Podcasts about is everything

In this video about karma, DAAJI gives us all the answers to questions like Destiny and Free Will, Is Everything in My Life Already Predetermined?, How much are our lives governed by karma?, How to Become the Master of Your Own Destiny?, Can You Control Your Destiny?Speaker: Daaji► This audio session combines eye-opening speeches with binaural beats technology. Designed to inspire, motivate, and help people to reprogram their minds.

Real Vision Live Replay: Here at Real Vision, we are exploring the question, "Is Everything a Bubble?" To many investors though, that question doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what needs to be considered in the current environment. In this live interview, Alex Gurevich, founder and CIO of HonTe Advisors, joins Real Vision CEO and co-founder Raoul Pal to discuss his position on what he thinks are the biggest questions facing investors today. Together, Gurevich and Pal will explore the future of risk-parity, the raging overvaluation debate and the role of interest rate momentum in equities, and the dichotomies in outcomes surrounding the dollar, precious metals, and interest rates. In addition, Gurevich will weigh in on the current discussion de jour around short-selling, how investors should think about navigating crisis vs. being positioned for the long-term, and why many are confusing features for bugs in the gold vs. bitcoin debate. Recorded on : 8 Feb 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

YOU P.O.V. IS EVERYTHING! If you change your viewing point, you will change the things you are viewing. It's amazing how what you thought was important from one perspective, is not as important at another juncture in life. My prayer is that God will give us fresh eyes to see the miracles that He has already granted us, but we have failed to recognize it!Support the show (https://www.Cash.app/$JesseECanty)

1. Is Everything in Life Truly Meaningless--2. Vanity Illustrated in Three Facts of Life-3. Where Are We Going With All of This-

Tune in for this special edition of the Daily Briefing to hear from editor Max Wiethe, managing editor Ed Harrison, and Real Vision CEO and co-founder Raoul Pal . Together, they discuss their thoughts on the interviews from Real Vision’s campaign, “Is Everything a Bubble?” and explore how these various interviews all connect to what’s occurring in the markets right now. They will also answer questions from the audience about the campaign and Real Vision itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison is joined by senior editor Ash Bennington and editor Jack Farley to break down recent price action and inspect current market conditions. They analyze the remarkable soaring of Bumble’s stock price after its initial public offering (IPO) with Ash and Ed exploring whether the ongoing market ebullience is evocative of 1999. Ed and Jack then discuss how rising yields for U.S. Treasurys affect banks earnings, the price of earnings, and investor behavior in the credit markets. After the three of them briefly explain how the rise of passive investing is impacting market flows, Ash shares his thoughts on the first publicly traded Bitcoin ETF in North America. Ash, Ed, and Jack relate these topics to recent “Is Everything a Bubble?” interviews with Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, Lyn Alden, and Russell Napier, and they look forward to next week’s interviews with Lacy Hunt, Tom Steyer, Felix Zulauf, and Mark Yusko. If you are not a member and you want access to these interviews, click here: https://www.realvision.com/l/is-everything-a-bubble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DB:Feb 10,2021: Real Vision editors Max Wiethe and Jack Farley delve into what Fed Chair Powell’s remarks indicate about the future of monetary policy and the economy. Max catalogs the rally in cannabis equities and notes that the bulk of the euphoria seems to be located in Canadian pot stocks, which may not be as favorable as their U.S. counterparts. After noting the tremendous volatility in MicroStrategy Incorporated ($MSTR), Jack and Max interpret what today’s reading for the Consumer Price Index, which fell slightly below expectations, means for reflation trades such as banks and energy. They close by giving a sneak peek of upcoming interviews with Julian Brigden, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, and Lyn Alden as part of the “Is Everything a Bubble?” series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DB-Feb7, 2021. Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison and editor Jack Farley discuss Tesla’s decision to buy $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin as a reserve asset on its balance sheet. They then analyze the how rising yields on the 10-year and 30-year Treasurys will impact growth stocks as well as bank net interest margins. Using bank profitability as a jumping off point, Jack notes that the S&P 500 Financials Sector SPDR ($XLF) is at all-time highs, and Ed analyzes why this could be the case, sharing his outlook on the future of the U.S. banking industry. Lastly, Jack and Ed give a sneak peek of the interviews coming up for the “Is Everything a Bubble?” campaign with Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, Mark Cuban, Felix Zulauf, Lyn Alden, Lacy Hunt, Tom Steyer, Mark Yusko, Danielle DiMartino Booth, Steve Clapham, and many other investors. To share your thoughts about “Is Everything a Bubble?” on the Real Vision exchange, click here: http://rvtv.io/3ju1T6q. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raoul Pal, Real Vision CEO and co-founder, joins senior editor Ash Bennington to share how his market framework is evolving. First, Raoul and Ash provide a sneak-peek into Real Vision’s upcoming campaign, “Is Everything a Bubble?”, where Real Vision will be featuring high-profile investors such as Lacy Hunt, Felix Zulauf, Mark Cuban, Lyn Alden, Howard Marks, and Joel Greenblatt. Raoul describes the current market environment, stating that investors are record long equities, dealers are record long gamma, and the market, as a whole, is record short Treasury bonds. Raoul and Ash then discuss the outperformance of Ethereum and “altcoins” relative to Bitcoin. Lastly, Raoul shares his views on the speculative fervor in the equity market and compares the short squeeze in GameStop Corp ($GME) to the historic squeeze of German automaker Volkswagen. For the February edition of “Inside the Hive Mind” by Weston Nakamura and the Real Vision Exchange, click here: https://exchange.realvision.com/post/inside-the-hive-mind-of-the-real-vision-exchange-feb-2021-issue-02-601d8ab41ab3070a37dcf1e3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

DB - Jan20, 2021: Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison joins editor Max Wiethe to update his views on how yield curve steepening is affecting equity markets and his three potential outcomes for the reflation trade. Harrison and Wiethe also debate whether the reflation trade is a "buy the rumor, sell the news" scenario and tee up Real Vision’s big content campaign for February where we attempt to answer the question, “Is Everything a Bubble?” In the intro, editor Jack Farley reviews price action and analyzes Morgan Stanley's latest earnings report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you feeling like life is moving too fast? Is Everything happening all at once?  The word for this week is overwhelmed.  When we feel stressed and chaos all the time we move into constant overwhelm and will reach burn out- UNLESS we do something to change.  I have made these changes. I have recently put this into practice in my own life, and you can too. Would you like a worksheet to go with this week's podcast? Head on over to my website wwwfamiliesmattermost.com under podcast corner to receive a FREE worksheet for this podcast.

Playing The Harder Side of Blues with some Edgy Southern Jam Rock. Searching for new Emerging Artists and Music around the world for you. Live Sunday's 8:00 -11:00 PM EST on www.vwradio.co & www.rotrradio.com 1. WhiskeyJamBand - (Honey Bunny) 2. Sea Mouse - (Kickin) 3. Shane Gentry ans The DalaBills - (Hurricane) 4. White Lightning - (Moaning at Midnight) 5. The Hooten Hallers - (Missouri Boy) 6. Whiskey Jam Band - (Interview) 7. JJ and The Mystics - (Nature's Voice (pre-album mix)) 8. The Ides of June - (Mercy) 9. 20 Watt Tombstone - (Your Man's a Jerk) 10. Little Boys Blue - (If the Blues Start Calling (feat. Kid Memphis)) 11. Bones Shake - (Privilege) 12. The Cold Stares - (Might as Well Die) 13. The Cosmic Trip Advisors - (UR MY MN) 14. Empty Bottles - (Little Bit of Rain) 15. The Dead Show Dealers - (Who knows) 16. The Blackwater Fever - (Seven White Horses) 17. Southbound Snake Charmers - (Ride On (Remastered)) 18. BEARD - (Down and Out Blues) 19. Paul Joseph - (COLD NIGHT IN MEMPHIS) 20. Scott H. Biram - (Been Down Too Long) 21. Shaw Davis & the Black Ties - (Set Me Free) 22. The Toilers - (Seven Year Bitch) 23. Big Fat Papa'Z - (Soul on Fire) 24. SULFUR CITY - (67 Wreck) 25. 42 Decibel - (Brawler) 26. D.B. Bryant Band - (Time in Is Everything) 27. Hill Country Revue - (Nightmare Riding My Back) 28. The Hoodoo Men - (Hoodoo Man) 29. One Rusty Band - (White trash blues) 30. Frank Bang and The Cook County Kings - (Till the Day I Die) 31. Seymour Ceike (Soul Bird Band Guitarist) - (Hear my train a comin (Jimi Hendrix - Cover)) 32. Mission Brown - (3am Blues)

Ashley and Grant haven't had a conversation in like two months....What's been going on? Is Everything ok??If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review and tell a a friend! Thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

191206 - Is Everything in DC Running on Hate? | DAVID SHESTOKAS by Blanquita Cullum

Last year CiscoLive overlapped with Ramadan which was not a lot of fun for the Muslim attendees. This year it conflicts with Shavuot, requiring observant Jews who planned to attend to arrive a week in advance. Add those challenges to the normal stress an IT person with a strong religious, moral, or ethical POV has: finding a place to pray, navigating how "outwardly" they want to present as a religious person (and if that's even a choice), managing work-mandated venue choices for food and "entertainment" that push personal boundaries, etc, and it's a wonder we're able to make convention attendance work at all. In part 2 of this discussion, I continue the conversaion with Mike Wise, Al Rasheed, and Keith Townsend about how they make conventions not only possible, but a positive experience religiously as well as professionally. Listen or read the transcript below. Doug: 00:00 W1elcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have is people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as it professionals mesh - or at least not conflict - with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon: 00:24 This is a continuation of the discussion we started last week. Thank you for coming back to join our conversation. Leon: 00:30 Okay. So I think another aspect with food is, um, and you touched on it, dinners out with the team, right? When it's like, "no, no, no, it's gonna be a team meeting. It's going to be a team dinner. We're all going out." And uh, again, just speaking for myself, it's like, "okay, I'm going to have the... Glass of water. Al: 00:51 Yeah, that's me New Speaker: 00:51 "It's, yeah, it's, no, it's fine." You know, like you want to be a team member, you want to be part of it, but all of a sudden the meeting becomes, at least part of the meeting becomes about Leon and his food issues. Like, I don't want, I don't want that to be that either. Al: 01:06 Right. I was just going to say in some cases, uh, at some conventions or maybe the parties at the conventions, they hand out those drink coupons that you can redeem at the bar. I ended up giving it to others that are with me and I'd get this look like, "Don't you want to drink?" I'm like, "No, water's is fine." Mike: 01:24 Al, come on. You're missing a major opportunity here. You got to SELL them. Right. You know, these, these are trades, right? You're, you know, Leon: 01:33 So the first episode of Technically Teligious was myself and Josh Biggley, who's, uh, he's now ex-Mormon. At the time that we were working together, he was Mormon. And so we we worked together in the same company. And so we had this whole shtick. We'd walk into these spaces and it's like, "Oqkay, so I'm drinking his beer, he's gonna eat my chicken wings, and he's driving me home." So you just have to find our roles, you know? Yes, yes. Yeah. We just have to find that synergistic relationship where we can, you know, hand things out. So, uh, but yeah, it's, you know, when they're handing out coupons for things like, "yeah, thanks." Al: 02:13 yeah, "Don't you want to use it? It's free. It's like you're saving yourself 20 bucks." "No. I don't really want it." Leon: 02:18 Okay. So, um, moving on. Uh, I think another aspect of, of conventions that can be challenging are just the interactions. Keith, you mentioned, um, just people in general that you don't like people which, uh, may not be your best advertising or marketing slogan, "CTO, Adviser. I hate people" Keith: 02:38 Yeah, I'm not what you'd call a people person. Mike: 02:41 But a lot of people, but a lot of CTOs are introverts, right? Keith? I'm sure of it Keith: 02:47 That's absolutely the case. You know what it is, is what I find is that, you know, obviously, um, I'm high profile. So I have to interact with people. Uh, people stopped me in the hall. We have great conversations. Uh, that is actually, I enjoy the interactions at conferences like Vmworld, vMugs, and to some extent AWS because you know it's kind of the same community that I have on Twitter. What I find exhausting is when I go to something like an open source conference where I have like, I've never met these people in slack, I've not met them, uh, online, and I have to work so hard to meet people and get out of my, uh, shell. Like when someone comes up to me and says, "Hey, Keith," I'm like, Oh, okay. It's, I don't have to say hello. I the, the, I had this thing when I was a kid. Like I didn't understand why you had to say hello to someone you saw every day. That kind of didn't make any sense. Like, I see you every day. Why would I say hi to you every morning? That just doesn't make any sense. So that's a carry over I've learned, but it's still exhausting to, uh, to interact and give and give of yourself and be with people. And it's so many people that want your time. Leon: 04:06 So that's, that's in the, in general. Again, I think a lot of introverts, introverts share that same, uh, challenge. And, and just to clarify, I know we were teasing you earlier is, you know, you're really good with individuals, with people when you're having a conversation, you're not so good with crowds of people. Like that's the part that like, "I just don't want to deal with the 800 folks who are standing in front of me right now all trying to get to lunch at the same time. I want all them to go away." Keith: 04:32 But you know, Chicago, we have some big festivals here and I, I'd go to none of them. I don't like amusement parks. I just don't like crowds. So, you know, the conferences are probably the worst place to go if you don't like crowds. The one of the reasons I don't go to the parties at night because it's just too many people. Leon: 04:52 And at that point your battery's empty. Keith: 04:54 Already because you've just spent the whole day. Uh, you know, I go to a Tech Field Day and talk to folks like Al and Mike or whoever and just have a really great time, but I'm exhausted because I've spent the whole day socializing. Now I have to go by and be around a bunch of people that I generally don't know. It's even tough. Al: 05:13 I was just going to add, not a knock on any of the conferences again, but what I appreciate the most about Tech Field Day is you're introduced to your fellow delegates weeks in advance. You have an opportunity to, you know, get to know them in some way, you know, via Twitter, Linkedin or the slack channel. So I think that helps break the ice and it definitely makes it a lot easier when you first meet them for the first time in person. Keith: 05:36 And then going back to kind of a religious thing, uh, I'm pretty, you know, all of us pretty much where our faiths on our sleeves. No one in the community would be a surprise that we're, uh, we, that we follow Islam, Orthodox Jew or devout Christian. Uh, one of the other things that is possible Mike: 06:00 Hopefully, anyway. Hopefully they wouldn't be surprised. Keith: 06:00 Especially if you have an evangelistic type faith and your call to share your faith. You know, I'm really not great at that. My wife is awesome at it and it can be really a challenge where I'm at a dinner where I don't know a bunch of people in a bunch of people don't know us and Melissa has no problems, you know, saying, "Hey, uh, before we start, can we say kind of a nondenominational prayer before meal" and, and I'm like, oh, I don't, it doesn't bother me. But it again is just one of those things. It's uncomfortable and, and, and, and sometimes our faith calls us to do uncomfortable things. Leon: 06:37 Right? Yeah. It's not that you wouldn't volunteer that as, as readily as she does. Al: 06:42 I'm just curious, since we're speaking of faith and saying a small prayer, I'm sure we all do it, but I don't want to single anybody out. But anytime I fly I always say a prayer and you know, so I'll clasp by hands together and I'll say a few words and then I'll do this. It'll make this motion. And sometimes I'll get a look from someone beside me. Like, "what's wrong with them? Is Everything okay?" Mike: 07:04 "Is there anything wrong with the plane?" Al: 07:06 I don't explain myself. I just stay focused. I stay looking straight ahead. I don't even get caught up in it. Keith: 07:12 So I, I do, I do a small prayer too, but, you know, I don't have, you know, my faith doesn't have traditions like that where it's obvious that I'm doing something of, uh, of, uh, of inference and, you know, we talk about it, you know, Leon talking about prayer and this is a theme that's at conferences. So Scott Lowe a of VMware of, of, VMWare and then Heptio and then at VMware again, uh, at VMWorld does a, a prayer group in the morning. So, uh, it's common for us, uh, faithful, whether it's regardless of religion to pray for one another. You know, Leon has three congregations praying for my wife. Uh, so I, I, you know, I really, uh, appreciate that. So, you know, I don't think there's anything, uh, uncommon about, I think it's actually fairly common. Leon: 08:03 So in, in Orthodox Judaism, there's a specific traveler's prayer and, uh, that's, but I, I think to your point, like on a plane, um, you know, just like there's no atheists in foxholes. There are very few atheists before the airplane has taken off. I think lots and lots of people are very like, you know, there's also no atheist right before... Mike: 08:24 "Do you pray?" Yes I do. "Could you pray for us?". Yes. Okay. Leon: 08:26 Yeah. Yeah. It's also, you know, it, you'll still find the same sort of, uh, preponderance of prayer right before a pop quiz the teacher just called. Like lots of people will, you know, I think it's the same sort of reaction there. That's, that's less, uh, I think that's less uncommon or less confusing for folks. Um, then again, at the team meeting, you know, at the, I'm sorry, at the team dinner where, you know, all of a sudden it's like, "But, uh, I have to go wash my hands and then I can't talk between washing my hands and eating this bread." And like, then, and people want to have this conversation. I was like, "Mmm. uh-huh" like, you know, so it becomes an interesting, uh, hiccup or, you know, an awareness thing. Mike: 09:13 Well, I think it just, I think it just adds richness, you know, I, as long as it's honest. Okay. So in Christianity, there's a couple of stereotypes that you don't want to become. You don't want to become the holier-than-thou person. You know, "oh, well, you know, if you were real Christian." You wouldn't do that. Right. You don't want to be the in-your-face Christian. Right. Who is, you know, preaching to people the entire time. Right, right. But if you're just sort of, you know, walking your faith. Um, so one of the things that happens to me almost all the time is that people will say, "oh, Mike, yeah. So good to see you," or "So good to meet you." You know, and, and we'll, we'll talk about children, right. They'll ask me. "So, you know, are you married?" "Yeah, my wife and I are empty nesters." Okay. "So, well do you have any kids?" "Yes, I've got a 30 year old son and a 28 year old daughter." "Well, what are they doing?" "Well, my son is in the army, you know, and he's been deployed twice and now he's getting into navigators, which is, uh, army discipleship ministry. And my daughter is a missionary in Cambodia." And so, you know, that just opens up a whole rich conversation about why and what's going on and how did they get there? And you know, what's their goal and how does that impact you? "Gosh, your son was deployed, you must've been on your knees the whole time," you know, all of this stuff. So to me, I really see there's really no way around unless you really get into a shell. There's really, I mean, faith just, you know, always comes up. You know what I mean? Leon: 10:57 It certainly, it certainly can. And I think also it comes up in ways that, especially at conventions, that are either unexpected or I'm going to say, uh, not normal. And I don't mean like abnormal, but what I mean is that when we're home and we're in our neighborhood, we're in our space, certain kinds of interactions just don't come up because we structured our lives around around not having them. Um, and an example that I'll, an example I'll use is that, um, in, in Orthodox Judaism, generally speaking, men and women don't touch. It just, you know, unless somebody is, you know, it's, it's your kid or whatever, you just, you know, there's no, there's no hugging, there's no any of that stuff. It's just, yeah, so here I am working in the booth and people are coming up of, you know, all different types and you know, whatever. And all of a sudden, you know, you've, people have extended their hand. Now what's interesting is that having that, that physical contact is not a sin. It's not a problem. It's just not, it's just not done. I'll say it's not done and it's not done for particular reasons, but it's not like you violated a tenant of your faith to do it. It's just not done. What's worse is publicly embarrassing somebody. That is actually akin to like murder, you know, really like it's, you know, considered, right? So if, if a person, if a woman puts her hand out, I am going to shake her hand like absolutely no doubt about it. But over the course of multiple days. After a while it just becomes tiring. Like every time a woman puts her hand down, it's like, of course I'm going to shake your hand. Of course I'm would be gracious. Of course I'm doing it. But it is something that is contra. It's just contra normal to my normal experience and it feels like that. And so, uh, you know, those kinds of of interactions are still religious and they're still, you know, happening. But you have to find ways to navigate them. I, I don't know if you folks have had, you know, any other like things that push those limits in any way. Um, Al: 13:09 I guess if I'm approaching, a Muslim woman that's wearing hijab, and I don't know her. There is a bit of, there is a moment of awkwardness. I don't know if that's the right word. I'm, I'll probably wait for her to initiate the conversation where, or the handshake per se. But uh, in terms of, you know, hugging and whatnot. Yeah. You know, sometimes you just have to know your limits. Mike: 13:38 Now as a Christian, Al, should I be doing that too? I'm just curious. Should I be waiting for them to initiate a conversation if I, if I'm approaching somebody with hijab? Al: 13:49 Um, probably so to be honest with you, and to Leon's point it is slightly awkward. It's not fair to both parties. There is a sense of uneasiness. But I would, if you asked me my opinion and I'm a, I'm a Muslim, as I mentioned, I would allow the lady in this case to, uh, initiate the, um, the, uh, the handshake or the greeting. Keith: 14:14 Yeah. That makes a point of lot of a, a lot of these conferences are international and you get not just religious cultures, but different cultures in general, you know, giving the thumbs up to the wrong culture who, you know, looks completely different than a thumbs up here in the US or the "OK" sign. You know, it's, so, it's, it's one of those things that I try to be... It's like Twitter in real life. Like you can easily offend another person, uh, just by your body language and gestures or saying hi or not saying hi. Leon: 14:51 Yeah. I think, yeah, that cultural sensitivity, it puts the concept I'm going to use, I mean there's a word that started a little bit charged in today's society, but it's, it's, it puts the concept of consent. Did that person invite that contact or that interaction? Again, you know, the thumbs up sign or whatever it was, you know, you in one respect, it's nice to be aware, sensitized or sensitive to that, but a, in another it's, you know, again, it challenges us in some very particular ways. Al: 15:23 I think it's situational awareness. It just depends on the situation you're in, the surroundings you're in and just making good judgment and as long as you have good intent, I think ultimately that's what really matters. Mike: 15:34 Well, I think one of the problems, one of the challenges with conferences in particular is that they have a tendency of of amping up the adrenaline that's coursing through your body. You got all these people, you know, if you're, if you're in sales or business development, you got all these prospects around, you know, you've, you've also got the glitz and glamour of the location. You know, these places are always in nice places, you know, and so not something that you normally do. You know, gee, this is like a pretty nice place, you know, and then, then you have the, the alcohol, right? The effects of alcohol. And then you have the effects of travel, which we talked about before, um, where you're tired or you're suffering from jet lag. And so, you know, it changes your whole, you know, you would like, you know, how many times have you heard somebody come back from a conference and tell some story in the board room, you know, the next day about, "hey, did you see what that person did? Can you believe they did that?" You know, but this is what happens at conferences. So you really, you know, it's even extra important for us that are really out there with our faith, uh, to really be careful with what we're doing. Leon: 16:58 Well, and I'll just, I'll add onto that, that along with the social lubricant and things like that, I think there's also a lot of folks running around feeling a lot of pressure in the sense of, uh, you know, maybe they're looking for their next job or maybe they're a little starstruck. You know, you've got some of these big CEO, CIOs, uh, or people like, yeah, I mean, and, and as much as you know, I want to tease Keith, the fact is the reality is that you're a very visible face and if somebody has been following you on Twitter and finally gets a chance to meet you and say a few words to you, it's easy to imagine them sort of losing some filters along the way. Keith: 17:37 People feel like they know you in and there's nothing wrong. They mass share a lot of my life, uh, you know, end the public. So, you know, a lot of people are going on this journey with me and wife. So, you know, when they see Melissa, uh, if she makes it to VMWorld, when they see her, there's going to be like this automatic feeling that they know them. You know, we don't have any women on the podcast today, and maybe it's a good topic for future podcasts. You know, we get, um, Melissa or some of the wives on to talk about their experiences in the community and around the community. But, uh, you know, I absolutely have been in those situations. I, I'm in that situation sometimes when I walk up to a, somebody who I've been following them on Twitter for years, I'm like, "Oh, Larry, don't... Wait. How do, how do you not know me?" Like I'm certainme and Michael Dale are like best friends, right? Security felt otherwise the first time I tried... Leon: 18:36 Right? Right. Exactly. So, so there's all those pressures. Leon: 18:40 We know you can't listen to our podcast all day. So out of respect for your time, we've broken this particular conversation up. Come back next week and we'll continue our conversation. Destiny: 18:49 Thanks for making time for us this week. To hear more of Technically Religious visit our website, https://www.technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect to us on social media. Leon: 19:03 Hey, there's this great convention happening next week in Cleveland who's in? Everyone: 19:06 (a lot of nope)  

With a focus on business development, sales and marketing, David is a strategic problem solver who has held several C-level and executive positions in organizations across a number of industries including Food Service, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Technology.  David’s experience includes, President/CEO at Kingsmill Foods, partnering with organizations such as, Tim Horton’s, Nestle, Kraft and Second Cup, Chief Strategy Officer at ChannelAssist, leading programs for HP, Rogers and Toshiba, CEO of XMTrade.ca and CEO of OtolaneSoft Corporation, both leading mobile online auction platforms for auto dealers and founding Sorger & Company Inc., a consulting practice with clients including, OTEC Research/GP8 Sportwater, Teaopia (acquired by Starbucks), XELA Enterprises and MTY Group.   WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The role of technology in the success of Domino's Pizza   How David sold his first business for $100K within one week of graduating from college  The deadliest mistake salespeople make 4 business trends shaping  our future today SHOW NOTES [00:24] Intro [01:22] Welcome David [01:39] Business success stories that inspire David [01:51] Success of Domino's Pizza  [03:28] Leveraging the technology [04:23] Starting his first company [05:58] The meaning of ecosystem [07:27] Talking Instead of listening [08:23] How to engage prospects  [10:35] Favourite Sales failure [10:53] Building trust [13:11] Food service, retail, CPG and automotive [14:01] Kingsmill Foods [15:46] Stories that excite David's customers [16:47] Personalization [17:36] Future trends [17:56] Smooth commerce [19:52] Challenges facing today’s sales leaders [20:37] Technology [21:20] Time [22:26] The art of storytelling [26:08] Contact info [27:42] Outro   SHOW TRANSCRIPT Ed Bilat: David Sorger, welcome to the show. David Sorger: Thank you, Ed. Ed Bilat: It's a pleasure to have you. I can't wait to catch up on the stories. We had a great meeting back in April. So thank you so much for coming to the show today. But before we start, let me ask you our traditional question, what business success stories inspire you and why? David Sorger: The one that's most relevant to me based on what I'm doing currently would be Domino's success story. Ed Bilat: The pizza place? David Sorger: The pizza place itself and I'll explain to you why. Approximately seven years ago they were on the verge of bankruptcy and they made a very bold and inspiring decision and that decision was to become a technology company first and a pizza company second. And they claimed that they don't have the best pizza. They claim to this day that they don't have the best pizza, but they wanted to make sure that they would appeal to obviously the growing new demographic that wanted the convenience over anything else. And so they shifted completely and became a technology company and made sure that any way you want to order Domino’s, you could order Domino's. And as of last February, they overtook Pizza Hut to become the number one pizza company in the world. So a company that goes from the verge of bankruptcy to the number one pizza company in the world by doing something that no one would have even thought of doing, which is deviated from what they were known for, making pizza, and pivot to being a digital company that actually built technology and pizza was only the vehicle to showcase their technology. That story is extremely inspiring to me. Ed Bilat: Interesting. And you would think pizza is pizza. Better ingredients, better pizza. David Sorger: You would think so. In the days where that was the only factor, I would tend to agree with you. But I think this speaks to how businesses are evolving, how we need to leverage technology or any of the tools that are provided to us in the current state and future state to ensure that we capture the audience that we need to make successful decisions and impact meaningful change. Ed Bilat: Very cool. Very cool. Thank you for sharing this. So let's turn the spotlight back at you. You've been dominating several industries. The food service, retail, CPG, all of it were the technology components and the automotive dealers. So how did you even get into the entrepreneurial/sales world? David Sorger: If I really want to go back to how it all started. I was in university doing a degree in kinesiology and health science and also studying business at the same time. The first thing I decided to do was to open up an actual company that just went around. I would sell to small, medium-sized, even some corporate businesses and go and set up their workstations, the elbow pads, the Gel pad to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. I would go and set up workstations and give them some small exercises to do some stretches and the proper way to sit. Things of that nature. Ed Bilat: That was at least related to your field of study. Right? David Sorger: It was. But the life lesson comes in this format. About three weeks before I was going to graduate, a gentleman approached me and asked me to buy my business. He said he really liked the concept and at the time he offered me $100,000. Obviously being at that age, I thought I was rich and I couldn't sign up fast enough because I thought he was crazy and out of his mind. A little over a year later, I believe it was 13 months, he sold the business for $1.4 million. Now when I think back about what I could have done differently, given my level of expertise and business acumen at the time, not very much. I mean, if I think back, I think, maybe I should have sold 80% for $80,000, but I had dollar signs in my eyes and I was able to get out of my school debt and I was able to have a little bit of cushioning in my savings account. And so that's what inspired me. That was the beginning of my understanding that I really had to not just have great business ideas, but actually have an ecosystem around me, people that I could engage with to ensure that I could actually have a complete offering and have the knowledge base required to really grow businesses and see where there were additional opportunities. So it really started off the path to what I believe is my entrepreneurial career and I am a serial entrepreneur. Ed Bilat: Absolutely. David Sorger: I've started and sold three different companies to date and obviously working on a couple of additional initiatives right now. So it's not for everyone. Everyone thinks entrepreneurialism is easy. Everyone thinks sales are easy and that anyone can do it. But I truly believe that there is an art and a talent to it. And having to go from making nothing three months in a row to having a great month and making $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 or  $40,000 or whatever a great month means to you and then going back to making nothing again. It's difficult when you're starting things off, but it allows you to… Ed Bilat: Yeah, absolutely. And as my wife says, “whatever you do, entrepreneurship should be spelled with a T at the end.” So that's true. That's very true. It's not for everybody. So with regards to making the first sale for your new business, is there any particular most common mistakes you have seen that salespeople do? That entrepreneurs do? David Sorger: Yeah. They talk instead of listening. I think that’s the best advice that I could give anyone. you really want to engage whoever you're selling. To lead the conversation initially would be my advice. You have a very short window to be able to understand exactly what kind of day that individual is having. Pitching to even the same person at the same company on a Monday versus a Tuesday versus a Wednesday may be completely different and serve different outcomes based on what kind of day that individual is having. Have they just lost the biggest deal of their life? Have they just been yelled at by their manager or by their president or whoever? You really need to understand and really develop that relationship and provide that value and make that individual feel like there's value in dealing with you before you actually start selling your product. Ed Bilat: Hmm, that's a piece of great advice. How do you get them talking? David Sorger: This is the social element of it. Simple questions. ‘How was your day?’ Maybe being aware of certain body languages and seeing if they've had a difficult day. Asking if everything is okay. I've had sales calls in the early stages of my life once I realized that the person wasn't having necessarily the best day, I stopped selling my product completely and wanted to really engage them in ‘how are you doing?’ ‘what kind of a day are you having?’ ‘Is Everything okay?’ ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’ If you develop that relationship and that connection right away, then when it is time to talk about your product than the recipient is far more likely to be open to what you have to say and to engage with you on a business level with whatever you're selling at any given time. Ed Bilat: Yeah.I absolutely love this advice. And as Confucius said many years ago, “you have to give first before you want to get something.’’ David Sorger: I couldn't agree with you more. So I think everything… this advice was given to me actually by one of my sales mentors, “if you are offered with an opportunity that you either don't have time for or that is not necessarily in your wheelhouse of what you are or are not capable of doing, then you should always recommend the solution to that individual. Introduce them to someone else, tell them that you're not the right person for this, but you have someone that is the right person for this.” Because in my opinion, what it automatically does is it develops a huge amount of trust and when they call you up and you have the ability to engage, then price never becomes a factor. They will always trust you because you had the wherewithal to understand that you couldn't best serve them with something and so you allow them or introduce them to someone else who could, which takes a lot for anyone to do, to give up revenue, to give a business and to say that there's someone better suited out there for what that particular need is at any given time. Ed Bilat: Very interesting. Very good advice. I'm sure that came from experience, like, do you have a favorite sales failure or sales situation which was a complete disaster, but in the end, it gave you all the great experience you're sharing with us today. David Sorger: Yeah. Well, I can speak to that exact last point. Early in my career, there was a philosophy that I had, which always said yes, if you can't do it, find the people who can do it. And unfortunately, if you take on that philosophy, then it can cause you more problems than it's worth because then you're accountable. You become accountable for this situation. It's not about, you know, you recommending someone and them assuming full accountability. You become accountable. So you're managing projects and you're managing situations that you don't necessarily have the expertise to manage and it ends up getting you in a lot of trouble. You end up missing deadlines, you end up providing a product that isn't ideal or isn't what was agreed upon, and that just ruins your reputation. So you're much better off to just understand what you're best at and surround yourself with that ecosystem like I said, of people that are really good at the things that you're not good at. And so then you have either the capability of creating a solution together and knowing who drives that solution, depending on which part of the business is being discussed at any given time or which part of the project is being discussed at any given time. But yeah, no, it's definitely trying to just, you know, accept any offer that comes, it was the catalyst to me understanding that it goes much further beyond that. Ed Bilat: So would you rather say no more often? David Sorger: I think it's less than saying no, it's more of, this isn't what I do best and I only would ever recommend what I do best, but I have some people in mind that I'm going to call on your behalf because you know, you can trust me and I'm going to recommend someone to you that can help you with this particular situation. Because what that results in is an individual having a conversation saying you need to call David or you need to call Ed because they're going to be completely transparent and upfront with you. They'll let you know if they're the best person for the job and if not, they're going to help you find the best person for the job. You will become a confidant to that individual and they will always give you the business without even questioning the pricing of the things that are in your area of expertise. Always leverage your network to be able to help them with anything that is outside of your expertise. Ed Bilat: Very cool. I love that advice. So thank you for sharing. In terms of the industries that you have picked; the food service, retail, CPG, and the automotive vertical, all of it with the technology component. What was the rationale for picking those? How did you get to those industries specifically? David Sorger: I wish I could give you some if I'm being honest, some really thoughtful and cogent answer. But again, I had a mentor early on in my life that once told me that everyone has a product or a service that they need to sell to an end user. The same business principles apply. And so if you take a step back and really think about that because when I was asked to go into food service by actually the president of Kingsway foods at the time, I said to her, I know nothing about food service. At the time I was building infrastructure, again, not my previous industry. I was at the Granite Club building the personal training and fitness consulting section of the actual club. And I was building that out and we went from 3 trainers to 35 trainers in one year. She watched that happen. And the reason she gave me that advice is that she said, all I want you to do for my business is the exact same thing that you have done for the Granite Club. And I didn't really understand it at first. But then when she said that everyone has a product or service that needs to be sold to an end user, it made me realize that I'd like to give it a shot. A lot of the fundamentals about selling are the same. It's really a widget that you're replacing. Of course, you have to be brought up to speed and understand the points of difference that you're offering versus your competitors. But that applies to every industry. So every single time I came up against, oh well I have to educate myself on X, Y, or Z, I automatically correlated it back to something that I had done before. And I was fortunate enough to grow the company considerably and I became President/CEO of Kingsway foods after my first two years of being there because I took a 60-year-old company that was relatively flat in growth and showed them a tremendous growth. Ed Bilat: Congratulations. David Sorger: Yeah, well for every success story there are war rooms that are associated to them. Ed Bilat: So in all of these verticals what type of stories excite your customers and partners, what have you seen? What drives excitement? David Sorger: Personalization. So you always need to be relatable. So the one thing that I would recommend for anyone is, I'm sure everyone has been to these sales pitches that you know, people talk about. And this especially applies to me now in technology. If I go into a room full of CEO’s, non-tech people and I don't even consider myself a technology person to be quite honest with you. So if I go in and I start talking about different programs, different technology stacks and this and that, and it's not something that they can relate to or understand, typically you'll see a lot of head nodding and then you'll walk out of the meeting thinking you did a great job. No one had any questions that they wanted to ask you. Everyone was looking at you and was smiling and you'll never get another phone call. The reason for that is because no one ever understood what you were pitching to begin with. So you have to personalize your content based on your audience. If you are in an audience full of tech people, then absolutely bring your chief technology officer with you or anyone else and allow them to have a conversation at a technical level. If you're not, then you really have to sell the 50,000-foot level idea and concept. In layman’s terms, to be able to make them understand exactly what they're actually either buying or what they're subscribing to or what they're committing to or engaging with you on. That's imperative. So I think that personalization, knowing your audience, personalizing it to the audience is extremely important. Ed Bilat: Yeah. I'm just looking at the notes after our meeting in Toronto. I asked you a question about future trends and I have two notes here. The first one, everybody wants full customization and the second one is nobody wants to cook anymore. David Sorger: Well, that's through my business today. I'm president of a company called Smooth Commerce. We have a very unique customer engagement platform that you can actually self-export either via mobile or web and the mobile or the building app component that we do. The native Mobile Apps is probably the one that we're seeing the most traction with. Thank you very much, Starbucks. Thank you very much Domino's pizza for that. But even if you take a look at the simple things like how they're building condos in downtown Toronto now, there are no kitchens in your condos anymore. You have a wall. It is literally a wall. And in that wall, it is not set up to prep food or anything. Everyone wants convenience. Everyone is busy. Time is the most valued commodity right now over anything else. So people are willing to pay premiums as long as they're getting the service and the convenience. And really the quality, unfortunately, while it can be a differentiator is, in my opinion, moved down a little bit and convenience has taken over. I mean, we go back to what I told you inspires me about the whole Domino's pizza story. I don't think Domino's is the best pizza personally. There are a lot of great pizza places out there that I believe have better pizza, but they are by far the most convenient. And they make it easy for you and they're constantly reminding you whether it's via Facebook, whether they're telling you they're going to deliver with drones, whether they're telling you to order through your Google home, they're always on top of the latest cutting edge technology to make sure that they're satisfying anyone at any demographic. Right? So whether it's your traditional person that wants to phone in and that doesn't have the technology or whether it's the newest person that's coming through it that wants to order through Google home, they give you the option to do whatever you want. Ed Bilat: That's interesting. My next question, what challenges do you see facing today's sales leaders? Would you say that technology and convenience are becoming more important than the actual product itself or service? David Sorger: Yeah. So that's a great question. I think technology without benefits has a lot of downsides to it. It actually can detract from that personalization, from that relationship building. And a lot of the times in a very competitive world, in any industry, everyone's selling roughly the same product for roughly the same price and really the biggest point of difference end’s up being the relationship that you can generate with whoever you're trying to sell to and technology in some cases has taken a little bit of that a way, you know, the ability to really personalize. No one wants to talk on the phone anymore. Everyone wants to communicate via email. No one wants to meet in person anymore. Everyone wants to communicate via webinars and things of that nature. The idea of people listening to podcasts a decade ago would have been laughable. Now it has become one of the major or definitely one of the ways that at least the younger generation engages with any kind of interest that they have. Right? Technology is a little bit of the challenge. Then the other challenge is just quite honestly, time, everyone is in a rush. Corporations are reducing headcounts and the expectations of what people are to do or to accomplish in a day or what they're accountable for is increasing because of all these efficiencies because of all the competition out there. So I think the combination of those two is probably the biggest challenge that we're going to face moving forward. Ed Bilat: Thank you for sharing this. For our podcast listeners, storytelling is the key theme so we'd like to see how you can use storytelling to keep that human component, which allows you to open up and tell the relevant stories and at the same time create the empathy and hear the client’s needs, right? So like how do you keep a human connection open and use the technology, is it like digital storytelling? Like is that the new wave if the technology component is so important? You’ve been in so many different verticals and been so successful, what does the art of storytelling mean to you? David Sorger: It's exactly what you said actually I did. It's bringing the human element to it. So, you know, I do quite a bit of public speaking. I’m a keynote speaker at a lot of events. When I first started doing it, you would think you would go up there and you would present based on the topic that you were given. I always love being in the spotlight. My wife jokes around, she says, I was born with a siren on my head and a microphone in my hand. But I realized, and it really was disturbing to me that, I'd see people in the audience glazed over, not interested, talking to each other. And I really took that personally and it wasn't until I started sharing personal stories, things that actually happened to me that would somehow relate to the topic that I was actually presenting that I really saw a significant increase in engagement with what I was doing. People want to know about you. If you're the person standing up there on the stage, it’s important to talk about industry statistics or where certain things are heading, but you always have to tie it back to a personal experience. If you can get out of the traditional way of talking to an actual product or an actual situation that you're trying to address or anything else that you've been asked to talk about and you can constantly break off and draw a parallel to something that's happened in your own life to support what you're trying to say in the presentation and you'd do it relatively frequently, you'll keep that audience engaged and I think that's really impactful. You know, you get to talk about some crazy things that might've happened to you at the same time as talking about the topic that you were asked to speak about and tie the two together. It engages people up more. It promotes additional questions. After you've done your presentation, people come up to you, they feel more connected to you, they feel more engaged with you. So it really is about, I think, drawing it back to your own personal experiences because you never want the person in the audience saying, Oh, what does that guy know about what he or she is talking about? Right? They’re just reading from a script or reading from a PowerPoint. So I think bringing in real life events that have either happened to you or friends or anything you can draw from your personal life. That's really the key to storytelling. When you look at even comedians today, your favorite comedians.  Comedians are always talking about things that have happened in their own lives. That's how they begin the script. So why wouldn't we as salespeople do the same? Ed Bilat: Yeah, that's a great approach, right? That's what makes you more believable. That's what creates empathy. Because in the end, people want to see people, not, just another blah, blah, blah, like in how many sales presentations you have been through, you just sit there for five minutes and thinking like, why do I have to listen to this for another hour? Like, who is this clown? Like, have you ever sold anything in your life? You just read a couple of books and came to preach. Right? David Sorger: Exactly. It's very obvious to me when you can tell someone is just regurgitating information that they've read versus someone who's telling a personal story as you said, that has a much deeper meaning and connection and then relating it to whatever the topic is. Ed Bilat: Absolutely. That's a piece of wonderful advice. So it's been a wonderful interview. Thank you so much, David. What would be the best way for our listeners to connect with you or learn about the company and learn about the technology components you’re driving so hard in so many verticals? David Sorger: Yeah. The best way would be to go to our website, which is www.smooth.tech or email me directly with any questions, my last name Sorger@smooth.tech. That would be the best way to connect. We are re-doing all the marketing and everything on our website, so for those who want to quickly go on the website now and then come visit us, hopefully, a month from now you'll see a significant change in how we're positioning our product and what we can do to serve the industry and the verticals that we're trying to address. Ed Bilat: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. We'll make sure to include all the links. I'll include your LinkedIn profile as well. And It’s been an absolutely wonderful experience, particularly from your practical experience because you've lived through this and that's what makes it very valuable. David Sorger: I have lived through it and you know, those who are people’s people will be unbelievable salespeople if that's really the direction that they want to go to this. So much of this is still the human element, like what you said, so much of the opportunity is bringing that human element back, especially in this digital world. If you can be creative even in a digital way to bring that human element back then I think that's the key to a lot of future salespeople success. Ed Bilat: Absolutely. I agree with that point 100%. Thank you so much again for coming to the show. David Sorger: My absolute pleasure and thank you for having me. Ed Bilat: Thank you.  

Hour 1: Complaining isn't enough ...Where do your rights come from? ...Churches have more rights than people?? ...Why the founders matter ...A book recommendation from a listener ...A charter of 'negative liberties' ...Who the Constitution was written for ...Is there anything we WON'T tolerate now? ...Is EVERYTHING sexual harassment now? ...Is the attorney general planning to jail journalists? ...Las Vegas security guard describes the scene from the 32nd floor. Hour 2: President Trump vs. Gold Star Family...it continues ...Examining the Las Vegas security guard's answers to Ellen DeGeneres ...Box office DISASTER!! ...Sen. Ted Cruz vs. Sen. Bernie Sanders ...Eliminate the estate tax now!! ...Spectacular view...of Uranus ...New olympic sport coming? ...Playboy charting new territory with a transgender plymate...and Jeffy's interested in taking a look? Hour 3: Tacky Halloween display ...Microchipping athletes? Then what? Us??? ...Where bitcoin was. Where bitcoin is. Where bitcoin is going?? ...Pat's bad financial decisions ...Do you own bitcoin? ...Mark of the Beast theories from listeners ...Sports Equinox Day!! ...How does Bernie Sanders connect with millennials? ...Mistakes were made...by Pat ...Why is Eric Holder speaking out against President Trump. ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Everything that Happens God’s Will?

Image cumple 25 aniversario, y en este podcast hablamos de las condiciones que llevaron a su fundación, y de todo lo bueno y lo malo que le han traído a la industria del cómic. The post Crónicas del Multiverso #214 – Is Everything appeared first on Crónicas del Multiverso.

We’re in the middle of a political campaign that everyone says is unprecedented. There’s never been a candidate like Donald Trump. There’s never been a candidate like Hillary Clinton. There’s never been a campaign like this one. Never more negative. Never more disorganized. Never more off the cuff. Never, never, never. Well, how truly “never before” is this campaign? Are we really in totally unchartered territory? His history in fact no guide at all? Does context matter? John Dickerson just might be the perfect person to discuss this with. You know his bio: He’s Moderator of CBS’s Face the Nation. He’s a Slate political columnist. But he also hosts an incredible podcast called Whistlestop, Slate’s podcast about presidential campaign history. And now he has published a new book of the same name: “Whistlestop: My Favorite Stories from Presidential Campaign History.” Dickerson goes through “the stories behind the stories of the most memorable moments in American presidential campaign history.” You can order it now at Amazon or your local bookstore or wherever fine books are sold. What’s great about this conversation – and what’s genius about Dickerson’s podcast and his book – is that we’re constantly told that we’re at this “End of Political History” moment, this time where nothing that’s happened before matters and we can’t possibly make sense of today’s political realities. Now some of that makes sense to me. I mean, it’s factual: Trump would be the first elected president with no political or military experience. Clinton, of course, is the first woman presidential nominee of a major party. We’ve never had a presidential nominee who tweets like Trump does. The list goes on. So is there nothing to learn from the past? Is EVERYTHING about this election new ground? Personally, I doubt that, and Dickerson is a perfect person for that discussion. It’s not just all of his current roles. Dickerson grew up in a house where politics and news were central – his mother, Nancy Dickerson, was TV News’ First Woman Star, as John wrote about in his outstanding memoir about his mother. This guy is an incredible source to help us try to make sense of this most incomprehensible election.

Host Lisa Kiefer interviews Vicki Abadesco, the director and co-founder of Soul Shoppe, an organization that teaches empathy, anger management, and peacemaking to school children and their adults with programs across the US, Canada, and Holland. Abadesco is an author, Packard Foundation-Ashoka Changemakers "Building Empathy" Award winner, and fellow for the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the madness. I Biweekly Public Affairs show on k a l ex Berkeley celebrating at bay area innovators. I'm Risa Keefer and today I'm interviewing Vicky Abba Jesco. She's the director and Co founder of soul shop, an organization that teaches empathy, anger management, and peacemaking to school children and their adults with programs across the u s Canada and Holland. [00:00:30] Welcome to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Speaker 2:You're the director and Co founder of soul shop. What is the problem that soul shop is trying to solve? How to really create safe environments for kids and really safe environments for anyone. We know that we want kids to have a happy and fun and productive time at school, and sometimes that just doesn't happen for lots of different reasons. And so our [00:01:00] role is to go into schools and really support schools to create that kind of environment where kids feel safe, kids feel respected when oftentimes they don't. I'd be reading so much about bullying. I mean, it's in the paper magazine articles. It's not new. I mean, I remember bullies in school. Why is there such a surge of interest in it right now? Has something changed? You know, we've been doing this work for 15 years and I'm currently in my 30th year of education and I feel a lot of these skills [00:01:30] that we're teaching in soul shop. Speaker 2:I've been teaching my entire career and the issues that we see in young people are really the same issues I feel like I've seen through the years. Um, and we started doing bully prevention work 15 years ago. It wasn't a so popular in the news or the media, but we know that the behaviors are still the same. That just seems to be a highlight of that in the recent years and again, with so many suicides and deaths and the social media issues, [00:02:00] we really see it highlighted. So we're just, we just have more access to the information. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a way that kids have always suffered and always felt alone and that the pain of that, and I think there need to get attention to be seen to be heard. I've shown up in so many different ways, right? We can say drugs and alcohol and you know, all sorts of things that we see, you know, those, those kids or those teenagers, those young people doing that are really just a need [00:02:30] for them to be seen and acknowledged in some way. Speaker 2:And so both the students who are victims and even the students who are doing the bullying, we feel like everybody needs the same and equal respect. And how do we listen to both sides and how do we give all kids the things that they're really needing emotionally and socially? Well, I know there are several different people in this space. Yeah. How is yours different for us? You know, we really believe that learning and things shift through and connection. [00:03:00] And so a lot of other programs that are out there tend to be focused on how to teach the teachers how to teach this content in their classrooms. And we know that they're such a burden and expectation on our teachers and our educators right now. And so we want to come into schools and really help them with this issue to make sure that the, the issues and the topics are really taught in a way that the kids are grasping. Speaker 2:I'm still, we're not a curriculum or [00:03:30] a video or DVD that a teacher can pop in and show the students. It's us really having a relationship and a connection to be able to teach these skills and these tools in real time. So we get to act out scenarios that are actually happening in the classroom and really help teachers resolve conflicts and help students talk through issues that are, that are showing up that might be disrupting the classroom and their learning. And also again, disrupting any fun that they might be having in school. [00:04:00] So you do this by teaching the teachers the empathy of feeling what that's like. So is it role playing? Can you describe, yeah, so for us, you know, when we go into a school, we see the entire school. So we see every kid in that school through storytelling, through activities, through games that we play with them, uh, through our own personal sharing is they really get an experience like, wow, yeah that has happened to me. Speaker 2:And Oh that happened to you too. And then we get to ask the entire room, [00:04:30] how many other people has that happened to her? Have you felt that way? And when we see every hand go up, then every kid gets like, oh, it's not just me, I'm not alone. And then that experience that so many young people have about feeling so alone or feeling so isolated, there's some relief that comes to them knowing that the person next to them is also raising their hand. So you've been doing this since 2001 so you've had time to measure the results of all of this work. What have you found out? So [00:05:00] we found out a few things. One is I think teachers and principals really appreciate having an extra person on campus that gets to come in once a month or once every other month to have these kinds of conversations with the students. Speaker 2:And we get to work with the students in a really different way and get to support the teachers. And so, you know, we'd been around for 15 years and those first few schools we had 15 years ago, we are still in those schools today. And to me that's like the greatest measure of the success [00:05:30] of our programs is the longevity in which the schools are committed to working with us and invite us in year after year to work with their students to really cultivate and hold this kind of a compassionate school community. Um, you know, at the end of every year we ask teachers how they feel we are impacting their school and when they tell us that they're spending less time on discipline, when we actually see discipline records on the school level [00:06:00] through the school district go down, principals will acknowledge that we are a big contributor to that factor. Speaker 1:Yeah. We talked to you about a couple of things. What age is this the most successful in and how you engage the home life, which could be the source of the [inaudible] Speaker 2:problem. Yeah. That's one of the biggest concerns that schools have is that, you know, we're teaching these skills throughout the entire school community, from the students to the teachers, to the administrators and all of the school support. Everyone gets trained [00:06:30] by us. And so we're always trying to bridge how do we have the students take these skills? They're learning here at school and take them back home. And so we do parent trainings and parents get an opportunity to practice the skills themselves and practice with the students. And how do you even get them to come in? You know, we do whatever we can to partner with that school to get parents in on that parent night where we get that opportunity. One of the things that we like doing is at the end of every workshop that we do, the students get a bookmark [00:07:00] and sometimes on that bookmark there are questions and we really invite the students who take that bookmark home, show it to their parents so they get like, oh, this is what I learned today and these are some questions you can ask me. Speaker 2:And they're prompts for the parents so that the, again, they know what their kids are learning. Oftentimes we also get emails or calls from parents saying, wow, I didn't realize what my kid was learning through soul shop and thank you so much cause you know me and my partner were arguing and my kids stepped up and said, [00:07:30] hey, there's a better way. And they taught us how to communicate in a way where we're not raising our voices, we're not yelling and we really thank you for teaching our kids skills that we didn't have. And so we're communicating in a different way and I [inaudible] Speaker 1:may not ever yell at my kid again because of these skills. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness. A biweekly public affairs show on k l expertly celebrating Bay area innovators. Today our guest is Vicky Ebid Esco. She's [00:08:00] the director and cofounder of soul shock and organization teaching empathy, anger management and peacemaking to school children and their adults. Tell me about the differences of presenting this whole program from Grade School, Middle School, and high school. How is it different? What are your challenges? So when I started my career Speaker 2:30 years ago, I worked in San Francisco high schools and I taught life skills and I taught violence prevention, conflict resolution, [00:08:30] and it was a challenge. You know, I was teaching very similar skills on that level. You know, they called me prevention specialist and I did a lot of intervention work on that level. And I started to question when does prevention really happen if we're doing true prevention one, does that happen? And so after 13 years of working for San Francisco School district, I thought, I want to try something. I want to see how can we work with younger kids, bring these same tools to [00:09:00] elementary schools and see how they embrace learning these skills at that level. Because by high school, they're just in the midst of it, right? There's lots of ways that they're being in the way that they're socialized is really anchored into their body. Speaker 2:The way they communicate all of that from what they've learned at school, their communities in their homes, their families. Yes, they can learn new ways of doing things, but it's so much more of a challenge and so when we started looking at working with elementary kids, we thought, wow, [00:09:30] what would it be like as they're growing developmentally to learn these tools just in how to socialize and make friends and be friends. What if we get really gave them the language skills to be able to communicate and resolve conflicts at that age so that when they got some middle school, when they got to high school, when they're really faced with the peer pressure and the stress and all of the physical changes that somewhere in their body they're going to remember that there's another way that they're gonna remember that they have tools [00:10:00] and skills to make a different choice that's not going to hurt themselves or hurt someone else. Speaker 2:The earlier the better. That's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You're also an author of a book free to be and you've written curriculum and you have activity cards for teachers and all that stuff. Can you talk about this book free to be, what is it about? I was curious about the impact of bullying and I set out to just do interviews with people and part of this kind of, it showed up organically because [00:10:30] when I would meet people and they would ask what I did for a living, I would share with them and right away they wanted to tell me the story about how they were bullied some time in their life. And so stories from being kicked out of a friendship to stories about being bullied in the workplace, to being teased for their body, their high, they're weight smarter, this being smart, having money, no money, all of these things. Speaker 2:And as the years have gone by [00:11:00] and people have shared so many stories with me, I could still feel the pain and the impact that that incident, whether is onetime or ongoing, had on people sharing these stories because it was always so ripe for them in their mind, the situation, the scenario, the pain, what it felt like. So I thought, wow, I think I want to write a book about this that just has the stories in them. And so people can just really see that no [00:11:30] matter what age you are. So I have a young person who is 11 years old who also wrote her own book about what it was like for her to be bullied to somebody in their sixties and so they've lived this long life and yet they still can remember being taunted, being teased, being chased down the street for living in a certain part of town. Speaker 2:And also for being, you know, a single parent living with a single parent and it just never leaves. And that was what I was really curious about. And so when I was writing this [00:12:00] book, I just thought, wow, look at how profound it is. And for so many people, most of the people I've interviewed and that are in the book actually never told their stories to anybody. Even for them, sharing it with me and having it written out in this way in this book brought a lot of healing and closure for people because it was also the first time that people, that somebody just listened to them. And I feel like that is what's true every day when we walk into those schools is kids just want us to stop [00:12:30] and listen. Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting to me that you know, these things, they don't ever leave you, which makes me curious about your life. Did something happen or things happen to you that kind of led you to education in the first place and specifically conflict resolution and all that? Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a saying that our greatest wound is our greatest gift and I definitely believe that is true for me. I'm the youngest of four kids. My parents were immigrants to this country and um, did their best [00:13:00] to assimilate, uh, here and they did a great job and they did what they could to provide for us. And we had a house and food every day. And as a California, I was born and raised in San Francisco and it was still a struggle for my mom especially. And so she just struggled emotionally with lots of different things. So she started to, to drink and so she was an alcoholic and that alcoholism was just a way for her to cope. And so being the youngest kid, [00:13:30] I really felt like I was invisible. There was just a way that I wasn't really seen in my family. You know, we have students in our program that we call peacemakers. Speaker 2:I feel like that's what I was when I was a kid in my family. And part of my role was making sure that everything was okay. And so when my mom was drinking, making sure she was calm enough that she wouldn't go into, you know, crazy psychotic episodes, which sometimes she would do. Um, and I really just felt it was my role to just calm her down and make things peaceful. [00:14:00] And so at a really early age, I really was able to, I've managed a lot of emotions and manage the people that around me to make sure everyone was safe. And meanwhile, there wasn't a place for me to go. There wasn't anyone for me to talk to. I'd go to school and not really know like, you know, I didn't feel like this was something I was supposed to be sharing with anyone and have my own shame and sadness and really felt isolated. Speaker 2:And at an early age felt. Now as I look back, you know, really [00:14:30] I was a depressed kid and nobody really saw that. And I know that I must've gone to school looking sad or looking depressed and I don't remember one teacher ever saying, hey, what's it like to be you today? What's going on? You seem sad. You look sad. Is Everything okay? And back then, that wasn't roles of teachers. They didn't do that. And it wasn't until I was in middle school that I felt like a teacher saw me and asked me those questions and it was a first time that I got to [00:15:00] share what it was really liked to be me. And so when I was in high school, I got involved with the peer education program and I became a peer educator because I was that kid that everyone came to you with their problems. Speaker 2:When something happened, people were feeling sad, they were having problems in their own family. My friends came and they talked to me. So I always knew that I was that person. And so when I went to college and I got a degree in psychology, I thought it was going to be a therapist because I felt like this is just [00:15:30] my natural skill. This is just what I do. And but it wasn't it. I felt like there was just something else. And so when I got my first job in a high school in San Francisco and was teaching a group of students who were in these gangs and it was my job to just keep them in school and just keep them enrolled and I just did everything I could to just be with them. And no matter what fancy curriculum I pulled out of the hat for them. Really what was most valuable [00:16:00] that somebody was just sitting with them, not trying to change them, not judging them, just being with them and listening to their stories and giving them a place to just be seen. Whether they were mad, whether they were sad, whether they were confused, whether they felt hopeless. So I feel grateful for everything that I've lived through because it's giving me that capacity to hold a lot of emotions and to really just be with people and to be with young people and anybody with whatever it is that they're feeling. Speaker 3:You're in Canada and you're in [00:16:30] Holland and other parts of the United States are the challenges different outside of cal, I think of California is a little more progressive, but how, how is it different or is it different or do you have the same bullying, conflict problems everywhere? Speaker 2:Yeah, I've done youth programs all over and I'm going to say the bottom line is still the same that you know, you could plop me anywhere. So even in Holly and yeah, there's just something really interesting about this. You know, I want to do more traveling internationally to, to really [00:17:00] look at this phenomenon because I, you know, it makes me curious about do other kids and other places where, you know, in our country here we're so, we pride ourselves in our independence and being low, being able to do things to a level where, I mean this is where the isolation hurts us. Other communities and cultures where, you know, entire families live in a really small Shakka home room. Everyone sleeps together, everyone eats together and you know, for some cultures are almost like [00:17:30] literally we're like right almost on top of each other. And I wonder if they feel lonely. I wonder if they feel that same level of hopelessness that I feel like sometimes we hear in our young people, Speaker 3:I want to talk to you about technology in relation to this because exponentially there's a tremendous amount of technology in these kids' lives since you, this program. Speaker 2:How is that impacting what you do and in the schools themselves with the ability for kids to be on social media at all times? Yeah, it definitely [00:18:00] makes it a challenge for, you know, we see so much especially um, high school college where, you know, social media is just used in such a way to hurt other people. You know, again, I think there's a level of expression that is happening that maybe they're not able to get in other places. And so it happens through social media and I see that on a lot of different ways where, you know, people want to share like here's the highlight of my day, or wow, this thing happened to me. [00:18:30] Or you know, again to be able to use it to gossip about somebody to spread a rumor about someone. But there's still a place underneath it all where someone's trying to get acknowledged for something. Speaker 2:Somebody is trying to be seen for something, you know, emotional intelligence, life skills, what are these things had been around for a really long time. And it's interesting for me to see us come back to some of these things that have been around, which are helping us to put down our [00:19:00] devices, figure out how to get eye to eye with somebody and really have those conversations because technology has been around enough so that we are seeing the impact that's having on our brain and the way you know, the different parts of our brain that's being used in ways and how empathy is really a skill that needs to be cultivated and that can be cultivated personally. Right? It's like we want to be able to make sure that our body language, eye contact, those sorts of things that are so important [00:19:30] are really helping, you know, putting down devices and being able to connect personally with people is what I feel like we're coming back to because of so much of what we're seeing happening to that. Speaker 2:So for sure that the part of the brain that we're empathy happens. Is it diminished with technology? Do we know this? Yeah. There's some neuroscience neurobiology that are coming up with with some of the that research. And so this is what they were saying about why it makes it easy for somebody [00:20:00] to gossip or bully through social media because there's a disconnection there. There's not a personal connection. So if I know you, if I had a chance to really hear your story or get who you really are, what you're going through, I wouldn't even think about getting on social media and saying something bad about you. And so there's this place where yet it's like where does empathy really come into play? And so one of the things we're curious about and we know other folks are, it's like how do we then help to have this experience [00:20:30] of empathy or forgiveness and compassion? Speaker 2:Where does that show up in the world? That leads me to a question I want to ask you. You're a fellow at the Dalai Lama Center for ethics and transformative values at MIT. I am really curious about what goes on there. Are these the kinds of things that you talk about? Yeah, absolutely right. So like his holiness, the Dalai Lama is really committed to youth global leaders. You know, he has a vision of how do we bring more compassion to young leaders everywhere. And so [00:21:00] part of that is some of the things that the folks at MIT are looking at, right? And so they're experimenting with both in person workshops, also different types of technologies and games to really bring to young people and in schools to really practice how do we really work with empathy in this way? And so, you know, one of the things that we're finding is that it's a challenge to just have technology do that alone. Speaker 2:It really takes some human components [00:21:30] of whether it's just somebody facilitating a conversation about how to use this technology. It's still giving somebody a personal experience. Do you were chosen as one of six a Shaka changemaker awards? Was that a monetary award? Yeah, it was a, a what they called an empathy competition. And they were, um, you know, a show Kia changemakers along with Packard Foundation. They partnered together to really look at how are people building empathy through communities. And so [00:22:00] we thought, well, we definitely are building empathy through communities. And so we went ahead and applied in the competition and we were able to receive the award and it's been such an honor. But how much did you win? We won $100,000. Um, and it's been such an incredible blessing for us, you know, again, do you have to get grants every year? How do you fund this privately? Speaker 2:Fine. A lot of private funding. A lot of individuals who really have seen [00:22:30] our work, love what we're doing in schools and know that we've been around as long as we've been around, money comes directly from schools and there are some schools that can't pay the full price of our program. And so getting donations and having programs like this really helped to supplement, um, those schools who can't afford to bring in a program like ours. Uh, the a hundred thousand dollars helps us to do some things that are new and different that we're looking at. We're looking at some online training as well. We're having [00:23:00] conversations again about, you know, how do we build something digitally to so teachers could download the two 10 institute them and their school well to do it more as follow up some ways to really help teachers and their own empathy building skills and you know, we want teachers to be able to have some of these conversations with their kids when we're not there and some of the teachers get that kind of training. Speaker 2:I think that's one of the reasons we're looking at this online course to really have them look at, you know, how in a six week course can they just [00:23:30] work on their own empathy skills, you know, in order for us to be great teachers, anything we have to have the experience of it as well. That's one of my visions is that every teacher have that kind of training just for themselves so that they can find way where they can have more capacity, emotional capacity, so that when the things show up in their classroom, they can handle it better. That there is a way that they're not personally triggered by what's happening with the kids. That may be empathy, could be there as an option. Can you tell [00:24:00] us a story about someone or some school where this was, you have lots of stories. So I tell this story about this young girl, you know, we got a call from a principal, he said we're having an issue with bullying and will you come in and basically kind of fix what's happening here. Speaker 2:And so, you know, he wanted to tell me about this kid and I didn't want to know. I just like, you know, let us come in and let's see what's happening. And he invited us to come in for one time to do this one assembly. And so we got on campus and as soon as we got on [00:24:30] campus, the principal wanted to point out this belief and we didn't want to know who this kid was cause it's not about one kid and it's about the entire school community. And so we start our assembly and we talk about feelings. And when we have so many feelings, we get really full. And when we get really full, we do things, push somebody. We might talk behind someone's back. We might ruin somebody's four square game, you know, we're just disrespectful. And [00:25:00] we asked, you know, how many of you ever felt that full little hands go up? Speaker 2:And this is a room of maybe 204th graders. So we see those hands go up and then we ask is there anybody that wants to share what they're feeling inside you? And usually at this point when we ask this question, it's like silence. The kids are all looking around like no one wants to raise their hand, but we patiently wait cause we know what's in the room and we're not expecting, you know, this kid that they called us to this school to raise their hand, [00:25:30] you know, which just like it's anybody. We know, there's lots of kids who have really that they feel really full in that way. So all of a sudden we see this little hand go up and the whole room moves and then we hear like this whispering. And so we know this is the bully, this is that. We know it. Speaker 2:So this sweet little girl comes up to the front of the room, she sits in what we call the chair of help, and we ask her, what's going on with you? And she's got these little tears coming out of her [00:26:00] eyes. So it's like silence. And these kids are mesmerized that this kid who's been labeled a bully is in front of all of them crying. And so even right in that moment you feel something shift in the room. And so she says that she lost her best friend, that her grandmother died. And the room is stunned because this was a girl that when the principal called us, he said that they did everything to fix her behavior on the playground, including suspending her two [00:26:30] times for her behavior that they didn't know our grandmother died. I think they knew her grandmother died. I don't know if they knew the extent of the impact because here we had a broken hearted little girl who lost best friend. Speaker 2:And so she went on just to share about how it's really harder to mom, how her, her mom doesn't want her talking about her grandma. Let's just not talk about it. She comes to school, she pushes people around, she creates havoc on the playground at recess. Nobody knows what to do with her and she's just [00:27:00] sad and brokenhearted. And so we asked her to tell us about her grandma. And so she gets a big smile on her face. She tells us how she made the best cookies ever. She was the only person in her life that told her she loved her and she was sad. And then we ask, you know, how many of you have also lost someone? Right? So we see these hands go up. So how many of you would be willing to sit with her and maybe ask her about what her grandmother was like? Speaker 2:Almost every hand in that room went up. So a kid who previously everyone [00:27:30] was staying away from now is the most popular kid. Yes. What happens to this girl? All right, so a couple weeks later we call the school and principals like, yeah, it's really gray. We haven't really seen any more incidents from her or the kids are asking and they, he found that there was an opportunity for the other kids to share the people in their lives. They also lost it. They didn't know how to talk about doe. Now this girl becomes this, like you're saying, they can talk to someone they can talk to. That's really a beautiful transformation. Yes. [00:28:00] You know, so for me it's like that's, that's part of the success story. And so, you know, when you ask about the challenge, it's, you know, that school didn't have much more funding for us to come back and we would have loved to have done that. Speaker 2:And so I would say that's always the biggest challenge is for us to be able to have the resources to be able to do followups for stories like that. What are your goals for the future? It sounds like you've done a tremendous amount. We are looking at models to be able to grow our programs throughout the country. Again, we're looking at some things digitally [00:28:30] so that that will help to make that happen. And we're looking at some online courses for teachers so that teachers everywhere can get even at least this first level course on how to get empathy skills for themselves. So again, that they have a greater capacity and understanding about that personally to be more available to their kids and their students. How do we get programs up throughout the country and also enough facilitators and train in a certain way so that I feel confident [00:29:00] that folks who are out in schools are really able to facilitate these kinds of conversations with kids because it definitely takes training and a lot of time working again on our own self development to be able to have the capacity to really work with kids on this level. Speaker 2:It's fascinating to me all the ways that we have found to hurt each other through our words. Right? And any way that we can separate ourselves. So somebody else is just different, right? And we're all different, so we all at any time are targets of this [00:29:30] on some level it's so ridiculous. And then on another level, we can't seem to stop ourselves, but it's great that you've gone deeper to see that, that there's something else behind all of that, right? That's the superficial manifestation, right? If people want to get a hold of soul shop or you personally, do you have a website that they can go to? Soul shop, which is s o u l s h o p p e.com and to get ahold of me, you would just put Vicky v I C K I at [inaudible] Dot Com Speaker 1:do you have a Jessica, [00:30:00] thank you for being on the program. Thanks Lisa for having me. You've been listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. If you have questions or comments about this show, go to the calyx website, find method to the madness and drop us an email there. You'll also find the link to previous podcasts. Tune in again in two weeks at the same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.