I think I commented on on her, maybe on her YouTube channel or something. I go, this is a great song. And she went with nuts. She's like, oh, thank you so much, . She's, so, yeah,Dave Krinsky (22:53):It was a weird sort of viral head, I think almost before things really went viral. And it was just like a homemade video about, you know, living in Detroit and Michael Jamin (23:01):And how did you find all that stuff?Dave Krinsky (23:03):Mike had found it and just thought it was really funny and really interesting. And soMichael Jamin (23:06):He was just surfing the internet looking for like, real cheap stuff that he could get.Dave Krinsky (23:11):I don't even think it was like with an eye toward Bes, but he also was in this little network of like, Knoxville and Spike Jones. They all like send each other stuff. So I don't know where he got it from, but I think he just saw it. And, and, and you know what, I, I don't know, he's never said, but that might have been. But just to bring Bes back where he is just like, oh my God, they'd have so much fun with this.Michael Jamin (23:30):Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlistMichael Jamin (23:54):And then okay. So then what, what came after that?Dave Krinsky (23:58):So yeah, blades of Glory was in the middle of the King of the Hill era. Right. and then I guess Silicon Valley really would be the, the next big thing that,Michael Jamin (24:10):And Okay. How did you guys come up with that idea? Which is a pretty big hit.Dave Krinsky (24:15):Yeah. So that was an interesting confluence of events where Mike had been in talks with H B O, they really wanted to do something with him. And Scott Rudin wanted to do something in sort of the gaming space. Mm-Hmm. . So they were sort of circling around this tech world. And Mike's like, I'm not a gamer. I don't know that well, but Mike was an engineer, you know, electrical engineer, so he knew, you know that world well. Yeah. but John was reading the, the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson and saw this quote in the book where it's like Bill Gates was making fun of Steve Jobs goes, he can't even code.Michael Jamin (24:48):Yeah.Dave Krinsky (24:49):So John had this idea. He goes, well that's a really funny world. And his, his brother was an electric engineer, so he knew that world as well. And you know, so we pitched an idea to Mike doing something that Mike goes, well, I would love to do that. So then when we pitched it to H B O, they were like, yeah, this sounds great.Michael Jamin (25:04):Sorry. Right. So you wrote the pilot shot it and you were, and then like what people don't understand is like the process for shooting a pilot or, you know, like it's a big deal. It's like a lot of work. It's like even casting is a lot of work.Dave Krinsky (25:18):Yeah. And it, it was a lot of work and, and you know, there's a lot of round, I mean, after to, you know, really it was pretty high on it even after our first draft. It felt like it was gonna move in the right direction. And I do remember them calling him saying, okay, we wanna shoot a pilot mm-hmm. . and we had just done a show for Nat Geo before this where the budgets, the budgets were, you know, very low. I can't remember what they were, but, so HBO calls saying, you know, look, the pilot's gotta, the budget's gotta have like a four or five in front of it and we're like 400, 500 grands ton, but we can probably do it. It was like, no, no, no. Four or 5 million, million(25:52):. And they, they actually forced us to go up to Silicon Valley to shoot for a few days, bring the whole company up and we're like, there's nothing up there. We can shoot this in la. You know, and we ended up shooting like on the side of a freeway and we had a couple establishing shots of Google and Facebook and Right. And stuff. But, you know, HBO does things and they want it to be authentic so you know, all the credit in the world to them. Right. and then, yeah. Then when we did an edit, it was interesting cuz the pilot to Silicon Valley has a very big subplot of these two women in LA who are tired of the LA scene and they go up to Silicon Valley cuz the guys are rich and nice and and nerdy. And they meet our heroes in the first episode. And h HP was like, yeah, you know, we don't want this storyline. We don't think we need it. So those poor actresses got cut outMichael Jamin (26:37):Mm-Hmm.Dave Krinsky (26:37): and yeah. Crushing. Crushing. Yeah. It's gotta be, gotta be tough to see a show be that and you're,Michael Jamin (26:44):And you were cut out of it. Yeah. Yeah. What now when you, I know you, you teach at Chapman, it's so interesting cuz some people are like, is film school worth it? It's like, it depends on who you get as your teacher. Like, honestly, it's like it, you know and I'm sure they're very lucky to have you. What do you, you know, what is it, what's it like with these kids? You know, what are you teaching them? What are, where are they coming from, I guess?Dave Krinsky (27:06):Yeah, so the class is writing for adult animation. So, you know, half hour animation was like King of the Hill and, and, and things like that. But you know, as you well know, writing for animation is very similar to writing for anything. You know, it, it really is. You still need your three x structure and everything you can just go a little crazier with with things. And yeah, I asked them all, you know, beginning, because it, a lot of people still ask me, is it worth going to film school? Look, film school's expensive if you can afford it. Mm-Hmm. , it's not a bad thing. And I think what these kids are getting, and I said kids, but a lot of 'em are in their twenties. I think one's in his thirties, Uhhuh, . They're writing constantly. Someone's making to, that's good.(27:45):They're in LA so they're exposed to people, you know, not Pam or something, but like me who have done it in the business. We're not just academics who have published books about things. You know, and, and you know, you know, Brian Behar is down there, there's a bunch of Jill Con, there's a bunch of people down there who are like, done stuff. And last week or the other day, Damon, the guy who did La La Land, I can never say his last name in Whiplash. Yeah. He was speaking tonight. Austin Butler's speaking. Like, they just have a ton of people coming through. So you have exposure to all these people who have done things. Yeah. You also have connections that, you know, if you don't go to film till you just have to move to LA and try to, you know, try to build yourself. So yeah. So I think it's a, it's a good thing if you can afford it. If you can't afford it, it is not, it is not worth stretching to do it because, you know, we moved to LA and we started networking and meeting people and kept writing and, you know, that's really how most people do it. DoMichael Jamin (28:40):You feel you have to beat misconceptions out of them? You know,Dave Krinsky (28:45):I think this is my first class and I'm teaching second year grad students. Mm-Hmm. , so they're fairly savvy.Michael Jamin (28:53):Okay.Dave Krinsky (28:54):I think they've been exposed to it enough that there's not a ton of misconceptions, but there are big gaps in their knowledge. Just, you know, as it would be with anybody who, who hasn't been in the business. So, look, I teach them things about structure. Things like things they've probably heard before, but in ways that, you know, I, here's mistakes I've made before. You know, having a scene have to carry double duty and a half hour show is really difficult cause you have to change gears within the middle of a scene. You know, keep it simple. So things like that, I should, but they definitely light up more to my more anecdotal stories. Like, what's it like to be in the room? What's it like to work for a showrunner who's, you know, marginalizing you. What I remember I talked to the other day, I go, yeah, so we have this if come deal. And I could say, I go, wait, do you guys know what NIF come deal is? And they're like, no. I was like, oh, okay. Well let me explain that. So Right.Michael Jamin (29:45):What do you tell 'em about the showrunners? Who, who, who marginalized you? What's your, what's your advice on that? I wanna hear it.Dave Krinsky (29:51):Yeah, you know, it's just tough. I mean, I just keep stressing to them that most showrunners are under so much pressure and stress. All they want is someone to make their life easier. Mm-Hmm. . So, you know, the better you can do that, you know, the better off you'll be. And sometimes it's uncomfortable, but you need, like you, well I guess you weren't there at the beginning, but the king of the hill, you know, Greg was running the show and he had so many things you were on, so he was barely in the room. Right. So you didn't really know what he wanted. You didn't know if your story was gonna work. So if you saw em in the break room or saw em in the hallway, you would be like, Hey Greg, this is what we're doing. You know, you try to get feedback from em.(30:31):So that's what I tell them. I go do get as much from the showrunner as you can. And some of them won't give you anything as they're not rooting for you to succeed, but get as much as you can from them when you can, because it doesn't do you any good to try to figure out what they're doing. I mean, you have to do that to some level. The more you know what they want. And that's why I tell these, you know, these kids are doing beat sheets and outlines. I'm like, be as specific as you can. Don't cheat yourself because I'm gonna read stuff you gloss over and go, oh, I guess they know what they're doing. Right. And then when you gimme a script and I'm like, wait, what if you had done that in your outline? I could have pointed it out at that stage.Michael Jamin (31:06):Right, exactly. And when you say, cause when you say you know, you just helped the showrunner out, like, to me, what I want as a showrunner, what I, I just want a draft that doesn't need a page one rewrite. That's how I feel. I mean, is that what you're talking about?Dave Krinsky (31:20):Pretty much, yeah. I mean, or look, if you're someone who can, who can, you know, have the joke or the story fix in the room that gets you all home sooner, then that's fine too. I mean, you know, I mean, at King of the Hill we had such a big staff, it's an animated show. There were people who turned in great drafts. There were people who weren't great draft fighters, where were great in the room. You know, so in those days you could build a big enough team that, you know, you could have a pinch hitter and a utility field or designated here. Now the staff are so small, you really do want someone, but you're right. I mean, to get that draft mm-hmm. that needs a ton of work, you're like, okay, this sets us back so much on everything else now we can't, now I can't be in the editing room now. We can't push that next week's story forward. It's like, now we gotta dig in on this one.Michael Jamin (32:03):And, and what, what is, I mean that's exactly, yeah, that's exactly the panic that I, I I used to feel. But what did you, what is the advice, like, cause the industry's really changing so fast now. Like what is the advice you give these kids get out of film school in order to get into the business?Dave Krinsky (32:20):Yeah. I te look, it's tough. You know, I always try not to be too negative about it because it's always been tough. It's just tough in a different way. Right. you know what I tell them is like, look, the movie business is extraordinarily difficult. Mm-Hmm. . So if you want to be a movie writer, that's fine. But, you know, I urge them like, TV seems to be a cleaner path. Yeah. It used to be with movies, at least you could write a spec at some control where TV had to hope somebody hired you. So now, you know, I say, look, if you have a good movie idea, think about it as a series because, you know, a-list actors are all doing tv. You know, there's a, there's, and obviously TV is in a, isn't a great state right now with just the quality of it. Yeah. but yeah, I mean, you really do just have to, the basics are right, right, right. Mm-Hmm. and network, you gotta be in LA you gotta be hitting all the places because you never know. Look, that meeting with Carolyn Strauss, we had like, it was a good meeting. It wasn't like, ah, we've made it, we've met Carolyn Strauss and it wasn't until nine months later that something on the game of it. Right.Michael Jamin (33:19):Right. So it's really about getting in those circles.Dave Krinsky (33:21):Yeah.Michael Jamin (33:22):Yeah. I mean I, yeah, I remember people say that all times. Do I have to be in la? I'm like, you don't have to do anything you don't want, but you know, this is where the fish swim. You know?Dave Krinsky (33:32):Yeah. I mean the, the thing is, and I think you've probably said for, it's like the material doesn't really speak for itself. Mm-Hmm. , like in movies, it used to like a good specs script would find, you know, a, a buyer mm-hmm. , you know, now there's very few ideas that someone's gonna go, well, I don't care who this comes from, I want to do it. You know, and there's, there's very few scripts that are good enough that any anybody's gonna be like, I'm gonna put this on the air. It happens. They are out there. But the vast majority of the time it's, I've been hanging out, I've been going to, you know, upright citizens for grade. I've been going, oh, I've been helping out on a student film. Right. Hey, that kid I helped out is now on the desk at uta. Does UTA even exists anymore? I don't know. You know, myMichael Jamin (34:15):Agent? Yeah. I'm not sure.Dave Krinsky (34:15):Yeah. It's c aa and it's like, you know what, he wants to be an agent, so he's trying to hustle. So he's gonna hand the script over to, and suddenly you have a meeting, you know, with an agent, a real agent. So that's how it mo mostly happens. And you gotta be in LA for that.Michael Jamin (34:30):Yeah, exactly. That's how I feel.Dave Krinsky (34:33):Yeah.Michael Jamin (34:34):So what now I know you also, oh, I wanna mention your, your book. Is it you, you and John, your partner are of the, like, of all the writing teams I've known, even writers I've known, like you guys are the most entrepreneurial, it seems like you, like, you know, there nothing, there's a, there's a path to do it and then there's always like, well let's figure out how else we can do them. You know, you're always like the hustle doesn't end and it's create, it's always like creating opportunities for yourself.Dave Krinsky (34:59):Yeah, I mean certainly. And John's much, much better at that than, I mean he has a very entrepreneurial spirit and I enjoy it though. I like doing things differently. But he's very innovative in the way he thinks he's been in Europe for since, for Covid and for a lot of that. Mm-Hmm. just, you know, kicking the tires in the international market and making some headway there. But like, I remember like a couple of years ago we hooked up and were producing this writer who had done a academy award, docu a nominated documentary, and he had a half hour sitcom and he was he was crypt camp, so he was in a wheelchair and it was a character was about his story. And it was a really cool story. And Obama's company was attached to it. And it was like, this is a great, I mean it's a great script, great project, you know, and we go to Netflix a Zoom pitch and they literally were like this.(35:47):But as soon as the camera came on, you're like, okay, this isn't gonna be a sale. Mm-Hmm. , I mean, we knew it from the get go. Good lesson is you still pitch your heart out cuz you don't wanna ever have to blame yourself. If they don't buy it, they don't buy it. But so was like, what, you know, it's a great pro. Everything was great about it, but you don't know what they want and you just have so little control. So as we say, like shopping around town with our briefcase full of wears like Willie Loman is just not an appealing thing. So, you know, John had met this, this Irish actor, a guy named Richie Stevens, and he was pitching a friend's story and you know, that story wasn't quite hooking John. And then Richie started telling him about his own life and he was a recovered alcoholic drug addict gangster.(36:29):Right. And he is like, oh, that's interesting me, I want you to meet Dave. So we all sat down together, I'm like, I just had a fascinating life, a fascinating story. Like that's a great story to tell. Right. And and it was John's idea too. He was like, rich, you did the 12 steps of, you know, recovery. And he goes, yeah. He goes, let's tell your story in 12 steps. And that lends itself to a very nice TV show. Mm-Hmm. . But we were like, do we really want to go pitch a TV show? And so we said, you know what if we could write this as a book, cuz it lends itself to a book really. Well, 12 chapters. The 12 steps. Right. And I always wanted to write a book from the time I was 12, you know but then we'd have an IP and Hollywood loves an ip, you know, they love it If it's a,Michael Jamin (37:12):You still had to pitch it as a book. I mean you still have to pitch cuz you had to pitch it as aDave Krinsky (37:15):Book. Yeah. It's not like that's an easy path either. Yeah. But look, we had been out here long enough, we knew, you know, Jake Steinfeld Body by Jake who had published several successful books. He goes, well let me introduce you to my book agent. She publishes a lot of nonfiction authors. We'd pitched to her, she said, okay, this is a good hook. I think I can sell it. She turned around and sold it to a publisher. So then, you know, then we wrote the book, which took a while, but it's like now we have a book, which is an ip, which we can set up and we have much more control over it. Yeah. And we're making very good headway and setting it up as a TV show now.Michael Jamin (37:48):Right. Cuz you're bringing, you're bringing more to the table, which is why I always say, what else can you bring to the table? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, yeah, and it's an interesting read. I Yeah. Read it. Wonderful. So yeah, I give give you guys a lot of credit, a lot of credit, a lot of hustle.Dave Krinsky (38:03):Well look, a lot of it comes from boredom. And, and in all honesty, there's certain things we can do because of our track record. So when I'm advising like younger writers, I'm like, well, this won't necessarily work for you. Right. But you really do. I mean, the business has become so consolidated. It's a, it's a weird, it's also a weird business where like almost the quality or success of the entertainment doesn't matter. I mean, Apple's trying to sell mm-hmm. , you know, iPhones, Amazon's trying to sell everything else in the world so it doesn't have the same sort of metric as it used to when you were pitching a show. So it, it, it's difficult. But you know, like I met this young writer and she wrote a script that I really liked a lot mm-hmm. and, you know, we tried to set it up around town and have a ton of luck.(38:44):And then we learned she has dual citizenship, I guess triple citizen from Belgium and from France mm-hmm. . And it's like, oh, an American writer who's got, you know, some talent who can go over to the EU and tap into the money over there with their subsidies because she has a, is a huge thing. So now we're making headway on that. Right. So there's a lot of different angles that anybody's starting out might have access to that they can do instead of really just waiting for an agent or a writer or a studio to notice them.Michael Jamin (39:14):Right, right. Stop begging, stop begging, start making, making things happen yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Well tell, well tell us tell me what the name of that, that book so they can find it on Amazon.Dave Krinsky (39:25):It's called The Gangster's Guide to Sobriety.Michael Jamin (39:27):Yeah. He's a charming fella.Dave Krinsky (39:29):That guy. Yeah. You know, he's a real Irishman with the Irish accent and like, if you read the book, I mean, he did some horrible things and he's always like shocked that people are nice to him cuz of the horrible things he's done. But he's also a very gentle, sweet guy. He was just an, he was an addict and, and he made a lot of bad decisions from there, butMichael Jamin (39:45):Right. Dave Krinsky (39:46):But yeah, he is a good guy. He'sMichael Jamin (39:47):A good story. Yeah. A lot of good stories. Dave Krinsky, I'd give you a hug ifDave Krinsky (39:52):You I wantMichael Jamin (39:53):One , if you weren't on Zoom. Thank you so much. Thank you. Is there anything, any other parting words that we can get from you or anything, any other wisdom? Is that, or we tap, tap you out?Dave Krinsky (40:03):I don't know about wisdom, but I know that you know, a lot of people are, are tuning into you and checking your stuff out. And I just remember at King of the Hill and we've worked together on a bunch of shows, like you were always the fastest guy in the room. I was always just so amazed and, and jokes never translate. And it was your joke, so you'll sound like an idiot. But I just still remember we're all sitting in the writer's room and someone comes in and says, oh, I was down in Century City and I saw that Bewitched movie with will Ferrell and a Nicole Kidman. Yeah. And they go, how was he goes, well, I didn't really get to see it all because there was a fire alarm in the fire department came, came in and you yell everybody out, there's a bomb on the screen.Michael Jamin (40:38):, I don't remember that at, I have no memory of that at all. . My other, myDave Krinsky (40:44):Other favorite memory of King of the Hill was, you remember sitting in that back chair mm-hmm. taking a hole.Michael Jamin (40:50):Yes. And I have, I found a picture of it that was, I'll explain for the, for the, for our viewers we had, right. So there was a while on King of the Hill when we were working like 20 hours a day , and I felt like a hostage. And I had this one big chair that had big wooden legs on it. And I took like a thumb tack and I started digging a hole like the Shawshank Redemption. Redemption. Like I was digging a hole out of the . And then, and it took, it took months to finally when I finally broke through, I put a picture of Rita Hayworth on it so you couldn't see him as digging . And this is ballsy for a new guy. Cause I was like, you know, I was destroying furniture and I was telling everyone that I was not happy to be there 20 hours a day.Dave Krinsky (41:33):. Well, the thing we all, we all kind of bought into this fantasy that when you broke through we'd be free. Right. And it was so depressing when you broke through and we were like,Michael Jamin (41:43):We're allDave Krinsky (41:43):Back to work.Michael Jamin (41:45):I, I remember Garland was particularly interested in it. She's like, well, you know, because she was like, what are you gonna get through? Oh, funny. That's so funny. I'm, I'm glad you reminded that cuz I forget everything. That's the va the advantage of working with people if they can remind me of these stories. I don't remember any of that. I don't remember that that be whichDave Krinsky (42:04): Yeah. No, it was very funny. But no, I this was a pleasure and I I love what you're doing and I think, you know, you're giving information to people that's kind of hard to get anywhere else. You can learn craft, you can learn certain things, but you have so much input that's useful on a day-to-day level for aspiring writers. So good on you.Michael Jamin (42:20):Thank you so much Dave Krinsky, thank you again. AndDave Krinsky (42:24):Pleasure to see youMichael Jamin (42:25):Everyone. So yeah stay tuned. We had more episodes coming up next week. Thanks. And yeah, we have what else we got? We got a free webinar once a month. Sign up for that on my website, michaeljamin.com and my free newsletter. All good stuff. Go to michaeljamin.com and you can find it. Alright everyone, thank you so much.Phil Hudson (42:44):This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving your review and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's cycle. For free daily screenwriting tips, follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at @PhilAHudson This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas Crane. Until max time, keep writing.

Overcoming trauma is not easy, but with God, all things are possible.   As a highly successful business woman, wife and mom, Maria Termotto Horwitz shares her story of dealing with childhood tragedy to now living a blessed life with God. Maria is a woman on a mission to encourage us not to fall into the trap of remaining stagnant and believing lies from the enemy. God has a purpose and plan for you.   ****   Kimberly Hobbs   Welcome to Empowering Lives with Purpose. And I'm your host, Kimberly Hobbs. I'm the founder of Women World Leaders. And we are so grateful that you chose to listen in today to the women world leaders podcast and today our guest is Maria, tomato. Horwitz. Maria, I'm so glad that you joined us, Honey, Maria Temotto Horwitz   thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Kimberly Hobbs   We're talking about the blessed life today, ladies, and Maria is such a joy and she lives out a blessed calling on her life. She's amazing. So as we get into today, we're, we're just overjoyed every time we come to you and, and bring to you stories that we feel would really be impactful that we can relate to these stories of things that are going on within our own life and see how God moves as you listen in and, and maybe identify with some of the stories or some of the pain, and how we look to God with with what we're going through on a day to day basis. Because we can't do this life alone. And it's all about coming together and sharing with one another and following after God and asking him to be with us in our lives. One of the scriptures I love to share in these podcasts as they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. And by the word of their testimony. That's revelation 1211. And it there's healing when we share these stories that God has given us. And I am just grateful that Brandi chose to come and share with us today I want to tell you a little bit about Maria before we get going. Maria is a woman on a mission. And as a Florida native, she has built a successful real estate and property management company with her husband Josh and they also have a little daughter Genesee, whose precious. Maria's faith based approach to real estate makes her the miracle working realtor who connects blessed families with their best home ever. Maria's unwavering faith is the foundation of everything she does, as evident in her daily routine, which always begins with the Miracle Morning and Bible study, which we'll talk a little bit about later. Maria's desire to serve others is also at the heart of her work. And in memory of her late mother, she founded the Amanda tomatoes, right from the Heart Foundation, which empowers young people to live their lives to the fullest, for the glory of God. I love that. She partners with a nonprofit organization, and she makes positive impacts on her community. And together with her husband and daughter Maria loves sports. She loves making memories in God's creation. She loves being a role model and living her life for the glory of God. She is a delight. And I am so grateful to have her and Maria chose blessed today for the title of our podcast. And Maria, you have quite the story to share. Which brings us to a bit later of why you chose the word blast for today's podcast. And I just want to share this scripture before Maria shares her story. And it's from Second Thessalonians 316 and says May the lord of peace Himself, give you his peace at all times. And in every situation. The Lord be with you. And I quote this verse right now because inwardly I'm going to be praying for Maria, she shares her story. So go ahead and real let's, let's hear a little bit about your story. Maria Temotto Horwitz   Thank you, Kimberly. Hi. So I'll just jump right in. I'm 13 years old. And I'm in the car with my mom and my two younger brothers. My brother Michael, who was 11 and my brother Max, who was six. And we just went into Toys R Us and got some toys on behalf of my brother's birthday, who we just celebrated. And we're sitting there in the parking lot of Toys R Us and my mom looks in the rearview mirror and says would you guys be okay, if I died? And it was such a weird question to hear. As a 13 year old and i i took a moment and I said we would survive but why are you asking that's never gonna happen. Then she just was silent. And then we just continued on with the day and I didn't think anything of it. Until two days later. I wake up It's a 6am on a Monday morning, a school day. And my brothers are pounding on my door and shouting and screaming that mom's dead. And I get up not knowing what's happening. And I walk over to their bedroom. And it smells like sickening Gun Smoke. And I can hear my heart in my ears eating. And I see my dad on the phone with the paramedics. And my mom is on the bed, her chest is heaving in and out. And she had shot herself in the heart. And my dad yells at me to go grab towels, and I'm like, looking at him. I can't hear him. I feel like we're in a movie. It's just so surreal. And I get the towels and then I go outside and I'm with my two younger brothers were crying. so confused. I'm this is just bizarre. And we're there at the end of our street and waiting for the police to come. And we see the flashing lights at the far end of the street, but they're not coming to our house because there's a gun involved. So 30 minutes later, they finally come. And she's now passed. And they have us and we're about to leave for the police station. And I asked if I can play a song on the piano before leaving. And I sit down the piano and I play the song Adi law, which is like an Italian song and the words say Id la means you are far above me very far. De la as distant as the lovely evening star. And it goes on and the words were so describing what was happening. And at the time, it was one of my favorite songs. And I didn't even draw the connection of how how swell suited it was until later. So we get into the police car, we go to the station, we tell them all we know. And I shared that she had asked us if we'd be okay with them before it happened. And then after we get home my dad proceeds to tell us that she has been suicidal for 17 years she was in and out of mental institutions long before I was born. She married my dad young to escape her family. Her dad had walked out on her mom when she was 13. And her older siblings had gotten into drugs and alcohol and partying and reliving crazy lives and my aunt had died from bulimia and anorexia in my grandma's bathroom. And it was just a broken situation. Family. So my mom married young and after marrying realize like that wasn't the answer either. And my mom and dad were both hard headed so they kept clashing. So she felt rejection from my dad rejection from her parents rejection from her family. And also at the time she was having rejection from the school I was going to from the women on the auction committee, because they were jealous of her that she was doing so well with raising funds for the auction. So literally, she felt rejection from every area of her life. And before she passed, she even asked me if I think she should quit the auction because it was causing her so much stress and heartache. And I had said, you know, you put so much effort and work and blood sweat and tears into this, you know, are you going to quit now. So it's crazy. She doesn't quit the oxygen. She doesn't divorce my dad, but instead just checks out of the whole situation. So for many years, I just bottled it up inside, and then it wasn't until an adult as an adult by sharing her story and having healing connecting with other beautiful women such as Kimberly and everything. She's doing enrollment women, world leaders, that um, that healing came because healing doesn't come until you share. Kimberly Hobbs   Amen, honey. Wow. And you know, I Yeah, you're right. You know, healing comes when we can talk and share about our stories and know that there are other people out there that identify with us and when we can do it for the glory of God, because we see what he has brought us through through and what we've lived through it it just brings a whole nother place to our stories coming alive alive in Jesus you know alive and what he's doing in our life. And I shared that scripture prior to you sharing your story because I knew it was going to be difficult for you to relive it you know, as we speak these things out and you have to go back in your mind you know, like when you share your story or when you write your story And that scripture May the lord of peace Himself give you his peace at all times in every situation, The Lord be with you. And that is such a beautiful verse because he is with you as you start to testify about him and about what he's done. And all the good that you saw. Through this, Maria, his hand was upon you, his hand was over you. So you shared with me that you didn't feel alone through this time? Because even though you were the only girl and everything, you said, you never left the house, but you didn't feel alone. Can you talk about that and why you didn't feel alone. Maria Temotto Horwitz   So you know, at first, I felt alone, with being the only girl. But then after realizing that Jesus, and my faith is the rock of everything, and knowing I can rely on him, it made me not feel alone, like the angels and saints are my friends. And, you know, that's just how I, how I made it through that time in life. Kimberly Hobbs   You said you read your diary aloud to can you talk about that? Like, Maria Temotto Horwitz   Yeah, so that's, that happened right after my mom passed. And my dad was there at the dining room table. And he just said, Go get your diary. And I did not want to things about a boy in there. Like I didn't want to share. Like, go get it. So I went to my room, I got it. And I'm just like, dreading what's about to happen. So I walked to the table, my two younger brothers are there. And he takes a diary, he starts reading it out loud. On the entry, where my mom had died, the whole page, it just says like, what the f on the whole page? Wow. Um, but after that, it's talking about a boy. And he's reading it out loud. My brothers are laughing. They're all snickering. And at that moment, I felt very, very alone. Just knowing that. This is it. I had my dad, my two brothers, my grandpa moved in with us soon afterwards, there was a dog there was a boy. So I felt very alone, like the only girl in the house. Wow. And it wasn't until a few years later that I was listening to the audio gospels. And something started inside of me that I just wanted to get rid of all my possessions and live like a stay at home nun life. So I pulled out like a big trash bag and I filled multiple trash bags with literally all my designer clothes and shoes and bags and thinking back on it, there's probably not the smartest thing to do. But I did put it all out to the garbage and to the street. They picked it up in the morning. And then from there, I was just living, very simple clothes, very simple food, fasting, praying, reading the Bible, and doing house chores. And that's what I did for quite a few years. Kimberly Hobbs   Well, I know your spirits definitely needed to be lifted honey and God's word says I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love for you have seen my troubles. And you care about the anguish of my soul that Psalm 31 Seven God cares, he cares. What we are all going through ladies. He cares about the anguish that were in, he cares. And as you took the role, Maria, of caring for your brothers, your father, the household chores, homeschooling, I mean, you took all this on as that mother role. And can you talk about this time in your life when you took on all those job chores and all the things that you were doing? Maria Temotto Horwitz   Yeah, it was. It was just a very, you know, once you get into a routine, you just go with it. And I was in charge of my brother's homeschooling. So we wake up, we do our prayers. I do the dishes, the cooking, make juice salads, I would do walks with my little brother we'd read read the book of Psalms out loud. And, you know, worked out and just did the same thing over and over again with the homeschooling and prayer work, play. Yeah. Kimberly Hobbs   God used that time because you were in the scriptures. You had to teach your brother and there was no other choice. But isn't it amazing how God just kept his eye on you and your brother and there's power in the Word and those who live in the shadow of the Most High God will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty that some nine Do you want one and so then you're feeling happy. On the outside, you're moving on through life, things start to happen. But inwardly you were telling me that you were feeling fake about who you were, you weren't happy about how you were partaking, portraying yourself because you began questioning things in your own life as you got older. And so can you talk about that? Maria Temotto Horwitz   Yeah. So after that period passed, now I'm dating, and I have this boyfriend, I hit with him for two years, my dad does not like him at all. And he never met him, he wouldn't meet him. And then I had another relationship for another year, my dad didn't like him, and he never met him and didn't want to meet him. So it's like this whole period of life where I'm just like, really wanting my dad's approval with a guy I'm with. And I'm not being I'm not sharing the gospel outwardly, like, I'm not talking about it in a public setting. And I'm just like, so happy on the outside, like, I'm smiling all the time, I'm working at the gym, I'm selling nutritional products. I'm at boot camp instructor. And I'm just with, like, I'm plugged into my boyfriend's families and plugged into their clients. And I just feel like I'm living a fake existence. And um, what was more depressing was thinking that I'm going down the path my mom did, because she was outwardly so happy and joyful, and doing all this active stuff, but I'm really sad. So I was more sad reflecting of how similar we were becoming. Kimberly Hobbs   Wow. And I am sure fear started to creep up, you know, like, you didn't want to go down that path. But yet, you know, I'm sure the enemy is putting that voice in your head about, you know, that's how you're gonna end up and you know, all the different things that you're hearing. So you're stuffing that down inside and the outside, you're trying to put on that, that fake happy part of you. And so tell me how, tell the listeners how the word blessed that God brought you into a blessed life, because you really had to completely redo some things in your mental thinking, your physical and spiritual. So can you talk about how that transition happened to in order to get from being the fake Maria? And you know, miserable on the inside? But happy on the outside? As an appearance? How did you transition? Maria Temotto Horwitz   Yeah, so moving on from those two relationships. Now I'm in the relationship with Josh, my now husband, and in the beginning was all flowers and sunshine, and then I was right back into the depression. And it got to a point where I'm like, God, I need answers. Is this the man I'm supposed to be with? Is this the role as a realtor? And this is like the job and career I'm supposed to be in? Like, what am I supposed to do? So I did a nine day fast, for three days was just juice and water, then the next three days was just water, no food. And the last three days was juice and water. And after the nine days of just praying and fasting, which is what the Bible tells us to do, I felt so clear that this is the man I'm supposed to be with. This is the job I'm supposed to be in. And that fast set me up to having a mental, physical and spiritual renewal. And during the fast I signed up for this personal development course, that turned out being a huge asset to me mentally. And after the nine day fast, we went to a place called Hippocrates Health Institute, which is a world renowned health facility, which preaches the raw food, diet and sprouts and juice and just healthy living. So that's how we like, got into that community. And then the spiritual side, my husband and I started reading the Bible together every day, three chapters, and going to church together, watching Christian films and YouTube videos and just getting plugged into that community. So through the fast is really what started the mental, physical and spiritual revival. Kimberly Hobbs   Wow, that is fantastic. And you had to make that decision to, to mentally, physically and spiritually, take that step of faith and say, I'm going to make a change, Lord, and you surrendered it to him during that fast communicated with him and took action on the faith, right, like we we can choose to wallow in our sadness and our our things that are happening in our life or we can say, Enough God, I choose you and to follow you and make that transitional change. And so that's what you did. Maria, and that changed the trajectory of your life. And I am so grateful because the Maria that I know and I am privileged to serve the Lord with is so beautiful, and she truly is living the blessed life. And I thank God for that change that you and Josh had in your life. So now that you are living the blessed life, sweet Maria, can you share with the listeners? What, what you do, you told me about habits that you have formed? And maybe our listener might glean from some of those habits that you're doing? Your your morning routine, and the prayer time share about those different things? Maria Temotto Horwitz   Yes. So one thing I just love doing together with my husband is called the Miracle Morning. And it was started by a gentleman named Hal Elrod, when he was having a very difficult time in life. He got into a car crash, his life is over. He lost everything. And he did research to find out what are the habits that the most successful people in the world do. And he found that there's six, and some people do. Some of them. Some people do all of them every day. But he realized that by doing these six habits every single morning, you prime yourself that to have a great day ahead. Instead of just running into the rat race, you can intentionally set the attention for the day, and how it works. It's silence. Silence and prayer affirmations where you're affirming things that you want for your life, I do Bible affirmations. I'm strong and courageous in the Lord, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am, I am a citizen of heaven, I am redeemed by the blood testimony of His Word. So those and then the next part is visualization where you just close your eyes and you're visualizing the person that you want to be. So I visualize myself and Josh, debt free and incredible, healthy shape, leading people to Christ got thrown open the doors of heaven sending on high, you know. And then the next part is exercise. And it doesn't have to be a huge thing right in the morning. But you can like do some jumping jacks, do some stretches, punch the air, you know, can be good, Get behind Me, Satan, that kind of stuff, right. And the next part is reading, which is when we always do our Bible study. So we just pull out the Bible. And we were doing three chapters from three different books. And we ended up doing the whole Bible. So we only have like one book left. So we did all three chapters in like that one book to speed through that one book. And we finished the whole Bible in 14 months. Wow, praise God. And you learn so much, and you so many stories that are not like popular sermon topics, so you really just dive in. And um, it's life changing. And then the last one is scribing. So you just take your, your pad of paper out, or your notebook or tablet, and there's different prompts you can use to just get the mind flowing of what to write about. And I really like to use the Miracle Morning app. And it has all the Savers on there. And it's funny just checking them off as you do them. And then it confetti down, which is always exciting. And if you don't know what to do for those, there's a little section that will have little video or audio prompts that have one or all the savers in it. So it's just a really great way to start the day off. And it just sets your day up for success. Kimberly Hobbs   It's the miracle mindset app. Maria Temotto Horwitz   It's the miracle morning app. So the Miracle Morning or the Miracle Morning. Kimberly Hobbs   That's wonderful. And again, proactive that you are doing things you're not sitting stagnant. You're not you know, in the woe is me part of your past because we can all get caught up in that depending on what you've been through in your life. And a lot of people use that as excuses to not do anything not to move forward. But Maria, you chose you chose the Lord you chose to move and work with him as he worked in and through your life through the scriptures. And I love that you went through the Bible in 14 months. That's fantastic. And that's ladies where we're gonna get our strength. That's where the power is going to come. That's where the truths are going to be spoken into your life because there is power in the Word. Right. Right and talk about your communication with God Maria, because that is so key to a blessed life. Maria Temotto Horwitz   You know, just realizing that God is around you in you like, it's here, like right now. So you don't have to wait for a specific time to talk to him or you have to go to a certain place to see him. It's like, right here right now at all times. And it's just bringing him into every conversation scenario. As weird as it might sound to some people, like my husband and I, every single time we make love, we pray, like right now, afterwards, I'm praying that God blesses my womb, that he blesses our children that any baby we have is formed perfectly in His image and likeness. So it's, it's every situation I were eating, every time we eat, we pray every time. We, you know, a lot of times after we have an encounter with a friend, we'll pray over each other as we depart. And it's just making prayer like a normal part of living just like breathing is a normal part of living. Kimberly Hobbs   Right and, and listeners, I pray you hear that because that is evidence of a blessed life. A blessed heart is a thankful heart. She is thanking God for everything. And as Maria just shared her heart, you know, in God moved and turned it around. To the focus was no longer on woe is me, but awesome, God, you are in my life, and I just love you. And so the more she relied on God, the more she sought after him, the more she took action to make a change. He not that he ever leaves us because he doesn't, but he is there all the time. And now you can see him and feel him and breathe him and love him and just thank him over and over and over and over. It's all about a thankful heart to be able to live the blessed life because then you see God move in your life, right. And Maria, let's give one final shot in the arm to the woman that's listening that heard your story that can't even comprehend what you went through growing up and all that you carried and what you were learning. But she's going through something that she doesn't know how she's going to get beyond what is that one thing that you can pour into her at this moment that might give her that hope to get beyond her circumstances right now and into the presence of God. Maria Temotto Horwitz   Hmm. Two things come to mind. For the woman who's hurting and struggling with something and has something on her heart, when you're holding on to this pain and not letting, not sharing it. You know, God created the world by speaking into being and by speaking our pain out loud, we just release ourselves from it. So I highly recommend going to somebody who you know, has a good connection with God and just sharing your heart and telling them everything that you have inside, just let it out. It doesn't matter how it sounds, you could be stumbling over words and like not how your thoughts all formed. But just by releasing that to someone else who can pray for you will be incredibly healing for you. And the last thought was the word power. Power is the time between your thought of doing something and the execution of it. So it's all powerful. So when God thought and spoke this world into existence, it wasn't like he thought about for a long time and then was getting ready to do it. It's like God thought and it happened like it, it was done. That it was week one the same thing. So that's what power is. So if you ever thought to do something, your power is how much time you've had that thought to be to make it a reality. So if you haven't thought of doing something, do it. Because the time is short, Eternity is forever. Time is now. Kimberly Hobbs   Amen. The time is now that is such a great word Maria. All my strength to you. I sing praises for you oh god are my refuge the God who shows me unfailing love. The time is now God is going to show you his unfailing love Psalm 5917 and I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Jesus Christ returns Philippians one six this is so exciting because God started a work in you Maria in you listeners he has start started that good work and he's not finished yet he's going to be doing and doing and doing until the day he calls us home. So be looking to Him take action like Maria said the time is right Now the time is now to turn this ship around right? All for the glory of God. So as we have to close out today, I am so grateful Maria, that you and your beautiful self, your Joyful Heart came to share with our listeners today. Thank you, honey. Maria Temotto Horwitz   Thank you so much. Kimberly Hobbs   Thank you. And ladies, Maria Temotto Horwitz   thank you for this. Kimberly Hobbs   Yes, thank you, Lord, thank you remember, that you overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of your testimonies. And ladies, we invite you. If you have a story of God's working in your heart, I want to talk to you, because others need to hear how God is moving. And you overcome the enemy ladies, when you testify of what God's doing in your life. So please think about that. If God's nudging your heart right now to contact us, we want to hear from you. That's what we do here at women, we're leaders, we come around you we give you opportunities to have your voice heard in the world. And we'll walk you through it and just talk and share with others ladies, we have opportunities for you to write in some of the books that we have going that are so helpful to others that need to read about your story so that they can identify with what you went through and you can give them that hope that lies within you. Or maybe you need just some healing. And you just need to read and listen to these stories. Please go to our website, we have all kinds of books that are amazing, amazing books that will help you get beyond where you are, through the power of others sharing their god testimonies, these books are anointed ladies. So go to www dot women world leaders.com. And you can check out any of the books that we have, or even our voice of Truth magazine. All past editions are on our website. You could read them digitally for free. They are beautiful ladies, there's tools to help you. And we want to be here to support you and whatever it is God is calling you to do so please reach out to us. I'd personally love to hear from you at Kimberly at women world leaders.com Kimberly at women world leaders.com Send me an email, and I'll return your message and ladies God bless you for being here again. Maria. Thank you so much. And Maria, do you want to share a website if anybody wants to reach out to you? Maria Temotto Horwitz   I can be reached at besthomeeverteam@gmail.com Kimberly Hobbs   besthomeeverteam@gmail.com and Maria thank you again for being here. Now bless you all, from his heart to yours. We are women we're leaders all content is copyrighted and cannot be used without expressed written consent. God bless you all and have a beautiful day.

The Traded Life is a podcast dedicated to helping people understand that they can trade the life they have for the one they were meant to live. On today's show, Greg Michelman, the host, has an inspiring guest, the Flippett King, T.J. Carson. T.J. explains how his passion for sports and collectibles started at a young age when he would go to events with just pocket change and call the shop on Mondays to get what he desired. After joining the military, he had the idea to move in with his then-girlfriend who was in the navy. He ended up spending money on her and ultimately was left with nothing. It was during this time of hopelessness that he rediscovered his passion for collectibles. Inspired by his friend, Jeremiah, T.J. started working to keep busy and embraced his creative side. Jeremiah taught T.J. to recognize the good in his business. T.J. also opened up about his mantra of treating people the way you would like to be treated, giving back energy to those around him, and avoiding negative conversations. He has a group of people he can turn to for help. T.J. also admits that making money isn't the drive but rather striving to live his best life. Lastly, T.J. credits the military for teaching him how to get the job done, his E.T. 's advice to “go where you are celebrated,” and his work with those in need of help as his biggest lessons. Tune into The Traded Life podcast to explore inspiring stories like T.J's and get advice on how to flip the script to live your best life.Blog PostBlog Post 1 -3 Tips to Appreciating Those Who You've Formed a Relationship With:Life can be passing us by quickly and we often forget to truly appreciate those we've formed connections with. Especially in our closest relationships, we too often forget to show our appreciation. On this week's episode of The Traded Life featuring Greg Michelman and guest TJ Carson, these two discussed the power of relationships, and of showing love and appreciation for those around us.The two discuss how far back their relationship goes, and how much time has passed since their first meeting. TJ stated, “It's like a fart and a wind. You know? Absolutely. But the truth is, man. You know, we just, like, knowing you and and and and creating this relationship that we have. It's just been a grind, man.”Having a close relationship with someone and forming a bond, while rewarding, can be a lot of work. Here are three tips to appreciating those you've formed a relationship with:1. Take the time to genuinely thank them: You don't have to hide behind generic “thank you's” that tend to get lost in the fold. Genuinely express your appreciation for those who are closest to you and be sure to give details as to why you appreciate them.2. Show your appreciation through acts of kindness: Buying someone a small gift, doing something special for them, or even just a simple card are all acts that shout appreciation.3. Listen to each other: Communication and spending quality time is key to maintaining any relationship. In order to show love and appreciation, make sure to actively listen and stay in the moment when talking to each other.Listen to this week's episode to hear more about relationships and showing love and appreciation for those around us, and to be inspired to take action with the tips provided above.Blog Post 2 -3 Tips for Appreciating Yourself:Our relationship with ourselves can be a tricky one. We give too much attention to others, but often forget to take a step back and practice self-love. On this week's episode of The Traded Life featuring Greg Michelman and guest TJ Carson, they discussed the importance of appreciating yourself and how to start forming a relationship you love.As TJ said, “I'm blessed to be here. I'm blessed for the relationship that we formed over the years together, you know, and I appreciate you, man. I really want you to know that.” Making sure to acknowledge those around us, including ourselves, is a difficult task but can be a rewarding one.These three tips can help get you started in your journey to appreciating yourself:1. Find something you're good at and put in effort to develop it: Whether it's public speaking, drawing, singing, or anything else, taking the time to work on a skill can do wonders for your mental wellbeing. Efforts put into your abilities will be rewarded with a boost of confidence and happiness.2. Create a ‘Self Care Sunday': Setting aside time for yourself to do something you love. It can give you something to look forward to and will help you stay connected to yourself. Take a cooking class, go for a long run, read a book– make it something that will be beneficial and enjoyable to you.3. Take a moment of intentional stillness: Take a few momentsBest Quotes[Unknown] . You wouldn't be where you're at now."[00:01:23] "Let's start this podcast off with that. Like, so love and appreciation to the people that helped to get to where you're at. You're definitely 1 of a bra."[00:02:27] "Don't just do it. How did you get into all that? What do you know, where did all that started?"[00:02:33] "Collectibles have been my jam since I was, like, 8 years old. Like, since I can remember, probably it was even before 8 years old."[00:05:43] "I joined the Air Force, and I did that for four years and then I got out and I went back to flipping."[00:06:54] "We all, bro. I mean, that's what we do. That's how that's how we get to where we are now. Right? I mean, we talk about it all the time, but, like, our life experiences are exactly how we get to where we're at now. Right?"[00:07:05] "If you didn't have those, and if everything was just smooth fucking sailing, you didn't have it. You wouldn't be where you're at now."All Quotes[00:01:23] "Let's start this podcast off with that. Like, so love and appreciation to the people that helped to get to where you're at. You're definitely 1 of a bra."[00:01:32] "I still remember hearing from everything. Yeah. I still remember the first time I met you in Utah."[00:01:51] "It's like a fart and a wind. You know? Absolutely."[00:02:03] "We've just been, you know, head down, getting this stuff done that we need, reaching out to each other, reaching out inside."[00:02:27] "Don't just do it. How did you get into all that? What do you know, where was all that started?"[00:02:33] "Collectibles have been my jam since I was, like, 8 years old. Like, since I can remember, probably it was even before 8 years old."[00:02:41] "My dad was real in the sports cards and, you know, he was a hobbyist. He collected sports cards and he had a little sports card shop in the basement of our house."[00:03:09] "I had my own table at, like I said, from 8 to, like, 12, I had my own table. And I used to hustle cards for a dollar apiece. I used so I had the whole table full card and back then a dollar was good money, you know."[00:04:25] "I would go to the big shows with, like, 7 to 800 bucks in my pocket, and I'd be buying wrestling figures."[00:05:03] "I would literally buy it for 50 bucks and sell it for, you know, a hundred or something. I wouldn't gouge them too bad, but I was flipping, and that's kind of how I got started and flipping."[00:05:21] "I know what I wanted to do; you know. And I was still kind of, like, hard from 09:11. Right? Like, 09:11 was still on my mind that happened, you know, 99 a graduate or 3, so a couple of years prior."[00:05:43] "I joined the Air Force, and I did that for four years and then I got out and I went back to flipping."[00:06:54] "We all, bro. I mean, that's what we do. That's how that's how we get to where we are now. Right? I mean, we talk about it all the time, but, like, our life experiences are exactly how we get to where we're at now. Right?"[00:07:05] "If you didn't have those, and if everything was just smooth fucking sailing, you didn't have it hard for anything you ever had. You probably wouldn't be where you are now doing the things that you're doing and pushing to be your, you know, your greatest self."[00:07:22] "At 37 years old, I have finally come to a realization, and this just happened soon. Like like or this just happened recently. This wasn't something that, like, I thought of 5, 6 years ago by literally sitting there and I realized that finally at 37 years old."[00:06:32] "I had this grandiose idea that, like, we were going to end up moving in together, but the funny thing was she was married. Like, she was married and here I am, you know, dating a married girl expecting this life together, it was just stupid as I look back on it now."[00:07:40] "If God would have given me exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, my life would be nowhere near as good as it is now."[00:08:00] "What I want to tell people out there is you have no clue that no eyes have seen, no ears have heard, what's in store for you, man? If you guys keep adding an attack, the possibilities are endless."[00:08:15] "At that time, I literally wanted to move in with the married girl. And even to say this, I wanted to go work in a candy factory."[00:09:34] "To imagine that that right now, I get the upper team to to shine my light and share my stories with other and come on podcasts like this is man, it's amazing to me."[00:09:57] "She would never happen either. Best we may ever happen. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree."[00:10:33] "So I literally did something that was probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life that most people, you know, will have to do in their life at some point. It's probably going to be the hardest thing that they have to do if they got to ask for help. Like, you got to ask someone to help you."[00:11:04] "I reset my mom. I said, mom. I said, "Can I stay at your house? And she's like, why? I got a roommate."[00:11:08] "My mom had a roommate who lived upstairs. He was paying her rent. And I'm like, shit. Like, alright. Cool. She's like, yeah. Call me. You can stay in the basement. And I'm like, I don't. So, like, I stayed in my mom's basement and felt like shit for a while. I[00:11:29] "A bell is hard when you're heartbroken."[00:11:56] "We always go to the shit that's going to even put us we're just fucking there."[00:12:23] "I was drinking vodka in the basement, listening to Adele on repeat, like, crying my eyes out."[00:12:59] "I found love again through collectibles, you know. And I ended up getting a little Logan Matt Carter with Matt Carter and I started adding picture frames."[Unknown] "It brought purpose to my life. It brought joy to my life."[00:14:05] "When you're doing work to keep you busy, it's probably when your most creativeness pops through."[00:14:24] "So I would like to cut these scripts that have been mapped or with a little, like, small, like, like, razor blade, and I would start doing all these fancy designs and fancy cuts and eventually sell them to people at the flea market."[Unknown] "And then I started matting stuff up and then I used that money to buy collectibles and then I would listen on eBay, and then I would sell it."[00:15:34] "I learned a ton from him, you know, just from hanging around him, just from being around him over the years."[00:15:57] "He taught me what the items are worth."[00:16:33] "If it wasn't for him, you know, showing him the joys of collectibles when I was a kid, who knows what could have happened to me?"[00:16:47] "I stayed out of trouble because my mind was focused on building collections and flipping to other people."[00:17:10] "I think success is more attributed to the relationships they make with people more than anything else."[00:17:39] "When you burn so many bridges and ruin those relationships with so many people, it's it's it's really hard to develop good core people that, you know, you can reach out to."[00:18:05] "You have to understand the value or else you're going to lose your shirt. That's probably 1 of the most important things."[00:18:32] "You have to learn how to deal with people because not everybody's an enjoyable person to be around either."[00:18:40] "You kind of have to play both sides of it, but you have to have a heart for it also."[00:18:50] "That energy just connects. And you have these great conversations, and it takes on a life of its own."[00:19:22] "My wife and I were just talking the other day because she remembers me back from high school. I got 3 years on her, but we still went to the same school. She's you were the fucking most angry looking person. I would never wanna interact with you."[00:19:46] "It's kind of amazing when you look back on your journey and stuff in life and you realize those monumental moments, those things that help you turn yourself around, to make you a better communicator or make you a better people person, which now also helps build your brand more because you're someone likable who people wanna be around."[00:20:20] "I truly try to be a leader. Like, I look at everybody that I come up with. And I just think when I interact with them, like, like, how would I like to be treated? You know? Like, like, how would like, even if it's something so small."[00:20:51] "It's a measurement. So, like, I look at that. So, I know I won't send a message out to somebody that I read measurements for on a t- shirt. I will send a message after it says measurements. I'll say, hey, I really like your t-shirt. Give me a favor and measure it. From chest to chest. Please, you know, thank you."[00:21:09] "And the world has gotten so caught up with this quickly. I just need to do it the fastest way possible so that they forget that we need to communicate with people properly, you know?"[00:21:44] "I always look at my communication with people. It is how I would, like, treat it. Man, no, that's a cliche statement, but it's really true. Like, you know, I want to treat everybody as though I would like to treat it."[00:22:02] "Sometimes getting into that competition is going to set your day so far away from where you want it to be that it's naive or do you just walk off?"[00:22:46] "You look up the fucking oh, sorry. I mean, it cuts. Like, look up the prices on either. You can't tell me the same word that's going up, like, back and forth."[00:23:05] "I wouldn't treat somebody like that. Like, I you know, I wouldn't yell at a customer about eBay prices when you're at a flea market bro. Like, everybody's at a clean market to find a deal, but, you know, that's how some people choose to act, and I just feel that that's not the way I do business."[00:23:40] "And the fact that I still hit on another customer like that makes me not want to do business with it. So Doesn't Burrow Truth be told?"[00:23:52] "I'm big on energy. And so, when you're in my space and you're fucking my energy up, And I still have and you're just talking about New Yorkers. Right? Like, I do carry an edge, but it's not an edge. Like, get the fuck away from me. Like, I'm aggressive. Yes. And how I speak, but I love I genuinely fucking love people. And if you come into my space, we're gonna laugh, we're going to have a good time. But if you bring negativity, negativity and negative energy, you're out. I don't even I"[00:24:20] "don't even I don't even anymore, bro. I don't even the conversations that are that are evolve around negativity anymore because it just brings everything down."[00:24:41] "As much as you are now, you didn't want company. You're like you're like I'm the 1 to be around right now. And like you just said, you went to 1 party. Drinking. And, yeah, what's the first thing that happens? Like, everything that's revolving around you is negative. And then so now you're putting that out into the universe, and guess what happens, the result is negative."[00:25:01] "When I start getting positive, acting positively, having positive relationships like 1 you and I have where our conversations are uplifting or, you know, 1 guy's not sure what to do, and then we help each other out. And then we figure out our problems and then boom. And it's like, damn, I love talking. Every time I talk to that guy, I get fired. I come off the pole, fire up, and I'm ready to take on it. That's type of shit I want in my life."[00:25:23] "But I'll even do, like, 3 minutes. Even if it's, like, 3 minutes, it's, like, yeah. Like, let's do this. Yeah. It's so mad. Oh, my gosh. It's a cocker. True. I mean, I Yeah. Still, man. I have I have you know; it's been 1 of the downsides. I'll be honest of where I live now and, like, being in the circles that we have is that yeah, like you and I don't live far from each other and we keep talking about, you know, trying to get together anyway because we don't live terribly far. But again, everybody has life or shit going on. But People in my immediate area, like, in my vicinity, are like, I love a lot of people, bro. Like, I have friends going back many years not a knock on them, but the truth is where I'm trying to go."[00:26:16] "I have to be my own energy, or I have to get on calls with you. Right? I have to get on calls with people I know. Because it keeps our energy elevated. It keeps our mind occupied."[00:26:32] "It's like you're almost like this unspoken competition. Even though I'm not competing with you and I'm super like, I'm proud of you and I'm happy for everything you're doing. I'm like, I see you elevate? Shit. I'm like, fuck. I gotta elevate."[00:27:34] "I don't care. If you're happy doing whatever. You know, if you're making sweat out in an hour doing that, and that's dope. Well, you can mess with you."[00:27:52] "But if you're making sweat out in an hour doing that, and that's dope. Well, you can mess with you. But I see a lot of people have that lifestyle. They smile. They love their life, bro. Yeah. They drink on the weekends. They're happy. Good. Yeah. That's dope."[00:28:06] "People say money can't buy happiness. Well, you know, I've been broken, and I have a little bit of money now, and I'm not rich by any means, but I'm a hell of a lot happier now than I was back then."[00:27:57] "Don't bring that shit to me because there's plenty of opportunities right now to get you out of that 12-hour range."[00:28:41] "We weren't meant to live as slugs that just kind of roll with the punches and, you know, live in disappointment. Like, we're, like, especially those that are in America right now, you're living in the greatest country in the world."[00:29:17] "I truly believe that if I would had the shit that I prayed for, bro, like, I I'd probably be homeless, to be honest, which because I probably would have pissed away everything that I asked for."[00:29:57] "Like, I had friends. I've always had a lot of friends, but I never had real people in my life. I don't think, like, people that I had real conversations with that you know, we could hold ourselves accountable for the things that that, you know, we're trying to accomplish. We could talk about some real shit that's on our mind."[00:30:17] "Most of the friends, it wasn't like that. It was usually just kinda party and joking, kicking it. But I can honestly say that over the last couple of years, I've gathered a few people that I can really lean on if I need anything."[00:30:53] "I look back and I've had that conversation with people like, I didn't have deep conversations, most of the time, even still when we see each other, we don't spend time talking about business and making money and making moves and elevating each other, which is either with reminiscing about some shit that happened in the past or we're just talking shit, which is what we're doing."[00:31:15] "It's almost weird. It's like listening to you say it. Maybe because my mind is at a different level. Your mind is at a different level now. The people we meet now, that's especially because our connections are being made in a lot of cases in these groups. So, if I met you in the den or I met like Jeremiah in the den, we're obviously all looking in search of something. That's big."[Unknown] • “Your core values start to align, and things start to get into alignment. Of course, the conversation's going to be different.”[Unknown] • “When I went through some of my worst times, they were the first fucking people there and I love them for that, and I'll always love them for that.”[Unknown] • “Either someone sent me something on messenger or somebody hit me up on Instagram or for example today, I put a post up in Apex. And Jessica Denny who I've become friendly with texting me, yo, you good? Like, you need anything and that's a type of shit. That I think changes for us as we get into these groups.”[Unknown] • “But the conversation's definitely elevated, and it helps us elevate our lives man. I mean, I I'm just looking to live my absolute best life. Whatever that looks like, you know, do I.”[00:33:30] "But our goal might be different, but the journey is still fucking there, and I want to be a part of it. You know? It's just fun. It's fun."[00:34:36] "We don't when we talk, we don't really talk about the past. Maybe a little bit, like, hey, how's the go and how's business? But we ain't talkin about 2, 3 years ago. Like, we talked maybe about 233 years ago how we met."[00:34:47] "But our conversations are usually based on where we're going. You know?"[00:35:21] "My joy comes from talking about the future, like, talking about what we can do, what we can create, what we can build, what we can become."[00:35:31] "And I'd be excited about something that happened 20 fucking years ago, but I can be excited about getting off the call with you where we're like, Yo. I got this and this and this y'all. Alright. I'm some help you. This is what you got to do, and you get off."[00:35:44] "If I told you guys something happened 5 years ago, yeah. It was 5 years ago, bro, like, whatever, you know? Like, your energy is just I want to tell you funny. Can I tell you a funny story, bro?"[00:35:57] "Company. My boy, I have a very close friend for a lot of years. When I was really struggling, he helped me out. Monetarily speaking in a lot of ways, he was also a really good friend. And so we've stayed friends, but he has no real love, huge aspirations or anything like that."[00:36:51] "Man, I went into this parking lot full battery, but it's known it's, like, half section 8. I'm not knocking. I'm just saying I'm just giving you, like, we're talking about energy and how important it is. I literally walked in, and I went from a full battery because I went to the gym, I had my whole day, and then I went over there to have a barbecue, and I[00:38:02] "It's become so important to me to connect with people the same way you're talking about."[00:38:08] "you said something really important, man. You said you said that's not where I belong. And I think that is such an important thing to learn about himself in life, you know, is is where you belong."[00:38:29] "Go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated."[00:39:01] "That's why these groups have been a game changer for me. I think a lot of us have fast tracked, you know, I think our growth has been accelerated because of it."[00:39:11] "Had we not found these places? I think we would have found our way. But when you get into these groups, and it just fast tracks you because everybody is not everybody."[00:40:13] "You're, like, combining 10 years of experience, someone else's life experience is being poured into you, so you can literally avoid all the mistakes and all the bullshit in a shorter period of time."[00:40:23] "So if you were originally gonna become a millionaire in 20 years, maybe it takes you 10 now because you're learning and elevating and all this stuff."[00:40:43] "I appreciate your service, bro. I mean, it's such a huge thing for people to step up and do that kind of thing."[00:41:08] "People care and think about them. So, I didn't necessarily seek it out. It was pretty much where I was at in my life and 09:11."[00:41:33] "I said right there, you know, I said, well, I'm joining the military. That's what I'm gonna do."[00:42:27] "I got washed back in basic training, so I had to go back because I was going through the pit in the lunch line."[00:43:01] "They asked me who my who my first sergeant was, and it was crazy."[00:43:11] "mama, but They asked me who my first sergeant was, and I couldn't answer. Like, I literally blacked out. Like, I just froze. I couldn't do anything."[00:43:46] "My mom, because my graduation, was supposed to be that weekend before they kicked me back the week after. And she had gotten nonrefundable plane tickets. So she was there for my graduation, and I never she never got to see me graduate."[00:44:09] "So I got 1 hour with her, 1 hour while she was there in San Antonio. I'm from Pennsylvania, you know."[Unknown] "And then I made a decision. I'm going to do everything I can to get through it. And I got through it."[00:45:20] "I remember I was fixing equipment that nobody else could fix again. Like, you know, generators."[00:46:31] "The discipline when needed, you know, and 1 of the things that I learned at the military is you work until you get the job done, you know, and we did. Like, literally, we did you know, 14-hour days if needed to get the job done."[00:46:46] "In civilian life, I realize a lot of people won't work like that. You know? Like, my 8 hours are up, time to go home, peace, you know, and me, like, if shit still needed to get done, it still needed to get done regardless of how many hours I work. You know, and that's something that definitely transferred over into notes."[00:47:04] "I mean, hell, we did, you know, 12 plus hours in Korea and then if you got stuff in Mach 4, which was well, I think the highest level of maintenance, you know, you had to stay until it was done."[00:47:53] "You got to get this shit done. Like, that's what you got to do. You got to list your file items today. You know, I pre stamped it, but list your items and ship your items in the same day, you know, stuff like that. And I think that's helped me a lot because I don't have the okay. It's 04:00 from the go home mentality. I am alright. I got this and this to do. And if it's 6, 7, 08:00, then it is what it is. That's what I got to do to get done."[00:48:14] "But what I found out is the more days that I spend doing the 10 hours and doing what it takes to get it done. The fewer days I have to stay longer because I've already got it done."[00:48:32] "Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Like, I still have people that I don't know. You know, I still still refer to them all. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Some people, you know, really appreciate it. Some don't. But it's not even just saying, yes, sir. Yes, man. People , it's showing them respect from the beginning -- Right. -- from the minute you meet them, showing them that respect. And that's another thing that I think a lot of people don't do."[00:48:54] "You know, these relationships that, you know, people just sometimes come off are rough. But, you know, if you show them that respect from the beginning, then it's a lot easier to get along with people."[00:49:04] "No doubt about it. Well, I got a few more minutes, but I didn't want to not at least talk about it. But you talk about working at the shelter and all that stuff. And, you know, it just it really just speaks volumes about the type of guy that you are, like the type of guy who knows who you are and we're talking about being a go giver and, you know, energy and all that stuff."[00:49:24] "But, you know, how did you get into that line of work, if that's a good way of putting it? Yeah. That's a great way of putting it. You know, and and what does it do for you? You know what I mean? I would imagine as much as people rely on you, it's almost like a little bit of an energy boost for you to put your time and effort into to help others out as well?"[00:49:48] "It was a mistake. That's crazy. The soonest thing up. What do you think about it? But it was actually I just dropped my pod. Let me see if I can grab that. But it's crazy to think about now, but it was a mistake. So, this is going to be a couple minutes, but I ended up going to school for criminal justice. Right? I went to community college for criminal justice."[00:50:30] "And While I was doing that, there was a project that came about in 1 of the classes, a volunteer project that was called an adopted apartment project And I've said, well, this sounds pretty cool. You know, I ended up doing this as an adopted apartment project, and I helped out this family. It was a woman and her 2 kids. It was her I think 2 it was 2 2 or 3 kids, I couldn't remember. And we went there, and we literally furnished this full apartment. I mean, we put food."[00:51:17] "Mommy, is that where I'm sleeping?"[00:51:19] "No sweetie. No sweetie. That's your bed. You get to sleep in that bed."[00:51:34] "At that moment, I say, you, this is something that this is something that I could do. I really wanna focus on helping people instead of the opposite, which would have been incarcerating people and making sure everybody's following the law."[00:52:41] "I got these pipes up in the air that shouldn't inform me. So, I ended up coming back and then I ended up becoming a program director and then I ended up becoming executive director and now running the whole organization. But that was a mistake, bro. It was straight up it was a volunteer."[00:53:09] "The thing I was the most embarrassed about was the fact that I was living in my mom's basement and that, you know, I got denied the candy factory job and everything."[00:53:39] "It's just amazing how God works and how this world works, and you think of your lowest points in life and and 1 day you're going to look back on them and be able to share that story and help inspire others."[00:54:03] "There's things there are people out there that don't really work, but to do most is really just this good people that got put into some really bad situations, you know, how to fire. You know, made some really stupid choices when they became addicted to substances and but, you know, I think, overall, that every human's got the capability to do right and be a good person."[00:54:33] "And I got guidance on our Board of Directors that started off as a client, you know. So that's that's definitely it's humbling, and it's a blessing to be able to help so many people."[00:55:17] "It's to give back to others. And you find the people that serve themselves constantly, don't usually make it. It's the ones that mostly serve others because it comes back to you."[00:56:04] "My appreciation for you and our friendship is something that cannot be overstated. So, I just want to leave you with that and we're just still at the bottom level as far as on the crazy relationship. We stopped -- Yeah. -- you know, mountaintops to climb here together as friends and brothers, whatever, but I'm always here for you."[00:55:42] "Reality is our relationships are based on just that relationships and giving back to each other on a mental level, you know, where we're just helping each other out, try to elevate, you know, whatever we're going through."[00:56:48] "It's enjoyable. It really is enjoyable, man, and I'm truly blessed to be on your podcast and I'm not even going to hit you with the appreciation you invite me. I'm just going to tell you this."[00:57:09] "It's not about the time. Like, I just told you, you know, I have a closer relationship with you and a lot of other people than I do with people that I have known for 20 some years. I mean, it's just the way it goes because of our conversations and, you know, where we're trying to go with our lives and and, you know, it just can't, it can't go unnoticed. That's for sure."[00:58:18] "Our goal in the shelter is going to be at some point. We want to build another 1 in our county because we're currently full. We get guys that show up at the door that we can't serve. So, our goal is definitely to be doing that."[00:57:41] "I'm going to take your socials from you anyway and post them in show notes afterwards so people can find you."[00:58:49] "If you got something you're going through in life, if things happen, flip it. That's my motto."TopicsLiving an Authentic Life with the Flippett KingThe Thrill of Collecting Sports Memorabilia and CollectiblesLiving a Dream: Young Love & Joining the MilitaryFinancial Struggles After Transitioning Out of the MilitaryFinding Love Through Collectibles and Keeping Busy Through Creativity.The Benefits of Learning From an Experienced MentorLeadership and Its Impact on Personal GrowthThe Power of Positive CommunicationThe Power of Positive ThinkingSupporting Others Through Tough TimesThe Value of Having Supportive FriendsPursuing Your Dreams and Achieving A Better LifeFinding Belonging at 18 Years Old.The Benefits of Coaching and MentorshipThe Impact of PTSD on VeteransThe Value of Hard Work in Civilian LifeThe Joy of Making a Difference in Peoples' LivesThe Impact of Homelessness on Job OpportunitiesBuilding a Profitable Online Business with Flipping CollectiblesSurround Yourself with People Doing Big ThingsResources:Connect with Greg Michelman:LinkedInConnect with TJ Carson:WebsiteTwitterCall to ActionIf you enjoyed this podcast and want to support us, please subscribe on the platform you listen to podcasts from, leave a review and share with your friends. We'd greatly appreciate it!

What do we do when we can't make predictable or ordered decisions? What do we do when things are unordered? How do we approach those decisions in ways we haven't in the past? These questions are just some of what you get to hear about on this episode with our guest, Sherry Johnson.   Sherry, like so many others we have had the opportunity to interview, grew up not knowing she was a person with autism. She often wondered why she felt she was an outsider in the world. It wasn't until her 40s that she was finally diagnosed. By then, she had gone to college and became a teacher of English and the theater.   Now, she is a coach, a course creator and the founder of the company Cultivating Strategy. Our discussion ranges far beyond autism and neurodivergence. We even get into a story from Sherry about her facilitating a church discussion about gun control. Wait until you hear what happens. (Hint: no, the gun control issue is not solved, but diametrically opposed people do learn to listen to and talk with opponents.)     About the Guest: With a background in arts education, community organizing, and volunteer coordination, Sherry likes inspiring folks to experiment with new ways of being together. Sherry enjoys bridging divides between people. She likes helping leaders and experts make complicated information more accessible, while elevating homegrown leadership and expertise.  Sherry leverages her autistic mind to help people see their own assumptions and biases, so that everyone is freer to be seen and heard more faithfully. Sherry blends Technology of Participation, emergent strategy, Asset-Based Community Development, and current brain research—particularly the neuroscience of emotion and mindfulness—into her approach. Her North Star is interrupting linear and conventional thinking, which so often hampers care and innovation in human systems. Most of her clients are in the civic and nonprofit sectors. Sherry's feet touch the ground in St. Paul, Minnesota, her heart's home. She loves her family, most cats, playful dogs, corvids, and a good windstorm.   How to connect with Sherry: My website My Facebook Page My LinkedIn Profile My December training on Adaptive Leadership     About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Well, a pleasant afternoon to you wherever you happen to be. I am Michael Hingson, your host and you are listening to unstoppable mindset. Now we get to interview lots of different people who do lots of different things, which really makes it fun, we get to inspire. And I frankly will tell you I love being inspired. We get to talk with Sherry Johnson today who has a company called cultivate strategy, and we'll get to that but a little known fact, except for a close circle around sherry. She had a birthday yesterday. So Sherry, welcome to unstoppable mindset and happy birthday.   Sherry Johnson  01:57 Thank you so much.   Michael Hingson  02:00 We won't we won't give away your age. That's entirely up to you. But I want to tell you, we're really glad you're here. I enjoyed chatting with you and preparing for this. So split start by telling you or asking you to tell us a little bit about your roots, you know where you came from growing up what it was like, and all that kind of stuff.   Sherry Johnson  02:22 Yeah, thanks. I'm happy to be here. And so lucky to get to do this. And so I came from southern Wisconsin and a rust belt town called Janesville, Wisconsin. And my tone really was embodied a lot of what shapes me, deep divisions, we produce Janesville, both Russ Feingold and Paul Ryan to two completely opposite politician, if you don't say, Yes, that's right. And even my own household was a fractal image of that my mother was a union steward and a factory. My dad retired for agent first sergeant first class in the army. And they used to joke how they canceled out one another's boats all the time. So really grew up in a lot of tension. And also a lot of people have lost their jobs during the mid 80s, as so many did, and that rust belt town got a lot rest year, and that kind of sense of loss and some of the family traumas that compounded around that and my family's background, shaped a lot of how I approach my work and who I become and how I relate to those routes all the time. And I think to you know, this will come up later, but I think to Mike family was also impacted, not just from, you know, caste and job loss, but also generational trauma that may have actually come from being neuro divergent in a world in which that is not really created for us to be successful. Right.   Michael Hingson  04:01 So, yeah. Where did the neuro divergence come in?   Sherry Johnson  04:06 Well, you know, it's genetic. A lot of that I actually came had a midlife autism diagnosis. And when I looked back and kind of, you know, the crash that I had, at that time, I look back at a lot of the family trauma that I experienced and, and sort of see started seeing these signs of OCD, ADHD, autism in my family of origin, and how a lot of that sort of set up some, some difficulties and how we were able to approach live view live, get along with others, collaborate or not, and it really isolated us in our town.   Michael Hingson  04:50 So do you think or do you know, were there other people in your family who had neurodivergent kinds of things or are you the one on choosing one   Sherry Johnson  05:02 I dealt my dad was very likely OCD, autistic, possibly ADHD as well. I, my mother was most definitely autistic and really struggled with some depressive issues and that life because of that, I believe my grandfather was I think there were lots of folks on my father's side as well. And so just kind of growing up along around that, and not really being able to trace back some roots about why is my family so different? What is it about us not being able to fit in and really find our places in society? Why are we so sort of isolated? Why do we continue to isolate ourselves? And I feel like I have a lot more answers about that example.   Michael Hingson  05:49 So how old were you when you were diagnosed?   Sherry Johnson  05:52 I was, um, sexually. So I live here in St. Paul, Minnesota now. But for a while my spouse's job moved, and we had to move out to Seattle for a handful years. And having been sort of taken out of my context, and my community that I had built up. In my mid 30s, I had a breakdown. There were days where I was laying on the couch with a, you know, blanket over my head, and I literally could not get up. And I know that my story is not unique. You know, I had to start over that I didn't know how, and it felt very much like a lot of you sort of go through this year or so of reinterpreting your entire life, nothing, why? Why you made certain decisions or not, and what it felt like it again, your family of origin, and all of that. And I took all of that and sort of had to rebuild who I was and how I saw myself as a disabled person in a world that was not necessarily designed for me to be successful. Right.   Michael Hingson  07:04 So when did you get diagnosed?   Sherry Johnson  07:07 That was 3030. I've missed a 38.   Michael Hingson  07:11 Sir. You know, I've talked to a number of people on this podcast, who got diagnosed with autism, or other disabilities, in their 30s ran into into their 40s. I know, several people who were diagnosed with autism and ADH D in their 30s. For her I know one person who we talked with who knew that they didn't see well, but never really got a diagnosis until a little bit later. Wow, how how was it for you when you got a diagnosis and really understood what was going on?   Sherry Johnson  07:55 Um, well, I went again, I went through that year of just kind of reinterpreting my entire life, there was a lot of anger. I remember feeling for a long time that the whole world was hiding something from me, like, there were all these inch implicit rules, that I wasn't in on all these shortcuts to emotions, and it   Michael Hingson  08:16 didn't send you the memo. Right?   Sherry Johnson  08:18 Right. Like and it was entire light bulb feeling like I missed the memo. And by the way, this is part of my executive dysfunction is numbers was actually my early 40s, that I was diagnosed. And, and I remember just feeling that profound sense of grief, of loss time, of not understanding myself of not understanding that there are people like me, that there have been always fuchal, like me, you know, you go through this, you read a lot of books, if you start seeing yourself represented, we talked about representation in mass media all the time. And I'm so excited to be able to see myself and that's what helped me kind of redefine myself from an I'm an outsider, feeling like an outsider all my life to an outlier, someone who has something different to give. And so I started creating a field with the ways that I was approaching training and consulting and facilitation and coaching and allowing my neurology to kind of shape something new.   Michael Hingson  09:24 And really, I'm not even sure I would go so far as to say outlier, because what it allowed you to do was to realize who you were, which allowed you to then move forward and become a real part of and feeling like a real part of society.   Sherry Johnson  09:43 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always feel like I'm the sauciest one who Pena sees things a little bit differently and kind of is a lot really intense for a lot of people. I'm proud of that difference, and at the same time, it's helped We appreciate even more other's differences, and to try to help people collaborate in ways where we can honor those differences, lift them up, celebrate how those differences are really where innovation comes from there. Those differences are how we move forward in new ways and in healthier ways. Right?   Michael Hingson  10:21 Well, let's go back. So when you were growing up, you went to regular public schools and all that kind of thing, I assume.   Sherry Johnson  10:27 Yeah. Yep. We were, I should say there was these gifted programs that they were experiment, experimenting with back in the 80s. And almost every two a one of us were nerve divergent at sunset. And so we, we had our own different social milieu, some of which was damaging, some of which was healthy. But we were kept together, separated and kept together from about fourth grade. So that eighth grade, and then just sort of thrown thrown out of that program in ninth grade. And so that that even added, I think, to this sense of isolation and difference and outlier ship or outsider ship at the time. Yeah. You're just like, whoa, what just happened? And then suddenly, you're in all these classes where you're breaking the curve, and upsetting upper class people, because you're the, you're the freshman and chemistry getting a plus. Right? And nobody and you just feel you feel ostracized? ostracize, you don't make a lot of friends? Let me tell you.   Michael Hingson  11:36 Yeah, it is tough on when I was in high school, I actually was taken out of our freshman General Science course for the last quarter of the year. Because my general science teacher said, you know, you seem pretty bored. And I said, Yeah, this is all pretty straightforward stuff. And they put me in the senior physics class. Oh, I had this experience, I had that experience, too. As a, as a blind person. I know, I wasn't in most of the social groups, the social cliques and so on. And I was, no one was mean, it just was that I didn't end up associating with, with people a lot directly. I've talked to some of my high school colleagues a whole lot more after graduation, and over the past several years, then, then in high school. But yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah, I believe it. And at some point, you really have to decide, you can only do what you can do, and you don't have control over how people feel.   Sherry Johnson  12:37 Yes. And, and I think, you know, speaking of how people feel, I think one of the things that's really shaped me, post diagnosis is I got deep, deep, deep into understanding how we construct emotions. I'm a huge fan of this neuro neuroscientist cut aspect of neuroscientists and Risa Feldman Barrett, who talks about the theory of construction, emotion, and the predictive brain model and how that impacts us and impacts our relationships. And thinking about that through an autistic lens. And I've really brought a lot of that Affective Neuroscience work into my work. And it's helped me also kind of reinterpret my past and see why human differences so hard for a lot of us to address in a constructive way. But once you understand it, you can kind of start piecing together some experiments to help us connect better across different.   Michael Hingson  13:36 Well, this whole concept of diversity, which everyone seems to embrace, unfortunately, when you deal with it in terms of their traditional ways today. For many of us, it never seems to affect us. For example, diversity doesn't seem to include disabilities today. Oh, we're a diverse society. We are diverse all the way around. We deal with race and gender and sexual orientation and culture and so on. But you never hear mentions about disabilities. And what's really, what's really unfortunate   Sherry Johnson  14:14 about it.   Michael Hingson  14:17 Yeah, they're, they're trying to get us. What's really unfortunate is that when we when we talk about these differences, and diversity in reality, we are leaving so many people out, which is why I like the term inclusion a lot more than diversity. Because if you're really going to take inclusion literally, you can't say well, we were partially inclusive. No, it doesn't work that way. You either are or you're not. You can't leave people out.   Sherry Johnson  14:50 Absolutely. I had the pleasure of working with the Minnesota Council of disability on disability lately, and they taught me so much about you know, I thought I was doing it pretty good job of making making my documentation accessible? No, that's all their work with them Did I see all these different ways that what I thought was inclusive, wasn't there it you know, it wasn't to their standard, and they really taught me a lot. And so adding that lends to, you know, being neuro divergent as well, and having an idea about lots of different neuro types and how to be inclusive of that. And of course, I've also done other diversity, equity inclusion work around anti racism, and gender inclusion. And I think all of that work, you know, has a lot more commonality than then indifference. I think a lot of what makes something universally accessible, is also what makes something a place fully inclusive of all those things.   Michael Hingson  15:52 Yeah. We, we need to, we need to recognize that there's nothing wrong with being different than everyone else around us. It doesn't make us less or doesn't make us more, which is the unfortunate part about the term disabilities because people just interpret that as well. You're not able? Well. That's why what we really need to do because I haven't come up with a better word. We need to change the definition of disability.   Sherry Johnson  16:24 Read it. Yeah. I Yeah. And whenever I talk about my own, myself being disabled, I tried to talk about disabled in a context disabled because something was not designed for me. And there are barriers to it being designed for me to access it, you know, just the rhythms of everyday life. Honestly, a lot of the organizations I work with right now, for example, we know that there's been this great resignation, and this passive quitting, because we're all sort of overtaxed and traumatized by the last few years. Well, that's how I felt most of my life. So I can kind of bring some of that feeling and some of those adaptations that I've made for myself, and listening to my body and self liberating my values and and being more mindful, I can bring that to groups and help them you know, even folks who've never experienced any kind of, quote, unquote, disability feel like there are steps that they can take to succeed more to be plugged in more, to collaborate better, in healthier ways that is honoring to themselves, their bodies, their communities, one another.   Michael Hingson  17:39 There's an interesting book written by Henry Mayer, entitled all on fire. And it's the story of the abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison from the 1840s. And one of the things that Mayor talks about in the book is a time when garrison was looking for more people to join the movement. And he suggested to his people that they contact two ladies, their sisters, they grim case sisters, and the sisters were very active suffragettes. And of what what happened was that the his his people said, well, we shouldn't contact them. They're not relevant to what we're doing. They're dealing with something totally different than what we're dealing with. And that would just detract. And Garrison said something, which I think is extremely profound. He said, It's all the same thing. And how true it is. The reality is we're all fighting to become part of the same society. And doesn't matter whether it's suffrage doesn't matter whether it's abolition of slavery, doesn't matter whether it's dealing with any kind of disability or whatever, it really is all the same thing. And we need to recognize that and include everyone to deal with the issue.   Sherry Johnson  19:04 Absolutely. And, and also celebrate and lift up and represent those differences, and nonfiction and fiction media, right. Like I said, seeing myself starting to see myself represented was really important to me. And I know that that's been really important to many other colleagues from from different backgrounds. For sure,   Michael Hingson  19:26 well, so what did you do after high school?   Sherry Johnson  19:29 I became a high school English and theater teacher, because that was the role model that I had from the cast. I was from right. As a first generation college student I the whole concept of going to grad school even though I really wanted to be a medical doctor or something like that. I just couldn't understand the concept. And that you went to college. I did go to college. I was I was very lucky to get a full ride scholarship at UW Madison. And I studied education in theater, taught theater and English to high schoolers for about 10 years, and then transitioned into above, I had my kid, and my teenager, they're now 15 was also autistic. Because, again, we're genetic. And that was really tough as an autistic person who didn't know it yet, you know, having had this autistic person with other high needs, and not really having a lot of space or help around that. And so I made some choices, right, I got into community organizing a taught yoga for a while I got into my body, I started working on my own emotional landscape. And mindfulness, started doing community organizing, which brought me into consensus processes and collaboration. And that's why I became a technology participation certified facilitator, I still train that on a regular basis. And then it just started, it kind of led me from there. Now I do strategic planning for nonprofits, I work with local governments to improve their systems. And it's all just sort of taken off where those last, you know, 1015 years, it's kind of put me in a completely different spot. But then I've always been a bit of a polymath, I think that might come from some add tendencies as well in my brain. But I think that all of that kind of like, what you were just saying, from the quote from the book is, like, all is everything. And if you can have your hands and a lot of different things, you can bring a sense of wildlife and plant ecology, and to changing human systems, right. And it can make that process more meaningful and adaptable. So it's stuff like that, that I live for that kind of synthesis.   Michael Hingson  21:55 You said something several times, and I'm not we're not going to get political or anything. But we I hear a number of people say, Oh, my child is autistic, because they had vaccinations and so on, and they don't even look at the whole genetic thing. What do you think about all that?   Sherry Johnson  22:13 It is 100% genetic? And I think that we're gonna find that we've always had autistic people with us, we've always had add people with us. And, and, and I think, and I know that, you know, all the studies are the vaccines have nothing to do with creating, or enabling or turning on any genes when it comes to autism, you know, vaccines. And I think, for the for us in the community, the Autistic community. It's kind of maddening to, to hear that come up again. Because it was essentially a fake study that even started that whole thing. And now that gentleman makes a lot of money selling that story to different organizations and traveling the world and writing books. And it's really unfortunate how much damage he's done.   Michael Hingson  23:05 Well, so you how long ago did you form creative strategy? Cultivate strategy? Yeah. polyphase strategy? Yeah, um, it's another C word. I call it a base. All right.   Sherry Johnson  23:17 And of course, cultivation comes from ecology. But But I, you know, I started my own business when I before even left for Seattle about 1012 years ago. But it wasn't until I came back from Seattle about 533234 years ago that I that I built, called the Bates strategy out of kind of an amalgamation of all these things that I learned. And, you know, it's my third business and was happy to build it in a state of Minnesota. And I just felt like there was this niche I needed to fill. And I've grown to think of myself more and more as a complexity coach, both for individuals and organizations to help us think about just to sort out the different complexities and when we can't make predictable decisions. When things are unordered. What do we do? How do we approach those decisions in ways that we haven't in the past? And that's changed the way that I approach strategic planning and students the way that I've approached leadership orientation, and things like that.   Michael Hingson  24:30 Will Tell me a little bit more about your approach and what you do if you would, please. Sure. So   Sherry Johnson  24:35 I come from this place where you know, it's kind of taken me a long time to kind of define this because I was always about helping people collaborate across Denver. Well, what is that about? It can be about almost anything, but I think where I'm finding my niche is helping people understand when a linear plan a time based linear plan with goals is not always the right frame, it's not always the right way to go. Increasingly, we know that the less predictable our world is, the less predictable the context of an organization, the more experimental we have to be, the more we have to allow things to emerge between humans and within human networks that can be sustainable. It's through changing a system through relatively simple interactions is what one of my favorite thinkers Adrian Marie brown talks about in this changing complex adaptive systems, and thinking about ourselves more as part of nature than something that's imposing order upon nature. And that's, that's what excites me and gets me out of bed every day. So I have a leadership course coming up, for example, it's based on leadership orientations and figuring out what situations you're most gifted to lead in. And when you should really be stepping back and recognizing the leadership orientation of others who are more able to move in that particular context, which is again, about celebrating difference, and was something that always has always bugged me is about just moving and operating in a tip in a neurotypical world is that oftentimes those things that I've been teased about throughout my life was overthinking, you're overthinking. You're anxious, you're trying too hard. Those things have been a gift to me. That's how my brain works. And it's how I do what I do. And yes, I burn hot, I'm intense. But a lot of that is what allows me to lead in a different way. And more effectively in some contexts. And that's what I'm trying to bring into the organizations I work with to   Michael Hingson  26:54 one of the things that I have found about leadership and being part of a team is the best team leaders are the ones who also know how to use your words, how to step back and let someone else take the lead to do a particular thing.   Sherry Johnson  27:10 Absolutely. Yeah. And who knows? Yeah, go ahead.   Michael Hingson  27:14 Because they don't necessarily themselves have all the gifts or they know, who might be better gifted to do a particular thing?   Sherry Johnson  27:22 Absolutely. And we all know that, you know, information doesn't flow through human systems unless we trust and care about one another. You don't, you know, that's where information hoarding happens in systems where care and trust are missing, or deficient. And we know too, that as our systems as our organizations become more and more complex information is everything. Sharing information is everything. So how do we meet this moment and figure out how to care for ourselves and one another, even as we're working on these harder and harder problems?   Michael Hingson  27:59 Yeah. And it isn't just information, it is absolutely sharing information. We we grow up in a world today where trust is so much under attack, which is what's so unfortunate to me. Because in reality, we trust in so many ways, and we should be more open to trust than we tend to be.   Sherry Johnson  28:22 Yeah, in fact, I had the most one of the most beautiful situations I've been in in the last few years is the day after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. You know, I remembered it was one of the most divisive. It was the Sunday after rather, one of the most divisive times I can think of even even more so than now just this sort of everybody holding their breath. And I was hosting a conversation at my suburban Seattle church on gun control, can you imagine, are you and we had a very heated, we had all kinds of people in that room. There were there were 2530 people in that room. And we had a very heated, very intense high conflict, but but carrying, because we were all part of this same community carrying conversation that I was able to facilitate within some good boundaries. And that was one of the most effective situations I've been in because we realized, I think in that moment, that we needed to find a way to care about each other, we needed to leverage our care to have a conversation together about something that is just so high, high conflict, right. And that can be a lot of hope for even where we are now and how we can move forward with the right good boundaries around conversation and collaboration. And I want more of that.   Michael Hingson  29:56 So what was the main bone of contention or the main conflict since you all came from a church environment. You were you were all there. And as you point out, people really cared what was the main issue that was hard to address or deal with?   Sherry Johnson  30:15 It just there were, you know, again, suburban, mainline, you know, Methodist Church, about half of the folks in the room were very pro Second Amendment, NRA members, and about half of the room were very sort of liberal Moms Demand Action types of folks who were very, very frustrated with the state of gun legislation in the country. And, you know, even even in that context, those tensions exist. And in fact, I think churches, mainline churches, particularly, are one of the last places where you can find that level of difference, even in a caring community. And those differences, by the way, often are under the rug, and we'll talk about when pretend everything is okay. Until we can.   Michael Hingson  31:11 Well, was there any room to discuss things like does the the idea of gun control? Since we're talking about it? Is there any, was there any room to discuss? Does gun control really mean you're gonna lose your guns? I mean, that that's, of course, the the whole argument the NRA makes, and that people say when they talk about the Second Amendment, we ought to have the right just to have our guns. And that's all there is to it. But there is there was there any room to say? Well, wait a minute. Is it really that black and white?   Sherry Johnson  31:47 Absolutely. I think one of the best. One of the best things about being a facilitator, and the longer you do it, is that you start to be able to ask the right question. And you notice that you're working with the group, and they stop talking to you, the facilitator and they start talking to each other. And that doesn't always happen. But when it does, it leads to situations in which that did happen in this group. I remember the look on there were two really passionate people, and it was toward the end of the conversation. And they just stood and faced each other they stood up. And there was people were a little bit afraid, I was feeling pretty good about it. But she just said, Look, I don't want to take your guns, you know, and he said, You want to take my guns, I don't want to take your guns. And it was, and I was just about to interrupt. And then there was a pause. I'm Scott Peck, one of my favorite thinkers talks about this where we're in this sense of chaos. We live in pseudo community most of the time, and then we get this sense of chaos when we realize our differences. And it's only after a period of emptiness that we become a community. And what I watched was this emptiness, this period where no one said anything. And then I think one of them asked the other the question, I don't remember it. I wish I did. But she got a real answer. And then he asked her a question. And she gave him a real answer. This is the trust piece. And they never, they did not agree with one another walking out of that room. And meanwhile, everybody else is sort of watching this happen. But I think we all learn something about emptying ourselves of that need to control the situation and be right. And really just get curious and see what's behind this. This person's thinking.   Michael Hingson  33:34 Yeah, we, we spend so much time hearing the shallow sound bites and so on. And then we just buy that rather than thinking more about it. You know, of course, we could talk about Donald Trump. So many people say I'd vote for him again, because I trust him. And what I always wonder, and I would wonder it about any politician really is, what do you really trust? You hear words, but do you dig down to look at the actions behind the words? Do you look at all the things that they do or not? And unfortunately, we don't tend to allow ourselves and I think we also don't teach our children nearly enough to be curious,   Sherry Johnson  34:30 right? Yes. Yes, Curiosity is so key. And that that negative capability of being able I love this concept of negative capability, have you heard this, the neuroscientific concept where basically, you're allowing about it? Well, sorry, you're allowing yourself to realize that you don't have the answer in the moment. Our society is so obsessed with having the right answer, usually a simple answer, right? And the moment that something's needed And unless you're in a true crisis, potentially really bad to make a decision really? Yeah, it's really good to step back and employ this concept of negative capability. You see how long you can wait in that space of unknowing to have an answer. And you'll find that people with a higher negative capability, make better decision? Because it allows them to consult others be curious, fill that space in their brains of even what they done that unknown unknowns like, what do I not know? Let's find out what I don't even know that I don't know. And that that, that can really bring us way beyond where we're at with our relationships. And I think too, that's one of the strengths of being an autistic person is that I have? I think, a lot of negative capability, because I've spent my entire life sort of going, why did they just do it? What was the assumption behind that? I don't have those simple rules that I think neurotypical culture has. And it's always led me to always take a step back and ask, why did that happen and get curious. And I love sharing that, that negative capability, the father's   Michael Hingson  36:15 interesting concept, I wasn't really familiar with it. But the other part about it is you also said, The only really good time or the necessary time to make a fast decision is when there's a crisis, right. But I would also add to that, that making a fast decision in a crisis also comes down to as much preparation ahead of time. So of course, for me, the example is the World Trade Center, and all the things that I did to prepare for an emergency, not necessarily ever expecting one, but at the same time, needing to know information. I had a discussion just yesterday with someone who asked me the question about, well, was it? Or could it be an advantage in a situation like the World Trade Center, not to see as opposed to being able to see? And what I pointed out was, that you're still basing that question on having eyesight, and comparing more or less eyesight? And that's not really the question to ask or the issue to discuss. The issue really is what do you do to prepare for different situations in your life. So for me, going out and, and exploring, learning what to do in the case of an emergency, was something that I felt really necessary and required for me to do as the leader of an office. It also prepared me for an emergency. And it gave me information that sighted people would not normally get because they just rely on the science to tell them what to do and where to go, which only works if you can see the signs. And if you have time to read the signs. So it's it's really not site versus not site. It's preparation versus not preparing.   Sherry Johnson  38:21 Yes, absolutely. And in the autism community, we talk about the concept of social story that is very similar. A lot of times autistic people aren't said like, Wow, you really know what to do in a crisis. And we can turn off all our feelings and be these heroes and crises. And we may bring that with us and a lot of PTSD, we now are much more kin kin we are much more susceptible to PST, PTSD. But with our neuro types, but we're really good in a crisis. I think it's exactly what you were just talking about when the world I don't know about you, Michael, but I think when the world is sort of designed for not you, yeah. You, you have to take that extra step to get curious about your own planning, your own approach to things that the rest of the world takes for granted. And I think that that's a richness that those of us who bring that bring these various lenses can bring into the greater world like, Hey, have you ever thought about it this way? And they were really, you know, I'm really glad that that served you well and that situation?   Michael Hingson  39:30 Well, the other part of that is the world The world may not be designed with me in mind in some way for help preparing and doing what I do. Can I help the world become a little bit more designed for more of us than less of us? And the more of us may not be the majority, but can the world be made to be more designed for more of us than less of   Sherry Johnson  40:01 us. Absolutely.   Michael Hingson  40:02 That's great. And I think that that is an important part of it. It isn't just learning. It's then utilizing that information. And in reality, it is my belief that everyone should learn what to do in an emergency. And very frankly, I would say, for most people learn what to do as a blind person, because you rely way too much on your eyesight much too often. And you don't learn nearly as much as you can learn by utilizing some other skills, which isn't to say, don't use your eyes. But don't limit yourself to your eyesight.   Sherry Johnson  40:45 Yeah, I think that's brilliant. And it forces you to just sit just regard your surroundings differently, I would imagine to this reminds me to of another of my favorite thinkers, Duncan green, has this wonderful book, how change happen. And he talks about that preparation piece. And he said, you know, working for an NGO, the idea was that if you really wanted to change systems, you would figure out your entire plan for changing something. And you would present the entire plan when the crisis happens. The moment the crisis happens, if you're the first one to plop down the plan for moving out of that crisis, you've just changed the system forever. I love that concept.   Michael Hingson  41:33 And it makes perfect sense. The reality is that we should be doing more of that we shouldn't just be moving around as robots which we do way too often.   Sherry Johnson  41:43 Absolutely. Yeah. mechanization and expertise. Have no person that points for sure. So   Michael Hingson  41:50 I, you know, I have a wife, who we've now been married almost 40 years, it will be 40 years next month. And I've had to learn what eyesight is all about. And I've learned to explore that and learn what she sees how she sees how other people see. And that helps me be more part of that world. But at the same time, then I can use that to say, okay, but here are the limitations of that. Now, take that another step. And really look at what if you don't just use your eyes? And what are the advantages of expanding your horizons as it were?   Sherry Johnson  42:36 Yeah. Yeah, I like that.   Michael Hingson  42:39 So it's a challenge. So you started your company? And what do you do? What What exactly does the company do today?   Sherry Johnson  42:50 Well, we like I said, we moved from sort of doing strategic planning into more organizational change, work, leadership work. And I spell into doing this work around looking at large systems, to now taking that into the city of St. Paul, we did a constituent services study, and we looked at equity implications around who is who can access constituent service and who can't? And what is the quality of that service? And what's the experience? What's the user journey, like? And how can you improve it? And how can you improve the system, looking at all those different more and less predictable ways of working, and looking at all those different ways that people can lead from anywhere in the system and the types of things that they can do. And then I'm hoping to get some new work, knocked out of wood, where I get to do more of that, but also employ narrative ethnography. I'm very excited about this. Do you remember Cambridge Analytica in 2016? Yeah, basically, worked through Facebook to try to find the narratives that were shaping the culture and shift them so that they would get what they wanted out of the election, I kind of want to be the good guy and use that technology for good it is be able to trace the narratives that a culture is telling itself and look for narratives that are positive that would help emerging narratives that will help lead that organization in the right direction and in the direction of its values, and try to move a system by studying those things. So that's the next horizon for me. And it's a project I've been hoping and planning for for the last five years. So I'm hoping that I'm really the one that's putting my book down full of steps and that I'm the first one. I'm not the first by far but I'm excited to do this new work at a larger scale.   Michael Hingson  44:46 You'll be the first to do it the way you do it. I   Sherry Johnson  44:48 spa and slow state.   Michael Hingson  44:52 Tell us more about this concept of narratives.   Sherry Johnson  44:55 Yeah, um, so narratives are the stories we tell ourselves of that shape our behavior, they shape our behavior, they shape our emotions, they shape our relationships, our culture on a grander scale, right. And a culture can believe a set of narratives individuals do. And these can be good or bad working with human narratives, the stories we tell ourselves can be good or bad. Like I said, Cambridge analytic, a bad example of something where you can harness what people believe the predictions that their brains have made about the world way the world works, and make them more afraid, make them do things that are more reactive. But you can also find those hopeful narratives and a culture those narratives that will lead you toward more connection more care, and amp those up, repeat those tell those stories, and lead a culture in a different way. And this works for individuals too. There's a lot of different facilitative frameworks where you can work with an individual or a small group to help them kind of shift their image of themselves and move them in a new direction. So it's that level of change work that is really harnessed in this concept of narratives, because our brains literally predict every moment. And if you can help people predict differently, you can help people change.   Michael Hingson  46:19 How do you incorporate mindfulness into the things that you do? And what is mindfulness? How would you define it? That's a broad subject, isn't it? Yeah. No,   Sherry Johnson  46:29 I mean, that that's about awareness and curiosity, right? That's about, um, you know, being as much as you can be in your body, knowing what's happening within your body, knowing what that says, for you in, in your context about how you're feeling about things. What is your what is good for you? What is bad for you? What feels good or bad? I think a lot of us are so caught up in this sort of perfectionist gogogo culture of, you know, and even in my family of origin, how will you work your way till your next paycheck? You're working more out of competition, fear. Sometimes perfectionism. I know, that was me before my autism diagnosis, I still struggle with it. But what mindfulness does that helps you just kind of check in with yourself and be able to read what is what do I actually need in this moment? What am I actually desiring in this moment? And it's only then when you can help folks feel bad about their own selves that you can help a group be more mindful of one another culture, be more mindful of it. So   Michael Hingson  47:44 how do you teach people to do that?   Sherry Johnson  47:46 playfully. I used to be a theater teachers. So there's a lot of improv involved, sometimes in a more playful sense. With more serious groups, it's just about inviting people to close their eyes and check in with our bodies before virtual I'll say, you know, feel free to turn off your camera, we're just gonna take a few breaths, taking pauses when a group would normally speed ahead, you remember what I said about emptiness? Right? Yeah, we need to be able to take those moments of silence emptiness, to check in with ourselves to see where we're really at. And that, you know, brainstorming works much better when you can take some time of pause, take a break, go on a walk, come back. That's that net negative capability thing again, pausing before deciding, pausing before gathering, pausing to consider, those are all things that I would consider to be mindfulness. And you can do their exercises to do that. Certainly, I taught yoga for a while. And I could do that with certain groups. For the most part, it's much simpler than that. It's about just pausing.   Michael Hingson  48:56 It's also about giving yourself permission, and hopefully encouraging yourself and changing your habits and mindset to doing it. So often, we we just hear excuses. I don't have time to do that. Yeah,   Sherry Johnson  49:12 yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be meditation. Meditation doesn't actually work for everyone. And it works for me, I love it. But I've know a lot of folks who really struggle with it, particularly in the ADB community, but I think it's just about taking time. And for some people that might be taking a walk, for some people, it might be spinning something in their hand. For some people, it's sitting and breathing and feeling the weight of gravity, right. But whatever it is, I try to help people find that. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  49:46 So when you say meditation, what do you mean by that?   Sherry Johnson  49:49 Um, I, you know, that's a tool. That's a highly cultural concept, right? It's different across cultures. For me, I I think of the sort of the Desert Fathers in Christianity and just sort of being silent and sitting in the presence of God, you know, others would say, it's about being silent and just sitting in the presence of nature, or whatever it is, or checking in with our chakras, or whatever it is. Different cultures have different definitions for what it means that it's about taking time. And, you know, we know that some some folks believe that meditation is only just sort of freeing your mind and not thinking about anything. But I think what I've noticed is a pattern, at least in my own small way, is that so much of it is about self compassion. It's like, No one starts out being able to meditate perfectly. But a lot of us can benefit from it, if we have self compassion, and just, you know, keep trying.   Michael Hingson  50:58 And, of course, the whole idea of meditation sure, is being silent, and possibly emptying your mind. But the whole idea behind mindfulness, in a sense, is meditation, it's taking time to not just go forward and confront the day. And it doesn't really matter how you do it. But you do need to take time mentally for yourself, or to slow down. It's something I think that's as much a concept of meditation as is anything else. Absolutely. There's always transcendental meditation where you say a mantra. And that can be very helpful to people who do it. And it may help more people, then think that they could do it. But still, it's all about taking time to slow down and disconnecting from just what goes on in the world.   Sherry Johnson  51:52 Yeah, yeah. But really just noticing more, right? Taking it more with more of your senses, what is actually happening? Yeah, because that predictive brain of ours, we actually don't see, we don't hear, we don't taste we don't smell we don't touch most things. In the moment. We've already predicted those things. If we only really sense what we predicted, we would sense, we actually have to slow ourselves down to truly sense of what's happening around.   Michael Hingson  52:25 So what's next for you?   Sherry Johnson  52:29 Well, I'm like I had this project that hopefully, I'll get to do some narrative ethnography and what we call sensemaking. I've got a course coming up on adaptive leadership on December 3, sign up for that at my website, cultivate strategy that calm slash events, be teaching today, my Two Day technology participation facilitation course, if you want to learn about how to facilitate and collaborate better, I teach that about once a quarter either in Seattle are online, hopefully will start to teach teach that in Minnesota too. And, you know, someday, you would ask me about this earlier, Michael, before the show. I am hoping to complete my musical about growing up as an autistic kid and trying to fit in. So working on that, too.   Michael Hingson  53:21 There you go. Are you going to write the lyrics? Are you going to write the songs? Or are you going to write the words around them? And let let somebody else come in and do it?   Sherry Johnson  53:30 You know, it's going to be I think it's going to be a jukebox musical. So it'll be just hits from the 80s and 90s. Ah, you know, moving moving through my own experiences middle in early high school with the dialog that I'm right. Yeah. Have you   Michael Hingson  53:49 thought about taking a lot of the content of your courses, and putting them into a book? And using that as another mechanism to teach?   Sherry Johnson  54:00 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of existing books, particularly on the technology of participation. I do write blogs pretty regularly. And I've started to do some video logs as well, on tic tac, and Facebook, but someday, I might start to gather some of that stuff together and make a compendium or something that makes sense, but I'm a little too random, maybe to make that full nonfiction book for resale. I'm always fine. It's nothing new to talk about and work on instead.   Michael Hingson  54:35 And, and that's valuable. And as you said, so your courses will be online as well. And they are online.   Sherry Johnson  54:42 Yeah, yeah. The deciding how to decide is online. And there's both an in person and online version of that top facilitation methods which is actually through top trading dotnet you can sign up for courses in that all over even the world   Michael Hingson  54:59 top training dotnet A   Sherry Johnson  55:00 trained dotnet as the US arm of the Institute for Cultural Affairs, is the purveyor of that that particular band of training. Cool? Yeah.   Michael Hingson  55:14 Well, so you've sort of said it, but if people want to reach out to you and maybe learn more about you talk with you, and do you do individual coaching?   Sherry Johnson  55:23 I do. Yeah. So yeah. So   Michael Hingson  55:26 how do they reach out to you and learn, but all of that   Sherry Johnson  55:29 they there is a website, there's a form on my website, cultivatestrategy.com. And you can also just email me at Sherry at cultivatestrategy.com S H E R R Y. I'm happy to respond.   Michael Hingson  55:41 And strategy singular, just to make sure everybody understands. Yes. Well, Sherry, this has been fun. I've enjoyed it. I really appreciate you coming on. And my dog has stayed awake over here, so you must be happy with it. There you go. That's awesome. Alamo pays attention to everything I do. I can't get away with anything. We do have the door closed. So the cat doesn't get to come in. And I understand why cats.   Sherry Johnson  56:10 I adore cats. I have two of them, including the best get in the world and then kissick,   Michael Hingson  56:16 we have a cat we rescued seven and a half years ago. We thought we were just going to find her a home. And I learned that the cat's name was stitch. And my wife is a quilter Do you think that cat was going to go anywhere?   Sherry Johnson  56:32 Oh, it adopted you.   Michael Hingson  56:37 Oh, it took over us? Yeah. He's a great and and she and Alamo get along very well. So we're happy with that. That's great. Well, thanks again for being here. And I want to thank you for listening. And wherever you are. Please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. That's another thing share. You could do a podcast.   Sherry Johnson  56:57 Oh goodness, I've done I've done it. I've done something like it. We'll see someday.   Michael Hingson  57:05 But wherever you are, please give us a five star rating. I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to me at Michaelhi at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. And Sherry will have to talk about your website and see how accessible it is.   Sherry Johnson  57:21 Oh, I'm working on it. It's not it's not there yet.   Michael Hingson  57:26 Checkout accessiBe it can help and it's not expensive. It's a way to really help. And I'll be glad to help you with that. But we hope that wherever you are, you'll give us a rating and you'll reach out I'd love to hear your thoughts. And we'll be back of course again very soon with another episode of unstoppable mindset. We're inclusion, diversity. And my favorite part the unexpected meet and again, Sherry, thank you for being a part of this.   Sherry Johnson  57:51 Thank you for having me, Michael, this was fun.   Michael Hingson  57:58 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Impressionist and Comedian Frank Caliendo is this week's guest on the podcast. Join Michael and Frank as they discuss Frank's career and his advice for emerging comedians.Show NotesFrank Caliendo's Website - https://www.frankcaliendo.com/Frank Caliendo on Twitter - https://twitter.com/FrankCaliendoFrank Caliendo on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/frankcaliendo/Frank Caliendo on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/frankcaliendoMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutomated TanscriptsFrank Caliendo (00:00:00):So I thought put Seinfeld on drugs and the d the, the bit was why do my fingers look like little people? Who are these people in the door and they're talking to each other? They're probably talking about me when I say it. Talking. I, oh, Jerry, oh, I somebody. Hey Jerry, you look like you've been seeing little people on your fingers. It's, you just let that camera and then the end, it was Newman and Newman's like, hello Jerry. And she, we've lost a sort of Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead commitment of stamps. You would see . So he'd lick the stamps. You know, that was the,Michael Jamin (00:00:33):You're listening to screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael Jamin.(00:00:41):Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. And I got another great guest today. I'm really racking up the guests. Everyone. before we begin, make sure everyone to get on my my watch list is my free newsletter, by the way. Goes out every friday at michaeljamin.com/watchlist for tips for screenwriters, actors, and directors and all that. And now let's bring him on. Let's bring on my next, my next guest who I met actually many years ago when I was running a show. He's, the show was called Glen Martin. And we, we, this is how it works. And, and Frank, don't worry, I'll give you a minute to talk. I know you're talking about the bit here.Frank Caliendo (00:01:15):No,Michael Jamin (00:01:16):I love it. This is how, this is how it works in animation. It's actually a fun job for, for actors. So basically the casting director, we don't even audition. Can't we say this is what we need and the cast director just bring somebody in and, and and if they're terrible, you know, we just get somebody else to replace them. And so in this role we needed this is we needed someone who could do an impression. And I don't remember what the character was. There's probably some politician. It might have been Obama, it might have been George Bush, someone like that. And so she had our casting director was Linda Lamont, Montana. And she goes, I have just the guy. And she brings him in. And it was, it was Frank, Frank Callo, thank you so much for being on the, my podcast, Frank.Frank Caliendo (00:01:55):And now I'm back. How about that? Huh?Michael Jamin (00:01:57):Now you're back. And he killed it. Now Frank, is this your, Frank has got Frank, you know, the, and, and, and the Game of Thrones. There was like the the man of, what was it? The god of many faces. Is that what it was? You're, you're the man. You're the god of many voices.Frank Caliendo (00:02:11):I'll take it. Yeah, I'llMichael Jamin (00:02:12):Take, take it.Frank Caliendo (00:02:12):It it's like six and then I just kind of do variations on it.Michael Jamin (00:02:16):I don't think so. Dude, you are amazing. You are amazing at how you do that. I want to get into like how you actually do that.Frank Caliendo (00:02:23):Well, there, there, okay. So let's, let's get into, first of all, I didn't believe you that I did the show that you said I did, cuz I kind of remember Glen Martin. D d s I remember getting the sides for it. I remember getting an email about it, but I don't remember doing it cuz we talked at some point that you were doing a live a live stream. And you're like I think that's where it was. And I was like, you said, oh, Frank, you did a thing with me. Or maybe we just instant message back and forth. I'm like, you're crazy. I don't remember doing that. I just looked it up on I mdb and I did do it. You did do it. It was George Bush and I guess John Madden. Go figure. You probably Madden happy for Georges Bush. So you wrote in the John Madden thing, I'm guessing. Michael Jamin (00:03:09):It's so funny. It's so funny that you chose to forget that you were on Glen Martin. How, howFrank Caliendo (00:03:13):She, I don't remember a lot of stuff and I don't even do any drugs, but it's like, I don't, I don't remember. I remember it was like a declamation kind of thing, right?Michael Jamin (00:03:19):Yeah. Yes. Right. And it was, that was Kevin Neen. He, he the, he the guy. So, yeah. And you, you crushed it and you did. No, it wasn't John. John.Frank Caliendo (00:03:29):I crushed it so much. I've never worked with you again. That's butMichael Jamin (00:03:32):I haven't done not have animation since. No,Frank Caliendo (00:03:34):That's true, jerk.Michael Jamin (00:03:35):I did Barry for 10 minutes though. But youFrank Caliendo (00:03:38):Know, it's funny. Here's a funny thing though. This is a funny thing, is that I haven't done a lot of animation. So you think of me as animation because of the voices. And that's the thing that's always weird. And that's why one of the reasons I didn't do a ton of voice acting. One, I wasn't as good at it as some other people. But two, it was like, because once you do that, it's amazing how people think of you in like, I'm in a couple of different tunnels for pi. It, it's, you know, the pi, the holes of the pigeon. I am a, people think of me as a sports guy and an impressionist. So it's like, oh, we, that's all he can do. So they never, so I, it's so funny because recently people have been like, ah, you wouldn't do this little partner move.(00:04:19):I'm like, yeah, I would, I do, do I have to do an impression? No. Oh good. Are you gonna rewrite the part? So I do impressions? No. Perfect. Interesting. That's what I wanna do. Now I do this, the impression stuff to keep the lights on. I mean, that's what I do on TikTok and Instagram and stuff like that. It's, there's some fun with it too. But that's the amazing thing is people start to get, I think I saw you do something recently where you said, you know, beat the dead horse. Right? You're like, it can Oh yeah. Do the thing. Do the thing you're known for . Yes. Keep doing it. Keep doing. I did it for 20 years andMichael Jamin (00:04:52):Well, I'm telling, and I'm talking about beginning people, but Yeah. But for you I can understand.Frank Caliendo (00:04:55):Absolutely. It's, it's, it's, and then you, you then you get to that point where you're like, I gotta do some other, some other stuff. And it's so funny because then people don't want you for anything else. Right. And then you go back and do some of the stuff again. But there's like two careers. And I've heard David Spade talking to those other people. Probably talked about it too. But I used to say this until I heard David Spade say it too. And then I'm like, oh, people think I was just taking it from David Spade. But it was, you spend the first career, you have two careers, the first career pigeonholing yourself, getting known, doing something, Uhhuh . And then the second career is being able to do something else, right? Like getting outside of that. So I had the first one. So I'm fighting in that little bit of that second one.Michael Jamin (00:05:33):Well, you know, so I, I wrote for Spade twice on just Shoot Me. And then later on Rules of engagement. So I'm just curious, what does he think is, what is his second career? What was he talking about?Frank Caliendo (00:05:41):Well, I I I just saw it in a, you know, I, I worked with him recently and didn't bring it up because I was scared of him. No. Why would you be scared of David SP's scared of David? Like, I tower over David sp five, six. No I'm trying to think. It was just something I saw him talk about on a talk show. And I, you know, it was one of those things I'm like, ah man, somebody much more famous than me is talking about this. So I don't know whatMichael Jamin (00:06:07):Thing you'd like to do. Well, I mean, you're amazing at pressure. I can see why you might wanna do something up, but what is it acting? I mean, you know,Frank Caliendo (00:06:13):It's just acting in small parts, you know, just small things because one, people think you want to only do big things and carry a show. Right. I don't really even have any interest in that. I don't even, I, I don't even wanna carry a show Uhhuh. Cause that's, I I I don't feel like my acting is at that level where I, anytime I've ever wanted to do something in Hollywood, I've always wanted to surround myself with good people. And they get confused when you try to do that. Yeah. They're like, why would you want somebody else to Well, cause I want it to be as funny as possible. I grew up, I grew up playing sports. When you have a good team, you do your part on the team. When I had Frank tv it was my show that came after Mad tv. It was shortened by the writer strike and it had some struggles and stuff like that. But it was one of those things where and it wasn't that good. And when it was finally put together, I was amazed. Cuz we had great writers and they would do it. They would pieces John Bowman that were Bowman and Matt Wickline.Michael Jamin (00:07:09):Yeah.Frank Caliendo (00:07:09):Great writers. Brenda Hay king and Lance Crowder. All these guys, like people Rachel Ramas, there were really great people Yeah. Involved in the show. But then by the time it was cut and put on tv, all the air was taken out. It was boo boo, boo boo boom. And you know, when that happens, there's no setups. It's all punchlines and you look like you're trying too hard. Yeah. That's, you know, you and I just didn't have, I'm, I'm not enough of a fighter. You need somebody who's gonna fight for you and do somebody who's gonna have the vision and fight for the vision and has been in that spot before to fight. And I just, I mean, I was doing like 15, 20 pages a day cuz I was playing all the parts until I got them to get other people on the show. So it was one of those things where I was just like, I was exhausted. I didn't even get to see edits. I didn't, I didn't like watch myself. Cause I was also too fat at the time. Yeah. I was like, I'm so fat in these things. I, it looks like South Park episodes. Michael Jamin (00:08:08):But how did that come part about, did you have a development deal at a studio orFrank Caliendo (00:08:11):Something being fat?Michael Jamin (00:08:13):No. You a lotFrank Caliendo (00:08:15):Exercise. It was, I had a d I went in, I, I went in and after I was at Med TV for a while there for five years I had the Fox stuff, the n NFL on Fox things, which was actually bigger for me than anything else. Right. being on the Sunday stuff and Super Bowls. So I went inMichael Jamin (00:08:35):And that's cause you do a killer. Madden give, give us, give us the taste of the Madden so people knowFrank Caliendo (00:08:39):What you're trying. I'm mad here for the quick pop popcorn pop. And I turned him into a character too. Like, like I was ta talking. This is, I know I go off on tangents. Just stop me. Go back. But one of the things with the Madden, you know, the, the realistic John Madden voice was this kind of voice where you, you say the things and you do the things. But I found this thing in him that was the excited little kid. Right? The . Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when he would get that, that going, it was like, I was on Letterman and he had me come on as, get me come on as John Madden didn't say it was a some, I was the lead guest over Ben Stiller, I think it was. Wow. Fake John Madden Wow. Was the lead guest. And I came in and I wasn't really the lead guest, but it was, you know, I tell people, but it was a, it was so I pulled a chicken wing out of my pocket.(00:09:29):I had them get me a chicken wig with sauce on it and everything. I gave you hungry. He was like that right now. , how funny, can you believe this? But it was one of those things where it just, stuff would happen and the, you create the character with it. And it becomes, the funny thing is to me, that that stuff doesn't work the same on social media like TikTok or Instagram, but it might work on some YouTube stuff. Cause there's more longer form. It's, it's more of a longer form, you know, the, the platform is Right. I just didn't like that I said more and longer right. Together. I'm, I'm weird with grammar. I'm very, some things I just, like, if you noticed, I texted you, I didn't like that I put different tenses tenses in my texts and you like, you just stopped talking to at that point.(00:10:14): But when you, I dunno what they really like and on TikTok and these you know, shortform ones platforms is exact replication. They want the, what I would call more of an impersonation, right? Like they want the the, they want you to sound exactly like the person. There's no element of caricature it really, or going what I would call Dana Carvey on it, cartooning it Right. And making it bigger. They're like, ah, that's not like it. Well that's the point. That's the comedic element, right? Right. That makes a good exaggeration after. Yeah, exaggeration after the initial what's the, what the word I'm looking for, the when you, when you recognition, when you get the recognition, laugh on the sound, and then you have to do something with it and make it bigger, right? You have to have more fun with it.Michael Jamin (00:11:09):But you did a post, I thought it was fascinating. I think it was on TikTok, excuse me. I think it might have been like how you do Robert Downey Jr. Or something. And you, you walk through the stages of how you approach the voice in, in pieces and then how you getFrank Caliendo (00:11:26):There. So let's, let's start with this. And this is something that you'll identify with completely as a writer and a creator. You have to find the cadence and the voice of the person not speaking in terms of tone, but the cadence, right? Yeah. How many Christopher Walkins have you heard, right? You've heard low, you've heard, hi, you've heard in the middle, in, in, in the old days, it was William. You knew who it was just by the pauses, right? So you could tell from those voices how you would write for that character. You put the point of view into those, into the song, right? What those of the, you know, into you put the lyrics into the melody. So with Robert, Danny Jr, I found that this is with other characters too. That counting can help you do it. It's better for the audience. It's not a full way to teach somebody how to do it, but it's entertaining while you do it. So Robert Downey Jr. Is after you find the pitch, or you don't even have to have the pitch first, but I'll go to the pitch cuz it's what I do. But it's one, two, pause, burp 5, 6, 7. So you find that it's 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7. And then you can just figure it out, you know? So that's, that's how you find those with Liam Neon. It's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. You know? So it's the beginning. That'sMichael Jamin (00:12:52):Interesting.Frank Caliendo (00:12:53):Yeah. You can do that with Jeff. Goldblum is one, two 1, 1 1. Juan, what comes after one? Think out loud. That's him one. What's, what's coming into my head? What do I hear? The voices coming at me. One, two. Yes. Here comes one, two, a little jazz. 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.Michael Jamin (00:13:17):But you talk about this, you're talking about how you approach it. It's not like you think anyone, you, it's not like you're trying to teach anybody. It's not like anyone, you think anyone can do this, do you? Because I don't think IFrank Caliendo (00:13:26):Do. I think people can find, people can find, I do think people can find it. I think people can find people can't get the, they might not be able to get the pitch, the, the, the note, but they can find the cadence. Everybody, people do itMichael Jamin (00:13:40):Forever. But you, you know, your, your throat, your mouth has a certain in your nose, like you talk. I think you're stuck kind of with the, like, I can't change my, you're stuck with the voice. I don't know how you were able to literally changeFrank Caliendo (00:13:51):The, well, you don't need to do all that stuff. You don't, you don't have to do all the, that. This is another part. The face is another part of an impression. That'sMichael Jamin (00:13:58):The sound of the com. The sound comes from inside your skull.Frank Caliendo (00:14:01):Ok. So yeah. So there, there, there are different pieces to this as well. You can close off your throat. You, you think of it, you know the Bobby character, the Howie Mandel, little bitMichael Jamin (00:14:12):Bobby.Frank Caliendo (00:14:14):So that's closing off your throat. And a lot of people can do that. But the difference is finding different levels of being able to work. It's just, it's a, it's like a muscle, right? Right. So I'll do, I've done this, you might have seen this before, but this is John C. Riley is in here. So John C. Riley has just a little bit of bubble in his throat. Now if you work backwards, a tiny hole, ker frog, that's a little bit more up in here, re tiny Hall Kermit, you're reporting from the planet COOs. Then bring it down a little bit, Nelson your throat a little bit more. You add some air and it becomes Mark. I, I see this as an absolute win, guys. ThisMichael Jamin (00:14:51):That's exactly it. ThisFrank Caliendo (00:14:52):Is, this is crazy. And then, so for Ruff, he is got that thing where I think he had like a, a tumor or something, some, some medical thing when he was younger. And part of his f it was the same with like Stallone, Stallone had Bell's palsy, right? So he is got that, you know, that thing that, right? So if you find, I call it the pizza slice, you've probably seen the thing I did this. It's a triangle. It's a line across the eyebrows, a.in the, in the chin. And it's the triangle that goes down. There are two things. Now, this is stuff I'm actually gonna dos and Instagram on as well, but it's I just am too lazy. And it's, the mouth tells you how the person talks.Michael Jamin (00:15:33):UhhuhFrank Caliendo (00:15:34):. So if you watch my mouth, that's why everybody does a Donald Trump, right? When they do a Donald Trump, you have to do the lips. The lips are very, very, that's very. But now this part of my face from those down is doing Donald Trump. Now when the eyes start going, it sh now that's the point of view that starts. Same with the bush. Bush is, you know, I could do this thing with this half smile. It's like somebody told me a dirty joke before I came up here, but that's just, that's from nose down. But now I get a little discombobulate and you know, I'm staring into the, the abbu, you know, that's what it was also a great movie. So it's, and then the point of view comes from the way you think. Right? But you, when you write a character, when you write a character, you become that character when you write, I don't know if I'm stirring batter or what. Yeah. But if you're doing a cooking show and you're stirring the batter, but your character, you haveMichael Jamin (00:16:32):To, yeah, we would, for example, on King Hill, we would imitate Bobby Hill or Hank or whatever. But imitating is not sounding, you know, it's not sounding like,Frank Caliendo (00:16:40):Yeah. It's just, that's just taking it another level. You, you, you just take it. You get, because you had the cadence of the character. You might not have had the note, but you had the notes written. You didn't have them on the stop, but you knew if it was an eighth note, a quarter note, whatever, a, a rest. And I only know a little bit about music and that's all of it that I just told you.Michael Jamin (00:17:00):But did you, as a kid, did you, like, did you, were you good at this as a kid? Did you wanna aspire? Did you aspire to this?Frank Caliendo (00:17:06):I think I was pretty good at it. I, I have a natural knack and my kids have the knack too. So you have to have a, a knack at the beginning to figure this stuff out from the beginning Right. To, you know, it's predator of the infrared going. I see everything. My son had Bell's Palsy when he was very little. And I, I could see that when he would smile. This is a, the blessing and a curse thing. And when he would smile, he wouldn't smile all at the same time. And then I started to look closely and part of his face moved a lot slower and didn't always move. And I said to, to my wife, I go, something happened. I don't know what it is, but I think he had Bell's Palsy. Well, we had him tested to make sure there was no brain stuff going on or whatever.(00:17:47):But the doctors, what the diagnosis eventually was Bell. He had Bell's Palsy when he was a baby. Right. And it, you know, pa what happens is Bell's Palsy is, I think the fifth I, I don't remember what it was, the fifth or seventh cranial nerve. Something gets damaged either by a virus or trauma, blood trauma. And it keeps you from everything moving at the same time. But that's, but I could see it. Most people don't see it. I could see it because that's the way my brain breaks things down. Yeah. I mean, you as a writer, as a performer, whatever, however you consider, whatever you consider yourself, you do similar things. You see the world from that point of view. And that's how you write. You go, you observe, you take in, and then you replicate or create from that. Exaggeration or finding the, I I've set off Siri like nine times on my watch during this. I've never, that's never happened before.Michael Jamin (00:18:50):I Yeah, I, I say mean things to her. I and I and my wife says it's not good because Apple's picking up on this , like I say awful things to Siri. So, you know, like, Siri, you asshole. What time is it? She don't say that.Frank Caliendo (00:19:08):I'm sure it could be much worse.Michael Jamin (00:19:10):Yeah, it is much worse. I'm cleaning it upFrank Caliendo (00:19:11):For the podcast. Yeah. You were just trying not to get canceled.Michael Jamin (00:19:14):Yeah. Yeah. .Frank Caliendo (00:19:15):Yeah. So there, so there are lots of, yeah, I, I, I see. I look at these thi these things in, in lots of different ways. For me, you know, one of the things that, one of the things when I first got on social media in the last couple years, a few years ago mm-hmm. . Cause I wasn't doing any, cuz I was on Twitter 10 years ago. AndMichael Jamin (00:19:35):Why did I started finding, started my goal on social media. Why did you start?Frank Caliendo (00:19:38):Well, you have to. I mean, if you, if you, the first time it, it was because it was new and people were telling me I didn't like it. I just, I don't like it. I, I, I, I can't, I can't adapt it because people are angry for the most part. And there's a lot ofMichael Jamin (00:19:54):Yes. Tell me about it.Frank Caliendo (00:19:56):Is it, yeah. Right, right. And there's a lot of what confirmation bias. So there's confirmation bias mm-hmm. and the exact opposite. Right? So people either wanna hear exactly what they're thinking and they don't wanna have a conversation about something different. Mm-Hmm. . Or they just wanna fight you for no reason. They wanna troll you. They just wanna, they wanna make you mad. And especially somebody like you or somebody like me that's been in the entertainment business, we targets. Because if we say something back that's mean. Oh, the guy from Glen Martin dvsMichael Jamin (00:20:27):. Well, they don't, they don't. No one's ever heard of that. I know. But, but you're right. I don't, I don't respond anymore because there's just no winning it. There'sFrank Caliendo (00:20:35):No winning. It can't win. Cause because you are, it would be like, this is an exaggeration, but it'd be like a leader being a leader of a country. And this is, but this is what Trump does or did though, right? Uhhuh, . . And you would come back at people and you'd go think, ah, you gotta stay above that. At a certain point it's fu it, it quote unquote. It could be funny in and this isn't a political rant, this is just what I see as an observation. Mm-Hmm. it can be funny in of somebody running for president, but as soon as they're president you kind of feel like you're Yeah. I think, I think it's time to be a little different. You can, that's my opinion. ButMichael Jamin (00:21:08):No, you're absolutely right. I told, but, but, and that's what's so interesting about it, is because social media, at least when I started doing it, like at first, it's a little empowering. You have an audience and you can, you have an, you have a platform. But then once you start getting trolled and, and I, as a comedy writer, I feel like I can tear you apart. I can tear you apart. Whoever's trolling, I don't, I'm better at this than you. But the minute I do it, I, I can't do it because then I'm, I'm then I'm the asshole. And then it, what was once empowering now becomes emasculating at the same time. It's very odd to be able to have a platform, but not causeFrank Caliendo (00:21:40):And and you can, and people can say things to you that you could never say back because they will say things that would get you as a business person canceled. Yep. It doesn't have to be racial. Or it just, they can say things that are just mean that if you say it and somebody pulls it up, they're like, look what Michael Jamin did. Yeah. This is unbelievable. Yeah. I We can't hire this guy. Yeah. He's, he's a terrible person. And they'll defend the person who's ripping you to shreds and saying way worse things. Yes. So you're stuck in, you're, you're stuck in a spot. So it, so I, I started, this is why I got away from social media 10 years ago, whatever. So I was on Twitter, I was building it really quickly with sports stuff. Mostly not video, just just kind of like sassy phrases and, you know, mean things. I, and I realized I was starting to be this person on Twitter in real life in real wayMichael Jamin (00:22:37):InFrank Caliendo (00:22:37):What I'd see somebody just, I'd see somebody and wanna say something terrible to them. Mm-Hmm. . And the only reason I would say that in Twitter, cuz my comedy's silly, not really mean uhhuh, , it's it more cherubic cuz of the cheeks. But , it was one of those things where you said mean things on Twitter, you got likes and retweets cuz people love Right. You know, knocking down people in power. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say something about a quarterback that just threw an interception. Something I could never do. I would never have, you know, that that's the level of skill to, to make it to their level. And I'm ripping them to shreds. I'm going, I, I, and I've changed this way too. I mean, I, I used to think, you know, I used to watch the Oscars and kind of rip the Oscars to shreds because it is so self-aggrandizing. It, so mm-hmm. , everybody's self-congratulatory and stuff. Like, and I would say things, I'm like, I shouldn't be saying this, that, not just because it's, you know, it's kind of gross. But it's, it's also just, I don't know, these people work very hard to get where they, you know, they're just going, some of 'em don't, you know, they're happy to be getting an award, but they have to be show up. It's part of the business. Right.(00:23:46):I get it. I, I what a jerk I am for. You know, that's why even people, people wanna do a podcast and like, let's do a podcast where we just rip movies. I'm like, I don't wanna, that's somebody's acting, somebody's put a lot of time, like my TV show. There were a lot of great people putting that stuff together. But by the time it all got put together, a network has to say other people standards and practices, all these different levels, it's not really what you want it to be. And it's not any one person's fault. It's just not what you want it to be. And that person is, but, you know, that's why it's so amazing when somebody does do something really great, you're going, wow, you watch a, a Tarantino film or something like that. He's a guy who just fights for all his own stuff.(00:24:32):He's gonna do it his way. Right. But you watch a, you watch a film with somebody who does Jordan Peele now right. Who actually got to work with a man TV years ago. People get to a point where they have their point of view and they can make closer to the movie that they want to make. And then you go, okay, when this turns out, this is, this is fantastic. This is how you do it. Because when you don't have that much, say you don't have that much power and you don't have that much fight in you, it's, it's really hard to get close to what you want. And there were so many things in my show mm-hmm. that were close to what I wanted. But that little bit of change just goes. And there were three little changes. You go, oh, the timing's not what I would've done there. They used a cut I never would've used. Right. And now they put it in a different part of the show. Wow. Oh man. So then I know that happens everybody,Michael Jamin (00:25:27):But I have to ask, so then why do you do, why are you on social media? Because you, you have quite a big presence on it. So what's,Frank Caliendo (00:25:33):You go in, you go into an somebody's office, an executive's office. The first thing they do is look how many this, what are you doing here? What do you do? They reallyMichael Jamin (00:25:43):Say, say that toFrank Caliendo (00:25:44):You. Oh yeah, I've had plenty. The people look at me. It'sMichael Jamin (00:25:47):Because what they don't, I feel like they don't understand is the change in the algorithm, which is maybe only a few months old, but they don't un do they understand when you talk to them that having a million followers on Instagram or TikTok, you can't reach them all on any given day. You reach maybe a 10th of them, you know.Frank Caliendo (00:26:03):Well, you don't even reach that. I mean, people don't, so again, people the way it's been explained to me is that TikTok doesn't even really go out to yourMichael Jamin (00:26:15):Followers anymore. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't.Frank Caliendo (00:26:17):It go, it goes out to a random sample audience, which has mm-hmm. some of your followers in it. And then once it hits that first audience, if enough people watch it long enough or watch it to the end, it gets, then it goes to the next sampleMichael Jamin (00:26:30):Audience. Yes. Right.Frank Caliendo (00:26:31):So if you go to a bad, I I,Michael Jamin (00:26:34):But that's also Instagram. Now that's kind of this, they're they're taking the same model. TheFrank Caliendo (00:26:38):The real stuff. Yeah. Well, because, and the reason that works for them is because they, they can build stars faster that way they can build. So it used to be on Instagram, it would take you years if you weren't famous mm-hmm. to get to a point where you had 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 followers. Well now people can just vertically swipe through reels and all of a sudden the, those people who do that are tend to follow a lot more people. Right. So your videos can go viral with no followers. Right. And then suddenly you'll have followers. It didn't used to work like that it used to.Michael Jamin (00:27:15):Exactly. So that's why I'm asking lots of followers. Do they know, do you think the executives know that? Cause they look at your numbers and like go, oh, Frank's got a big following. But do they know that you canFrank Caliendo (00:27:23):I don't. I think they're a little, I think yes and no. But again, it works to, in their favor that if you have videos that have a lot of numbers mm-hmm. do, because then you're hitting an audience. They know you're hitting a pretty big audience that spreads it to other people. Mm-Hmm. . Now I'm 49, I'm about to be 49. Okay? Mm-hmm. , I, my age group that I played to most, or played to the most was probably 35 to 50 in there. You know, somewhere in there somewhere that I felt like I was similar age and had similar likes and life experiences.Michael Jamin (00:28:00):Right.Frank Caliendo (00:28:00):And those people, that group of people doesn't tend to hit the light button or the retweet button as much. I know I don't. Right. Right. Kids send it, they direct message stuff to their friends. They send things to their f they then they tag other people. They tag lots of people. Yeah. And that's why network executives, producers advertisers like young audiences, not just to sell the products to, but they're the ones that spread the word. Right. And they know that. They know it. It kind of works. You know, I always, I never really thought about that or I never really believed them with that. You know, I've changed brands on a lot of stuff. I've changed toothpaste, I've changed all kinds of things. Right. I don't think I'm normal. I, I, I, I guess I'm not, but young people will try different things and they will do lots of different things at a much higher rate. AndMichael Jamin (00:28:54):So interesting. Do you feel then, as a performer that, okay, so you kind of have to do this. You're a little bit, you know, could you do it what, every day? Right? How many times do you post a day?Frank Caliendo (00:29:05):I don't, I don't even post that much. I, I'll post like a, a week. Once a week or once. Oh, half the time. It's half the time. It's old stuff that I've already Interesting. Like the thing, I have something with 8 million views right now from like a couple weeks ago. Wow. That I've posted two times before. Yeah. And it's gotten a million views and 2 million views and maybe 30,000 views. Oh. Which hits exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. If it doesn't hit the, I have, I have two pieces of advice. A couple pieces of advice for your content, please. I, I would not end my pieces telling people to go see, go. Don't, I wouldn't waste the time in the, in the, in the post telling people for more, if you like stuff like this. Go see, go did Michael Jam writer what, you know, your website, stuff like that. Right. I would just put it in writing near the end. Yeah. On the screen. Because then it's there a little bit subliminally. And they don't have to wait for the, because if they've heard you, if they like your posts and they watch you all the time, they know that's the end of your post. They'll cut out early.Michael Jamin (00:30:10):Interesting. So you're saying put But if I put it up on there, cause I, I do this to get people on my newsletter Right. To, you know, cuz that you get their, but you're saying if I, if I just say it'sFrank Caliendo (00:30:20):Up to say at the end, you spend two to three seconds going. Right. If you like what I said right. Go to Michael Jamin, Robert Writer what is it? Michael jaminMichael Jamin (00:30:28):Michaeljamin.Com/Watchlist is my newsletterFrank Caliendo (00:30:30):Slash watch. Okay. So if you, if you like what you've heard, go to Michael Jamin slash wa slash slash watchlist stuff like this and other things that I gotta Now now they've got, now you've, now you've given them a little piece, which is what's everybody telling you to do? They all tell you well get the call for action. Yeah. But if they've seen your post and they like your posts, they don't need that anymore. Right.Michael Jamin (00:30:53):What if they're brand new? What if they'reFrank Caliendo (00:30:54):Brand new? If they're brand new, you put it, you just put it up on the screen. You put it up on IMichael Jamin (00:30:58):The screen. What do I put on the screen?Frank Caliendo (00:30:59):On the screen? You just write it on the screen. Yeah. Say like more stuff like this.Michael Jamin (00:31:03):Oh, okay. For the whole thing. For more. Okay.Frank Caliendo (00:31:05):Or, or in the last, the last third of what you say. Okay. Just have it up there. And in the, because you do that, you can try, you can, you can experiment and do it both. Do it, do say it sometimes put it up on the screen. Do both mm-hmm. sometimes just put, put it at the end and, and test it. Yeah. Because I could be, I can be wrong. I can be wrong here. But I'm telling you, I watched to the end of yours because I know because I want yours to do well, Uhhuh, , I'll do it, but I'm tempted as soon as you go into that mm-hmm. , I tempted to flip up andMichael Jamin (00:31:39):All right. What,Frank Caliendo (00:31:40):What I found with my stuff, if I introduce things, sometimes people don't even wanna see me introduce it. I just put the title of what I'm doing on the screen.Michael Jamin (00:31:49):Uhhuh ,Frank Caliendo (00:31:50):I don't tell you, you know, I don't tell you what I'm doing. I put the title on the screen to tell you what I'm doing and I get right into it. Right. Unless it's a reply to somebody's if somebody's, then I read their reply a little bit. Right. So they have the visual and you're reading the reply and you're saying something at the same time. So they're kind going back and forth. And then you do, you cut and do what they're saying. What is, what is your other, very quickly,Michael Jamin (00:32:16):What is your other tip for me? Is there anything else? I'll listen in. I don't know if my reader Yeah. What cutsFrank Caliendo (00:32:26):I would cut, I would cut a lot. You don't cut much. Oh, oh,Michael Jamin (00:32:30):Oh.Frank Caliendo (00:32:31):Visually you do, you do things in one.Michael Jamin (00:32:33):Yeah. No. You know why? Because I just don't wanna produce anything. I don't wanna spend time. Right.Frank Caliendo (00:32:36):I get it. I get it. I get, I get it. And, and, but like a friend, somebody I know used to work at YouTube and they're like, just cut, just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And you don't even have to really produce it. All you have to do is just splice, splice, splice slightly. Make things bigger and smaller. You don't even really cut any air out. But I, if, if you look at, if you look, you just put it in iMovie or they actually have it in there. Now. If you don't even, you don't evenMichael Jamin (00:33:01):Too much word.Frank Caliendo (00:33:02):I get it. If you watch most of my stuff that's new. There is no real effort into writing it. , Uhhuh. It's just saying words over and over.Michael Jamin (00:33:13):. Right. It's,Frank Caliendo (00:33:15):I won't put the time. Now what I'm starting to do is go back, like you said, let's talk about the Seinfeld thing. When I put the Seinfeld thingMichael Jamin (00:33:21):Out, and that was from Frankie. OhFrank Caliendo (00:33:23):Right. That was from, and it was critically panned. Like it's terrible. Like critics told me it was awful.Michael Jamin (00:33:28):. Ok. I liked it.Frank Caliendo (00:33:30):Yeah. And it's even cut even shorter. It's, it's even, I think the full things like pretty good. There was one of the things I was the most proud of, Uhhuh or the proudest of. And but it's one of those things where , it's so funny cuz it really does look like a South Park version cuz I'm so fat. At the time we made it that it's that, that it just looks like, I call it sign fat. Right. But it was weird cuz if I had guest stars on the show, it would, it would even make it tougher for disbelief, you know, suspending belief or di is it suspending belief or suspending disbelief.Michael Jamin (00:34:03):Suspending disbelief.Frank Caliendo (00:34:05):So, okay, so, so you,Michael Jamin (00:34:07):Yeah. So you're not disbelieving it,Frank Caliendo (00:34:09):Right? So you suspend your disbelief when you see somebody, all the characters look kind of the same. It fits, but all of a sudden you have somebody that looks more like the person because they're skinnier or something like that. A sudden it looks up like, but that Seinfeld thing, it was actually from my, my act was my, the way I did it in my act was I tried to, I always trying to think for the impressions. And so my, my thinking of the Seinfeld bit and my act was Seinfeld is about nothing. It's about reality. It's about everything that happens a reality. Well, what takes you outta reality? So it was drugs. Mm-Hmm. . So I thought put Seinfeld on drugs. And the, the, the bit was why do my fingers look like little people? Who are these people? They doing, they're talking to each other.(00:34:54):They're probably talking about me when I say Jerry, oh, somebody. Hey Jerry, you look like you've been seeing little people on your fingers. That's great. You just let that cat. And then at the end it was Newman and Newman's like, hello Jerry, hello Newman. And she would've lost a sort of Jerry Garcia grateful dead commitment of stamps. She would see them baby . So he'd licked the stamps. You know, that was the bit. So there was reality and it turned back into AED episode. But the whole bit was instead of reality, how do I get into a fantasy world? And that was the easiest way to to, to(00:35:28):Do it. Right.Michael Jamin (00:35:31):Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.(00:35:54):It's fucking, your voices are amazing. I mean, that sounds amazing. But tell me, I have another question up for you. I'm just, I'm curious, I know you're, I actually wanna mention this, so I know you're, you, you got two shows coming up in, in Phoenix, right? Yeah. Where you do, where you go and it stand up, you're doing voices as well, or like, right? OrFrank Caliendo (00:36:11):Yeah. I, I just, what I do is, I'm, I, so what I, what I like to do is, I always hated the vaudevillian impressionist Uhhuh . What if,Michael Jamin (00:36:21):Oh yeah.Frank Caliendo (00:36:23):You know, what if Carrie Grant was your waiter, well, why, why would he be, first of all, that's bad writing, right? ,Michael Jamin (00:36:32):Why would he be your waiter? WhyFrank Caliendo (00:36:33):Would he be a waiter? Remember, years ago, I think it was on the white was it the white album? The that Dennis Miller did? Uhhuh . He's like . He was like and these impressionist, I think Jack Nicholson as a fry cook at McDonald's. I mean, how about you as a fry cook at McDonald's? Chachi, get some writing. You know? So it was it was, I was always like, I wanna write for these characters. So what do would I do? I would make observations. So the way, and that would give me my point of view. So Pacino, he's an actor, right? So I was like, what do act what do they teach you in acting? Be curious. Be amazed by everything. So the simplest thing, Pacino can be amazed. Like somebody's turning on a light. He's like, wait a second, you mean to tell me you flip a switch over there? A light comes on over here. Wow. . So he's amazed by everything. That's the point, right? And that's what my Pacino character always was. And he, and chewing gum. So that'sMichael Jamin (00:37:34):Dead onFrank Caliendo (00:37:34):Man. It's make those, make those observations and then apply them in situations later. So it's observational comedy, but I was just observing how people were. Robert Downey Jr. Is a human. Twitter feed, 280 characters are less and everything's about himself. So he'd give, be giving out an Academy Award, which is supposed to be about the nominees, but the, but he'd be up there like, these people deserve your applause almost as much as I do. Hashtag awesome. So it's, that's the point of view, right? Set it up. That's funny. Bring it back. So once you have that, now you can, now the audience is in on what your point of view is. Now you can put them in situations, which is really what you do with characters in writing. You know, any kind of sitcom or any kind of a, any, you know, any kind of drama, anything.(00:38:25):It just takes longer to get them to who the character is an impression most of the time, and this is why impressions are cut away from acting so much where people think there's no acting in impressions because it's just, you know, somebody, there was Robert De and they work on, are you talking to me? Well, where's the, where's the writing for that? It's the vallian part, right? Come up with something that tells you who the character is. Right. And now write for it. And now it's an interesting character. And that's what you know any type of original character, it just takes longer to get there. And that's why a pilot, right? A television pilot, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, you do this more than me. Let's see. There's a lot more exposition and telling, kind of telling people, okay, hey, I'm just your local waitress. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And they tell you a little bit because they have to do it to get it done. To get it sold. Yeah. And then once it's, once you kind of have it, now you can develop the characters and you have, you have arcs that can build the character to something longer. Yeah. And that's why a lot of pilots get rewritten and redone because the pilot's almost a presentation just to sell it. And it's almost two on the nose. It's a to be what you want.Michael Jamin (00:39:40):But tell me what it's like when you do, like, when you go do a show or two shows, like literally, what is that? Like? You get on a plane, you arrive a couple days before your show, likeFrank Caliendo (00:39:51):The day, usually a day off, the day of just get there. YouMichael Jamin (00:39:55):Do a sound check or no, you just go up on stage likeFrank Caliendo (00:39:58):A theater. I'm probably have the guy opening for me do a sound check. I don't, I don't even, I just go out there and show up and head so I have more energy. I mean, it's just, I like to get out there and just start going. I have a plan. Uhhuh, I have a lot of stuff that I've, I will do that I've done, you know, that I've worked on and done before. But now I try to, I actually like to do clubs a lot more than theaters. Why is that? Because I get to play more and I don't feel, I feel like somebody goes to the theater, you know, they, you feel like they, even though they're not, you feel like it should be a little bit more put together and professional. I feel like at a club, it can,Michael Jamin (00:40:34):A club, you can get heckled. They're not necessarily coming to see you. If you go to a theater, they're coming. They're paying seeFrank Caliendo (00:40:40):Me, 90, 99%. They come to see me at a club. Now if I'm doing a club, yeah. Cuz I'll do like off nights. I'll do like a Tuesday or a Wednesday. The, the general audience isn't going for that. And tickets will sell in advance. I mean, it, it's, that's, that's what I, that's what I likeMichael Jamin (00:40:57):To do. Is, is it theater though? More, more seats usually.Frank Caliendo (00:41:00):Yeah. It's harder to sell. 'em, You, you've gotta figure you're gonna sell. Probably you can probably, cuz people are, they're trained to go to a club and you'll get some people that fill other seats and it'll, it'll snowball. People will talk about it more. Uhhuh . And they have a built in advertising in everybody who goes to that venue. Three or four, you know, five shows a week.Michael Jamin (00:41:20):Interesting.Frank Caliendo (00:41:20):Sees that you're gonna to be there. And they're a comedy audience already. A theater doesn't necessarily have a builtin comedy audience. It might be that's 9%.Michael Jamin (00:41:31):But they're not coming in a comedy club. They might be drunk, they might be hostile, they may heckle. They're not, they're, it'sFrank Caliendo (00:41:38):Not, not, it's not as bad anymore. It's, it, yeah. Most of the clubs are that that's, that's kind of a nineties early two thousands as maybe eighties type of thing. It, that doesn't happen as much anymore because they have so much riding on everything. The clubs used to be, they would you just go there and do a nightclub set and they, they, they'd turn 'em in and out, two drinks, four drinks, and get 'em in and out. Now they're selling them dinner. Uhhuh, they, they, they realize they were given away the five, they were, they're restaurants now that have entertainment. Right. Because they would, they would bring everybody in and nobody, they would give everybody else all the food and beverage around the showtime. And they would, they were realized, well we can do this too. And some of 'em do it. Really,Michael Jamin (00:42:21):Really. But they're not eating during the show. You don't want the meeting show.Frank Caliendo (00:42:24):Yeah, they're,Michael Jamin (00:42:24):Yeah. Yeah. They're, and you're hearing like the silverware and stuff?Frank Caliendo (00:42:27):Yeah, it's, it's, it's usually more of a finger food. But they're, yeah. They're, they're so are some that have full-on, you know, but that, that a lot of that happens during the opener or mc too. By the time I'm up, they're, they're, they're a drinking and they're warmed up and they're, they've gotten their food already.Michael Jamin (00:42:45):And then do you travel with their, with your, with your opener Or is it a local guyFrank Caliendo (00:42:50):Or one? I bring people with me because I know what they're doing. , Uhhuh, . I, I, I'm, I'm a control freak in terms of what's on before me. Right. Because I'm very clean. Even when I try to be dirty, it doesn't work because people wanna see me for being clean. Right. but I've had, I, you know, an opener thinks they're clean and you, you know, I only say that word once, like, wow, that's too many times for some of my audience. Right. Or they, they, they, they, they're not expecting it. Cause they've been there to see me before and I'm the one who's gonna get the emails in the club is. And so I just bring people that I know are gonna play and then I don't have to watch the set over and over and over.Michael Jamin (00:43:31):And then you, and then after you'll you how many shows?Frank Caliendo (00:43:35):Two is the most I'll doing at night, but I'd rather just do one. Right.Michael Jamin (00:43:39):It's exhausting. It's exhausting to hold that kind of attention for pe to people.Frank Caliendo (00:43:43):Yeah, it is. And I just have the point where I, I do it and I have, when I have fun doing it mm-hmm. , that's when I go up and do it. And if I go up and I'm creating some, I'm having fun. If I'm doing an old set just for money and not creating, I'm not having fun. And that happened to me for five to 10 years where I was just doing the same thing all the time. I was making a ton of money Uhhuh. But I think some of my audience got like, well you're doing the same exact set. And it was just going, kind of going through the motions. And I, that wasn't a great time for myself for, you know, me personally. Not like I had anything wrong with family or anything. Like I just wasn't having fun doing the comedy.Michael Jamin (00:44:24):AndFrank Caliendo (00:44:24):Then weMichael Jamin (00:44:25):Will you leave the next day or what, what or I don't wanna cut off. IFrank Caliendo (00:44:28):I used to leave the next morning, first flight to try and get home. Cause I have two little kids right at the time. Two little kids now. They don't like me that much anymore, so. Right. I don't mind going away for a little Do you have kids?Michael Jamin (00:44:39):I do, but they're grown. Yeah. They'reFrank Caliendo (00:44:41):In college. Yeah. So, so you know that, I mean, when they're little, I was missing a lot cuz I was working a lot when they were little. I'd be on the road for a couple weeks at a time. I didn't see my son's first steps. I mean, I just, I didn't like that kinda stuff. SoMichael Jamin (00:44:56):But you knew going into it, when you went to comedy, you knew that that's, that's what the life is gonna be like, right? Or No? Were you surprised? Yeah.Frank Caliendo (00:45:03):But you kind of assume you're gonna go you, you know, you Yes, yes. You do know. But you're also thinking maybe I'll land a TV show, Uhhuh , maybe I'll do, you know, you, you, I don't, and I didn't plan, I didn't plan in the terms of that. But listen, I don't have to work. I honestly don't have to work anymore. I really don't. I I'm, I'm at a point where I don't, so I do things that I really want to. Right. And I, you know, the NFL on Fox stuff, because I was associated with a NFL Hall of Famers and stuff. Like, I do big corporate shows for, you know, oh, do you? For the biggest, for the biggest companies in the world, Uhhuh. And that's, that's what I do. People, you know, I, you, you see one date on the you know, on my public dates, because I live in Phoenix, I don't have to go anywhere.(00:45:52):So I'm just gonna do it. I can do, I can go do it and I can, I can be home. People are asking me to do shows all the time. I'm like and also do a run of one night at different clubs so I can, I don't like looking at the same back of the room for, you know, five or six days. You know, three, four days, five shows. I just, I don't enjoy. So I don't do it. Right. I I I try to do the things now that I like to do. Michael Jamin (00:46:19):I didn't know your feet,Frank Caliendo (00:46:20):So I've saved a lot of money.Michael Jamin (00:46:22):How are you getting acting gigs in if you're all, if you're outFrank Caliendo (00:46:24):There? Well, have you seen me in anything? I don'tMichael Jamin (00:46:27):. That's why.Frank Caliendo (00:46:29):Well, yeah. I don't, I, I don't I go, I go out to la I'll, I'll do some stuff on tape and things like that. Uhhuh , and people ask for me. But I, I, I, you know, yeah, there's, people call me now and I'll get people are like, Hey, will you do this? I'm like, yeah, if I don't have to do it, yeah. Yeah. I just go do it. And I was like, yeah. Like, I just did something recently that was a, a Zoom thing. Like it was actually Zoom in a movie, like a small, you know, like a, a Netflix kinda thing. Like, they're like, you can, you can, you don't even have to come here, you can just do a Zoom thing. And we made, it made the part became bigger. Right. Cause we, you know, I I I call it being serious to the point of being funny where you're just so serious. It's Will, will Ferrell does it really, really well. Right, right. Where you're so serious that it becomes funny. I that's what I, that's the comedy I like. I don't like hail I paid. Right, right.Michael Jamin (00:47:22):Here'sFrank Caliendo (00:47:23):My testicles. That's not the kind of comedy I really like, but it's, a lot of times it's what you have to do to get like the, the funniest thing to me. I like that really uncomfortable stuff in serious. So, better Call Saul, you, are you a fan of that show? Yeah,Michael Jamin (00:47:40):Yeah,Frank Caliendo (00:47:40):Yeah. I like that. Mike Erman Trout.Michael Jamin (00:47:42):Yeah,Frank Caliendo (00:47:43):He's great. Will just odenkirk they will crack me up because it's not, they're not doing anything big and funny per se. They're just in a really awkward situation. But it's, the stakes are so high and it's really important. La Los Salam, monka, you know, it's like, yeah.(00:48:04):All these things are so, like, and stuff Brian Cranston would do on breaking Bad. And you'd watch them and you'd go, ah, like, I'd like to go. God, you're good. I go, that's the stuff that when somebody's just the character and I go, I, I was watching billions. I watched Billions and I started watching Paul Giamati and that's why I started doing that impression, just because I'm like, he's so good. And he's so, I believe these are ways, like, he's just so, like, the intensity and you, you know, you kind of know where he is going before he does, and then he can zig or zag and that's what makes him great. Cause you think you got him pinned down and you're like, oh.Michael Jamin (00:48:51):But, so what's interesting I'm hearing is that, so you have a platform, a stage where you can write, perform pretty much whatever you want to do, but at this point you kind of want someone else just to write for you. And I, I'll, I'll be, I'll just act, you know,Frank Caliendo (00:49:04):That's more of a, and I'll add my pieces if, if that's what you want. Like, I'll add a little flair or that, that's really more what I do wanna do. Yeah. I mean it's, it's, I dunno, I don't want the, this is gonna sound terrible, but it, I, maybe it is, maybe, but after having a couple shows that I developed or, you know, development deals that just fell apart and weren't what I wanted them to be. Mm-Hmm. , I just wanna be in somebody else's who's a real good fighter and go, let's work together. I like being part of a team. Right. And I don't wanna be on a team where somebody wants to do something completely different than me. Right. I don't wanna do that. But if somebody's in the same, in the, in the same wavelength and they're going, and you, you know when that is, can you just start having fun?(00:49:52):You go, that's what I was gonna say. And then you, you do it and they're like, I, I know. Don't even say it. I'm gonna do exactly what you're about to say. Mm-Hmm. , this is it. Don't worry if I don't, we'll shoot it again, but I know what you're gonna say right here. Cuz I saw the light bulb go on with you as soon as it on with me. Here we go. Right. So, yeah. I, that's, I wanna, I wanna be a part of somebody else's thing. That's really, and, and when people think of me, they think I wanna be a one man band. I didn't even wanna be a one man band on my own show. I, I, I, I just, right. I don't know. I, I like being something, I like being part of something bigger. And it doesn't, agents don't always understand that either, because agents a lot of the time, like, you could, you should do your own thing. I'm like, but if I do my own thing, then it's just about me. I'm sick of it being about me. How about it is about,Michael Jamin (00:50:41):I'll tell you this cuz this gets back to Spade, but I'm just, shoot me. He didn't wanna be on screen. If he wasn't, he wanted to hit a home run, walk off, stay stage. I mean, that was it. He didn't need to hang around. He didn't need to count lines, he didn't need to have storylines. He's like, no, just lemme hit a couple home runs and I'll, you know, I'll do what I need to do and then leave.Frank Caliendo (00:50:59):And, you know, and, and you and you're, you're better like that. You're, you're better because you don't look like you're hanging around you. People can't wait to see you come in. Yeah. People know that your part's going to be fun. Now everybody can't be that. You have to have people that are going to drive the show. Right. Right. Arthur on king of Queens. Mm-Hmm. , you know, he is gonna come in from the base and be like, I had no idea this was gonna be this way. By the way, he had one of the greatest Jerry Stiller came up me, I did the Seinfeld bit Montreal at the Montreal Comedy Festival. Uhhuh . Jerry Stiller comes up to me afterward and it's the greatest. Like, this is awesome. He goes, you know, I really enjoyed your show, especially the portion. And I was like, oh, that is, oh, thank you Mr. Stiller. He's like, now could you tell me where the bathroom is? ?Michael Jamin (00:51:49):HeFrank Caliendo (00:51:49):Just wanted to know,Michael Jamin (00:51:50):SaidFrank Caliendo (00:51:51):You just wanted to know when the bathroom was . And that was, I told j I told Ben Stiller that I told him that at, it was, I think it was after his father pass away. I did a show called Birthday Boys. And it was actually, it was, it was really a funny thing. But it was, he was playing a Robin Williams type teacher, dead poet society kind of teacher. Ben Stiller was, who was directed by Bob. Bob. Bob Odenkirk is directing it as a guest director. But it was so awesome. Yeah. see, there's go sir. So I, I, I told, I told that Ben Stiller just the moment he heard it, he's like, , like, like he was almost embarrassed. That's my dad. Like, that's just my dad being my dad. Like, I've been there, man. But I, I remember in that, that was one of my favorite things too. Well the, the thing they wrote is why I wanna tell you this too, was the bit they wrote was he's this, like I said, this dead poet society kind of teacher. But he's going, you know, he's, he's teaching outside the box and he's supposed to be teaching the Diary of Anne Frank, but he's teaching the Diary of Frank Kelly instead .Michael Jamin (00:53:02):Right. It's funny.Frank Caliendo (00:53:03):And, and it's, you know, it's a joke of making fun of me, but I was like, God, just to be in this joke. And Bob Oden is directing and Ben still is doing it. The birthday boys wrote it. It's like, oh. And I made Stiller laugh. Cause when Odenkirk kind of went off the script, he's like, just, he's having Mr. Stiller. No, he's having Ben just tell me. He's like okay. Adam Sandler at a, at a funeral. And I was like, oh grandma, where did you have leave? Where were you? I leaving And then Ben starts cracking up. He's like, I can't go. I can't go out. He stopped. He stopped. And I go, I just, Ben laugh on the set. Oh. I go, this is the greatest day of my life. And Stiller is like, let's get going. You know? He's like, no, he was, he was great. But it was so funny too cause it was a moment for me, like, oh, this is one of the people I look up to is one of the great reactors. Yeah. Like Ben Stiller as funny as he could be presenting somethi

11:04:26 Welcome to vision forwards, tech Connect, live, connecting you to the world of assistive technology. 11:04:33 And now here your hosts, Corey and Luke 11:04:46 Hello, everybody. Hopefully. You can hear me I'm starting the show from Youtube, but Hopefully, we have this rectified now that We'll check the Second Button. 11:04:54 There. Oh, yeah, I gotta go. Yeah, I accidentally bumped it. 11:04:56 I think, Hello, everybody. Hello, it's a smooth sailing. 11:05:00 It's perfectly smooth sailing. We've had a very smooth morning, everything working properly. Everything going great. 11:05:05 Yes, everybody else, is having a lovely morning it is just December, believe it or not end of the year We're, gonna get a concert, this morning. 11:05:17 Yeah something like that very chorusy, who is that who is our song by calling? 11:05:21 I do not know. I I apologize it's from a movie. I think, though believe it's not. 11:05:27 I'm walking out there and never, yeah, I would. The greatest American hero. 11:05:31 Yeah, it. Yeah. That was that was that producer, Jonathan that you heard in the but he's he's the man with, the with the computer, if you have any questions about, anything he would Be happy to answer them at any point during this, yes, absolutely anything yeah, that's, not managing doesn't 11:05:45 matter especially if it's not related to assistive technology, right any general knowledge, any eightys, music, movies, soundtrack, he is your man, indeed, anyway, that's what i'm saying hope everybody is having a great day, today, and I think you will all agree that this year, has absolutely flown 11:06:02 by as they, as they usually tend to do, especially as you get older, so they say, yeah, it's it's been a year from assistive technology, I'm not gonna say it's been a fantastic, year, because we were, coming up, with a list, of things, corey, and I yesterday, things. 11:06:19 That we could talk, about, and yeah, we didn't necessarily, you know. 11:06:22 Come up with that many, I'm not sure how many things released this year, but luckily for us, we have the man himself, the legend, the legend of Myth He's not a Miss cause. I mean he's actually like, right here so Wow, yeah, maybe this is his time. 11:06:36 To prove we have some Cv from the blind life. Hello, Sam. 11:06:46 Yeah yep, shoot. 11:06:42 Hello, guys, thank you very much for having me. I have a quick question for Jonathan. Who who's that scary guy over Luke's right shoulder in the background, They're standing on menacing 11:06:54 Yeah, that's actually me. I don't move my I've been wearing this all gray uniform several months. 11:07:05 Yes, very ambiguous 11:07:10 Well, that's fantastic 11:07:03 Yeah, you. Also, look somewhat cubeoid almost yeah, yeah, that's actually, more of a stance thing, okay, yeah, so as you can, see, Johnson is a little bit. 11:07:14 Strange, but see, he does a great job. He does a great job. 11:07:18 Thank you for coming on some. It's always a pleasure. 11:07:20 I was looking back to my Text messages to you and the last one I sent you was September of of last year, when I said, Hey, Sam, are you connecting to the meeting sir I'm guessing that must be the last time that we are on the show it's always nice. 11:07:32 We don't, text, we we email much more often than that. 11:07:34 To get this is very true. This is this is very true. 11:07:34 But we don't text. I guess. 11:07:37 But yes, so I think you must have come on last year. 11:07:40 Just a little bit before this, and I think we must have had an end of year rapid blast. 11:07:45 You as well, but my memory is a little. Thing. I think we did. 11:07:48 Honestly, and and but yeah, I don't remember what we did, last September I don't know them bullshit, that might have been I don't remember either. 11:07:54 Yeah, but anyway, it's very nice to have you here and today we're going to be talking about assistive technology, that we have seen this year and that you know and what we thought of it basically and Sam, I did send you a list but it was only yesterday, I'm not sure if you had a chance, to take a look 11:08:09 Over that. But those were some of the things that we that we thought of 11:08:18 No no 11:08:12 Yeah, I did and and You're absolutely right. It wasn't the most stellar year for at especially like new products and stuff. But there's some things on that we can kinda chat, about 11:08:23 Yeah, nothing. That's something with a very short short show, or like, yeah, nothing. 11:07:05 Yes, very ambiguous 11:07:10 Well, that's fantastic 11:07:03 Yeah, you. Also, look somewhat cubeoid almost yeah, yeah, that's actually, more of a stance thing, okay, yeah, so as you can, see, Johnson is a little bit. 11:07:14 Strange, but see, he does a great job. He does a great job. 11:07:18 Thank you for coming on some. It's always a pleasure. 11:07:20 I was looking back to my Text messages to you and the last one I sent you was September of of last year, when I said, Hey, Sam, are you connecting to the meeting sir I'm guessing that must be the last time that we are on the show it's always nice. 11:07:32 We don't, text, we we email much more often than that. 11:07:34 To get this is very true. This is this is very true. 11:07:34 But we don't text. I guess. 11:07:37 But yes, so I think you must have come on last year. 11:07:40 Just a little bit before this, and I think we must have had an end of year rapid blast. 11:07:45 You as well, but my memory is a little. Thing. I think we did. 11:07:48 Honestly, and and but yeah, I don't remember what we did, last September I don't know them bullshit, that might have been I don't remember either. 11:07:54 Yeah, but anyway, it's very nice to have you here and today we're going to be talking about assistive technology, that we have seen this year and that you know and what we thought of it basically and Sam, I did send you a list but it was only yesterday, I'm not sure if you had a chance, to take a look 11:08:09 Over that. But those were some of the things that we that we thought of 11:08:18 No no 11:08:12 Yeah, I did and and You're absolutely right. It wasn't the most stellar year for at especially like new products and stuff. But there's some things on that we can kinda chat, about 11:08:23 Yeah, nothing. That's something with a very short short show, or like, yeah, nothing. 11:08:28 Exciting thanks guys, see you in 2,02023, or 23. 11:08:34 See how it costs exactly. But yes, in the meantime, before we get started some. 11:08:38 And you you may all be already be aware of this. We like to do a joke. 11:08:43 Okay. Now, of course, I didn't warn you that that this is the case, but we didn't prepare a joke. 11:08:50 Because we were too busy. I think my son, my my son, yeah, who was come up with a number of jokes okay, came up with one this week. 11:09:00 Yes, I want so I don't have one. 11:09:02 So here's the deal. We do have at least one joke in the chat here. 11:09:05 So we're gonna start with that, one, then we're going to give some an opportunity. 11:09:08 If he has a joke, if you don't son, that's hopefully fine, I know. 11:09:09 Oh Gosh, alright. 11:09:12 And then, and then we will move on to to Corey on this joke. 11:09:15 Here, so from the Chat, from Pola. Thank you, Paula, Bailey I believe in Philadelphia, I did. Yeah. Tues Tues Tuesday when Tuesday from Paula. 11:09:28 What do you call a kid who does not believe in sensor it's bad well, yeah, that's very true. 11:09:37 Giftless, I don't know giftless. 11:09:41 Yeah, and anybody else have any idea I don't know. 11:09:45 If you have seen the answer already in the chat there but 11:09:47 One of these conspiracy, theorists 11:09:51 Very good. The The answer is a rebel without a clause. 11:09:55 Clause, want why 11:09:59 Call me that is this one very good, very good. Since I use that forget no, it's all part in the fun. 11:10:26 It's all part of 11:10:26 Well, yeah, I'll give you my my kind of Goto favorite blind joke, 11:10:30 Okay. Great. Alright. 11:10:31 It's it's kind of an old one, so you might have heard it before. 11:10:33 Okay. 11:10:34 But why don't more blind people skydive 11:10:38 Oh, I know the answer, I won't say anything. I don't know. The answer. 11:10:44 I don't think I've got this one before. 11:10:41 Yeah, yeah, it's a goody. 11:10:44 It's a good skydive, Jonathan any ideas well, why don't more of them? 11:10:51 Why don't more cause some people. Do. But why don't more 11:10:52 Let me. Ask. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's any puns with skydiving terminology. 11:11:00 But I'm I'm coming up Blank here, so unfortunately we found a gap in my knowledge. 11:11:04 Okay, well, son, why don't you tell us 11:11:06 Because It Scares, the Heck out of the Dogs. 11:11:16 Yeah, don't give me the Walmart 11:11:11 Alright, Alright. Here we go one before that's actually a really? 11:11:20 Yeah, it's not bad. 11:11:21 Good, yeah, very, good. okay. And for call, me, then, call me so my son tends to make up risque jokes, a little bit. 11:11:30 Nice 11:11:31 So I'm going to apologize this one's he's 11 years, old, this one he came up with and it's it's not too bad. 11:11:38 Okay. What do they call the back of Mount Russmore 11:11:43 It's funny already. 11:11:46 What do they call the back of Mount Ruts? That's gonna be the rear end of those people, signed up. 11:11:50 Yeah, has something to do with that, it's knowing it's an 11 year, old. 11:11:56 Son. Yeah, the answer, yeah is mount cracksborne 11:12:02 Nice nice 11:12:02 That's a very good. 11. Yeah, he. Oh, he thought it was just the best that's ever mental. And this one, I assume, he made up himself core. 11:12:11 He told me he did yeah, because I think your son has got an excellent future in writing jokes for crackers. 11:12:14 Yeah, absolutely 11:12:15 Actually do you guys have crackers here, like cookies, you mean, no, no, no. 11:12:19 Okay, so in England, we have a tradition at Christmas. We have things called crackers. 11:12:23 If anybody has enjoyed crackers, please put it into the Chamber. 11:12:26 I mean, when you say, crack is it up, brand or no actual it's it's like season crackers. 11:12:30 Like a Party favor. 11:12:32 No, not let it's like a type of gift, is it not? 11:12:35 It's like a rolled up. Yeah, it's a it's exactly. 11:12:35 Yeah, you pull it apart. 11:12:38 It's a it has an explosive in it. 11:12:45 Oh, yeah, no, I mean you pull it, apart and exploits it makes a cracking noise, and There's Usually a gift inside a paper like, ground, like extra paper crown and a little paper. Crown, and a little, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think your son, has got a good, good. 11:12:59 And fun fun fact, that's that's the leading calls of blindness in the Uk. 11:13:03 Future, oh, it's crackers! You think they'd stop the tradition, but no, they are so much. Fun. 11:13:12 Okay, so very average jokes from everybody. So I would accept a Paul Paul's no actually sums is waiting okay, just in the chat here, let's See Alicia says a happy. 11:13:32 Yeah 11:13:30 Holiday, to each and every one of you. Thank you I appreciate it, and to you also. 11:13:34 I'm that song is from greatest American hero, thanks a lot Jonathan. 11:13:38 We had already found that out, but yeah, it seems that Alicia has owner power, as well on the knowledge so thank you very much. 11:13:44 I'm actually also Alicia Dave says a raven has 17 flight feathers. 11:13:52 They are called pinions. A crow has 16 flight, feathers. 11:13:56 Therefore the difference between a raven and a crow is a matter of opinion. 11:14:01 I didn't even know okay, now, if anybody. 11:14:13 Okay. Now, if anybody has any any point, please feel free to change the Chat, soon, our Joke corner hours. 11:14:28 Yeah 11:14:16 Now, turning into interesting fact, I'm totally fine, with that amber says in order in answer to our question, our joke about what necola Kid who does not believe in so, and that says an adult well, that's a fair point yeah, rudolph my son, they're, also, his big 11:14:34 Thing. He's. They want us to tell them about Santa Claus. 11:14:38 My kids, like, I want to know if he really yeah, and his reasoning was, he's like dad. 11:14:44 You got to tell me if San is real or not, because when I grow up and I have my own kids. 11:14:49 Yeah I don't want to be sitting with my kid. 11:14:51 The night, at Christmas. Yeah, thinking, Santa's coming, and then none of us. 11:14:56 So yeah, so he's basically like, I need to know whether to buy gifts for my children. 11:14:59 Yes, it was pretty good. Love. It's small, and then it just made me think of him as a dad sitting there, with his yeah, I thought it was pretty good. 11:15:12 Sam, you have you have kids, right but I believe they're teenage. Girls, is that right? 11:15:16 Or am I making this up 11:15:17 Now I know I have one. I have a daughter, and a son. 11:15:20 No, don't. Honestly okay. 11:15:21 My son is 24, and my daughter is 17 11:15:23 Okay. Excellent. And to do either then still, believe in something. 11:15:29 Okay. 11:15:32 Obviously, right? 11:15:27 No, and it was well, I mean, obviously sand, is totally real, but it was it was a very traumatic experience. 11:15:36 When when my daughter finally kind of found out, yeah, so 11:15:36 Did you get stuck in the chimney, dressed up, how tremendous traumatic was it 11:15:46 No, but I I side note. I love, the thought of yeah, like. 11:15:50 Corey said as as his son's an Adult sitting there waiting with it with his child thinking. I don't know Buddy. I don't know if you're gonna get presence, this year we got about 20 more minutes until we're gonna know for sure you know 11:16:05 Yeah 11:16:00 That involves me, and I gotta come rushing over to give yeah, to give President it's a good excuse not to buy presence feature. Kids. 11:16:12 Yeah, it's not my fault. 11:16:09 Because you can just say. Well, it's sorry, but son, doesn't care about that I mean, I don't know what to tell you. 11:16:17 Alright, so a couple of things in the chat here, from Dr. Somebody. 11:16:23 I apologize. I don't see your whole name here. 11:16:30 That's all you need. 11:16:26 Just Dr. D, is all I see, but from Dr. Dave, one gate, name, right there what do you call a pig with lavingitis? 11:16:34 Now, we don't have the answer here, either. So I don't know you call it I just makes you a calls the voice box. 11:16:51 Don't know. Please, Dr. And how it has a computer question already. 11:16:57 Hello, Howard! This disgruntled Very good. Thank you. 11:17:01 Yes, we're on top of 11:17:11 How it has a computer question. How do you export my chrome favorites to an HTML, file. 11:17:11 That is a very good question, and off the top of my head. 11:17:14 I have no clue. It is not easy. I think. They make exporting amount into it there's a whole big, long process Howard call me but here's the thing why do. 11:17:23 Well, Hmm okay, if you're just setting up a new computer, you don't need to cause you can just sign in your home profile. Yeah, and then you get all your favorites anyway, but yeah, but how it. 11:17:39 Hmm. 11:17:31 Says, I am I am making my stream Xp Fs Playlist accessible on the computer Vlc, media Player will only play them in the so whatever that means, thank you but anyway, with all that's being said let's, Talk, about some Assistive technology, from this year, oh, some also I Didn't. 11:17:50 Know maybe you wanted and maybe you don't. I don't know. 11:17:52 But I notice you have a new series on your channel, about working professionals, and I believe there's 3 episodes up at the Moment I don't know if you wanted to take a minute to talk about that sewers and what's going on with that 11:18:03 Sure. Yeah, so it's it Kind of was spawned out of the the fact that I over the years I've gotten that question. 11:18:11 So many times I'm sure you guys have as well, people asking what what kind of jobs can blind people do? 11:18:22 Hmm. 11:18:16 It kind of is oftentimes goes hand in hand with what kind of what classes should blind people take in college, and my my response, is always I don't know what do you want to do do that? 11:18:27 That's what you want to do, do, that you know it's like it's more. 11:18:30 It's easier for me to tell you how many jobs we can't do. 11:18:26 Yeah yeah 11:18:32 You know I can. I can list that list, but I can't list what we can do, 11:18:40 Hmm. 11:18:45 Yeah. No. 11:18:51 Wow! 11:18:37 And so in an effort to help inspire people and and teach people about What's available to them, possibly potentially, I decided to do this, series in December, where every other Day in the December I am putting out a new interview with some really cool Vip in the community and talk about what 11:18:57 They do and some general questions about accommodations. You know how long they've been doing it that sort of thing. 11:19:05 Just to once again, hopefully, get the information out there, or what is possible and yes, we've been we've got a couple of episodes. Up. 11:19:13 So far it based on the response. It's been very very popular. 11:19:16 Right. 11:19:17 I'm sure we will continue this. Maybe every descendants or something will do the series Cory. 11:19:23 I'm probably gonna be reaching out to you, sir, for an interview 11:19:25 Oh, cool! Love to yeah, that's a that's a really cool thing to do. Some. 11:19:29 So yeah, kudos for you know, coming up with that idea and also, it sounds like it. 11:19:33 Must have been a lot of work. Because if you're releasing one every other day I mean that's a hell of a lot of interviews. 11:19:37 That, so, yeah. 11:19:38 It it is, it is yeah, luckily, you know, interviews are easier to Edit. 11:19:43 So we can. I can I can knock those out pretty quick. 11:19:43 That's true. Sure. Yeah. 11:19:46 But I have to in case she sees this in the future, I do have to give full credit. 11:19:51 To my wife this was her idea. She keeps reminding me to tell people that because I haven't yet. 11:19:52 Oh! Nice! 11:19:55 But yes, thank you, Rachel. She's the one that came up with the idea 11:19:59 Yeah, or, credit, like, but it's true. And I if people want to hear from your wife, then they can listen to your monthly live stream, remind me what the name of that is against some thank you. 11:20:12 Yes, yes, yes. 11:20:15 Yeah 11:20:25 Yeah 11:20:09 Yeah it's talk, back with the blind. Life. It's our video, podcast, that, we, do every every month, where we we kind of answer, Comments, for frequently asked, com are frequently, asked, questions, and comments, from the previous months videos, and then just we end up, just you know, laughing having a great time 11:20:29 And and we've been doing that now for a year and a half. 11:20:32 Yeah 11:20:31 Oh! Wow! That's awesome, and I believe I believe your wife is off camera. 11:20:36 But people can hear her talking. Is that correct? Yeah, okay, okay, well, that's really great. 11:20:44 So, some cool stuff going on with your channel, and obviously you had. 11:20:47 Oh, also for people who don't know and I think everybody probably, will. 11:20:38 Yeah, she's shy, she correct. 11:20:51 But I did put your channel into the chat there, as well, so it should just be Youtube com forward, slash the blind life is that the correct URL, yeah, so everybody you know if you're not aware of you haven't been there definitely, go and check out sam's, channel and you have a whole new Year's, worth 11:21:07 Of Content, this year as do we also, and so, yeah, so we're gonna talk about some of the things that we have had a chance to look at this year, some, new things, or it doesn't. 11:21:18 Necessarily have to be things that release this year. But maybe just something that you, you know, checked out for the first time this year as well and we're gonna give our thoughts about those things and if anybody, in the chat saw any assistive, technology, this year or you know any consumer, technology really just anything that they 11:21:33 Checked out for the first time this year, and thought was cool, then feel free to also put that in the Chat as Well, but in the Meantime let's get started so I have a list on my phone here of things that we came up with and the first thing on the list is the 11:21:48 Arcs vision glasses. So that seems like a good place to start there, because I know some that that you saw the Arcs vision as well right? 11:21:56 Because you have a you have a video, on the arts vision is that correct? 11:22:00 No, I don't have a video. I I did an evaluation, though this year with them. 11:22:00 Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 11:22:05 And so, i, I have seen it. It's it's actually sitting on a shelf over here somewhere. 11:22:10 But haven haven't officially made a video. You 11:22:08 Oh, cool, awesome. Okay. Fair. Enough. So we did. Do. A video that released. 11:22:14 Well, Couple of Months yeah, okay, so we did a, video that released a month ago, now, these guys, I actually did have the opportunity to meet with them a few years. 11:22:26 Ago, when I was still working at the Chicago lighthouse at the time their device was called the Horace and it was coming out of Italy. 11:22:33 They came, and showed it to me. There, and it wasn't particularly great at the time. 11:22:40 Things change, and everything. And now they have the arcs, vision and so Corey and I looked at it and yeah, if you want to see you know, just all of the different Features. 11:22:51 And stuff. Then you could go check out our video. And I think it's fair to say, that we felt like had some strengths and some yeah, I think for those you know, who hadn't had a chance, to check out, our video basically it is a Bone Conduction, Pair of headphones, with a camera built 11:23:04 In Wire connecting directly into your android, smartphone only android smartphone. And then it gives you very similar features that you might see like in seeing AI, or envision AI app where you get short, text full document, reading facial recognition seen Description, things like that 11:23:23 I think it's a good start. I I I personally wouldn't purchase one just yet I think you know the there was some definite some things that are holding it bad. 11:23:37 Things didn't work quite public well, that in a combination of there are there are there are alternative ways to do the same thing, for much less expensive. 11:23:48 If you already have the android phone, then you have access to envision AI for free. 11:23:52 Now where you can do short text, you can do full document, you can do facial recognition. 11:23:57 So we're gonna look out. As well, exactly so then, at this point, really, what the arts vision, is providing is doing at hands-free. 11:24:05 Now we did, say, like when the be my eyes and Ira integration roles in that will be a bit of a Pl in its category. 11:24:14 Because now you're getting hands free camera with those cited assistant, apps. 11:24:17 But at this point, I think there's Cheaper and Honestly better ways to do some of that stuff. 11:24:22 Yeah, but there's potential. I'm pricewise, I think we were looking at what? 11:24:25 1,599, so you're still talk I mean you're under 1,500, but still, a lot of for an 80 device. 11:24:33 It's cheap, but you know, just as a general purchase. 11:24:35 It's still, you know, fairly expensive, and it does have to connect to your own android phone. 11:24:39 How was your experience with it, Sam? I'm curious. What were your thoughts 11:24:43 So yeah, very similar to what you guys have said You know, I I like certain things about it. 11:24:49 I like the user, interface. I like all the little sound queues, very melodic. 11:24:54 Yeah yeah 11:24:55 Sam queues that they have. I liked. How you could just you know swipe back and forth to each feature, or using the buttons. 11:25:08 That's what I was gonna say 11:25:17 Call me, feels exactly the same 11:25:05 I like I liked certain aspects of the Hardware the very big tactile buttons, those were great the Bone Conducting Headphones, I've never been a big Fan of Bone Conducting Headphones, yeah, They Just the Vibration in my Head It's, It's Annoying 11:25:36 Yeah yeah 11:25:23 And then and you know, Corey could probably relate being visually impaired, we rely so much on hearing that you know at first first glance, you would think that being able to keep your ears open would be a benefit but it's really hard for me to focus on the headphones, when i'm hearing 11:25:42 Yeah 11:25:41 Everything else around me, but and then the other thing with the hardware, which may only be because I have a giant head is that it just wasn't Comfortable. 11:25:52 It wasn't big enough for me. 11:25:52 Oh, we have the same problem with yeah, that was our video. Same thing. 11:25:56 Yeah 11:25:58 I I have never had a in those specifically, I've used some of the aftershocks, ones, and they they were better, but these any any of those that have that that firm plastic around. The back of the yeah, exactly so 11:26:10 Right yeah, yeah, yeah, and then the the camera module unit was a little heavy, so kind of weighed down on that one side, and then the main issue. 11:26:21 I had with it was that my app was crashing left and right. 11:26:24 Oh, Jason! 11:26:25 Yeah, just all so many times during my testing and you know, they said, that that that's obviously fi fixable and updates, and all of that, but 11:26:36 You know. I told them. Well, That's that's 11:26:36 And they must have fixed that, Sam, because we don't I, don't think we got a single crash. 11:26:42 Oh! 11:26:43 Maybe we I don't ever recall thinking to myself, managing crashing a lot. 11:26:50 So so it sounds like maybe they did address that 11:26:50 Yeah, it was almost, maybe it was it was almost unusable. 11:26:53 Hmm, okay. Oh, wow! That's that's not good. 11:26:54 When I was testing it. Yeah, yeah. 11:26:56 Yeah, so yeah, we didn't have that problem. So I think they have fixed that aspect, at least, I think our main issue. 11:27:01 With it was that like, temperature Oh, yeah, that's a good point. I just get kind of warm to be more in the head 11:27:11 So that was definitely one issue for any length of time. Yeah, it's got a sunburn on the right side of my yeah. Yeah. 11:27:16 Yeah 11:27:17 But then, other, than that, like the Ocr I actually thought, was fairly decent and I liked the way. 11:27:22 It gave instructions for positioning the text. I thought all of that Stuff worked quite well, but the other features really in like, they weren't very very great like for example, we did Object Identification we are trying to locate chairs having a lot, of problem doing it it it's not it's you would never do it 11:27:39 Because it's just so much effort. You know, and it just doesn't work properly. 11:27:43 And that's the conversation we've had before, like first of all and I for the for the Arcs vision like these limations are less about the the device itself, and Just, where that Object and Scene description is you know it's, not the Capabilities, of AI is but 11:28:02 There's also the piece of and we see we did this in our video, where like you know you use the facial recognition, and it takes you know the arcs, vision especially took you know A. 11:28:11 Good, minute and a half for it. To say Luke where I could just pop my head and go look in. 11:28:15 Here yep. Okay, thank you overhill, and that's somewhat, too. 11:28:16 Yeah 11:28:19 Or a way. We talk is like what is what's the realistic use case of some of these things, where sure when you read it on paper, it sounds cool. 11:28:27 Yeah, and then, you try it, and it sounds cool. But then you're like, boy in real, life, yeah, so yeah, it's you know, it's not a bad device. 11:28:36 I. Think it has. Potential. But it's you know. It's not. 11:28:41 It's not amazing, the cool, thing about that device in any other device, even some of the apps, that are cell phone, based they're the Hardware itself, is just the camera, I mean all of the brains is in software, so that arcs vision I mean, with software software updates it's gonna continue to 11:29:00 Get better and Better and Better and Better and we had some 2 cameras, yes, and at some point you know we're gonna be talking about how great these devices are to walk into a room and know everything that's going on so we're just not there, yeah, yeah, there's a challenge with the 11:29:15 Speed, of recognition and the usefulness of recognition, and being able to tell you how far away old things are, and give you usable directions to get to them stuff like that yeah, also, false false parts of the description. 11:29:25 Yeah, so there's a lot of a lot of room fall improvement in general, with that side of things, but you know, if you want awareable Ocr Device, and you have an android, phone, and the all Cam is out of price range then you know it's it's out there and the 11:29:45 Ocr stuff is at least decent out. So Sam, I'm just curious. 11:29:48 This is a product, that's not well, maybe it is on our list of and maybe it's a good transition. 11:29:53 But how would you I have not had a yet a chance to test the envision, AI glasses, how would you compare envision AI's glasses to like the arcs? 11:30:03 Vision, when we look at like short text and full document, reading how how would you say they compare to to each other. 11:30:24 Sure Joe. 11:30:30 Okay. 11:30:10 Well, I. I preface by saying it's it's been quite a while since I tested the the glasses and then also once again, I can only go by what my experience with were was with the Arcs vision so I would say envision outperformed it all around just because it 11:30:33 Hey! 11:30:32 Wasn't crashing on me, you know I I did have some issues with with some of the the Features on Envision as well I think they've updated it quite a bit since I had a chance. 11:30:43 To test it, out. So I think they fixed a lot of those issues. 11:30:48 But just comparing the 2, my experiences with the 2 I would say, envision was better 11:30:51 Okay, nice, how much does the envision cost some? Do you know to top your 11:30:56 I think it's around the same as the other. 11:30:58 Where was like, 2,500, something around, there. Yeah. 11:31:01 Okay, and everything's built in with those ones. Right. We're not connecting to an external phone, or anything like that 11:31:06 Correct yeah, it's it's using Google's Glass, Google, glass Headset, goggle. 11:31:13 Yeah, yeah. 11:31:13 Whatever you want to call them. little bit of a drawback. It's since it's a fixed unit. 11:31:19 Hmm. 11:31:18 It's only on the right side. So if you're a left hander, you're gonna have to get used to using your right. Hand 11:31:25 It's 11:31:32 Oh! 11:31:37 Oh, yeah. 11:31:23 Cool. You know it. It's funny that you mentioned that I was actually just on the website, looking it up and some of the Photos that they show have it on the left side, but they must have reversed the images then because all they've changed the design at least one Google Glass, maybe are Reversible or I mean, I 11:31:43 Yeah 11:31:52 Oh, yeah. 11:31:42 don't know how many versions how many they put out it. Looks like this one's taken into a mirror, but it's not immediately clear that that's the case you may or may not. Be. Able. To use it if you elect, them I don't 11:31:57 Yeah yeah 11:31:57 think you could put it on your left. It looks like this is a mirror 11:32:03 It was fairly easy it was yeah, I didn't. 11:32:19 Yeah 11:32:06 I didn't have any problems I didn't have any any you know, negative experience with that it seemed pretty easy to operate, couple of the Features of the Modes were not Offline you had to be connected to Internet at the time. 11:32:21 That I re, I reviewed it even the envision ally, calling an ally you had to be on Internet, so I I actually I was like you know, I told my daughter, like okay, I'm gonna go walk about 3 blocks, out in our neighborhood, and then, I'm, gonna return. 11:32:37 Right. 11:32:38 Recording myself, i'm gonna call you and you're gonna be my envision ally and you're gonna help me like read a sign or something. 11:32:41 Sure, so, yeah. 11:32:43 And I walk all the way out there, carrying my camera on, my tripod and all this stuff. I get all set up. And then I go to caller and it says, you know you must be connected to Internet, what how useful, is that gonna be 11:32:52 Oh, Jeeze is. Yeah, right is there a way to like hotspot to your phone do you think, or is it just I'm just thinking, you know how so it just straight dustin. 11:33:01 No. No. Yeah. Yeah. And there was there was some, other, there's like a scene recognition. 11:33:09 I forget exactly which ones. There were few others that also needed to be connected to Wi-fi. 11:33:14 Yeah 11:33:15 And I even said that in the video I said, If I could use a hot spot on my phone. 11:33:28 Yeah, sure yeah, yeah. 11:33:18 That would maybe be good. I mean the the at the Glasses are connected, to the envision app anyways, I didn't see I couldn't understand why I couldn't use the mobile data on my phone to Make the call but I think that is one of the things they have fixed since then 11:33:35 Yeah 11:33:33 You would sure. Hope. So. Yeah, well, that's cool spat, Lana here does. 11:33:41 Confirm, that you can use a hotspot with them. 11:33:43 Okay. 11:33:44 Now and also, that they have Ira, on envision, already. 11:33:48 So that's really nice. I want to get a parent. 11:33:50 I think they'd be worth yeah, we can check them out and then also, there are voice commands available for operation. 11:33:55 As also thank you, spotlana for that. So yeah, with the Iris service. 11:34:00 I mean, that's definitely a nice, thing, considering Iva don't have their own glasses anymore. 11:34:05 So I would like to see these companies who are in that are integrating Iraq to make sure they're integrating b my eyes as well I think more options the better especially with Iran just recently changing it's, no longer 5 min, once a Day now, it's, 5 min, every 48 11:34:25 Yeah yeah 2 days. Yeah. 11:34:24 hours, It's 48 h. Yeah, I think it's 48, h they're. Now changing some of that which you know i'll be honest makes me a little nervous, about Longevity, although I will also. 11:34:37 Be honest, and say Ira has been long around longer than I thought they would. 11:34:40 Yeah, be just from the I love the service. And I think it's it's one of a kind and terrific. 11:34:46 But I just think the model is really tough. I mean, you can see why they're making it every 48 h. 11:34:51 Because obviously they need to make, money, right, exactly. I mean it makes sense. but yeah, it's it's tough. 11:34:58 Relying on that. You know once a day 5 min, call or whatever but I do, so I like to see be my eyes getting also getting included in most of these and I think they are by the way, as we talk about things, if anybody. Doesn't know what something. 11:35:09 Is and needs us to elaborate. Then just let us know in the chat, because sometimes we're going to throw out names, or whatever that's that you might not be aware of alright, just watch our video let's break it up a little bit here, I do have another. 11:35:29 We have a bunch of horrible devices. I think I mean it kind of makes sense, because wherevables are. 11:35:32 You know one of the more devastating areas in the low assistive technology. I think I think you would agree. 11:35:38 Sam. That there's still a lot of room for improvement with a lot of these wearable devices. 11:35:42 Oh, absolutely! Absolutely! 11:35:43 Yeah, yeah, so I think it's gonna continue to be one of the developing areas, but let's break it up. 11:35:48 A little bit from talking about whereverable devices and let's talk about the extremely exciting iphone, 14, and Ios 16, I will say that I think the one thing that made me the most excited this year. 11:36:04 Yes, was a single feature of the iphone. 14. Okay, any guess on what you think that might be what is the most exciting single feature of the iphone 14. 11:36:17 I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not 11:36:16 For all of 2,023 by the phone itself. 11:36:22 You're saying, Yeah, yeah, this tells you how much I think 22 is sort of sleeper. 11:36:31 For I think that this one feature was like the best thing that happened to blind people. 11:36:34 I know. I think some's an ongoing user. 11:36:36 So, this. Oh, okay. Fair enough. 11:36:36 Well, no, no. I'm I'm both I so I'm kind of trying. To think of what like Hardware Wise it has on it that would be different 11:36:46 It is something that is only available on the on the 14. 11:36:50 But yeah, I believe I'm almost so. It is but it, seemed. And so it is. 11:36:55 Actually, yeah, because it is actually hardware, basically it seems weird, that it is hardware. 11:36:58 Based, yeah, it's it's the Startup and shutdown sound. 11:37:01 Oh! 11:37:02 That you can consider that I know. I tell I'm telling you. 11:37:06 It's so, it's such a dumb feature, but no, it makes such a huge difference. 11:37:11 Why, we made it to 2,022, before having a startup and shutdown sound on the iphone, , for those who aren't aware if you have had an iphone any any other Iphone, other than the Iphone 14. 11:37:24 When you turn it on or off, that, like you basically you know, do the turn on or turn off action. 11:37:32 But you don't know if it's actually working or not, because it doesn't make any noise to indicate until like let's say that you're using voice over if you turn it on eventually voice over, talk but it takes a while for that to actually happen but now when you turn on the phone so you hold down the 11:37:46 Power, Button, or whatever and you actually get a little chime to let you know that it's turned and it's specific to the iphone 14 because that chime is hardware, yeah, which is crazy because it's doing it before yeah, exactly so it makes sense. 11:38:01 So it, will 11:38:08 That's so silly to me, so if 11:38:00 Why it is yeah, but I, basically that they basically have a little bell inside the phone that that somebody rings when it's turning on it is I mean, it's, it's it is very silly and and and I think, turning off the phone, was never it was that was less yeah, but 11:38:17 I found for myself, I've many times had I have a just enough vision where I can tell if something's on the screen, I've many times had to look to see that it was booting up and you see really people got real nervous when they were up. 11:38:30 Updating, their phones, and got to be restarting. 11:38:34 You just never know for sure. Yeah, it was coming on or not. 11:38:37 And why it? Why it took apple that long and again, it's such a it it is such a dumb feature to say it's but it's one of the more so helpful I don't want to say exciting things. 11:38:48 What else? One of the better things in 2022, while you were one team, was garb who was boring 11:38:49 I will also point out that that I will point out that the Android users have had that for like a decade now 11:38:55 Yeah, I'm pretty sure. The first Android phone had that 11:39:01 Yeah, cause. It's the kernel. When the Kernel boots up, when the kernel boots up before the OS, starts it plays the sign up yeah. 11:39:04 Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense, that makes a little sense. Yeah, there's no fight. 11:39:09 And that was that was an absolute winfrey, I mean, I feel like screen me to uses now it's not so much of an issue on PC these days because with solid-state, drives, the OS, Loads, real quick anyway, but Yeah, if You're, a Jaws. 11:39:21 User and you turn on the computer before Jaw speaks. It's the same issue. 11:39:24 Yeah 11:39:24 Oh, here's here you can hear the fan at least. 11:39:27 I'm not a lot of the new hard, not on a lot of the New Laptops. 11:39:30 This the Ssds are they're obviously silent and most that's a bands aren't coming on I Work with clients that they can't tell. 11:39:38 If it's booting up yes, that's an issue, too. 11:39:41 So, yeah, so I mean, traditionally, when you turn on a computer, you would hear, the fan kicking. 11:39:45 So even if you hadn't heard your screen reader, at least you'd know that it was on. 11:39:49 But yeah, no, you're totally right. Now, you can't hear the Hard drive spinning up anymore. 11:39:53 And it's you know it's it's one of those things. 11:39:56 It's like that would be so easy to implement because you could just put it into the Bios of the computer, that Would Trigger as soon as you hit the power Button 11:40:05 Yeah 11:39:53 Yeah yeah yeah, it has no problem making those error, beeps. Whenever there's a problem, you know, memory issue, or whatever they could do something for us, all right, Bill, if you're listening let's get it saw it in windows. 11:40:14 Oh, you know he's he's watching 11:40:13 12. Your bill is doesn't care, and is not all if you're in the Chat, there's probably a bill watching watching is going to be really confused. 11:40:25 Yeah, but yeah, so, I mean, Sam, did you have you had a chance to use the iphone 14, and if so any thoughts about 11:40:36 No, I haven't had a chance. I'm I'm still way. Back on the the 12 pro Max, I am 11:40:40 Okay. Well, just so, you know, Sam, you have used the Iphone. 14. 11:40:44 That's what I was thinking like, I I didn't. I didn't. 11:40:44 Then, yeah, that. 11:40:49 Think there was anything, that much different the but I am on fully up to date on 16 and everything and and Everything's going well, so far anyway. 11:40:55 Let's talk about that in a second. But yeah, I just wanted to say to people just to make it clear, that basically, the way, that corey, and I and also apparently, some feel, about the iphones, is that it's, just so boring these days when they release a new phone, because the features, that they 11:41:13 are to feature, that you're very unlikely to even use or care about and so I mean, I'm using an iphone 8 and whatever I don't care is fine so well, apart, from the fact that actually I dropped it. 11:41:30 The minor problem, right 11:41:25 And now that microphone doesn't work so when people call they can't hear me and they still haven't got new, phone why are people even calling you as well, but yeah, I mean, I mean, there's nothing. 11:41:54 Yeah 11:41:39 I apart from the turning on and turning off, it's not iphone, specific i android phones, E the new Pixels, the Galaxies, they're, They're all most of the time, are always Faster Process, or better camera, yeah the only ones, that are somewhat interesting in the android State. 11:41:58 environment is like the flip or folding phones. 11:42:01 I mean that those are different. They're unique, something's different. 11:42:06 Yeah, you could. Argue it's just gimmicky, though you know. 11:42:10 Yeah 11:42:04 There, but other than that it's you know. Better screen better camera, yes, exactly well, and yeah, yeah, and the costs are just astronomical, but apparently, a lot of people are still willing to pay there's, always a lot, yeah, as long as they're, willing to pay then, apple, and anybody. Else. 11:42:22 To just keep on pumping out this stuff, are you putting up your hand, cuz, you're willing to pay no, no, no, we just have a note from Spencer Peterson on Youtube saying that could be turned down Sam's Audio just to touch because we've done on Sums and I 11:42:38 Believe well, then we can turn us up. It's just a voice. 11:42:39 I just turned it down. One click does that any better 11:42:40 Okay, so, i'm, just turn it on one. Click. So I guess we'll see how that goes. 11:42:45 Okay. Quick. Question in the Chat here from Diane, Diane asks, do we have a video with instructions on how to use the iphone for Amd, people, Diane, we do on our Youtube, channel, we have a playlist and in that playlist, there are a few videos regarding 11:43:01 Iphone accessibility. And those would be the ones that you'd want to check out. 11:43:05 Because those are going to cover all of the accessibility options that will be relevant to you know to Amd. 11:43:11 So I am putting in the chat here a link to our Youtube, channel. 11:43:17 If you need further Assistance with accessing that Stuff, then you can send us an email and I'll help you. 11:43:24 I'll send you some direct links to the playlist what's, our email. 11:43:26 Just to forget is it is check. Connect. Thank you. Yes, at Vision Dashboard, done thank you very much. 11:43:33 If I can spell that would be wonderful Alright, there we go, cool. 11:43:39 So yes, Diane if if you aren't able to find the playlist on our Youtube channel, then just get in touch 11:43:46 Okay, so Ios, 16, okay, it's the sixteenth, Ios and as you might as well, just some spectacular new features Corey, including the ability to Delete and Edit, I. 11:44:03 Messages. That's why we did a video on that didn't, we did. Yeah. 11:44:05 So now, we do have a video on our Youtube channel, about some of these features. 11:44:09 So. Yes, we can we have how long is it? 4 min, 6 min, 10 s. 11:44:17 Is that actually correct according to John man, who produced the video exactly. 11:44:24 He's wait. Is that the length of the video, or how long we have to get rid of a message. 11:44:28 Now no, no, that's the link. Oh, okay. Okay. 11:44:34 So with Ios, 16, we have 2 min in which we can erase a message that we sent to other iphone what those 2 min in which we can erase, a message, that we sent to other Iphone users, now they will see that we've erased the message but they won't know what the message 11:44:53 said so that could be handy. We all can also unseen. 11:44:57 An email. I think we only have like, a 20, s, one, yeah, it's short short amount of time to unseen an email. 11:45:04 So if we accidentally send an email and then regret it instantly whether we can undo that. 11:45:21 Yeah, you'd be surprised 11:45:08 We also have let's see, we also have the automatic punctuation, while we're dictating oh, that's a great yeah, actually does work. Although now, we've all been trained, well, you say that call me but i mean, people who who have been using dictation, well, you say, that call 11:45:27 Me there's a lot of people. I think I'm out there who just dictate still without thinking about punishment and the also punctuation, works surprisingly. 11:45:35 Well, I did do pretty good. Yeah, so that was a nice feature door to detection, and in the magnifier door purse Image is pretty good. Yeah. 11:45:46 So those are some of the other things that we Covid, in our video, some of you had a chance to try. Ios 16, I, think you said you're fully updated, didn't you so what do you think about that 11:46:02 Sean yep. 11:46:06 As right. Yeah, that's right yeah, yeah. Well, that's the thing. 11:45:54 Yeah, no, I have. I haven't really had a time to dive into it other than the things that everybody's kind of reporting on. You know how you can take backgrounds out of pictures and then drag it right into a message and all this kinda cool stuff that i'll never use 11:46:14 Yeah 11:46:11 Yeah that that demo is great, but then nobody actually uses them. 11:46:17 Well, yeah, I mean, that background thing though that you refer to some, is pretty amazing. 11:46:20 Well, I have to say I haven't tried it for myself, but I've seen other people try it on videos. 11:46:24 And you can literally like, if you have taken a photo of something, and Let's say there's an object in the photo, and you just want that object from the photo, you can hold your finger down on it I believe is how it works and you can literally extract just the object from the Photo and 11:46:39 then you like you say you can use it in other things. 11:46:40 You can message it to people or things like that and it works seems to work amazingly. 11:46:48 Yeah 11:46:44 Well, so, but not necessarily relevant to you know vision, impairment, or like that one thing you can do, though as well as you can customize the home screen, and that includes changing the clock so you can change the clocks, kind of font style and color or the lax screen yeah, yeah, so is that something 11:47:02 You experimented with some at all, or not really 11:47:03 I have. Yeah, I played around with the lock screen thing just trying to see. 11:47:06 What how big I can make the clock cause. I'm always trying to make it bigger. 11:47:08 Yeah, exactly, yeah, totally, yeah, did you did you my shoe? Get it to a good size, or. 11:47:13 It's not bad. They have a couple, but I wish they would have just a like a solid bul. 11:47:21 Yeah 11:47:22 Text, clock, without a date. I don't care about the data. 11:47:23 Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. 11:47:25 I already know the date. I just want the clock and as big as I wanted 11:47:28 Yeah, I totally agree with you, I think on Android there's some better choices to that is that fair to say 11:47:37 Right. Of, course, yeah, yeah. 11:47:33 Yeah, but but there's also a tons of like lock screen replacement apps. You can get and things like that so you just have much more, customizable options on android 11:47:41 Yeah that's the whole thing with android is. You just have. 11:47:44 It's it's a lot less locked down. 11:47:47 Yeah 11:47:45 So you do end up with some more customizable options, including I mean the ability to download complete Kind of operating system, layers that will sit on top and just make the phone easy to Use big launcher, is one that's has been around for a while and you know if you are struggling, to use 11:48:01 Your phone. Because it's too complex, you can get something like big. Launcher, it Sits on top of what you would normally see, and it just has very large high contrast buttons. 11:48:11 And just for the basic features called in texting and things like that 11:48:12 Right. 11:48:14 So yeah, that that is definitely. Why I do, like, about Android okay, cool, do. We have anything else to say about Iowa, 16, if you have an iphone probably just upgrade because I think it's, okay, to upgrade, yeah, I don't see, any issue. 11:48:26 Upgrading at this, point, yeah, yeah, and it's it was pretty stable, pretty good with voice over at the gate. 11:48:33 I think actually, it was Yeah, I was surprised. It fixed a number of bugs that Didn't Introduce to too many which is surprising. 11:48:39 There's still a number of things there, there was I thought that you said. You wish you hadn't have updated, because there was some issue oh, that was just because I was using an Iphone. 8. 11:48:51 Well, it was okay. That was the lowest, the oldest phone. 11:48:53 That could update to Ios 16, and it was performance issues. 11:48:57 Yeah, but saying, that though since they updated, the update, so we're on version 16.2, yeah, actually the operation seems to be a lot. 11:49:07 Better. Now, so okay, yeah, you dropped your phone. Yeah, exactly, yeah, I slug, it's just throw your phone, or something. 11:49:16 You'll be final note on the Iphone just to clarify you have 2 min to totally delete, a message, 15 min to edit, excellent. 11:49:24 Okay. 2 min to delete and 15. To edit. 11:49:29 Yeah, we forgot to mention that we can also edit your messages. 11:49:31 So you don't have to just delete. So you can like if you text your boss, telling them that you're home for a party like I did in the yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I I fired, you Yeah, and then, I Yeah, I just did. It I was like, I was very sick. 11:49:46 And that's, why, I was, yeah, okay, cool. so God, we're running out of time here already. 11:49:54 It's pretty unbelievable, time. Is it? 11:49:55 So we have 10 to and I know some has to. Shoot, so let's let's ask Sam before he has to to Boogie I'm curious what his fee I told you that the startup Sound on the Iphone, 14 was my favorite so the whole Gear, of everything, came out. 11:50:12 It's what he thinks of, yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, look at that list tell me I'm wrong. 11:50:18 No, I mean I the like the Irish vision Inspire, the vision buddy, those are more low vision but I think for Linus, now there has been a lot of a lot, of other good Products, coming out yeah, I I think, the startup, sounds so I'm, just curious though Sam Lee, what what for you what's 11:50:41 a standout for 2022 11:50:45 Oh, well. We I saw at at Csun earlier, this year. 11:50:50 I saw the the dot, Pad I think, is what they're calling it 11:50:54 Okay, cool, how many lines are we talking about here. 11:50:58 Oh gosh, it was something like 16 by 16. 11:51:04 I think, yeah, and then they had a, they, had an even larger. 11:51:05 Wow. So, 16, so, okay, okay, yeah. 11:51:09 Something like that. Yeah, it was it was, around. Yeah. And then they had a larger one. 11:51:14 That was 32 by 32. 11:51:15 I think, is what it was. Yeah, it was it was insane. 11:51:15 Oh, wow. Oh, okay. Okay. That's cool. Oh, my God. 11:51:18 They could. Do, you know full pictures it? A ph was working on something called the graffiti. 11:51:24 Yeah 11:51:23 For a, while there, and it's similar to that, but 11:51:28 Yeah, that was kinda cool, they were demoing, that at Csun, I've got that in my csun coverage, video, 11:51:33 Let's just break that down. A second. For so for people who aren't aware this is a basically, a Braille Tablet device the issue with Braille devices, traditionally has been the number of cells, because the less cells you have then the less kind of reading you can do although that's 11:51:57 Yes. 11:51:46 not true my question on these 4, so that these full-page kind of multi-lying, yes, Braille Displays in the Skates 30, by 10, okay, explained it. Tell me if I'm not a every day Braille, User I Don't Use a Braille, Display Every Day, but 11:52:03 myas, my thought, a process on this is it's not so much that you would want one of the Multi-line Braille displays for reading because the Refreshable Moves pretty fast. 11:52:16 But it's real advantage is what you were just saying. 11:52:21 Yeah 11:52:18 I'm like Pictures map, that kind of stuff. Is that really where the biggest use case for multi-line displays are is that what we're thinking 11:52:28 I think so and I think it really for like education, for students, for 11:52:31 Yeah yeah yeah yeah 11:52:33 Well, this also has it's connected to it. They had to connect it to an ipad, and they had a a program. 11:52:46 Guys, super cool. Yeah, true. 11:52:40 Where you like it was like a drawing pad, and you could draw on the ipad with your finger, and it would translate over into the the cells. So that someone could follow along and then you know but yeah, put 11:52:52 You know how it do you remember like these those like these plastic boxes with mel Pins in and you could press things with your hand in it. 11:53:00 Yeah, yeah, that's what it kind of reminds, me of that. 11:52:58 Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly the same thing. Yeah, yeah, but they, I mean, they had. 11:53:03 Yeah yeah 11:53:04 Pictures, of of Logos. They were demoing like the Facebook Logo in on this tablet. 11:53:11 So so you know someone 11:53:13 I'm sorry I'm sorry. Don't don't come at me. 11:53:10 That's cool. I think you I think you might met some let's let's get right 11:53:17 Zuckerberg, yeah, yeah, so so if something is, has no idea what a you know you always hear Emoji smiling Emoji with heart eyes, and you have no. 11:53:28 Idea what that even means because you've never seen it. 11:53:26 Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. 11:53:31 You could feel, yeah. 11:53:32 Yeah, yeah, that's really cool, yeah. And I know that dots, the their cell technology, is not The traditional. 11:53:38 Was it PA's? Are they normally use with the traditional it's, not they're not using the traditional cells, because the problem historically has been price, I mean you can make something. 11:53:47 With a lot, of cells. But price. Wise. It would be insane. 11:53:50 But whatever dot-sell technology is, then it's a lot cheaper to manufacture. 11:53:59 Yeah 11:53:55 I think so they can come out a better price, and they already have the they've had the watch out for a while, which is just like a four-sell watch and everything but they've been talking about this yeah, about their tablet, for quite a while but is, it is it commercially available do you know some or is 11:54:10 It, still in development. 11:54:11 It looks pretty commercially Available to me. I'm not, sure. 11:54:15 Yeah 11:54:13 Okay, cool. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, very. Cool carol. Says, music. 11:54:20 Oh, yeah. 11:54:20 As well could be yeah, the thing with I mean, the thing with that is that it depends, whether your instrument needs both hands, or not you know, like if you're playing trumpet you can't really we if you're not skillful, I guess if you're, not skillful. 11:54:49 I'm trying to think of an instrument that doesn't use. 11:54:51 Both hands. 11:54:43 The Braille, but I mean you can learn it. Though I guess you could learn it for for yeah, yeah, yeah, very cool, anything else well, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure there is one well, I mean deaf, leopard's drama. 11:54:58 Technically, that's one. Yeah. 11:54:56 Has one I don't know has one arm. Right? So then stop him. He also didn't need A Multi page Braille Display either. 11:55:04 You couldn't use it, anyway. 11:55:08 Well, no, but maybe it would help him. I don't know. I feel like even if he did. 11:55:12 Yeah 11:55:08 He still probably would have figured out cause he sounds like the kind of guy who just gets it done you know, I agree somewhat related note those needle-push. 11:55:16 Things are called threed clone pins, the sort of matrix things. 11:55:21 Okay, press a hand in it, scala a threed clone PIN. Okay. Great. 11:55:23 Look at Jonathan. He's on it, man 11:55:23 I never knew the name of those so there we go. Oh, call yeah, okay, cattle says, not necessarily for music, while, Playing, but for Composing, awesome. 11:55:31 Yeah, that's a. Very good. Point. Yeah, yeah, very, cool. 11:55:35 Yeah, so I wonder whether you could get a composition pro program on the computer, or the ipad, or something like, that. 11:55:40 And then output that out to the answer to the tablet. 11:55:44 Yeah 11:55:43 Well, something that someone was talking about that would be super helpful. 11:55:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hmm yeah, hopefully, circuits. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah. 11:55:47 Is like in science, class, demonstrating, like the the different parts of the cell or a a electronic schematic, those are things that are hard to kind of describe, to a blind person yeah, so if they could actually, feel, it that would be so much more. 11:56:03 Geometry. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Lots of awesome, potential applications. 11:56:08 Some. I don't know. It's a 5 to I don't know if you have to jump off here. 11:56:12 I do guys. I appreciate it. I'm sorry I have to run 11:56:13 If so, okay, no, it's all good, thanks. So much for keep them wanting. 11:56:17 Yeah 11:56:17 More, it's a good check. Exactly. Yeah, there you go. 11:56:20 Cool. Well, yeah, we'll speak to you again, Sam. 11:56:22 And again, if anybody wants to visit Sam's Channel go to Youtube com forward, slash the blind life, I recommend doing it he's got some great content. 11:56:29 Bye, bye for now yeah, bye-bye, that's the That's the Exit. 11:56:42 Coy, we still have a bunch of stuff to talk about. 11:56:44 But suddenly we're out of time here. As well, so I'm wondering, because we are going to be here next thursday, and we will talk next 2 weeks. 11:56:49 So on the 20, s, yeah, we are actually going to be here. 11:56:52 And we didn't have a show scheduled. 11:56:53 I'm wondering whether we just do and just meeting let's talk about the rest of these I think, Let's do a Combination of Chatting, a little bit more of this. 11:57:00 But I'd also like to do like an ama. 11:57:02 You know, ask us any instead of Ama. It would be an aua ask us, anything. 11:57:07 Yeah, so you guys, for those that are going to join us on the 20 s, just bring your own questions. 11:57:14 We'll have our you know stuff. Here we'll answer. 11:57:17 What we know. We'll look up stuff. If we don't, yeah, but let's just do sort of like a open E for me, chatty questioning answer, talkie, hold math, ease a lot of a lot of these hopefully, we won't have any questions. 11:57:31 As difficult as the One, Posed by Howard, well, that's why, I said, we'd bring our computer, I think, any good at Trainer, yeah, we'll find things up will be the fun the pressure is can you find. 11:57:43 Something, out, live in a short timeframe sure okay. 11:57:48 Cool well, we'll put calls in 2 weeks. 11:57:53 Yeah, so yeah, come with the questions and we will also talk about any other assistive technology, that we saw this year, that so we didn't have a chance to talk about today sadly, Sam will not be joining us, next time, but hopefully corey, and I have enough pull ourselves. 11:58:04 We'll see how about percent percent percent percent percent percent percent percent percent percent 11:58:31 Thanks for joining us for another, tech, connect, live if you Enjoyed Corey and Luke's antics be sure to join us next time for all things tech connect go to vision Dashboard all Tech connect 11:58:55 Oh! Find out more at https://techconnectlive.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

In this episode, PT student and Miss North Dakota 2022, Sidni Kast, talks about her journey to becoming a PT and being Miss North Dakota. Today, Sidni talks about the Miss America Organization, the One Body Movement, and going through Miss America orientation. How does Sidni balance her job as Miss North Dakota while completing her studies? Hear about Sidni's devotion to self-care, the value that Miss America can provide to young girls, and get Sidni's advice to her younger self, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Whatever your dreams are, and whatever you want to achieve, as long as you set your mind to it, then you can achieve those goals.” “No matter what age, we can accomplish whatever we want to.” “Stop trying to speed through every part of your journey.”   More about Sidni Kast Sidni Kast is a second year graduate student at the University of North Dakota pursuing her doctorate in physical therapy. While attaining this goal, she has decided to make an impact on her community as the current Miss North Dakota 2022. Her platform as Miss North Dakota, the One Body Movement, correlates perfectly with the profession of PT and grants Sidni the opportunity to speak to people all over her state, and on a national level when she competes at Miss America in December 2022 in Connecticut. The focus of the One Body Movement is to preach the importance of overall health, and not just how people look on the outside; mind, body, and soul all play a major role in our quality of life. Sidni plans to speak to people of all ages on this matter, as she sees its importance for every demographic, especially after the isolation our communities underwent during the pandemic. Although, it can be challenging to balance these two time-demanding endeavors, Sidni finds the enthusiasm she has for both outlets as her motivation to continue her pursuit of success.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Physiotherapy, Miss America, Scholarship, Success, Opportunity, Impact, Advocacy, Inclusion,   To learn more, follow Sidni at: Email:              Sidnikast@gmail.com Instagram:       @sidnikast                         @missamericand Facebook:       @missnorthdakota2022   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:03 Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast. I'm your guest host today Stephanie y rock, I am joined by Karen Litzy, who is the primary host of this podcast. And today we're interviewing Sydney cast. And Sidney is the current Miss North Dakota 2022. But she's also a doctor physical therapy candidate at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. And so she's joining us today. Hi, Sydney. Welcome to the show.   00:33 Hello, thank you so much for having me.   00:36 So tell us a little bit about yourself. And tell us kind of your connection between being a physical therapy student and being Miss North Dakota and what that all entails.   00:47 My name is Sidney Cass, and I'm currently a student at the University of North Dakota, I have loved going to school there. And the best part is that it's still kind of close to home. So I'm originally from Minot, North Dakota, which is about three hours from Grand Forks. And that is where I grew up and really found my passion for what I wanted to do with my life. And that was physical therapy, I applied after, you know, I'm really glad that I waited after COVID Before I started my education, because that's really helped me get a good experience and really gotten that hands on experience. So I'm very happy with that decision. But ya know, so went to U n, d. And then I started my kind of connection with the Miss America organization before I got to u and d. And that was back in 2019. So it's very new to me personally, I didn't grow up, you know, Toddlers and Tiaras or anything like that. But I really found a passion for it, because it allowed me to get scholarship money. And it allowed me to perform once again, because I did choir and theater all throughout growing up. And once I was done with high school, I really didn't have that opportunity anymore. So that's what led me to join the organization. And it has truly been life changing ever since not only becoming Miss North Dakota, but meeting all of the different people and having new experiences has truly shaped how I go about my everyday life. And I'm so thankful that I'm able to combine my doctorate of physical therapy, and also my job as Miss North Dakota into one.   02:19 So you know, people have heard of pageants before. And there's lots of different types of Miss North Dakota as a person can be. Tell us about the Miss America organization and how it's different from some of the other pageants or organizations that we're aware of like Miss Universe, tell us a little bit about the organization and why it's unique to you.   02:38 So the best thing about any type of these organizations is you make it your own. For instance, what I do is Miss North Dakota is completely different than the previous minutes North Dakota has done and that's okay. That's the best part is it can evolve as we evolve. And what I love about the Miss America organization is it truly honors scholarship. And that is the base of everything they do. Whether it's fundraising, or it's different events, scholarship is the base of what they prioritize. So that kind of is what allows me to that is why I chose that organization over other ones, I probably wouldn't have done another organization because I had that preconceived notion of what a pageant was. And it is so much more than the stereotypes. And it's, it's hard to explain that to a lot of people because they grew up oh, well, Miss America, it's just a beauty competition. And that is the furthest thing from what it really is going to and we'll talk about this later, I just went to my Miss America organized orientation. And that was so uplifting because I wasn't the only one trying to push an issue that I saw was important and was something I saw our nation needed. Every single candidate going for the job of Miss America has something unique, that allows her to show her passions and really provide an insight to what she believes needs to be changed in our country.   04:05 Yeah, I've always said, this is kind of a disclaimer to our listeners. I was also involved in Miss America organization, and competed in Miss North Dakota back in my younger days. And one of the unique things that I thought besides of course, the scholarship money which did help pay for my PT school was that you have to have a platform and you dedicate your entire year as Miss North Dakota or if you're a local title holder, to helping people understand that platform and raising awareness. So Sydney one of the things that I think is great about your platform is it is very much related to your future job as a physical therapist. Can you tell us about your platform give us a little bit more detail and what inspired that platform.   04:54 My platform is called the one body movement and what inspired that entire thing is, being in physical therapy, there are so many things about the body that connect to one another. And Mind Body Soul is really the root of what I'm after. And what I want to preach to not only the state of North Dakota, but hopefully the entire country that we have to take care of ourselves, and invest in our bodies in entirety, in order to thrive and have a greater quality of life, which, as physical therapists we know is the number one thing we're looking to improve. So having both that connection to my current my future career, and also being able to show that on a state platform is something I'm truly excited about. And I feel when I talk about it, you can sense I'm excited about it. And not all things, when people go into these different outlets, you can see that passion, I feel like I'm able to have that passion for it.   05:53 Yeah, and I think that that's something that we talk about a lot on this podcast is that mind body connection and understanding how everything is connected. I know that as a physical therapist, I do that every single day with my patients. And it's unique that you have this statewide platform where you can, as I like to say, preach the gospel of physical therapy, to especially young kids, you know, there's one thing that we want people to do is to grow up and be physically active and to move their bodies, and to practice habits so that they can have health, healthy lives as they get older. What are your plans as Miss North Dakota to kind of spread this message across the state.   06:39 So my way of, I think the best way to spread knowledge is through stories. And I can definitely relate to when I was growing up, I thought, Uh, well, in order to be successful, I have to look a certain way I have to come from a certain background. And I want to tell people throughout the state that that's not true. Whatever your dreams are, and whatever you want to achieve, as long as you set your mind to it, and know, this is why I want to do it, then you can achieve those goals. Whether it's your overall fitness, whether it's your mental health, or whether it's, you know, the job you want to attain, anything that you want in life is, is under your control. So being able to speak through my own stories, whether it's different diet cultures that we all experience, or social media, how it really affects different generations is how I would love to connect to others, and portray what I believe we need to move past.   07:36 And what types of things do you plan to utilize from your education to kind of help spread some of those messages?   07:41 Oh, absolutely. That's, that's the best part about all of this, every day, I'm learning something new, that I can relate to what I want to share. I kind of talked about this, the last time we spoke, but an example of when I talk to a class is I'll have four guests come up. And you know, I like to have a little classroom involvement, whether it's a school presentation, or whatnot. And all four of those guests will represent the parts of a car, four different tires. And those four different parts of the car, or the tires each represent a part of our lives. And it can be different for each person. Because as we all know, we come from different walks of life. For myself, personally, one tire would be my physical health, the next tire my mental health, and then my school and social my school and work life, and then my social life. Because as we know, those are all different parts of our lives that directly affect us what and what I would demonstrate to those people is those tires like on a car, if one goes flat, the car won't move forward. So we have to give energy and input input to each different outlet, if we want that car to move forward. But like, unlike a car, you can replace the tires, you can't replace your body. And that's why I really focus on the one body movement as a whole and really, like trying to inspire others that we have to invest in every little part and not just you know, inflate one tire.   09:13 I love that story. I think that that makes that that's something that people can really everybody has seen a car. Yeah, everybody's probably experienced a flat tire. So it's, Oh, I understand. And I think, you know, one of the things that is that I think you can definitely apply to when you become a physical therapist is our patients also respond to metaphors. And speaking in metaphors helps them understand like, why am I in pain, what is going on with my body and makes everything a lot less scary to them, especially if you can give them something that they can see that they understand the story that they understand. So I love that you're doing that. You had said that you just got back from Miss America orientation. then. Yeah. So tell us about that Miss America is happening in December. Correct. So tell us about the orientation process and what the contestants were that you met there.   10:13 Yeah, orientation for Miss America is both one of the most exciting, but also the most overwhelming things I've ever, like witnessed. And the reason I say that is, I'm a very like, extrovert, and you're going in and meeting 50 other women that are also extroverts and also accent Yeah. So it's a lot. And it's a lot of, you know, high energy. People that really just want to get to know you. And that I mean, the first few days, you're just really having that small talk really like, Oh, hey, like, where are you from? It's you walk up to somewhere like Sydney, North Dakota, nice to meet you. And it's so cool, because you can you can see that everyone's excited to be there and get to know one another. And that's what I really love about the Miss America organization. It's so uplifting and empowering and everyone wants the other to succeed. It's not that you know, Catty, 80s movie, we're Oh, no, we're, you know, we're in a pageant we have to compete. It's it's so much more than that.   11:19 Are you talking about drop dead gorgeous, because it's the greatest pageant movie of all time, in my opinion. Maybe Miss Congeniality? Yeah, no,   11:28 I was gonna say those two movies, they're at their high competitors. I love watching those movies, because it's so fun to compare it to real life situations. But other stuff that happened at the orientation was the teen competition. So there's a whole Miss America, like women, part of the competition, and then there's the team portion. So I actually got to watch my team. And it's so amazing to see women, the ages between 14 and 18 to 19. Show such poise and grace. And I'm sitting there thinking I was taking speech class, when they went in there on a national stage presenting in front of stars, I mean, me of Franklin, Michael Phelps, his wife, Monica, from cheer, I don't know if you've watched that on Netflix, but just, you know, to be at that age, and to handle that situation just shows the preparation that the Miss America organization gives young women. And then after the team competition was when we really got into orientation. And let me tell you read every contract before you sign it. Because there's no, it was the funniest part, we all showed up. And we had our contracts pre signed, and you know, you know how contracts work, you might skim a few. But there are some important things in there that are about the Miss America organization that you really have to pay attention to. And I don't believe I'm at liberty to discuss that. But there's a lot that there's so many logistics, some things I would never even imagine. But the best part was getting to talk to the current Miss America, and hear how she's handling her year. And you'd be amazed at the life that they live and what they have to endure in order to be this, you know, the face of Miss America. And it's my favorite part was listening to how she coped with the stress and how she really took time for herself in order to succeed at that role, because it is time consuming, and it is overbearing, some days. But you could tell she took the steps to handle her situations. And overall, the experience was wonderful. I'm so happy to have met the women now and not at Miss America in December because I just think that would have been way too much to handle.   13:50 Well, you know, you talked about Miss America not being able to handle a lot you are going to PT school and you have u of n you have the full time job of being Miss North Dakota, which, you know, if our listeners aren't, aren't familiar with what it's like to be in the Miss America organization, when you're a state title holder, you are that is literally your job, you are going and doing public speaking engagements nearly every single day during your year. So how are you balancing all of this? We have a lot of physical therapy students that listen to this podcast, we have a lot of people who are working their normal jobs and going home and maybe doing a side hustle or parenting who are probably wondering like, wow, how are you doing it? So tell us how you're handling everything.   14:38 Yeah, the two biggest things I would say our communication with both organizations, and also self care, those those things are my like golden rule and no matter what I'm doing because the communication part, whether it's talking with my manager who books me for all the events I go to, or talking to, for instance, Cyndi Flom, who is in charge of all my PT scheduling, being able to communicate with them and tell them when I need to be where I need to be, is utmost most important thing for me and something, I really have to, you know, hone in on because I am in a generation where emails are not prioritized. And I know that I know that's a flaw of mine is answering emails, but it's something I'm working on and able to admit. And the next thing that really has helped me get through not only my first year of PT school, but this summer since becoming Miss North Dakota, alongside of PT school, is taking time for myself when I need it. And I know so many people forget to do that. And when we're constantly baring our souls into one thing, and not taking time to whether it's read a book, or watch a movie, take a walk with your friends, or, you know, just take time for yourself is my number one thing and not only taking time for yourself, but not feeling anxious, while you're taking your time. Well, I could be doing this, I could be doing that. But really taking it in and fully relaxing. And then moving on to whatever to do list you may have.   16:17 I totally agree with you. And I remember when I was a student, and I would go out and do something fun, I would think oh my god, I should be studying for that test. I should be doing this. So like, how do you do that? I mean, how do you let go of that anxiety? When in devote that full time to that self care or to the present? What advice do you have for people for that?   16:41 Number one, set your phone down? I think our phones control our lives. And that's, you know, that's an ongoing battle we all face because well, what if I want to call someone like maybe that's my free time, do that. But saying you're out with friends, just put your phone aside and relax in that moment. Because when those like dings come up your notifications, that's when you're like, Okay, I should get back to this. But being present in those moments and fully diving into them is my number one advice. I love my, my time to myself is when I go workout. And I just you know, turn the tunes up, listen to a podcast, whatever it may be. And that's I just remind myself, this is my me time. And you know, whatever comes in, I tried to set it aside, but really just relaxing in those moments and reminding yourself it's okay to take this break, because that is what is going to lead to your success and survival. And whatever it is that you're anxious about.   17:42 I appreciate that a lot. I feel like I've learned to live in the moment a lot more since I've become a parent. I was definitely not I was definitely not an in the moment kind of person. I had some areas, somebody who was in the moment to help teach me that. And then I had to become a parent to really actually do that. So you're way ahead of me know, oh, I Lycos. I couldn't even   18:05 keep a dog alive at this point. So you know, what you do is amazing. And you should recognize that whenever you can possibly.   18:14 What are you most excited about for Miss America? And maybe tell us a little bit about I mean, I know you haven't gone to Miss America yet. But you did go to orientation. What's that? What's what's a typical Miss America competition? Like, from what you know? What are you most excited about?   18:32 Well, if you asked me before last week, I'd say I'm most excited about meeting all of the candidates because that is where you truly that is the best takeaway from any Miss America experience I think you have is friendships. And I have gotten to meet those girls and have formed those connections. Now I'm most excited probably for the competition part, but specifically the talent portion. And the reason that's sort of on my mind right now is we actually get to turn in our talent request form this in the next few days. And how that works is you just submit whatever song talent, dance you plan to do. And they tell you, Okay, you can do it. Or they say, Oh, another person has that. Well, let's rock paper scissors to see who gets it sort of thing. So I'm so excited to do that. Because my talent is really where I get to express myself in a way other than words can allow. And what I do is I play piano and sing. And I did that at the state level. And I ended up getting the top talent and top vocal award which I'm so, so proud of because growing up I thought I was good at singing. But it's not until you have that stage moment that gives you the confidence and the validation that what you're doing is really what you were meant to do. So being able to do that. And then also, that will be the moment I get to talk about this platform on a national stage. And if given the opportunity to make Top 15 Because that's how it works. You have two nights in prelims. And then one night of finals, and in finals is where they cut you down to 15. And if I were to be able to that top 15 and really get to speak about my passions and speak for the physical therapy community, that would be a life changing no matter what place I ended up in, just being able to share my stories and my passions would be something I just, I can barely find words to form, but I would be so excited for that opportunity.   20:33 Oh, we would love to hear you talk about physical therapy on a national stage. Yeah, I think that I think that you'll have you'll definitely have at least 100,000 APTA members rootin, for you for one thing, and then those people who maybe are physical therapists from around the world or maybe not APTA members, hopefully they'll hear this podcast too. And rude for you as well. So you'll have the whole PT community rooting for you while you're on that stage. How do you think this experience is going to help you in your journey becoming to becoming a physical therapist,   21:11 I mean, just this right now, this networking, this opportunity to share my story and share my passions is what I've already noticed, has made a change in my future as a physical therapist, because this gives me opportunities to connect with people from all over the world. And not every second year DPT student gets to say that. So having that, you know that networking opportunity is what I'm most grateful for. But also, it's giving me that connection to people that you'll have as a physical therapist, that one on one being able to relate and tell people stories, but also to listen, I think that's one of the main things we do as PTS is listen to people, and what it is that's causing them pain, whether it be their physical or mental, and having the opportunity to really kind of get a dip my toes in the water as Miss North Dakota, will be will help me exponentially as a physical therapist. Well,   22:15 Cindy, this is Karen, I'm just for people listening. I'm just gonna hop in with one last question and comment. first comment is I am so blown away and impressed by your poise and your speaking ability. And, you know if this is something that you can take forward with your patients and to be a representative of physical therapy in the future, regardless of what happens in in the competition in December, I think you are well ahead of the game. So kudos to you on that. I'm very, very impressed. It's been a pleasure sitting in and listening to you and Stephanie chat. And my I had one sort of follow up question before we ended the the interview. And that is what do you feel? The Miss America? Or sorry? Yeah, Miss America. Okay, I thought I got that wrong for a second. No, no, no. I'm like, what do you what do you feel the Miss America Pageant can bring two young girls. So not someone who's you know, a second year DPT student, not the not even the teens. But you know, we're really looking for the for the young girls who are watching these pageants and looking up to you all. And just think maybe they're thinking, Oh, look at how pretty, but it goes a lot deeper than that. So what do you want those young girls to know?   23:51 So I love that you asked that. Because just recently at the Miss America, teen competition, they have this thing called Empower Academy. And it's for young women, young girls that have been watching the Miss America competition for years. It is for them to have the same experiences. So this weekend, I watch girls from the ages of five to 10 speak on a stage in front of judges in front of the entire Miss America class, speak as if they had been doing this for years. And I can't even imagine having that experience at such a young age. Because it really breaks down these barriers that young people can accomplish things. And just watching them I was amazed. And maybe it was the same kind of for you to me, but me to them, in this case that no matter what age we can accomplish whatever we want to and I got to see that firsthand this last weekend. So the Miss America organization is already accomplishing that kind of task of making young young women believe that they can do what The role models they're looking up to have been doing. Yeah, that's very   25:03 sweet. Go ahead stuff.   25:05 I appreciate that. Because I think that the first time I ever spoke in front of anybody was when I was like, I don't know, maybe 10 years old, maybe a little younger than that. And it was like through some type of pageant type experience. And I've been public speaking now for oh, my gosh, over 20 years. And I feel like what you just said about gaining confidence speaking in front of a national audience having to answer questions that have substance in them is and being able to express your own opinions to a lot of people that may disagree with you. I mean, that all that all starts at at at a stage like that. And so, you know, I do think that there is something to say about having a platform where young people, not just women, but young people in general can go on a stage in front of an audience and start speaking, because what's the number one fear of people? It's public speaking? Oh, yes, there are so many times that I go to a conference and somebody comes up to me, and they're like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna go speak and I'm so like, nervous, and I don't know what to say. And, you know, I get nervous when I go on stage, but it's more excitement, nervous. It's not like, Oh, my God, I'm afraid I'm gonna mess up, or I'm afraid of what these people are gonna think of me I have, I have that confidence. And I think a lot of that, in addition to some other things that I've done in my life, but a lot of that started on a stage in a situation similar to those young people. So I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. Yeah. It's,   26:39 it's been truly wonderful. And I've, I've loved being a part of it.   26:45 That's amazing. So I have one last question. Before we wrap things up, and it's a question I asked everyone, and knowing where you are now, in your life, and in your career, your Yeah, career? What advice would you give to your younger self?   27:06 There's a lot of things, I would give advice to my younger self. And it's crazy to say that at 24, because I still consider myself quite young. But I would say, to stop trying to speed through every road, every part of your journey, whether it's okay, I'm excited to graduate high school, and then I can go to college. Oh, I'm in college, I can't wait to get into graduate school. Oh, I'm in graduate school, I can't wait to get married, get a house, instead of rushing through those moments to really take time and understand why you're there. Because once you're done with that part of your life, it's gotten, you know, like, and I Yeah, I'd say it started when I was a swimmer in high school. I was like, Oh, I can't wait to be done with swimming. This has been my entire life. But now I look back. I'm like, I miss those days. I, I look at my undergrad, I constantly was stressing about getting into PT school, which a lot of us go through that. It's competitive. That's normal, but not always stressing about what's next. And being in the moment. That would be my number one piece of advice to my younger self and something I'm really taking into this year. Because the job Miss North Dakota is 365 days. I have to enjoy each and every day and not worry well, next month I have a conference or tomorrow I need to get this video done. It's taken in each moment. Like right now I'm sitting in this podcast, talking with you and experience in it to my full ability. And that is what I'm very happy. I've been able to notice that and learn from it.   28:47 That's very wise. Very wise advice. Well, thank you so much, Sydney for joining us. We had an awesome talk. Where can people find you if they want to look you up on social media or want to contact you?   29:01 So my personal Instagram is my name SSID and I KST and then my Miss North Dakota Instagram is Miss America en de in on Facebook. You can find me at Sydney cast Miss North Dakota, email Sydney cast@gmail.com All all spelt the same and super easy. And yes, my name is spelt Correct. I don't know what was going through my mom's mind. But we love her for it makes me different.   29:32 That's funny. That's great. Well, Sidney thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you so much. We'll have links to all of your contact info and any other info you want to share at the podcast in the show notes for this episode at podcast at healthy wealthy smart.com. Stephanie, any closing remarks?   29:51 No, just good luck at Miss America, Sydney and we are all rooting for you.   29:57 We are we are and everyone Thanks so much for tuning in, be sure to watch the pageant or I should say scholarship program like the end of Miss Congeniality scholarship competition scholarship in December and let's all root for Sydney. So everyone, thanks so much. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!Timestamps:Intro‘Fin-techionary' of the Week: Moblie Money Pay (1.31)News (2.27)Interview with Ray & Michael about their experience and current work at Opareta (5.01)Ray & Michael Interview each other (26.34)Quick Fire Questions with Ray & Michael (32.09)Signals Fintech Founders: Qanlex's Yago Zavalia on Building Fintech in Inefficient Markets (42.11)Transcript:Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.First, we're going to go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to the this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to have a chat with this week's friends. And yeah, it's plural friends, Michael Schwartz and Ray Besiga from Opareta. And this episode besties is a little bit different from previous episodes, that is due to some internet issues, but it makes a really good interesting chat because there are times when Michael and Ray are actually interviewing each other, and there are other times where we're having like a really interesting three-way conversation. And lastly, I'll tell you a little bit about the latest Signals article Dez Fleming interviews Yago to understand how his company is turning lawsuits into investable financial assetsFin-techionaryThis weeks, ‘fintechtionary', which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:Mobile Money PayAccording to the World Bank, at the most basic level, mobile money is the provision of financial services through a mobile device. This broad definition encompasses a range of services, including payments (such as peer-to-peer transfers), finance (such as insurance products), and banking (such as account balance inquiries). In practice, a variety of means can be used, such as sending text messages to transfer value or accessing bank account details via the mobile internet. Special “contactless” technologies are available that allow phones to transfer money to contactless cash registersAlthough mobile phones are central to all these uses, mobile money is more than just technology—it needs a cash-in, cash-out infrastructure, usually accomplished through a network of “cash merchants” (or “agents”), who receive a small commission for turning cash into electronic value (and vice versa). But first this week in Fintech