Podcast appearances and mentions of john just

The headlines are loud, the markets are messy, and your gut might be telling you to do something — anything — right now. But what should you actually do when your portfolio takes a hit?   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Marc: The headlines are loud, the markets are messy, and your gut might be telling you to do something, anything. So what should you actually do when market downturns happen? Let's get into it this week here on ‎Retirement Planning - Redefined.   Welcome onto the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with John, Nick, and myself as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And, guys, with all the volatility and stuff happening, I thought it'd be a good idea to maybe address some of this stuff. And we've got four key questions maybe to ask ourselves when we're going through some of this volatility and let you guys give some people insights on what you're seeing and what your thoughts are when it comes to this kind of stuff. So welcome on this week, John. How you doing, buddy?   John: I'm doing all right.   Marc: Yeah? A little busy?   John: Just getting ready to start a kitchen remodel, which is bringing its own gut check, but doing all right.   Marc: That is true. Very true. And Nick, how are you doing, my friend?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy. Obviously a little chaotic right now, but knee-deep in wedding planning. So that's fun.   Marc: So let me ask you guys, before we get into this, when we're seeing this kind of volatility, do you get many calls? I've talked with all kinds of advisors and most of them say a couple, a couple panicked people, but for the most part, their clients have a strategy and a plan in place and it makes it a little easier to handle when there's volatile times like this. Is that kind of the same for you, or what are you seeing out there?   John: Yeah, I'd agree with that. As we mentioned quite a bit in our last podcast, our last sessions, our practice is generally planning based. So a lot of times people are comfortable with where they are, and we do a good job of reinforcing here's where you are, here's your asset allocation, here's how we structure things for a downturn or some volatility. So I think we do a really good job of making sure people are in the right asset allocation, and not only that, but structuring their assets where when they are using their funds for retirement, we have a plan in place to draw on specific accounts when we are expecting this type of volatility.   Marc: Makes sense. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, as you mentioned, gut check as that kind of goes. So let's jump in and do these four items here. And that's the first one. Nick, I'll let you start if you want to. So when is the last time you checked your strategy? When's the last time you checked your plan? I hear people saying, "Oh, the market's down year-to-date, the S&P's down 13%." Well, are you down that or are you only down maybe two or three because you hopefully were properly diversified, right? So when's the last time you checked in on your plan and do you need that gut check? What's your thoughts?   Nick: Yeah, so we try to make sure we're updating plans. We'll go over general numbers each year. And then one thing that we focused quite a bit on last year with clients was updating expenses. With having the inflation like we did for a while, the expenses are obviously a huge driver for clients, and so a lot of our clients are updated. And I know John kind of touched on how many are reaching out. And I would say obviously compared to the clients that we have, there are some that do. And I think the good part about the planning, those that had the planning, we're just reinforcing and reviewing what we've discussed in the past.   I had a couple conversations earlier today with similar thoughts and sentiments, and even though most clients know that they have some sort of mix between stocks and bonds, they rarely think about the bond portion not being as volatile. And so that's something that even where in our minds it might kind of feel basic, these little things, and just kind of talking through and reminding clients about what they actually have, why they're positioned the way that they're positioned and why we did the plan. It's also a reminder for us. We've had some clients that maybe six months, 12 months ago, like, "Hey, should we get more aggressive," et cetera, et cetera. And we kind of emphasized that we've had a really good run for a really long time, and at a certain point there's going to be some sort of pullback. And so I think those clients that both from a being too conservative or being too aggressive standpoint are kind of happy that they have a plan.   Marc: Gotcha. Okay. And so John, that would probably lead to the second step, which is if you are doing that gut check and you do feel like there's some things you need to do, where are you at with your risk? As I mentioned a second ago, people see the headlines and it makes them panic. It makes them worry, it makes us easily agitated. "Oh, it's down 13%." But if you're not taking 100% risk, you're probably not down 13 whole percent, right? So it's about having that risk tolerance adjusted as well.   John: Yeah, and like Nick mentioned, I just had a scenario where this actually came up. They're watching the news and it's doom and gloom. And I'll tell you, I put it on for a little bit sometimes and it's like, all right, if you're watching this all day, I could see where people are panicking. But when we did their review, the person was down minimal year to date, and they're like, "Oh, that's it?" And it's just like, "Yeah, you're doing all right." And then when you reference the plan and you actually show them, "Hey, based on what just happened this last week, you're still in good shape and here's a strategy if this volatility continues, this is how we're going to handle it if you're withdrawing from the portfolio."   And then I will say that what Nick said there as well of, people, when things look good, it's like, "Hey, should I get more aggressive so I can earn more?" And it's really important just to stay the course because you do have these pullbacks and when you do get more aggressive and let's say all of a sudden the market pulls back like we're in the middle of right now and you can't handle that risk, that's when you jump ship and then all of a sudden there could be some news that comes out. Literally there could be one bit of news, especially in what we're dealing with right now and the market could just completely do a 360 and just be positive quite a bit.   Marc: Yeah. At the time we're taping this, we saw that to open up today. It went up about 4% in the first half of the day, and then it started to cool back off. So there's still a lot of things flowing back and forth, Nick, and that again leads back to strategy, right? So that's the third piece of this conversation. Do you have a strategy and are there some things that we should look at, try to find the positives or the silver linings of downturns? What are some things we could maybe, some smart moves we could be looking at?   Nick: Yeah, just even before we get into that, I wanted to touch on John's last point, just from the standpoint of part of the conversation that we've been having with people is that the volatility in the markets, both good and bad, are so much quicker than they were years ago. There's a lot of people that are used to prolonged just slow bleed downturns. And where from hour to hour, day to day, you can have a correction and then claw half of it back within a few days. And just kind of shifting out during that period of time can be pretty deadly for a portfolio.   But from the standpoint of what can be done now or what could make sense now with what you alluded to, dependent upon, it is a good time to kind of do that check on overall risk, potentially integrating in some rebalancing of the portfolio. We try to have clients have some cash on the sidelines no matter what. And it could be a decent time to average in some of that money if they're looking to reinvest.   For those that are still working, I think the emphasis that we put on is buying at a discount when you're averaging in every month and that sort of thing. And then even from the perspective of, and it's something that we are reviewing, tax loss harvesting in taxable investment accounts can be something that makes sense. I will say that unless there's, so many people's positions are up or vary in the green that it can be a little hard even still with this pullback to get some losses and offset some gains and that sort of thing. But we can also take advantage of some of the losses to offset future gains as well. So those are all things that we're reviewing.   Marc: Yeah. And a lot of people are taught, have been wanting to do Roth conversions, for example, right? Well, I mean, kind of silver lining when your accounts are down a little bit in a 401. Maybe you're doing some conversions over to Roth and you're paying lower taxes because the balances are down. And then when the market comes back, because it tends to do, as long as your plan calls for it, then you're gaining that money back tax-free. So different kinds of silver linings. You have to work with a professional, you have to work with an advisor to find your way through some of these tougher times. And so that brings us to the final point, which is unhelpful behaviors, right? So what are some things, guys, we need to stop doing right now if we're getting stressed out? John, you kind of hit it perfectly on the head, said you watched it for half an hour or an hour and it's like, "Yeah, no wonder people are getting down, right?"   John: Yeah, it's definitely doom and gloom out there. So I would say whatever station you're watching the last couple of weeks, it's definitely everything's negative.   Marc: And that's their job. We have to be realistic about that. That's all they're going... They're not going to talk about the positives very often, right? They're looking for the eyeballs from the panic, right?   John: Yeah, hundred percent. I think negative news typically rates better. So that's why you continually see the negative news drip on everybody. But back to one thing you mentioned there, Marc, about the Roth conversions. I just want to point out that is a great strategy when the market dips down, if you're currently implementing a Roth conversion strategy. It is typically a good time to do it when we're having a pullback.   Trying to time it perfectly is obviously going to be difficult to do, but you just try to do your best with that. But when you are converting, just want to make it clear to anyone listening, you typically want to, when you're converting for the strategy of a lower balance and paying lower taxes on the specific shares, you want to do a Roth conversion, that's you keep your shares. So you're doing kind of a transfer of shares over to the Roth versus cashing out and sending the cash over and then rebuying it. So just be careful. If you're working with an advisor, just understand, hey, if we're doing a Roth conversion, are you cashing it out? Are you transferring over the shares? Because we feel it's best to transfer over the shares so that we don't have to rebuy them.   Marc: Yeah. No, definitely. I just was thinking that that was another little piece, so thank you for kind of taking it a little deeper, if that's part of your current strategy. So yeah, turning off the news is certainly a helpful behavior. What else, Nick, you got anything else that you'd like to chime in on that topic?   Nick: Yeah, as somebody that has sometimes a tendency to doom scroll a little bit and try to suck in as much information and try to be able to understand different points of view and all that kind of stuff, it is important to take a break. Something as simple as getting outside, going for a walk, having a conversation. One of the things we try to emphasize with our clients is that if you're getting to that point where severe high level anxiety, maybe concerned about starting to make poor decisions or overreact to anything, is just reach out. Usually the feedback that we get when we just have a conversation with somebody is that able to give perspective. And realistically, what happened yesterday in the markets, which we had a fake post about a change to the tariffs and the market swung like 7 or 8% in five minutes and all this other stuff, really kind of emphasizes the fact that volatility is different than it used to be and overreacting can be something that really hurts you and your overall position.   Marc: That's a great point, right? I mean, we're certainly, the doom scrolling, the second by second feedback, you have to have a strategy, right? And our own worst enemy is ourself. We tend to jump out and do things and then we lock in those losses. So again, before you take any action on something you hear from even our conversation or any other thing that you hear that they're financially based, you should always run that past a financial professional as it relates to your specific unique situation, as the guys pointed out numerous times today in the show.   So if you need some help with that, stop by on the website or give them a call and set up a time to chat, pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com, or call 813-286-7776. Guys, thanks for hanging out and breaking it down a little bit. Hopefully people keep their heads and we'll see how this plays out. It could be short-lived, it could be a little longer term. So get a strategy. At the end of the day, that's what's important. So the guys can help you with retirement planning redefined. We'll see you next time here on the podcast.

April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you real money. Today, we're uncovering the beliefs that fool retirees and pre-retirees into making bad financial moves.   Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com   Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.     Host: April Fool's Day is all about jokes and pranks, but when it comes to retirement planning, getting fooled can cost you some real money. So we're going to talk about that. A little early for April Fool's, maybe, but we're going to still talk about it this week here on the podcast. So let's get into it.   Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out with us here on Retirement Planning Redefined, with John, and Nick, and myself, as we talk investing, finance, and retirement. And we're taping this a couple of weeks before April Fool's Day. It should drop right around there, but we'll have a conversation with the guys. What's going on, Nick, buddy, how are you?   Nick: Good, good. Staying busy.   Host: Yeah. Well, that's always good. Good stuff. John, I know you and I were just chatting before we got rolling, we're worn out. But you hanging in there?   John: Yeah, doing all right. And don't let Nick fool you, he's got a lot going on.   Host: He's got a lot going on.   John: You tell him the news.   Host: He did. Yeah.   Nick: John's favorite topic. Got engaged a little over a month ago.   Host: Awesome, awesome.   Nick: Yeah, in the full throws of wedding planning, which is, of course, extremely exciting.   Host: That you're doing a little of, or a lot of, or zero of?   Nick: I would say some impact. My fiance is originally from Columbia, and the way that they do things for weddings there is a lot different than here.   Host: Okay, cool.   Nick: So yeah, so there's a little bit of translation from that perspective.   Host: Nice, nice.   Nick: Yeah, that's interesting. But it'll be good.   Host: Very cool. Nice.   Nick: It'll be good.   Host: Well, congratulations. Very, very cool.   Nick: Thank you. Appreciate it.   Host: All the best to the newlyweds. Very good stuff. We won't pull any April Fool's Day pranks on you then, in that regard. We'll just take to the financial stuff here this week.   So the idea, guys, being that, look, the media is nonstop, the onslaught of social media, internet, whatever. There's always something out there. And you just want to make sure you're vetting some stuff before you... Fool's gold, right? Before you just jump into something and maybe make a mistake.   So we'll start with tax conversation. So as at this time that we're taping the podcast, we don't know if the TCJA will get extended or not. Odds are fairly good, we'll see how the year plays out. But if they don't, they expire at the end of the year, the current tax code that we're under.   So are you taking that information and maybe thinking, hey, I don't have to do any tax planning for the future, because maybe the taxes are going to stay really low like they have been historically? Or are you being proactive and saying, "Well, there's a chance that taxes could still go up, because we owe a lot of money"? So whoever wants to jump in, get started on that. But what do you think about the tax situation and not fooling yourself into just thinking everything's going to stay exactly the same?   Nick: Yeah, I can start with this one. So one of the things that we really emphasize with clients and people that we work with is, especially when it comes to taxes, that the best thing that you can do is to expect change. So whether it's something changing at the end of this year, a couple years from now, whatever it is, the goal is to allow yourself to be adaptable to whatever's happening.   So the easiest way to do that is to have different types of accounts. So to have Roth accounts, pre-tax accounts, and more of a traditional brokerage account where we can factor in capital gains instead.   But even more specific, when it comes to the whole concept of potentially underestimating taxes, there's still a lot of confusion for people on how much of their social security is going to be taxable, or include-able in their taxable income. I had a conversation with my parents about it, and I had to convince them that I was correct and knew what I was talking about after 20 years, because of a way that something that they heard on the radio or saw on TV was phrased, made it very confusing to them. So just-   Host: Sure, I mean, there's the conversation that they might get rid of it, but they haven't done it yet. So you still got to be planning for stuff.   Nick: Yeah. But even outside of that, the way... It was interesting, and I do want to bring it up now that I remember it.   Host: Sure.   Nick: The way that it was being marketed was that the concept of, "Hey, most people don't know that your social security, how much you pay in taxes on your social security will go up at age 73." And so, really, the concept of that was, "Hey, when required minimum distributions kick in, and you have more taxable income, there's a chance that more of your social security income will be include-able in your tax and how much you pay in taxes." So it was kind of a roundabout way to scare people. So it allowed us to have the conversation about, for a huge chunk of people, 85% of their social security is going to be include-able in their taxable income, at least how the law is now, and just how other types of income may impact that.   Host: Oh, and that's a great point though. That really highlights exactly the point of this conversation, is that depending on how you phrase things, it's very easy to get misled by stuff. And so that's a great illustration of that, Nick. So thank you for sharing that.   And it definitely walks that... And that's what all these are going to do. John, like the next one around Medicare misunderstandings. So my mom's forever, she's 83, she's forever going... And my brother's now, he's over 65, so she's educating him. She's schooling him on the stuff she's been doing for a while with Medicare. And it's like, it doesn't cover everything. And people still sometimes think that, "Hey, at least I've got to 65. Now I've got this Medicare thing. I'm in good shape." And it is a great program, in a lot of ways, but it doesn't cover everything.   John: Yeah, that's accurate. And a lot of people, unfortunately, don't realize that. And a big thing that, when you get Medicare age, age 65, Medicare has a lot of moving parts to it, and there's a lot of different options.   Host: Oh, yeah.   John: So depending on whether you go, let's say, on an Advantage Plan, if you're on Plan F, or G, you get the supplement, it's going to determine what is covered. And then, also, you want to look at, do your current providers even take Medicare? So you might be looking at it and think that you're going to be all set-   Host: Great point.   John: ... And then you come to find out that your provider who you like doesn't even take it. So yeah, it definitely does not cover everything. So when you're doing your planning, when we do it, we always try to make sure, "Hey, this is our set price for Medicare." Then we adjust as we determine what plan the client's going to go with or help them determine what's their best option. But also, you want to plan for some out-of-pocket medical expenses for what it doesn't cover.   Host: Yeah, I think she's changed her dentist a couple of times just because they don't take it anymore. They changed or whatever. And of course, dental being one of those things that people often don't realize is, a lot of stuff's not covered there.   John: And prescriptions.   Host: Yeah, and eye. The eye stuff is really interesting. Some of the eyeglass stuff, like going to the eye doctor for just basic optometry stuff is not covered. But then the cataract stuff, some of it was. So it's very strange. So you want to make sure you're understanding what is and what isn't taken care of there with Medicare. So that's certainly a good one as well.   Nick, what about the set it and forget it retirement plan strategy. When you're talking about things getting kind of mis-sold or kind of mislabeled out there, some people will be like, "Hey look, you got to get a plan together. You put stuff in there. You let it ride and you roll from there." Right? Well, some things can set it and forget it, but some things can't either.   Nick: Yeah. So kind of a good example of maybe the set it and forget it concept, saw come up a little bit more in the last couple of years, where had some clients that were moving towards retirement, and they had done a good job of saving and building up the nest egg, and they were somewhat familiar with, maybe take 4% a year and I can live off of 4% a year.   But with rates being in that point of time where we clicked up, where they could get four to five, five and a half percent in money market CDs, et cetera, they had kind of just said, "Hey, want to shift to the sidelines, want to avoid the market. I'm just going to take my 4-5% and live off the interest." And the conversations that we had to really have were, conceptually, that'll be good for now, for the next year or two. But most likely, there's going to be a point in time within the next three to five years that rates are going to change, and that 5% might turn into 3%, or two and a half percent.   And even on, let's just use 2 million bucks. So maybe they could do 5% on 2 million is a hundred grand a year, good to go. Now if we shift to two and a half, 50 grand a year off of the portfolio, with their intention of trying to maintain principle, that starts to rewind a little bit.   And so, it's a good example of realizing how the dynamics of a plan change, and that if you're only factoring in what's happening now, or in the next short term, next couple years, that not understanding updating and adjusting your plan to current circumstances, or maybe a broader sense of what could happen, could really put somebody in a difficult position.   Host: Yeah, that's a great point as well. So there's so much stuff you got to think about when you're factoring all these things in. And John, the market's been choppy. The time we're taping this, it's been a little choppy out there. So some of the tariff conversations-   John: Just a little bit.   Host: A little bit, or whatever is kind of making the market uneasy. But chasing and obsessing, not necessarily just over the market highs, but also high dividend stocks. So sometimes people will say, "Well, a good alternative to doing X or Y is to get high dividend stocks." What's some thoughts there?   John: There's different strategies for what you're trying to accomplish. And one of the problems with this one, especially if you're going to retirement and you're thinking of, "Hey, I'm just going to have high dividend paying stocks," is that those things can change. If all of a sudden we have a recession, or the economy's not doing well, or that particular company's not doing well, guess what they could do? They could just change your dividend.   So if you had a plan, going back to what Nick's example, they're like, "Hey, I've got this stock. It's giving me 4- 5%," and you think you're okay. And all of a sudden some news comes out and that dividend drops, and now your whole plan just slightly changed. So with dividend paying stocks, they're not guaranteed. And depending on how high of a dividend paying stock it is, the higher sometimes could be correlated with a little bit being more aggressive and more risk.   So I've seen, this actually reminds me of a meeting I just had this week, where someone was in talking to a friend of theirs, and they were trying to say, "Hey, just put all your stuff in these high dividend paying rates," and all these things. And I'm looking at it like, "Hey, this is pretty aggressive. You're getting a good yield. But if we have some type of pullback, not only will your dividend potentially go down, but the value of this stock could also drop."   Host: Sure. Yeah.   John: So it's just important to understand what you're in and what could change.   Nick: I think I'd also like to jump in on that.   Host: Sure.   Nick: Because I've had this conversation with some clients quite a bit. And one of the things that I tried to emphasize is that if we look over, because a lot of times the generation that's been drilled with dividend paying stocks is a generation now that's kind of entered into retirement, where they were really starting to invest in coming up through the period of higher interest rates, when dividend paying stocks perform better.   And frankly, if you look over the last 10, really post recession, post '09 and 2010 recession, in an environment with lower rates, if somebody was invested the last 15 years in only dividend paying stocks, then the returns that they have gotten are pennies compared to being involved in-   Host: Wow.   Nick: ... growth related investments. Think of tech, think of the Magnificent Seven now, think of all the areas of the massive growth over the last 10 or 15 years, and there was significant opportunity cost. So the environment that we're in, where those companies were really rewarded for, the cost of borrowing was low, the ability to reinvest and grow was high. Even when you factor in stock buybacks, I mean, you had companies that were making more money in stock buybacks than they were in producing their own products. So the environment of what's happening has a significant impact on that as well.   Host: That's great points, guys. So it's easy to get lulled into whatever kind of marketing, or whatever kind of news headline, or whatever the case is. So just make sure that you're not falling for it. Or at least not without vetting some things out and talking with your financial professionals.   So if you've got some questions, as always, you need some help, you should always run anything you hear by on our podcast, or really any other, even the big talking head shows, talk with someone local in your area about your unique situation so that you're getting some hands-on advice and conversation. And if you need some help, John, and Nick, and the team are available at pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com. So you can subscribe to the podcast. You can find it there. Of course, you can get some time on the calendar through the website, lots of good tools, tips, and resources. And of course, you can subscribe to us on Apple, or Spotify, or whatever podcasting app you like using.   So again, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's going to do it this week. Guys, thanks for hanging out, as always, and breaking it down. Congratulations once again, Nick, on the upcoming nuptials. And John, buddy, have a great week. We'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined.  

John shares his journey with grief and how celebrity photoshop nude fakes have given him solace. He'll discuss how he's been able to cope with writer's block since his mother's death, and how he's hoping to take his hobby to the next level. Tune in for an intimate look into his healing process, and come out with a newfound perspective on grief.Host Brianne Davis provides helpful advice, poignant stories, and plenty of laughter. Join John on this emotional, heartfelt journey to find healing and hope on Secret Life._____If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.______To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com_____SECRET LIFE'S TOPICS INCLUDE:addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting,  molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness._____Create and Host Your Podcast with the same host we use - RedCircle_____Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon______HOW CAN I SUPPORT THE SHOW?Tell Your Friends & Share Online!Follow, Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyFollow & Listen iHeart | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Amazon | PandoraSpread the word via social mediaInstagramTwitterFacebook#SecretLifePodcastDonate - You can also support the show with a one-time or monthly donation via PayPal (make payment to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com) or at our WEBSITE.Connect with Brianne Davis-Gantt (@thebriannedavis)Official WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterConnect with Mark Gantt (@markgantt)Main WebsiteDirecting WebsiteInstagramFacebookTwitterTranscript[0:00:00] John: My favorite actress, for example, she'll never, like, do like, nude scenes or anything like that, so I kind of look at the fakes. This is kind of fantasy. [0:00:19] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast.[0:00:22] Brianne Davis: Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine.[0:00:30] Brianne Davis: Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, secret Life of a Hollywood sex and love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon.[0:01:01] Brianne Davis: Welcome to Secret Live Podcast. I'm Brianne. Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really the how, what, one way, or live at all. Today. My guest is John. Now, John, I have a question for you. What is your secret?[0:01:27] John: So my secret is I collect celebrity photoshop, nude, fakes.[0:01:32] Brianne Davis: How long have you been doing that?[0:01:34] John: Since 2000.[0:01:36] Brianne Davis: 2000, okay, so dive in. What made you start doing that? Did you create them yourself? Like, take me back when that all started. Was something going on?[0:01:48] John: No, I didn't create any at that time. Basically what had happened is I was watching a new TV show that had just come out, I think, andromeda andromeda yeah, it's like a side fiction TV show.[0:02:03] John: Yeah.[0:02:04] John: I liked one of the actresses and so I pretty much went to Google, looked for her nude, and stumbled across the fake. And that was the first fake I ever found of her.[0:02:16] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:02:17] Brianne Davis: Did you buy it or do you.[0:02:18] Brianne Davis: Just take it from is it free? How does that work?[0:02:22] John: Free? I just found it on Google image search.[0:02:26] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:02:27] John: And pretty much like, just copied the image to my computer at the time was really old.[0:02:36] Brianne Davis: What do you think it is about the fake? Because there are a lot of celebrity nudes that are real, but you only like the fake ones.[0:02:44] John: No, it's more back then, she had never done that. Okay, so it's more of a fantasy thing.[0:02:57] Brianne Davis: Yes. So you've been doing that for almost 23 years.[0:03:02] John: Yeah, it's slowed down quite a bit. I don't collect as much anymore. Basically, if I see one I like, I just download it and stick it with the rest of them.[0:03:15] Brianne Davis: So how many do you think you have that's embarrassing? Well, that's why we are here. This is a show where we get to say all those embarrassing things. I have been there. I have said very many embarrassing things.[0:03:29] John: So I have about last count, over 15,000.[0:03:34] Brianne Davis: 15,000?[0:03:36] John: Yeah. Over.[0:03:37] John: Wow.[0:03:38] Brianne Davis: Over. Oh, my God. What do you do with them? They just sit there. Do you go through them? Do you, like, celebrate that? Like, what do you do with them?[0:03:47] John: Sometimes I just look at them and admire the work that went into them. Because some of them you can really tell because some people who make them just do a crappy don't put an effort into it.[0:04:04] John: Yeah.[0:04:05] Brianne Davis: So you almost see them as artwork.[0:04:07] John: Yeah.[0:04:08] Brianne Davis: And then do you find someone you like or you don't know, and then you go watch all their movies or their TV shows?[0:04:14] John: Sometimes. And there are some that I found and liked and then later just hated them. Because see, I think I have an OCD thing, and I see one minor detail that's off, and it bugs me.[0:04:36] Brianne Davis: That's all you focus on.[0:04:37] John: Yeah.[0:04:38] Brianne Davis: Got it. So if it's a bad art, if it's bad, do you keep that or do you throw that away or you still keep it?[0:04:46] John: I keep it. I guess there's some that are just not great that I keep. I think keeping them is nostalgia's sake.[0:04:54] John: Got it.[0:04:55] Brianne Davis: So it's almost like somebody collecting baseball cards or something. It sounds like there's this compulsion to it a bit.[0:05:04] John: Yeah. In the last couple of years, I've kind of started semi getting out of it.[0:05:11] Brianne Davis: Okay. What does that mean?[0:05:15] John: I used to look for new ones pretty much every day. Nowadays I look maybe every couple of weeks.[0:05:26] Brianne Davis: Oh. So what's been going on where you've decreased the searching for them in your life?[0:05:33] John: Maybe as I get older, I just don't enjoy them as much.[0:05:36] Brianne Davis: Does anybody in your life know about them?[0:05:40] John: Three people.[0:05:41] Brianne Davis: Three people? Who are those three people?[0:05:43] John: Two were by choice, and one was not by choice.[0:05:46] Brianne Davis: Oh, so you got caught?[0:05:48] John: Yeah. So basically the one who caught me was one of my female cousins.[0:05:55] Brianne Davis: Oh, no. So you went on your computer and and saw them?[0:05:58] John: I had collected some early this was back in high school, and I had collected some mended day at school. And I brought them home, loaded them on the computer, and forgot to close the images out. She came up to visit, came up to my room and walked in, and I turned around to something else, and all I heard was, what's this?[0:06:24] Brianne Davis: Oh, my God. Did your stomach drop?[0:06:27] John: That's one way of putting it in.[0:06:30] Brianne Davis: Okay. What happened?[0:06:31] John: We're like sheer panic.[0:06:33] John: Yeah.[0:06:34] John: And it's like, adjoked by folks.[0:06:37] Brianne Davis: How old were you at the time?[0:06:39] John: Between 16 and 18. And she never did she pretty much.[0:06:46] Brianne Davis: Just kept that secret?[0:06:48] John: Yeah. She pretty much said, this is normal. Looking at this kind of stuff is normal, and sat down and just looked through them. And she, like, recognized some of the celebrities. The other two were by choice. This is what I've been doing.[0:07:08] Brianne Davis: Who were they?[0:07:09] John: Just good friends.[0:07:10] Brianne Davis: Okay. And what they say?[0:07:12] John: Pretty much same thing. Like that kind of stuff is normal.[0:07:15] John: Yeah.[0:07:15] Brianne Davis: Looking at porno images and all that is completely normal. But the difference between yours is that they're fake and you know they're fake. So what about it? Do you like that aspect of it that I'm curious about, that you know they're not real, but you still like them.[0:07:31] John: Well, I guess the closest fantasy, because some celebrities will never do, like, nude scenes or pose nude for magazines. Like, my favorite actress, for example. One of my favorite actresses is named Danielle Panabaker. She'll never do, like, nude scenes or anything like that, so I kind of look at the fakes. This is kind of fantasy.[0:08:02] Brianne Davis: Yeah, it's complete fantasy. And do you think with looking at those, that it keeps you distant from having a relationship in real life or no.[0:08:14] John: You mean like a girlfriend or yeah, not really. I kind of don't have much interest in a girlfriend at this point.[0:08:25] Brianne Davis: Oh, really? Have you ever had a girlfriend?[0:08:27] John: No, I've just never had the interest.[0:08:31] Brianne Davis: Okay, here's my question for you. When did you start looking at pornographic images? At what age do you think?[0:08:39] John: REM high school days.[0:08:41] Brianne Davis: High school?[0:08:44] John: I think the first one was Playboy.[0:08:46] Brianne Davis: So when we look at those images a lot and I've done a lot of work around this, it desensitizes our own sexuality, because then the fantasy is more it becomes everything instead of the reality. The reality of a person being with another person or a woman doesn't match the fantasy. Do you think that's true?[0:09:10] John: I guess it depends. Now, with fakes, usually people get aroused by this stuff. I don't.[0:09:21] Brianne Davis: You don't? No, not at all.[0:09:24] John: Well, I mean, back when I first started collecting, maybe. No.[0:09:29] Brianne Davis: So interesting. Not at all. So when you look at it and it's just like, oh, that's a great fake, they did a good job with taking her face and putting it on. That's what you look at mostly than the nude.[0:09:43] John: Yeah, pretty much. Like, a few years ago, I used to use fakes as wallpapers on, like, my tablet.[0:09:50] Brianne Davis: Yeah.[0:09:51] John: But now I don't do that much anymore.[0:09:54] Brianne Davis: Okay.[0:09:55] John: Mostly because I go out in public a lot now.[0:09:58] Brianne Davis: So you're getting out of the house?[0:10:00] John: Yeah.[0:10:01] Brianne Davis: That's probably why you've been doing less, do you believe? Because you said it's been, like, less used to do it every day and now you're doing it weekly.[0:10:10] John: Yeah, it's actually possible. I have a few friends I hang out with, and so that kind of helps.[0:10:18] Brianne Davis: It does help. It does help. I believe when we are stuck with these images, especially when they are fantasy, when we deny ourselves that authentic connection with other human beings, we miss out. And the moment you open yourself up to that and you're getting out of the computer screen with these images and with actual friends, that's what is a real connection.[0:10:41] John: And I think I started heavily collecting quite a few years ago because of grief?[0:10:48] John: Yeah.[0:10:49] Brianne Davis: What were you going through?[0:10:50] John: My mom died from cancer about 1011 years ago, and that's about when I started heavily collecting.[0:10:59] John: Yeah.[0:10:59] Brianne Davis: That's where you found comfort, right?[0:11:01] John: Yeah.[0:11:02] Brianne Davis: Not feeling alone. A huge loss.[0:11:05] John: Yeah. And I read this article online about how one guy got into fakes and it completely destroyed his life.[0:11:15] John: Yeah.[0:11:16] Brianne Davis: What did he say in the article? Why it destroyed his life.[0:11:19] John: He decided to start looking at fakes at his place of employment. I can safely say I've never done.[0:11:31] Brianne Davis: You haven't done that?[0:11:32] John: No. But the article also did the flip side where it actually saved somebody's life because I guess, like me, they lost their mother.[0:11:42] John: Yeah.[0:11:43] John: And they were thinking about ending stuff, so I guess that saved them.[0:11:49] Brianne Davis: Well, it did, because we reach for those outside things that we feel connected to, and it doesn't feel safe with another human being, especially if you lost somebody so important to you so they can give you that outlet of connection.[0:12:02] John: Yeah, I can agree with that.[0:12:04] Brianne Davis: Have you been doing work on the loss and the trauma of it with your mom?[0:12:09] John: Yeah, I had a therapist for a while. I think I'm kind of there now. Not easy. Never really all that easy.[0:12:19] Brianne Davis: No, grief is never easy. We run from grief. But are you finally feeling like you've felt it and moving through it?[0:12:27] John: Yeah, I think so. I've also got friends I talked to about it, too.[0:12:32] Brianne Davis: Oh, good.[0:12:34] John: One of my friends went through the same thing, actually.[0:12:38] Brianne Davis: Well, that always helps when I'm going through a hard time to find a group of people that have been through similar situations and they have them online. All over online as well. Grief and loss groups.[0:12:50] John: Yeah. I found this app, actually, called Seven Cups. Kind of like a sort of therapy app where you can go and talk to people.[0:12:59] John: Yeah.[0:13:00] John: And it's kind of helped me a bit.[0:13:02] Brianne Davis: Good.[0:13:03] John: Now, I have to admit, back when this all happened, I did used to make them.[0:13:09] Brianne Davis: You did used to make them for a short period. And what did that feel like when you were actually making the fake nude photos of celebrities?[0:13:18] John: That's hard to describe. Proud that I made one that looked decent, actually, because I still have one I made that is still my favorite.[0:13:29] Brianne Davis: What is it? Who is it?[0:13:31] John: Her name is Cody Depblo from the TV show NCIS. And it was like a lingerie style fake, not even nude. And that's still my favorite one I've made.[0:13:44] Brianne Davis: I know her. She's very nice. But here's the thing. I did want to ask you this, and I know probably our listeners are wondering, do you ever think of the actual person you're doing the nude of? Like, when you're cutting out their face or you're seeing their face and you know that's not them? Do you ever actually think of that.[0:14:06] John: Person in what way?[0:14:08] Brianne Davis: I don't know. If they choose not to be nude and then someone puts their face on a new body, have you ever thought about how that could make them feel?[0:14:16] John: Yeah, that's kind of why I stopped.[0:14:19] Brianne Davis: Oh, tell me about it. So you had that thought. What was the feelings that came up?[0:14:23] John: Pretty much just yeah, maybe they don't want this. Yeah, let's not do this.[0:14:28] John: Yeah.[0:14:29] Brianne Davis: That they're a human being as well.[0:14:31] John: Yeah, pretty much that.[0:14:32] John: Yeah.[0:14:33] Brianne Davis: And do you think that was one of the reasons about hanging out with friends more, getting out into the world and then that realization that they're humans as well?[0:14:41] John: Yeah, quite a bit, actually. And I haven't made one in seven, nine years.[0:14:49] Brianne Davis: Well, it seems like you're kind of an artist, too. Have you ever thought of trying to do something even different with your art because you enjoy art?[0:14:57] John: It seems like I kind of have. I've started not officially, not like paid stuff, just editing images into wallpapers and just like posting it to a deviant arc page.[0:15:14] Brianne Davis: I think you'd be great at it. There's something in it that inspires you, and I think it takes dedication and you have that. I don't know.[0:15:23] John: Yeah, I used to have something that was like that, but I used to write quite a bit.[0:15:28] Brianne Davis: Maybe it's time to pick it back up.[0:15:30] John: The issue is, ever since my mother died, I've had writer's block.[0:15:35] Brianne Davis: I know. And believe me, I know, writer's block and all that and trauma and all that, but it's like maybe you reaching out to me and wanting to come on and share the secret isn't a way for you to step through it now.[0:15:49] John: Yeah, that could be a good way of looking at it. And I've started dabbling with writing a bit more.[0:15:56] John: Good.[0:16:00] Brianne Davis: Well, I'm so grateful you came on. I'm so grateful to have this conversation. I never expected to have this conversation. It's been beautiful and I understanding so much. And thank you for reaching out to me.[0:16:14] John: Yeah, no problem.[0:16:15] Brianne Davis: And if you want to be on the show, please email me at secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time.[0:16:27] Brianne Davis: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. And if you like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again.[0:16:44] Brianne Davis: See you soon.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We all have something we want to pursue, a goal or an objective we want to reach. We might not always know what it is from the get-go, but as we go on, we can find what we value doing the most. Now, there may be obstacles in our paths, making it feel like our goals are but unachievable and improbable dreams. However, when you are pursuing what you value, nothing can stop you from achieving your destiny.   In this episode, world-renowned human behaviour specialist Dr John Demartini joins us to inspire you to start pursuing what you value. He shares advice and a range of wonderful stories on this topic. Learning about delegation can greatly help you with pursuing what you value. We also talk about the neuroscience of flow states and getting people to understand the quality of your work. If you're mulling over starting your journey to doing what you love, listen to this episode! This might be the push you need to reach for what you've thought was improbable.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition, and mental performance to your specific genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training and coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com. We can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books, Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, dramatically decreases over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting-edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost NAD+ levels in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity, rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop Now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500 mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust: NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting-edge science) combats the effects of ageing and is designed to boost NAD+ levels. The NMN capsules are manufactured in an ISO 9001-certified facility. Boost Your NAD+ Levels: Healthy Ageing Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn about delegation and how you can utilise it to make the most out of your job. Discover the two different flow states that come into play when you're doing what you love best. Listen to a variety of enlightening stories that show how pursuing what you value can change your life.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to the Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #198: How to Prioritise and Reach Your Goals with Dr John Demartini Connect with Dr Demartini: Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube Check out Elon Musk's interview on 60 Minutes. A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!      Episode Highlights [04:21] Achieving the Improbable No matter what obstacles you face, you will get up again if you have a big enough reason. Each of us has a set of priorities. At the very top is our destiny, which is non-negotiable. When you're pursuing what you value, you'll continue regardless of pleasure or pain.  By delegating low-priority things, you can go on pursuing what you value.  [09:20] The Importance of Delegation As long as you're doing your top priority, something that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Delegation frees up your time so you can pursue something that makes more income. However, when you don't recruit the right person, you end up losing money because you're having to micromanage and getting distracted.  [14:07] Hiring the Right People  Do the basics, such as references and background checks. Dr Demartini specifically asks what applicants would do if they never had to work another day in their life.  If they don't answer something close to the job description, he turns them down.  Don't hire somebody who can't see how the job you're offering can fulfil their highest value. Tune in to the full episode to hear how Dr Demartini helped one of his applicants pursue what they value! [26:06] Job Security vs. Pursuing What You Value Dr Demartini shares a story about how he guided a young man to chase after his dreams. He sees this man eight years later, the owner of eight franchises. Many people stay in their jobs because of security. However, quitting work and pursuing what you value is your choice. Dr Demartini's recalls a time when he accompanied a ditch digger to work. He was so proud of his job, as he brings water—and life—to people. It doesn't matter if the job seems small, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  [44:30] Taking Pride in What You Do When your identity revolves around pursuing what you value, the higher your pride is in your workmanship. You'll excel in whatever you do, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  People who are pursuing what they value go beyond what is expected of them. Whether you start early or late, you can always begin pursuing what you value.  Master planning is a way to get there quickly. [46:26] The Neuroscience of Flow States There are two flow states. The manic flow state is a high that does not last long, as it is driven by the amygdala and dopamine. You get into your real flow state when you are pursuing what you value—something truly inspiring and meaningful.  In the real flow state, you're willing to embrace both pain and pleasure while you are pursuing what you value. Dr Demartini likens the two states to infatuation versus love. Infatuation is short-lived and only sees the positives; love endures even the negatives.  Manic flow is transient; real flow is eternal. [53:33] Finding the Middle and Paying for Quality You shouldn't get over-excited about good things and over-depressed about bad ones. Stay in the middle. Looking at the downsides isn't cynicism. It shows that you have grounded objectives. Dr Demartini's father, who is in the plumbing business, carefully considers all variables before taking on a project. As such, he charges more than competitors. People will be more willing to pay for your work once you explain what sets it apart from others. If you get defensive about your work, you start to sound arrogant. Instead, try to be informative about the value of what you offer. [1:03:32] Staying Stable and Flexible  Dr Demartini is neither excited nor fearful about the future.  He looks at both sides so that he does not become too elated or depressed. Emulating this can help you be stable enough to keep pursuing what you value. Over support leads to juvenile dependency, while challenges encourage independence.  Adapt and do what needs to be done. If you can't delegate it to others, learn to do it yourself.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode [05:34] ‘Nothing mortal, can interfere with an immortal vision.' [07:00] ‘There's wisdom in not doing low priority things; there's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you.' [23:18] ‘Don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want can help them fulfil their highest value.' [44:37] ‘The pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most.' [50:26] ‘Fantasies aren't obtainable, objectives are.' [54:31] ‘If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside.' [1:06:22] ‘People can be really resourceful if somebody doesn't rescue them.'   About Dr Demartini Dr John Demartini has been a public speaker for nearly 50 years. He is a world-renowned specialist in human behaviour, researcher, author, and educator. He empowers people from all walks of life by sharing his knowledge on self-development and financial wellness. One of his fields of interest is personal development where he has developed a curriculum of programs. One of his seminars, The Breakthrough Experience, uses his revolutionary techniques, the Demartini Method and the Demartini Value Determination Process.  If you want to learn more about Dr Demartini and his work, you may visit his website. You can also see him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you were inspired to start pursuing what you value, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they too can be pushed to go after their passion. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: I want to welcome you back to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have Dr John Demartini. Now you may recognise that latter name. He's been on the show before. And he's definitely one that I want to have him back on again. He is an incredible teacher, and educator, and author of I don't know how many dozens of books. He's been working in the personal development in space for 50 years, I think. Incredible man.  I hope you enjoy part two of this very in-depth conversation about upgrading your life–how to grow your businesses. We talk about also how to reach your full potential. And what sort of things we put in our own way. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Dr John. Also, I would like to let you know we have a Boost Camp coming up. This is a, not a boot camp. It's all about upgrading your life. This is all about being the best version of yourself that you can be, upgrading everything in your life from your health fundamentals to things like sleep, and understanding your brain better your mood and behaviour. Lots and lots of science, and lots of information, and stuff that's going to be actually practical stuff that you can implement in your life to improve how you're performing your health, your vision and purpose in life. And aligning all of these things together.  I hope you'll come and join us. This is an eight-week program that is live with Neil Wagstaff and myself. Neil is my longtime coach and business partner. And he runs all the programs with me that we do with epigenetics, with running hot coaching, and so on. And he is an incredible teacher. I do hope you'll check it out. You can go to peakwellnessco.co.nz, peakwellness, p-e-a-k, peak wellness dot co dot NZ forward-slash boost camp, b-o-o-s-t-c-a-m-p. To find out more, and come and join us, it's going to be a fantastic writer and you're going to learn an awful lot and get to hang out with a whole bunch of people while you're doing it. So check that out.  I also like to remind you too, of our Patron program. We have a Patron program for the podcast to help us keep this on-air, keep us great content, to help us keep the mission going. If you're into doing that, please, for the price of a coffee or a month. Sorry, a coffee a month, you can be involved in this project. And you can also get a whole lot of exclusive member benefits for your troubles. So check all that out at patron.lisatamati.com, p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisa tamati dot com. Right. Now, over to the show with Dr John Demartini.  Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Pushing The Limits. I'm super excited to have an amazing name back again for a second round, Dr John Demartini. Welcome to the show, Dr John. It's fabulous to have you back again.  Dr John: Demartini: Yes, thank you for having me back.  Lisa: It's just–I was so blown away by our conversation last time. And I know you do thousands of these interviews and in the work that you do that you probably can't even remember what you talked about. But it was a real life-changing episode that ended up– we dived into some of your medical work earlier. We went all over the place with your breakthrough experience. I just felt like we didn't quite cover all the bases that I want to tap into your great knowledge.  Having you back again today, and today I thought we'd look at things like I want to dive into things like, ‘How do we achieve the impossible?' I've been doing a lot of work and researching around, what is it that makes incredible people incredible? And that they had the ability to overcome incredible odds and difficulties and obstacles in order to achieve some possible things. And I'm pretty much into a lot of the big thinkers out there. So I wanted to start directly if that's okay. How do we achieve the impossible, Dr John?  Dr John: Well, I don't know. Maybe that's a bit of a metaphor–the impossible is impossible.  Lisa: But yeah, it's a metaphor.  Dr John: Improbable, the improbable.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr John: When the why is big enough the hows take care of thems elves. When you have a big enough reason for doing something, no matter how many obstacles you face, you get up again. And there was an interview. There was an interview by a gentleman I think from 60 minutes with Elon Musk. And they asked him after having three launches explode back to back. ‘You ever think about giving up?' He looked at the guy and he says, ‘I never give up. I'd have to be incapacitated.' Meaning that his mission to go to Mars is too important for any obstacle that might arise to stop it. I would say nothing mortal can interfere with an immortal vision.  Each of us, as you know, have a set of priorities. And the very top, top, top priority is non-negotiable. It's where human sovereignty and divine providence come together, where you feel that it's impossible for you not to fulfil your true destiny. I feel that way with my mission of speaking. I just felt that that was my destiny when I was 17. And I've been doing it 48 plus years now, be soon 49 in a few months. So if you'd have a big enough reason for doing it, you'll see the challenges on the way, not in the way. It's like Edison, a thousand ways to that didn't work for the light bulb to get the light bulb. There was no option about getting a light bulb, he knew he would come up with an answer, he just kept, ‘Okay, that doesn't work. Okay, next. That one doesn't work, next.'  When things are lower on your value, you'll do it if there's pleasure; you'll stop doing it if there's pain. When something's tying your value, you'll do it regardless of pleasure or pain. And you'll see both of them on the way, not in the way. So there's wisdom in not doing low-priority things. There's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you. People who do that build incremental momentum that reaches an unstoppable state, an inertia that's unstoppable. That's the key to extraordinary things. And when it's truly aligned with your value, your identity revolves around it, you feel it's impossible for you not to do it. It's not an option; it's who you are. Lisa: So this involves looking at your values determination, how to sort out what your real– because I think this is where a lot of us come unstuck. We have lots of things we want to do, and we're curious about lots of things and have lots of passions, and it's sorting out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, in order, distilling down that vision so that you're actually hyper-focused and being able to concentrate on the things that you need to concentrate on. I know that's something that I definitely struggle with, when you have so many things that you're interested in. But you're really right when you say like, for me, with my story with my mom, if you remember bringing her back from the mess of aneurysm, there was a non-negotiable. We were doing it, and I was going to get her back or die trying was the attitude that I went inwards. That means sacrificing whatever it took to get to that place. And then we do get there, you know?  Dr John: Well, the thing is not to pursue low-priority things, and to know what those are, and say and delegate everything other than what's important. I don't do anything but research, write, teach. Those are the three things I love doing. But it's all about educating people in human behaviour. So that's the one thing that is non-negotiable that I do. Then I delegate everything else away. That way, you don't have to be distracted and run down. What drains you is doing low priority things. Lisa: Yeah. And this is a lot– yeah, this is a lot that a lot of people, especially startup entrepreneurs, and people that are just getting there, finding your way, are struggling with: the whole delegation thing when they don't have a team around them. What sort of advice do you want to give to people who are at the beginning of their career and don't have a team yet around them to help do all those aspects of it that are draining the hell out of their lives? Dr John: Well, what you do is you ask the question, ‘How is doing this action temporarily until I can find somebody to delegate it to helping me fulfil my mission?' Link it to your brain. Reframe its words. You see it on the way, not in a way, with the knowing that you're going to delegate it. And then, it doesn't cost to delegate. It costs not to. As long as you're doing what's highest in priority that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Because you're releasing yourself to do the most important thing that produces the most income that produces more than the cost of the delegation, and that they can produce. And yet the person that would love to do that inspired to do that but doesn't have to be motivated to do that. They will spontaneously do it without even thinking about it, you can free yourself up. In 1982, end of 1982, I hired somebody to take care of my financial things: paying payroll, paying bills, bank reconciliations, all that stuff. Because I was sitting there in October of 1982. I was sitting there doing a bank balance, like, ‘What on earth am I doing?' I didn't want to do it. It was distracting, time-consuming. And while I was doing it, I didn't want to think about clients because it was interfering. I needed to get this done, and I'm pushing clients away. I freed that up, and I have not gone back, nor even seen a chequebook. That's 1982. Lisa: Gosh I would love that.  Dr John: I can't even tell you what a chequebook in my company looks like. Lisa: Or accounting or any software.  Dr John: I don't have any of that stuff. I have somebody that does that. That's their job. I– because that's a 20 to $50 an hour job. And why do I value my time? Well, I can make thousands per hour, and tens of thousands per hour. Lisa: But what about the people that can't make the ten thousands of per hour or the thousands per hour, and there's still a net, they're still in taking that leap into getting the first person in the team on board and the second person. I think there's a lot of people in that, jumping from, say, the $100,000 mark to the million-dollar mark of a turnover in a company where it's chaos. I think it's chaos beyond that as well. But it's that getting the initial, taking that risk when you don't have a solid income yet, and yet, you're taking a risk on hiring a business manager or hiring whatever, even assistants. Dr John: If you have a clear job description and you have a clear actions that you can do that can produce more per hour than having to do those things, and you can see, ‘Well, I'm doing five hours a day doing trivial. If I had those five hours, could I go out and close deals?' If you're willing to do that it doesn't cost, ever cost, to hire people.  Lisa: Yeah. So it's a mindset shift, really?  Dr John: Yeah. Because what happens is you think, well, if you're not going to be productive, and they're now, you're just going to pay somebody to do something you were doing, and you're not going to go produce more per hour than it's going to cost. But it frees you up to do something that closes a deal or makes a bigger deal. Makes more income. You're insane not to do it. Now, in my situation, I saw that if I was out doing presentations and taking care of clients, I can make more than tenfold what is going to cost, 20-fold to 100-fold what I was going to pay somebody to do it. It's a no-brainer.  It doesn't cost to hire somebody. Unless you do it ineffectively. You are somebody who doesn't love doing it, you're pushing him uphill, is not inspired by it, and you have the skill by it, and you're micromanaging him and you're having to distract yourself, and you're not doing the thing that produces. That's why it costs money. Not because of delegation, but inadequate delegation. Lisa: So in other words, recruiting the right people to your team is a huge piece of this and getting the right— So what are some of the things that you do when you're analysing somebody to take on into your team? What are some of the processes that you go through from an entrepreneurial standpoint? Dr John: Well, I do all the basics: references and checks and those things. But I just sit them down when I meet them if they get through the screening. I sit down with them. I said, ‘If I was to write a check right now for $10 million and handed it to you, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do with your life?' If they're, they don't say what the job is or close to it, I say, ‘Thank you very much.' I walk away.  Lisa: Right? Because they're not. That's not the key thing.  Dr John: That's not their dream. Can I share an interesting story? I don't think I shared this before. Sorry. If I had, just tell me, cut me off. When I was in practice many years ago, I was hiring a manager, and I was scaling up and delegating more and more. We were down to two people's potentials: one was a woman, one was a man. And the man was in for that evening, about five o'clock. I worked till six, usually, but at five, I was telling my patients, five o'clock, this gentleman comes in. He had passed much of the things I thought. But he came into my office. He had a little briefcase, is about 54, looks like a violator jet, this guy. He comes in, sits down on the edge of his chair, and he says, ‘Wow, this is a great opportunity. I've had the opportunity to work with your company would be fantastic. I'm awe-inspired.' I said, ‘Great. Hope you don't mind. But I just got a few questions.' And I had a check. This is back before I got rid of my checks. I got a check that my lady at the front organised. I had the check in front of me. And I said, ‘Your proper name is?' I put his name on the cheque. I wrote 10 million US dollars.  Lisa: It was a real piece?  Dr John: I didn't sign it, but I just put it there. I made sure he saw it. Because any facade he might have, if he saw a check with $10 million on it, his name on it, that's going to distract him. Because the infatuation of that's going to throw any facade that he might try to put on me, ultimately. So I said, ‘If I was to hand you this cheque,' and I showed him the cheque. ‘And I gave you $10 million upfront, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do?'  Lisa: What did he say?  Dr John: And he leaned back in his chair like this. He goes, he relaxed a second. He goes, ‘Wow, if I had $10 million. What would I do? I would manufacture furniture. I have a hobby. I love making furniture. I'd make furniture and open up furniture companies.' I said, I got up. I said, ‘Thanks very much.' He stood up and he was like, ‘What?' He said, ‘Well, did I get the job?' I said, ‘No.' ‘Do you mind if I ask why?' I said, ‘Very simple. I'm hiring you for a management position. You said if you had $10 million, you'd love to make furniture. If you're a great manager, how come you haven't managed your life in such a way where you can do what you love?' He just looked at me and he just paused because that's a very good question. ‘And I have nothing I could say, except, you just woke me up.' I said, ‘Thank you,' and I escort him out.  I watched him walk with his head down slowly to his car and sit in his car for a few minutes to just process that. He's like going, ‘Whoa. I thought I'm looking for a job. I'm enthused, I'm really excited, everything else. And I just got slammed with a reality check of what was really important to me. And the real truth was, is I love making furniture.' So he sat in that car, and finally slowly drove off and we ruled him out. We ruled the girl out. So we had to go through another round. Yeah.  Lisa: And so this is part of the process.  Dr John: Three weeks had gone by. And all of a sudden my assistant said. ‘Dr Demartini, there's a gentleman here a few weeks ago that was looking for a job. He's back.' ‘Alright, okay.' He said, she said ‘Should I just sent him back in?' I said, ‘Yeah.' I come down to the same office, same thing, comes in. I'm sitting in the same place, you sit in the same place. But this time, he walks in with a paper bag, a big paper bag, large paper bag with handles on. He said, ‘Dr Demartini,' shook my hand. He said, ‘Dr Demartini. I was here a few weeks ago,' I said, ‘Oh. Yeah, I remember you.' He said, ‘You changed my life.' I said, ‘How so?' He said, ‘When I was enthusiastic looking for the job, I've been looking for a job for three months. I didn't find one. I thought when you said, if I'm such a good manager, how come I haven't managed my own life? And you nailed me. I was a bit depressed after that, and I had a soul searching, and I had a conversation with my wife. Part of the reasons I was taking on jobs is for security instead of doing what I really love to do. And so after that conversation, I told my wife that and I said, “If I was to go out and try to build my own company in furniture manufacturing, would you endure the, whatever we go through to get there?” And she hugged him, and she says, “That's what you've always wanted to do. We'll make ends meet. We'll find a way.”'  He started his company. He started telling people he's there to make furniture and he started making pieces of furniture. He made a bed, and he made a dresser, and he started making furniture and stuff. He also made it available that he could do interior in homes that were being built. He started letting people know in his network. So he's back in my office three weeks later, and he told me that that's the best thing ever happened to his life. He says, ‘I've already got commissioned $5,400 worth of product with the furniture, and that's in three weeks. I'm on track, probably for making $10,000 to my first month now. And that's more than what I was probably going to get paid.'  I said, ‘Congratulations.' And this is what he said to me. He said, ‘You have no idea how much more energy I have, how inspired I am. I don't care about how many hours it is I'm working. I'm staying up, and I'm a different man. I'm loving it. I'm in, I now understand what an entrepreneur is, a bit.' And he said, ‘But this is what I want to do. Because you gave me such a gift. When I came in your office, I noticed the wood. Because you filter with your polar nuclei of your diencephalonic thalamus. You put, you filter reality coin, what you value most. So he noticed the wood in my office.  He said, ‘And I noticed that you had Kleenex boxes sitting on these little rolling carts. It would really be honourable for me if I could actually take those little Kleenex boxes, and melt my Kleenex box systems on your wall that match your wood. All you do is lift them up on a hinge, put the Kleenex box and pull the tissue, put it back down to replace it. And then you have more space on your thing, because I noticed you had less space on there than probably ideal. It really means a lot to me if I can put them in all your rooms.' I said, ‘I would be honoured to have those in there. And I want you to do me a favour. I want you to put your card on the bottom of each one. So I can, for referrals.' He said, ‘I would be glad to do that.' He said, ‘But that would mean a lot. Because you just changed my life.'  He ended up doing what he really loved to do, grew his business. I got complimentary things in all my rooms, which was an added bonus. But it just goes to show that people, when they're doing something that's deeply meaningful, truly inspiring, high in priority, they excel. So don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want to help them fulfil their highest value. Lisa: Be it personal and be it roles. And not this division of the company. Dr John: The actual actions. So you make sure you have a job description with all the actions and you ask your potential candidate: ‘How specifically is doing this actually going to help you fulfil what's most deeply meaningful to you?' If they can't answer it, don't hire them. If they answer with enthusiasm on all those things, you get them, grab them. If they don't, don't worry because they're going to be microman— you're gonna have to motivate them. Motivation is a symptom, never a solution to humanity. Lisa: And in changing that, I've got a friend Joe Polish. If you know Joe, he's a very famous marketing man and an incredible connector and so on. He talks about, he was talking about entrepreneurship one day, I forget the context of the situation. But he teaches about entrepreneurial things, how to do it. He's hugely successful. Someone said to him once, ‘You've had the same assistant for the last 21 years, for how many years, a lot of years. If she's been hearing you talk about how wonderful it is to be an entrepreneur to do all these things, how come she hasn't gotten that information and runoff and become her own entrepreneur?'  He called the lady over and he said, ‘Why is it that you still with me?' He knew the answer. But she answered, ‘Because I don't want to take on the risk. That's not my job. That's not my passion. My passion is to serve Joe and be the person in the backstage setting all those things up. That is my highest power. That is what I love. That's why I'm still here. I love working with Joe, and I love his mission. And that's what I'm happy doing.' That's the key, is not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Or everybody should be having the same mission. It's that she understands what her passions, what the job is. Dr John: If everybody was an entrepreneur, who would be working for him? Lisa: Yeah. We'd have a hell of a mess. And being an entrepreneur is a long, arduous, often difficult, lonely road full of holes, along the way, potholes. It isn't for everybody, but for people like you and for me, it's, I can go for it. I've got to be running my own ship. And learning from people like you is great for me because then I can see what helps my next steps and what I should be doing. Instead of—  Dr John: Can I share another story?  Lisa: Go for it. Dr John: So, right about the same time when I was hiring that other person, a young gentleman, late 20s, I'm guessing, mid to late 20s, came into my office, and asked if he could have a meeting with me. And he worked with Yellow Pages. There used to be a thing called Yellow Page.  Lisa: Yeah. I'm old enough.  Dr John: They were ads, telephone ads. You put a listing, it's free. But if you put a listing with a little box or a little ad in it, it's a little bit more. You bought the Yellow Page ad. So he was trying to sell Yellow Page ad. So he sat in my office. And he started to do this little spiel. And I had the time. So I took a moment to do it. Because I was curious what the prices were. And at the end of his little spiel, and not even to the end, three quarters through, I stopped him. I said ‘Stop. Just stop.' That was the worst presentation. That was so off. I said, ‘This is not what you want to do in life. What do you really want to do in life?' And he looked at me and he goes, ‘That bad?' And I said, ‘It was bad.' ‘I bet you haven't sold anything.' He says, ‘No, I haven't.' I said, ‘This is not you. What's your heart? Where's your heart? What do you really, really, really, really dream about doing in your career?' He said, ‘I want to be in the restaurant business.' I said, ‘Go to a restaurant today to get a job there, and work your way up until you own your restaurant.' He goes, ‘Well, I needed to hear that. Because I respect you and I needed to hear that from you.' And then I sold him a little audio cassette tape that I'd done, called The Psychology of Attainment. And he bought it, it was only 10 bucks.  He walked out with his $10 thing to listen to because I knew if he listened to it, it would encourage him to keep it going. He left there. Eight years go by, never seen the guy again. Eight years go by. I had moved to a new office. And I was on my way to go have lunch with my CPA. He picked me up. I came downstairs, he picked me up, took me to this little Super Salad restaurant nearby because we both had less than an hour to eat. So it's quick. Get in there and get a salad. You walk in and this Super Salad is a thing where you get a tray, and it's got a whole bunch of foods. And whatever it is they weigh it, and they charge you the acquired weight. So you get salad. You pay less if you get something with it.  As I walked in, and we started going to the line, I saw that young man grown up eight years older in this suit, talking to another man in a suit. And I said, ‘If you don't mind going get me a tray. And I'll catch up. I see someone I must say hi to.' I walk over to this guy. He's talking this man. He's not paying attention to me. I'm standing right next to him. And as he's talking I'm just standing there waiting for him to finish. All of a sudden he finishes, the guy starts to walk off he turns around as if he's going to say, ‘Can I help you?'  Lisa: Yeah, he didn't realise this.  Dr John: And obviously he looks at me and he goes, ‘Oh my god. Wow, wow.' He shook my hand, and ran off and got the other guy to come here, ‘This is the guy I told you about.' And he told him, ‘This is the guy.' And the guy said, ‘Oh, thank you. I'd love to meet you. He's told me all about you, he said you changed his life.' And I said, ‘Well didn't know until today. What impact– Lisa: What are you doing? Yeah. Dr John: But the guy told me, he says, ‘I have eight franchises. I come into my restaurant. That was the manager. I'm checking up on my restaurants and I'll go to the next one. I check them out once a week, I go make my rounds.' He said, ‘That day, I got me a job at Super Salad. I worked myself into a management position for over two years. As I was saving the heck out of my money, which your tape set said to do, I bought into the franchises and I got eight franchises.' Lisa: Jesus! Just from that one tape, that one conversation, see this is the impact– Dr John: I said to him, ‘You just inspired me.' It brought a tear to my eye to know that– because I thought maybe I was a bit tough on you. He said, ‘Sir, you did the most amazing thing to my life that day. Because the truth is, I wanted to be in the restaurant business. And now I am.' Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing The Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that, we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a Patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisatamati dot com. We have two patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us, everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com, and thanks very much for joining us.  Lisa: You've encouraged him basically to have faith in the dream and to– because everybody else, like your family, often your friends, often are, ‘You can't leave that safe job.' I've had this conversation with my husband who's a firefighter. And he says like, ‘I can never leave the fire brigade because it's what I've always done. And that's how I've always, you know, it was my passion,' and so on. And I said, ‘Yes, but you don't have to stay there. That's your choice. Opt for security and– If you want security, if you want to do something, then do it. Life is short.' Dr John: All I know is that if you're not doing something you're inspired by, life can be pretty horrible. I see people. I didn't, I used to get, I lived in New York for a while. And we lived in Trump Tower there, fifty-sixth and fifth, right underneath Donald, so I knew Donald. So I live there for 29 years. And sometimes, you can take taxi. Sometimes, you take, when we're going in the airport, I got a limo. But just going around the city, sometimes I'd have a taxi. I get in the taxi and I– if there was a mess, sometimes I'd pass it by. I go, ‘No, smelly. No, no respect.' But again, in a taxi– if I'm in a hurry, it's hard to get, right? It's 3:30 to 4 o'clock march, I get in whatever I get, because I don't want to wait another 20 minutes. But I get it and I go, ‘How long have you been driving a taxi?' And they'll say a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, whatever it may be. I said, ‘Do you love it?' Some will look in the mirror and go, ‘Pays the bills, man.' And I said, ‘But do you love it?' He goes, ‘Are you kidding, man? If I got a thing in New York, you got to be nuts.' And they have that attitude.  Of course, the car is usually a mess. It's got ripped holes in it. It's got cigarette burns. It's got a little bit of an odour. You know it's not taken cared of; it's not clean. But then you get in another car. And, ‘How long have you driven a taxi?' ‘28 years.' I said, ‘Do you love it?' ‘I love it. I get to meet people like yourself. I meet the most amazing people every day. My father was a taxi driver. My grandfather was a taxi driver in New York. I know every city, every street, I know every part of the city. Here's my card. You want some water?' ‘Sure.' ‘Anything you need to let, give me feedback about my car, please tell me. If there's something not in order, if somebody left something there, if it's dirty, let me know. I'd like to make sure that everybody gets a good experience in my car. If you want to know about the city, you just ask me. Anytime you want to go anywhere in the city, you contact me. And there's my card, I will take you, and I'll make sure you got the best thing, and I'll be on time for you.' He was just engaged. And he loved it. And of course, I got his card. And I called him. And sometimes when I was going around the city, I would use him. He would even come back and pick me up. Lisa: And it shows you that it doesn't matter if you're cleaning toilets or you're a taxi driver or you're at the garbage disposal. Whatever job you're doing, do it well, for starters. That can be your mission in life, is to provide that service. It doesn't have to be taking on the world and flying to Mars like Elon Musk. It's just, do your job; do it well. I don't, I just– I have issue too, with people who just doing the job, getting the paycheck, not doing the job with passion.  You can tell. I walk into my gym and there's a new lady on reception who is just beaming from ear to ear, fully enthusiastic. I see her training; she trains like a maniac. She's just always happy and positive. When somebody comes into that gym now, they get a positive smiley receptionist. ‘Come in' and ‘How was your day?' The contrast to the other person that works at the gym who's surly looking, never smiles. And if you, say ‘Hello, how are you doing?' It's like, ‘Mmm.' And you think, ‘Wow, that is just the difference between someone who's just, “I'm so lucky to be here” and “I'm working.”'  Dr John: They're engaged versus disengaged. Can I share another story?  Lisa: This is great.  Dr John: Right. My father, I started working for my father when I was four. He owned a plumbing business. He wasn't a plumber. He's an engineer, but he had plumbers working for him. And my job was to clean the nipples. And they sound a little sexual, but it's actually, these little pipes and couplings, so it's interesting. But I used to scrape them out with a brush and oil them to make sure they would be preserved because they'll get a little rusty sitting around. Then, my dad would then, every once while, not every day, but most of the time, would give me the opportunity to go out with the plumbers to go on calls to learn plumbing. Everyone, so he would say, ‘Well, you're going to go with Joe today. You're going to go with Bob. You're going to go with Warren. You're going to go with…' And this one day, he said, ‘You're going to go with Jesse.'  I spend part of the day with Jesse. And Jesse was a ditch digger. He was an Afro-American man that was a ditch digger. And I said, ‘You want me to go with Jessie, am I going to dig a ditch?' He said, ‘Yes. I want you to go with Jesse.' I said, ‘Why?' He said, ‘You'll know when you get back.' ‘Okay.' So I go out with Jesse. We drive to this house that is about a 35-year-old house that needs a new water main from the street, the main from the street up to the house. And so he got a T-bar out, and he got a hose, and he got some paper, and he got a sharpshooter, which is a special shovel, and a little round-headed shovel, and a level and a string. This long string thing wrapped up on this piece of wood. And some, and another stick. The stick that had string around it where there are two sticks on either end. You could open them up unravelling. He stayed one at one place, stayed the other place, exactly where the line is going to go. Then he took a T-bar and went down into the ground to make sure there's no roots, no rocks, no anything that might interfere with the laying of a pipe. Then he watered it to make sure that you could go and if you dug it, it was just wet enough that it wouldn't crumble if you turn the sod over. And then he lined paper on one side of it. And then he showed me how to dig the ditch. I would go down to exactly the width of the sharpshooter, which is how deep it had to go. And then we would turn it over onto the paper. And that meant that the grass wasn't even cut, it was just folded over. Right. And we had a perfectly straight ditch. And then he showed me how to create the ditch with this other little thing. And it would go on top of the sides. It wouldn't fall off into the grass. It would just be on top of the paper, and on the inside. Then he took the level and he made sure that the grade was perfectly level from one place to the other because if you have a dip in it, water will sit there and rust and it'll wear out quicker. But if it flows exactly in line, you don't get as many rusting. We put this pipe down, pretty perfectly clear, perfectly graded. We levelled it, made sure it was perfectly level. We installed it to the house, into the main. We then put some of the dirt back over it. Put the sod back on, patted it down, watered it, squished it down, loosened up the grass so you couldn't even tell it had ever been done now. And we had a brand new waterline done. And when you're done, you could not, until you could walk around, you couldn't tell it was done. It was perfect. And then we got in the truck and started to drive off. And I asked, you know, Jesse, his name was. I said, ‘That was neat.' You know, I'm a young kid. And I said, ‘Call me J for John.' He said, ‘J, I have the greatest job on this planet, the greatest job a man could ever, ever, ever ask for.' And I said, ‘What do you mean?' I thought he's a ditch digger. He said, ‘Without water, people die. I bring life to people. My job is the most important job. They can't bathe. They can't drink. They can't make food. They can't do anything without my water pipe. I had the most important job on this planet. And I bring water to people. Without water people die.' And I thought, ‘Whoa.' And I came back and he said to me, ‘My job is to do such an amazing job that they call the office and complain that we never came.'  Lisa: Because they can't see where he's been!  Dr John: It's so immaculate. They don't believe that somebody came and they'll call and cuss out your dad. “Why is it not, why did you not do the main?” And your dad knows. Tell them, “If you don't mind just walk out. They will see that the main is there.”' They're unbelievably astonished that there was no mess and it's perfect. And he didn't tell us about Jesse, and the respect he does when he does water main. He knew that if I would go out there and learn from him, here's a man that does what he loves. Yeah, and he's the ditch digger. And in those days, you didn't make a little bit, you didn't make a lot of money. Lisa: And I love that. And it just reminds me of my dad. He was always cleaning up at the garden. He was a firefighter professionally, but he would be, every spare moment, gardening somebody's garden, cleaning up, landscaping, doing it. And he worked on films as a landscape artist and so on. He was always the one that was cleaning everything up, everything was immaculate by the end of the day. Whereas every, all the other workers were just, ‘Down tools. It's five o'clock, we're off,' sort of thing. Drop it and run. Everything was always a mess.  My dad, he always had everything perfectly done. And was, always came home satisfied because he'd spent, when he wasn't at the fire brigade, he spends his day with his hands in the dirt, out on the sun, physically working in nature, and loving it and doing a proper job of it. So yeah, it just reminded me because he taught us all those things as we were growing up too. And would take us and teach us how to paint and teach us how to, all of these things.  Dr John: The more something is high on your value that you're doing, your identity revolves around your highest value. Whatever is highest on your value, your identity revolves around. As a result of it, the pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most. Because you're inspired and love doing it. And it's, your identity goes around it. So my identity would rather revolve around teaching. So I'm inspired to do teaching. I can't wait to do it.  Whatever high an individual's values is what they're going to excel at most. And they are wanting to do it not because they have to, but because they love to. People do something they love to, completely do a different job than people that have to. They're creative, innovative. They go out of their way. They don't care if they have to work extra time. They don't care about those things because they're doing what they love. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. You have some fabulous stories to illustrate the point. So whatever you're doing people, do it properly, and do it with passion, and try to get to where you want to. You might, this just takes time to get to where you want to go. You come out of school, you're not going to end up being near the top of your game. But you have to start somewhere and head towards what your passion is. I wanted to figure— Dr John: If you start out right at the very beginning, master planning, you can get there pretty quick. In 18 months, I went from doing everything, to do the two or three things that I did most effectively. I delegated the rest away. But my income went up tenfold.  Lisa: Wow. Yeah. Because you were actually doing the things that mattered the most. Dr John: Me going out and speaking and me doing the clinical work was the two things that I was, because that's the thing I went to school for. That's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to do the administrative or I didn't want to do all that other stuff. Hire people to do that. That freed me up. Lisa: Yeah, it's a fantastic message. Now, I wanted to flip directions on you if I could, and I've been doing a lot of study around flow states and optimising. How do we build into ourselves this ability to be operating at our best, which we've been talking a little bit about? What neurotransmitters are at play when we're in a flow state? How do we maintain this over time to remain inspired and not be worn down?  We think about flow state or I don't know how to put this into words, people. By that I mean, it's that state where you're just on fire, where everything's happening really well, you're at your genius place, your talents are being expressed properly, and you're just in it. I would get that when I'm running, or when I was making jewellery and I would, time would disappear, and I'd be just in this otherworldly place, almost sometimes. How do we tap into that? Because that is where we as human beings can be our optimal, be our best. Have you got any ideas around that as far as the neurotransmitters and the neuroscience of flow states? Dr John: Yes. It boils down to the very same thing I was saying a moment ago: not doing low priority things. There's two flow states though, and they get confused. Maybe people have confused a manic elated, utopic, euphoric high, which is a fantasy of all positives, no negatives in the brain that makes you manic. That flow state is a hypocriticality, amygdala-driven, dopamine-driven fantasy high that won't last.  Then there's a real flow state. When you're doing something that's truly inspiring and deeply meaningful, you get tears in your eyes getting to do it. You're not having a hypocriticality, you're having a supercriticality, where the very frontal cortex is actually activated, not the lateral but the medial one, and you're now present. It's the gratitude centre; it's grace. There you're in the flow because you're doing something you really love to do that you feel is your identity. That's where time stops.  Some people confuse a manic episode with that state. But a manic episode crashes. But the real flow state is inspired. That's when you're able to do what you love doing consistently. When Warren Buffett is doing, reading business statements, and financial statements, and deciding what companies to buy, this is what he loves doing. For me, I'm studying human behaviour and anything to do with the brain, and mind, and potential, and awareness. I'm that way. I can lose track of all time and just be doing it for hours. It's not a manic state. That's an inspired state. An inspired state is an intrinsically driven state where you're willing to embrace pain and pleasure in the pursuit of it.  You love tackling challenges and solving problems, and you'll just research and research or do whatever you're doing, and you just keep doing it because you won't stop. That's not a manic episode. Although manics can look similar, there's a difference. Though a manic state comes from the dopamine, you got a high dopamine, usually high serotonin, you got encapsulants, endorphins. But you also don't have, you're not perceiving the downsides. You're just seeing all upsides. You are blinded by little fantasy about what's going to happen. And that eventually catches you, because that it's not obtainable. Fantasies are not obtainable, objectives are.  Eventually, the other side comes in, and osteocalcins comes in and norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol, the stress responses. Because all of, all of a sudden your fantasy's not being met. But when you think you're going after the fantasy, just think of it this way: when you're infatuated with somebody, you're enamoured. You're in this euphoria. All you see is the upside, and you're blind to the downside. Actually, at this time, you say, ‘I'm in love.' No, you're infatuated. And then when weeks go by, and months go by, you start to find out, ‘Oh, I was fooled. That person I thought was there is not who I thought.' And you find out about this person. And that's short-lived. Yeah.  When you actually know that human beings can have both sides, and you don't have a fantasy of one side, but you embrace both sides, and know that they're a human being with a set of values. If you can communicate and articulate what you want in terms of those values, you now have a fulfilling relationship. It's a long term relationship. It's not volatile. It's not manic depressive. It's just steady. That's the one that's the flow. That's what allows the relationship to grow. The manic thing is transient. The real flow is eternal. Lisa: So it's the difference between being in love, and infatuated, and being in actual true real long-term love. Dr John: Well, infatuation, people confuse with love. If I have an expectation on you to be nice, never mean; kind, never cruel; positive, never negative; peaceful, never wrathful, giving, never taking; generous, never stingy; considerate, never inconsiderate. If I have a fantasy about who you are and I'm high because I think I've found this person, that's ‘Oh, well, it's all one-sided.' It's not sustainable. No one's gonna live that way. But if I have an expectation, if they're a human being with a set of values, I can rely on them to do what's highest on their value, and nothing more. I respect their value, I see how it's serving my value, and I can appreciate what they're committed to, and don't have any expectation except them to do what they do. They won't let me down. And I'll be grateful for them. Lisa: Why didn't you tell her that when I was a 20-year-old finding the wrong people in my life? Relationship-wise, are you going after the wrong types of people? Dr John: If you go after it a little infatuation, you have to pay with a broken crush. You never have a broken heart; you have a broken fantasy. Eventually, it helps you actually learn to go after what's in your heart. Lisa: And value what is really important. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have had never met a lot sooner? Dr John: There's no mistake, so much happened, because you wouldn't be doing this project. Lisa: No. Then this is what every piece of crap that's ever come your way in life has got an upside and a downside. Because I hear in one of your lectures talking about this: don't get ever overexcited, and don't get really depressed. It's always in the middle. You put it so eloquently, it was, whenever something good happens to you, don't get too overly excited about it. And whenever something bad happens to you, don't get overly depressed about it. Because there's something in the middle of there. You're not seeing the downsides of that good thing, and you're not seeing the upsides.  I've actually integrated that now into my life. When something good, I used to have this thing, ‘Oh my god, I have this breakthrough. I've had this breakthrough.' And ‘This happened to me.' And then I'll go and talk about it. And, because I'm a very open person and I found actually that's not good in a couple of ways. Because I'm overexcited about it. I've ticked it off in my brain almost as being happened. Dr John: If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside. Lisa: Yeah. And you think it's already happened. Say you meet someone, new possible job, or it's a possible contract, or something like that. And you got all excited about it. Because you've got you've initiated the process, but in your brain, you've already ticked that box and got the job and you're off.  Dr John: Then you undermine it. And you said it's related about a job opportunity. You usually have it taken away from you. You're mostly unready for it. If you're really ready for the job opportunity, you're going to know what it's going to take workwise to be able to get paid. You'll already get the downside and your objective. And know, ‘Oh, that's gonna be 28 hours of work here.'  Lisa: That's not cynical, that's not cynicism. That's actually not realism.  Dr John: It's grounded objectives. People who keep grounded objectives don't have job opportunities taken away from them. But people who get elated about it, brag about it, talk about it, almost inevitably disappears. Lisa: Wow. Okay. And so you got to be looking at, I've elated— a couple of opportunities come up that are possibly I'm thinking about doing. I'm like, ‘That one's gonna take so much work in this direction. That means going to be the sacrifice for you.' And the old me would have just gone, ‘Yeah. Let's do it, jump in. And I'm like, ‘Am I just getting old or is this actually a better way to be?' Dr John: My dad taught me something as a plumbing industry. He'd have to, they'd say, ‘Okay, we're going to build this house. Here's all the plumbing that's going to be involved in it.' They'd see the plans. He'd have to do an estimate. What would it cost to produce all that, put that together? If he got elated and he didn't do his cost, by the time he finishes, he didn't make any profit. But if he does his due diligence and knows all the responsibilities, what happens if it rains? What happens if there's delays? What happens if the permits are delayed? He puts all the variables in there and checks it all off. He then goes in to the customer and says, ‘This is what it's going to cost.'  He said, sometimes the customer would come to him and say, ‘Well, yeah. But this other one came in at $10,000 cheaper.' My dad would sit there and he would say to him, he said, ‘I want to show you something. I guarantee you, the man that comes in at $10,000 cheaper, is not going to be thinking of all the variables. You're going to end up not having the job that we're going to do. Let me make sure you understand this. You may not hire me, and that's okay. But I want to make sure you're informed you make a wise decision. Because if you don't, you're going to go pay that side to save $10,000, it's going to cost you an extra 10.'  Lisa: Yep. Been there, done that. Dr John: Well, my dad used to go through it, and with a fine-tooth comb, he explained all the different variables. He says, ‘Now, what I want you to do is go back to the person that's giving you those things and ask them all those questions. If they didn't think about it, they're going to either not make money off you and they're not going to want to continue to do the work. Or they're not going to do a great job because they're losing money. Or you're going to end up getting a thing done, then they're never going to want to do follow up and take care of you again as a customer. So here's what it costs. I've been doing this a long time. I know what it costs. I know what the property is. So I'd rather you know the facts, and be a little bit more and make sure it's done properly. Then go and save a few bucks and find out the hard way.' Here's the questions they go check. They came back to my dad.  Lisa: Yep. When they understood that whole thing. And I think this is a good thing in every piece of, every part of life. It's not always the cheapest offering that's the best offering, which you learn the hard way. Dr John: I had somebody come to me not too long ago, maybe four months ago, earlier this year. And said, ‘I go to so and so's seminar for almost half the price of your seminar. Why would I go to your seminar?' And I said, ‘That's like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Volkswagen.' I said, ‘So let me explain what you're going to get here. Let me explain what you're going to get here. Then you can make a decision. If you want that Volkswagen outcome, that's fantastic. If you want a Rolls Royce, I'm on the Rolls Royce. I'm going to give you something about here.' And once you explain it, and make the distinctions, people will pay the difference.  Lisa: Yeah. And that's– in a business, you have to be able to explain to them as well. When I was a jeweller, when I started, I was a goldsmith in a previous life. And we used to make everything by hand and it was all custom jewellery, etcetera, back before China and the mass production and huge factories and economies of scale really blew the industry to pieces. For a long time you were actually in that hanging on to one of those and not transitioning into the mass production side of it because I didn't want to, but not being able to represent the value that actually what you were producing: the customisation, the personalisation, the handmade, and people wouldn't understand that.  You end up chopping your own prices down and down and down to the point where it no longer became a viable business. And that was the state of the industry and so on and so forth. But people could not see the difference between this silver ring and that silver ring. That one's a customised, handmade, personalised piece that took X amount of hours to produce. And this is something they got spit out of a production line at a team and other people are wearing. But people can't see the value difference. Dr John: Yeah, you have to, you're responsible for bringing it to their awareness. If you've been to a sushi restaurant, they have this egg that's in layers. I noticed that to get some nigiri with an egg on it with a little seaweed wrapped around it, it was like $4 per piece. And the other sushi was like $2 at the time. I thought, just an egg. Why would it be that much? And then I thought, and then I watched him prepare one, and how many hours it took to prepare one of those slabs of egg because he had to do it in layers. We had to loony take a pan, take an egg, poured in the egg, cook it just a certain level. And then lay that, scramble it, laid on top layer to time while it's hot, and layer by layer by layer by layer and cut it and everything else to make that thing. And I realised that is an individual egg-layered piece of egg. And I realised after seeing him I go, ‘That's a $10 egg.'  Lisa: This is cheap.  Dr John: I was thinking, ‘How the heck does he do that for four bucks? How did he make any profit out of it?' I never questioned it after th

We're Not Exactly Sure What A Tewkesbury Mustard Is, But Apparently It's An Insult!? Welcome to April 23, 2021 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate having a way with words and the simple pleasures of life.  More after the break. Anna: Good morrow, sir Anderson. Prithee, answer me honestly: How art thou on this glorious Friday? Marlo: What are you talking about? John: We went through this last year too, Marlo. It's National Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Just play along. We'll get through this together. Marlo: Okay, Anna. Get it out of your system. Anna: Jest upon me, scoundrel. Thy wit's as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard. Marlo: John, I have no idea what any of this means. John: Just nod and try not to make any big movements.  Anna: You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! We have all heard the phrase that life is no picnic, but with Spring in the air it's time to rethink that. From the French word for piquenique, picnic means a meal eaten outdoors.  This meal hearkens back to mid-18th-century al fresco French dining when all you needed was a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, some cheese and fruit and you could have a party under the sky.  These days we could all use an impromptu celebration as we take advantage of the warmer weather with our family and friends.  Anytime you can get outside, your mood will automatically lift, and for some reason food always tastes better in the great outdoors.  Don't live close to a park? No problem.  Your own backyard will do. And if the weather is not quite picture perfect, a blanket on the living room floor is just fine.  This casual meal invites conversation, relaxation, eating with your fingers.  What a perfect recipe for connecting with those you love.  On National Picnic Day spread a blanket out and find your way back to the simple pleasures in life.  I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson.  Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day.

John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer at Colder Ice Media, started in e-commerce in 2000 on eBay. He claims that people talked about business in Ebay chat rooms, making it  “the first social commerce platform” before there was such a term. At the time, John sold bandanas, and was pestered by constant customer questions for information on “how to fold a bandana.” So, he made a video and tracked ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars in sales – from that single video listing. Today's digital/social media was not the beginning of social commerce. John says, “No matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce” and that no matter the channel, there is always a person on the other end. If you appeal to human instinct, people will respond. Commerce, by its very nature, requires human interaction and “social” should be much more broadly defined. John explains that there are social channels that many people do not recognize as social, e.g., Amazon Comments. John wrote a book, Kickass Social Commerce, which offers universal stories of social commerce (as opposed to social media). In one story the book, he tells how Madam C.J. Walker, an African-American entrepreneur, developed a line of hair care products, marketed them to her friends, then sold them door to door, and finally had her friends set up “product presentation” parties for a cut of the sales, a sales strategy later used by such companies as Tupperware and Avon. Walker became the first self-made female millionaire in the US. John describes this as “early social marketing.” John presented “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today” at HubSpot's 2020 Inbound Conference, where he talked about the phases of social that make people buy and “the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact.” Two key concepts he covered were: Identify and define your avatar, your King Consumer . . . and profile in detail a minimum of three people who would purchase your product. Establish a need for reciprocity. DO SOMETHING for your King Consumer that creates an imbalance that makes them feel that the need to do something for you in return. In a candid and enlightening history lesson, John also discusses how race has impacted the growth and development of black entrepreneurship. Thank you, John. John can be reached through “Colder Ice” on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – almost everywhere except on Tick-Tock. ROB: Welcome to the marketing agency leadership podcast, I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by John Lawson, Chief Executive Officer of Colder Ice Media, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the podcast, John. JOHN: Hey, thanks for having me, bro. ROB: Yeah. Good to have you here. If we were you know, if it weren't COVID, we might meet up in person. JOHN: Right? ROB: We have an Atlanta episode today. JOHN: Absolutely. ROB: Well, why don't you start off, John, by giving us a rundown of Colder Ice Media and what you all do exceptionally? JOHN: What I do exceptionally. I do e-commerce. Right. And I started my e-commerce business back in 2000 on eBay as a necessity. People were asking me the same question over and over, how to fold a bandana because I sold bandanas. It was annoying. So, I made a video on YouTube on how to fold a bandana. I would give everybody who asked that question that link. That bandana video went completely viral. Three hundred thousand people watched the video. Out of that, we were able to track ten thousand sales – not ten thousand dollars – but actual sales from that single video listing. That was like a cavalcade of understanding for me as people started asking me, “Hey, how do you do videos for selling stuff online?” I'm like, “Answer questions that people want.” That got me on stages. Finally I was like, “OK, if you need help with how to use social – the whole world of social – then that's what we did with Colder Ice Media. ROB: That's a very fun story. I can see why someone would put you on stage to talk about it. I think within that, at a tactical level, there's some cleverness, I think probably in your attribution –  because when you're talking about was not the easiest time to tie through who bought this thing. So how did you sort out that people were buying OR buying more of your product from that particular video? What was your tracking? JOHN: We would just look at the Google tag. Google tells you where traffic was coming from and we would see YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, and I'm like, “Dude, this is crazy.: And then, like you say, back in the day, the tools were not that deep, but they would show you the views. I would see these peaks and valleys in the number of views.  The week of Halloween, the peak would be 10X normal viewership. I had no idea that Halloween would be a great time to run specials selling bandanas. And I got that kind of information just by the volume of watchers during that Halloween week. So, it's if you take all of the parts, then you start seeing trends. You can't see a trend in a month. I know people think you can, but a real trend comes over years. When you see something happen three years, you can jump on and really take advantage of those little blips that other people are not able to see because they're just getting started. So, there's value in being there for a long haul, especially on social media. ROB: Wow. How many YouTube channels do you have in your orbit now? JOHN: Five. Yeah, I'm short. I will tell you one thing that I do – every time I get a new client, I create their own Google space – go out and create a Google account – because you need a Google account to create the YouTube. You're going to need that for writing or using their Google advertising. I will create that entire environment and isolate it for myself. What we do – we can show them the value of one-to-one versus, “Oh, by the way, here's some other tracking inside of your tracking.” I'm like, “No, we're tracking this. Put this in your cart so you can see exactly what our efforts are bringing to your business.” ROB: That makes perfect sense. You got this start in understanding on the video side, but you have this, I think, a broader intentionality around social commerce in general. How has that unfolded – your understanding from that first moment of “a video driving sales” to the broader portfolio of social platforms and tactics? JOHN: That's great . . . I like that question. What happened with me is I got really fascinated with Twitter in the beginning. I'm talking about . . . there were like one hundred thousand people on Twitter when I joined. What was fascinating for me is that I had created this business and I left the office space and I didn't have a whole lot of conversations anymore. So, I started using Twitter to just conversate with people while I was sitting at home in my home office. All of a sudden, it just started naturally moving into, “Hey, what do you do?” “Here's what I do.” “Oh, Ok.” Then I start talking about what I did. The e-commerce thing just started bringing other people in that were in the same field. That made me say, “Why or what is it about being or putting your expertise out that makes people suddenly feel like you are their expert?” You hear about this – everybody today will say, if you want to be an influencer, the first thing you do is start going to places and giving your expertise, There was no playbook when I was doing this. But I would watch this happen and it would happen organically. So, you start wondering. Social is very organic. I know people think it is some technology, but it's really not. I've traveled all over the world and no matter where you go, whether first world country or third world country, there is a central location that is a marketplace where people do commerce. In that commerce marketplace, there's always at least one coffee shop where you have social. Social and commerce go together. I tell people. Facebook was not the first social platform neither was MySpace. Actually, eBay was the first platform. Why? Back in the day, we would sit in these chat rooms while we were waiting for eBay auctions to end. A lot of people were talking about business in those chat rooms. They were a social commerce platform way before there was a term. They were doing social because social has been here since chat boards and chat rooms. AOL was Facebook, 1990. Social has been here forever. And if you grasp what I'd like to call the flywheel of contacting, engaging, getting people to take action, and then measuring that action to create better contact  . . . it goes around and around in that flywheel. And that's kind of what I talked about when we were doing the Inbound thing. It was about the phases of social that make people buy. ROB: Let's get right into that. We were talking beforehand. We were probably hoping to meet up at the Inbound conference and record this live and in person or in Atlanta. But we're not meeting up for things like that right now. But Inbound still happened. HubSpot's big Inbound conference, tens of thousands of people, maybe more – online. And your session there was “Twenty-one Kickass Social Commerce Tactics to Sell More Today.” And so I'd love you to dig in and get us into some of the meat and potatoes, maybe some particular things that you saw resonate back out into your audience on Social because you probably were paying attention to that. JOHN: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'm all about and I tell people and Ok, I get it these do feel very, "Oh I've heard that before." And that's probably the problem is that if you've heard identify your avatar, I call him the King consumer. If you can identify and get in the mind of your King Consumer, then everything that you do after that speaks to that King Consumer. Create at least one. But I say really, at minimum three people that actually purchase your product. They can be real people or they can be fake people. Let's say you don't have your product in market yet, or you think you know who's going to buy that product when you create this King consumer, what you have to do is start thinking about everything that that consumer is into. I want you to go deep into your thought patterns about, not just what they're what they want, but what do they need, what situation are they in? How do they know how many kids do they have? What job do they have?  What are they what do they listen to? What do they say? What are some of the terminology they use? And the more you find that out, the better your business is going to be. I know when I created our business and I was selling those bandanas, I bought those because I was into hip hop and everybody in my neighborhood was wearing the bandanas. I could sell that to people in my sphere. But once I started putting it out there and getting the feedback from others, I was like, whoa, wait a minute; these aren't hip hoppers that are just buying these. These are the bikers. Oh, wow, that's cool. Like I said, people do in the Halloween. Oh, Ok. Cool. And once I started asking my people, hey, how are you using that? How did you like that? You got to definitely go out there and ask. You have to ask. What you're going to learn from your ask are things you're never going to be able to come up with in your own mind. Things that you think when you think that your product and you are your customer – you're not. You're absolutely not. So back to the original question. Identifying that King consumer is one of the things you have to do. The next thing I talk about was reciprocity. If you do something for others, there becomes an imbalance in them that makes them feel like they have to do something for you. That was the whole thing about me teaching people – and I didn't tell you that is the main question actually was – how to fold a bandana like Tupac. Right. And it's so ridiculous. But remember, this is early 2000s, so or late 2000. So, the deal was in my mind, I'm like; everybody knows how to do that. But here's the deal. The people between the East Coast in the West Coast – those flyovers would watch videos and they wanted the same look and they didn't know. Once I taught them how to fold that bandana, then when they were making their choice on who to buy one from, they automatically thought about, “Hey, those guys taught me how to do it.” And just by the nature of who we are, we wanted to make the balance inside of ourselves with reciprocity. So, I'll buy it from them. They might be a dollar more, but I'll go ahead and do it. So, you really want to think about that. That's human nature. We want to get in balance. We always do. If I ask all my friends to help me move, I know, when one of them asks me to help them move, I can't say no. That's reciprocity. Right? ROB: And it's even more helpful in it's not just that they want to know this information. It's that the Internet to an extent and social have made it possible to ask questions that you're too embarrassed to ask your friends. So, you're bailing people out of feeling silly that they don't know how to fold that bandana. JOHN: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Or, they don't even know who to ask. ROB: Yeah. And that continues on out to – I think you look at the some of the beauty influencers and all these makeup tips. There are people who want to know how to do something with their makeup and they are embarrassed that they cannot. Yeah. YouTube bails us out of that. YouTube bailed me out of not knowing how to fix my toilet . . . anything. JOHN: And think of who are the biggest beauty influencers out there – a lot of them are males. That's crazy, right? But you think these guys wanted to put on makeup and a lot of their audience maybe never did. So, who are you going to ask? Your sister? There's a whole lot I got to do before I ask my sister how to put on makeup, There's a whole lot of steps I got to go through. ROB: Yeah, you're probably not going to get a straight up answer right away on that. JOHN: There's going to be some other conversation where exactly we need to have a deeper conversation. ROB: Amazing. I like how the story it started out. When did you realize that you were going to be into this world of social and commerce and Colder Ice Media for the longer run? Was that evident right away? Or was there something after the instigating moment that really cemented the business for you? JOHN: It was probably around 2012 2013. These guys were writing a column about eBay sellers and they asked me if I could do an interview as one of people who are eBay success stories. I agreed.  We get on the phone and were doing this interview and she's like, ”You're one of ten people we're going to feature blah, blah, blah.” But we stayed on the phone for 80 to 90 minutes. And I was like, “Just for a feature piece, this is kind of weird.” We were just having good conversation. At the end of that call . . . she and her husband are a team and write together . . . . . . at the end of the call, they said, “John, man, that was really good stuff. I think we're going to make a multipart feature just on your business.”  I was like, “Really? That's pretty cool.”  And then he's like, “Hey, and if you ever think about writing a book, I'd help you because we've written twenty-two books and we'd love to help you.”  I was like, “Really?” I had never thought about writing a book before because I never thought I had much to say . . . or how much you need to say. But once we put the treatment together, it became my social commerce book. First. It was about social commerce, not just social media. But the key thing was, I don't care how many people like me – I want you to buy from me. There are a lot of people out here who have social influence but couldn't get people to piss on them if they were on fire – they don't really have the ability to move people. There's a difference between having likes and having people that will buy from you. And that's the big difference to me in social media. For me, it was all about the commerce portion. ROB: And what's the name of the book folks want to go . . . JOHN: Kickass Social Commerce. ROB: Excellent. Excellent. Any additional publishings of it or is it still pretty fresh? JOHN: You know what? Here's the thing. When I wrote the book, I wrote it forever. Yeah, right. I did. I literally did because the concepts, again, of social and purchasing go together. So, I grabbed all of these universal stories. And one of my major stories, he first story I talk about is a woman called Madam C.J. Walker. Have you heard of her? ROB: I am not familiar with her. JOHN: Great. Fantastic. So, I could tell this story if you don't mind. ROB: Go. JOHN: All right. So, here's the deal. Madam C.J. Walker was an African-American, a black woman. OK, I like that better. Right? She was a black woman and she created a scalp ointment because her hair was falling out from straightening it. She created an ointment that would keep her hair healthy. And other women saw her hair from going to where she had maybe patches, bald spots, and not healthy hair to these long, luxurious locks. People asked, “What are you using?” She had created this thing in her kitchen and she ended up going from her sink and to the bathtub to create larger volumes of it to sell to her friends. Well, the business starts growing and she starts going door to door to do sales. So that's the first part, right? You go from friends telling friends to going door to door. Her door to door sales grew so much that she realized that she was limited by the number of doors she could go to in a day, and that was hampering the growth of her base simply because there's only so many doors you can knock on. So, she came up with this great idea. She said, look, I'll get one of my clients that already buys for me to have a party and I'll go to the party and display my products at the party. Sound familiar? ROB: Mmm-hmm. JOHN: She was the one that created the model that today Mary Kay and Avon use. She created that and that was, again, social. You're expanding your network by using small influencers to bring their friends in and allowing you to do that demonstration. Of course, you would give them a cut for the party. Ultimately, she built a house bigger than the White House . . . and this was in 1918. This is she is the first self-made female millionaire in America. She was ranked number six of the top 10 entrepreneurs in Entrepreneur magazine for all time, one of the greatest success stories. But I tell this story because, as I was listening and reading and researching, I realized how social media can grow for commerce because. literally, she had her own, quote “Facebook” by doing what she did with these people. So, it's universal. I wrote from that understanding . . . from that standpoint. ROB: Yeah. You can imagine a version of a book on social commerce that would get nitty-gritty – focus very much on the popular channels, marketing channels of the day, would talk about specific ad-spending tactics – and it would have a very short shelf life. But I get the sense from talking to you that you define social channels – and you did this a little bit with eBay – you define that remarkably differently from many people. So, when we think about social channels today, what are some other channels you think may not be intuitively understood as social, but yet are extremely so? JOHN: Hmm, that's a good question. ROB: Because we could talk about Tick-Tock, but we don't and we can, but we don't have to. I don't think you could write a book with a long shelf life if that was your frame of mind. JOHN: Right. Because the channels always change their rules. Yeah. But if your understanding is, no matter what their handle is, there is a person on the other end and there are certain things that we . . . we as humans are just a higher level of animals and there's certain habits that we have that we're always going to use. No matter what channel you use to get there, if you nail that human instinct, they're going to respond to it. Here's what I give you that you wouldn't think of: Amazon comments. Amazon comment, that is a social channel. There are some people that do nothing but read and post or try things and post and then they read other stuff from people. And then they respond in those posts. They do this all day long. Why are they doing that? Because that's their social world. ROB: Hmm. Have you seen some people using Slack communities in a business context, maybe? JOHN: Yes, absolutely. Because what they're doing now is they're getting people away – moreso Reddit. I mean, Reddit, its killer. Reddit is really killer. But a Slack community is a great way to get people that are interested in a specific topic away from the distraction that is social media, especially in an election year. ROB: Hmm, right. Plenty of that. JOHN: There's so much of that. And people's moods are being changed sometimes by the constant back and forth in these major social channels like Facebook or Twitter. It gets distracting. So, you get your people out from there into a nice global world that doesn't have all the noise in it. ROB: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's almost in some cases, there's too much – If you were in a room, there are some rooms where there's too much shouting to be helpful. You can't help people who are in the middle of a fight. JOHN: Right. Exactly. It's like it's really hard to get my attention when there's a train wreck right in front of us. ROB: What does that pivot point look like? What's it look like? What's an example – help us kind of think through it and catalyze our thinking – of someone who's commenting on reviews on Amazon and they're selling something and it's driving – I understand it conceptually, but it's a bit abstract. Is there a concrete example you've seen where they comment on this thing because they were selling this other thing? JOHN: Well, what ends up happening is, if you comment a lot, Amazon flags you as a commenter. Once you get that known as a trusted source, once you get that flagging, then other people that are trying to get reviews by people that have that tag or that flag will start reaching out to send you products. ROB: Got it. JOHN: Right. So, here's the deal. Once you recognize that people are gravitating to you, starting to ask you for your opinion, you've probably got something going on there. I've got a client right now that built a business – and this is so weird – around selling old music media. So, it's flipping CDs. Who buys a CD today? Why don't I get that? I didn't get that. I get it now. He's done six figures just teaching people how to look for CDs at garage sales and thrift stores. That's just amazing to me. You wouldn't think there was a community around that before this. I just never knew. So, there are a lot of niches – there are people that do nothing but needlepoint – there's a niche for darn near everything and it doesn't take a lot of people for you to reach out and find an audience that will either purchase from you or take your recommendations and purchase other things so you can become that influencer for that thing. ROB: Right. It's like the kind of the Kevin Kelly conversation, around a thousand true fans and there are lots of thousands of fans that are looking to be with him.  JOHN: Who did you say? ROB: Kevin Kelly, I think. JOHN: Who's Kevin Kelly? Wait a minute, is not the original? ROB: It might be. Where have you heard it most? JOHN: I'm just going to check this out because. Ok, says Kevin Kelly. Interesting. I'm thinking. Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. I want to talk about it, Ok? KK.org got it. Technically. ROB: Yep. JOHN: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's funny you say that. When it first came out, I was so into that. The reason why I was into it, just to go a little bit backwards. is because I'm a huge Prince fan. When Prince left the label, he left a multi-million-dollar deal with Warner Brothers. He was like, “You know what? You can have my entire song category. I just want to be free.” And I was like, “What the hell?” Right after that, he put out his own album. This was the early 90s, He used like a chat room, basically a chat board, to sell a hundred thousand records. Now, this is a man that sold 10 million records for just his Purple Rain album and now he's selling a hundred thousand. And he said, “You know what? I made more off that hundred thousand records than I ever made off of Purple Rain. And when that thousand true fans came out, I was like, ‘Wow'.” That is the basis from where I teach. If you can get a thousand true fans, you're in. ROB: That's amazing, I didn't know that story about Prince, but even in the music world, it brings me forward even to someone like Run the Jewels. Their first album, they put it on their website for free. And they kept on doing their albums for free. And now their albums are basically for free, even if on Spotify. But they were able to cut through a lot of noise and find their fans a lot faster, but still make a living and in a way that is far beyond just selling music. JOHN: Right. Most musicians don't make their money off selling music anyway. That's why they have to tour. Yeah. They have to tour to pay for everything because, I mean, the music business is an amazing thing. I don't want to go into how they really do their business, but let's put it like this: If you sell a million records, you're probably not a millionaire. ROB: Yeah, man. Well, John, this is this is quite a knowledge drop here. I hope that when we're back to meeting in person, people will get a chance to get out and see you and meet you and hear you. When people want to find you and when they want to find Colder Ice Media, where should they go to track you down? JOHN: Just put in Colder Ice. That's all you got to do. Put it in your browser and I will show up I'm Colder Ice on every platform. I am one of those branding crazy people that did that a long time ago. And I'm Colder Ice on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. I don't care where you go. Pretty much I own Colder Ice except for Tick-Tock. Somebody stopped me on Tick-Tock. ROB: Oh man, that's tough. Well maybe you can make a phone call at some point and get it unlocked for Colder Ice. The handle you reserve when you were early on Twitter, did you get another good Twitter handle early. JOHN: Man, you are just pulling out all the good stories. But my name is so common. John Lawson. When I first looked it up, there were like eight million John Lawsons. I had the story in my head. I remember this story that back in segregation – a lot of people don't understand this, but African-Americans are some very original entrepreneurs, not because we had the entrepreneurial spirit – but you had to be an entrepreneur if you wanted to feed your family. You couldn't I couldn't walk into the regular grocery store and buy groceries back then. You had to have a black-only grocery store. There was a black-only cab company. There was a black-only bus company, black-only hotels. All of that. Run by black people because “white people wasn't sharing.” But literally, those storefronts that were serving the black community, the day that integration became the norm, they would see their customers walk right past their storefronts to go shop downtown. They came up with the saying, “Well, I guess the white man's ice is colder.” And I always remember that: colder ice. That's the story. ROB: Wow, I didn't know that either and you're gracious in your history lessons. There's a lot of strong feelings tied up in that. I know. We're all trying to figure out different ways to actually be sorry and be better. JOHN: No, we're all getting better, man. That it's all good effects on your ear. That's the great story of America. ROB: Well, John, thank you for coming on again. I can't wait to get out and hear you share something in real life, but I appreciate you joining virtually as well. And I think our audience is better for it as well. JOHN: This was a great interview. I really had fun. ROB: Thank you. Thank you for listening. The marketing agency leadership podcast is presented by Converged. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting email info@convergehq.com or visit us on the web at Convergehq.com.

01:25 - Mia’s Superpower: Adaptability * Applicable Skills to Basic Computer Programming * Parsing Information * Research 05:31 - Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology * Linguistic Relativism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity) (Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis) 08:36 - Parenting While Having a Career in Tech 09:42 - Objectivity and Truth in Software Development 11:04 - Tech Parenthood (Cont’d) * Maternity Leave and Returning to Work * Part-Time Flexibility * “Keep-in-Touch Days” * Returning to Work as an Individual Experience * Discrimination & Stigma * Multitasking Expectations For All * Geographic Differences * Company Culture 24:21 - Tenure in Tech, Job-Hopping, and Juggling Parenthood * Parenting in View During the New COVID/Remote Work Era “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." – Elizabeth Stone: teacher and author Psychological Safety (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_safety) and Privilege Living and Operating in Fear Code-Switching (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching) Visibility of Parents 44:05 - Self-Identity in the Tech Industry * The Handbook of Return to Work (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B017YMXHM4?tag=amz-mkt-chr-us-20&ascsubtag=1ba00-01000-s1060-mac00-other-smile-us000-pcomp-feature-scomp-wm-5&ref=aa_scomp) 55:36 - Diversity Hiring Reflections: Mia: Psychological safety and privilege. John: “Just because I’m psychologically safe doesn’t mean everybody else is.” Laurie: The dichotomy of Mia and Christina’s experiences of being parents in tech. Christina: It is possible to remain optimistic that Moms in the United States will get better. Rein: Comfort and guilt in diversity hiring. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Mia Mollie De Búrca.

Last week we covered the basics of the traditional IRA and today we will shift our focus to the Roth IRA. John and Nick will once again explain the basics to this investment vehicle. We will also compare and contrast the Roth IRA to the traditional IRA.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comFor a transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/Transcript of Today's Show:----more----Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome back in to Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. We appreciate it. Maybe you've received this podcast through the team's newsletters or email blast. Or maybe you found us online on various different podcast outlets like Apple or Google or Spotify. Either way we appreciate your time. And we're going to spend a few minutes with John and Nick talking some more about IRAs. And this go round we're going to spend some time on the Roths. But first guys, what's going on? How are you?John: I'm good. So my one year old is sleeping through the night very well, so I feel like a new man.Speaker 1: That goes a long way that's for sure. Well kudos on that. And Nick, how you doing, buddy?Nick: I'm pretty good. My 15 year old dog is not sleeping through the night.I'm okay.Speaker 1: Yeah, getting up there. I've got a 13 year old dog and she's a pistol. I got a 22 year old daughter and I can't tell which one's a bigger pain in the butt, the dog or the daughter. But they're both doing pretty well. The kid's actually graduating from nuclear engineering school. Actually I get to go see her Friday, and she's now a petty officer. She ranked up in the Navy. So we're all proud of her.Nick: Congrats.Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that. I'll tell you what, let's not talk about babies, dogs or the Navy for just a minute. Let's talk about the Roth IRAs as I mentioned. So if you happened to catch the last podcast, we wanted to go through and talk about IRAs, about the vehicle. And we spent some time on the traditional side. So guys, do me a favor first, let's just do a recap, a little bit, of the traditional IRA before we switch over to the Roth so people have some context on that.Nick: So one of the biggest benefits for any sort of IRA account are some of the tax benefits. But one of the things that we wanted to remind everybody of, and this helps with IRA accounts, but also just really any investment account. Sometimes the feedback we've gotten is it's helpful for people to think about the different types of accounts in three phases of taxation. There's as the money goes in, is it taxed, is it not taxed. As the money grows, is it taxed, is it not taxed. And then when it comes out so that you can use it, is it taxed or not taxed. So for traditional IRA, you know the first one, as it goes in, in the last session we talked a little bit about it. Most of the time for most people it's not going to be taxed. But there will be some rules on when that's after tax money, it's going to grow tax deferred. So you're not going to get 1099 on it each year as it grows. And then when it comes out, it's going to be ordinary income tax.Nick: And then for the Roth IRA, which is what we're going to get into today, it is money that's already been taxed is going to go in. It's going to grow tax deferred. So [inaudible 00:02:43] 1099s, and then on the backside it's tax free. That's the comparison as you go through.Speaker 1: Okay. Since you brought it up, let's go ahead and just jump right into it. So John, give us a few things to think about on the Roth side. He already mentioned the tax deferred part. What are some other limitations and things of that nature we talked about like with the traditional, some numbers or some things we need to know?John: Yeah, so like the traditional IRA, the contributions are based off of earned income. So again, that does not count real estate state income, any interest, income like that, but earned income. And as far as the limits go, if you're below 50, [inaudible 00:03:20] 6,000. Anyone above 50 can do 1,000 catch-up, which gives you a 7,000 total. And just to again reiterate some mistakes we've seen where you can only contribute 7,000 between the two of you. You can't contribute 7,000 each. Okay, so 7,000 total.John: And something that some people aren't aware of is that even if, let's say one spouse is not working and is staying home for whatever reason. They are eligible to make a spousal contribution to an IRA, whether that's Roth or traditional, which is a nice feature because that does come up quite a bit. So to talk about the contributions of a Roth, we gave the example of traditional IRA as far as making a pre tax contribution. As Nick mentioned, the Roth is after tax dollars. So example of that, 100,000 of income for somebody, they make a $5,000 contribution to a Roth, their taxable income stays at 100,000 in that given year. So there's no tax benefit up front with the Roth IRA versus a traditional IRA, you could have a tax savings up front when you make the contribution if it's deductible.Nick: So from an eligibility standpoint, for a single person, somebody that makes under 122,000 can make a full contribution. If their income is between 122,000 and 137,000, there is a partial that can be made. If their income is over 137,000, they are not able to make a contribution to a Roth IRA. For married filing jointly, if their income is below 193,000, they can make contributions for both of them and their spouse. If the income is between 193 and 203,000, it's a partial. And if the household or the married filing jointly income is above or greater than 203,000, then they are not eligible to make the contribution.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. All right, so we've covered some of the contributions, some of the eligibility you mentioned already in the tax deferred growth part. What about access? Did we cover some things there?John: So one thing the eligibility and it's becoming more popular now with Roth 401k. So if you're not eligible to make a Roth IRA contribution, one thing to do is check with your employer and see if they offer a Roth 401k, which actually has no income limits for you to be able to participate in it, which is a nice [inaudible 00:05:37]Speaker 1: Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, absolutely. All right, that's a Roth 401k. Maybe we'll do another show about that another time. What about the access side, anything there? Is it the same 59 and a half, all that kind of stuff?John: So rules are fairly similar, where you as far as access getting to the account, there is the 59 and a half rule. And if you do draw early there's a 10% penalty on your earnings. And I stress earnings on that, because with a Roth IRA and I say this, consult with your tax preparer, tax advisor, we don't give tax advice. But with a Roth IRA, you can actually access what we call cost basis prior to 59 and a half without any penalty. I've seen a couple of people do it where basically let's say if you've put in 30,000 into your Roth in your account at 50. So 20,000 earnings, 30,000 is what you've put in, which is considered your cost basis. You can pull that 30,000 out without paying a penalty. It's just you have to keep very good records of your contribution amounts. And if you do pull it out, you have to work with your tax preparer to go ahead and let the IRS know that you pulled out a portion of your tax basis. And that's would avoid any type of a penalty on that.Speaker 1: All right, so we've covered several things on the Roth side, so the access, the eligibility, contributions, all that good kind of stuff. So let's just get into the fact that it's been hugely popular. It's been a very hot button issue for the last really couple of years. Obviously one of the reasons, we mentioned earlier that it's tax deferred. Really, the taxes are low, right? We're in a historically low tax rate. So one of the reasons that a Roth might be a good place to go, or a Roth conversion I guess I should say, is because of the tax thing. So what are some other reasons why the Roth is just really popular?Nick: You pointed to one of the biggest reasons from the standpoint of we are in historical low tax brackets. And one of the things that we talk about with clients and it really became evident towards the end of 2019 is, the thing that might be the quote unquote best strategy today, it may not be the best strategy five years down the road, 10 years down the road. So for most of the clients that we meet with, they're substantially overweight on pre-tax money and maybe only recently have started to build up Roth money. And we think it's really important to have balance and to have options in retirement. Your ability to be able to pivot and adjust to law changes, rule changes, market conditions, etc. are really important. And then part of that is not having to be forced to take out a required minimum distribution on a Roth helps you maintain that balance and maintain the nest egg, those tax free [inaudible 00:08:18] roles help give you flexibility and balance, the ability to be able to pass on funds to beneficiaries, Roth dollars.Nick: Especially if you have... Maybe your kids are high-income, you've done a good job planning. We go through the numbers, we built the plan and there's a pretty high probability that you're going to be passing on money to the kids. The rub, money is usually much better to plan or to pass down, because of the fact that it will be tax-free to them as well. So the ability to really create flexibility in your planning and strategies is one of the reasons that we think the Roths are a really important piece of the pie.John: Just to jump in. One thing, just backtracking to accessing it tax-free. Just a couple of rules with it is you have to be above 59 and a half. And you actually have to have had a Roth IRA account for at least five years. So an example would be, let's say I open one up at age 60. I'm above 59 and a half. The person cannot actually withdraw tax free until basically 65. So I have to wait five years and that's from the first Roth I ever started up. So one thing that we typically will work with clients is if they're eligible, we might just go ahead and start a Roth IRA just to start that five year window.Speaker 1: Okay. All right. That's good. Yeah. Good information to know on that. Now with the beneficiary thing and passing things along, is the change in the SECURE act, does that make a difference in the Roth as well? Is there anything there that would pertain to people if they're thinking about it that they should definitely be checking with you guys on before doing a conversion or something like that?John: Yeah, so I believe we're doing a four part session to this. We're going to talk about conversions, but yeah, that makes conversions a little more appealing where you have to pull the money out over a 10 year period now. Where basically at least if you have to pull it over 10 years, there's actually no tax hit. So as your IRA gets bigger, if you're pulling out of a $1 million IRA over a 10 year period, that's going to really affect your tax rate. If it was all Roth money, it would have no bearing on your taxes.Speaker 1: Gotcha. Okay. All right. Yeah, and we are going to continue on with this conversation on a future podcast about which one might be right for you and all those good kinds of things. Nick, anything else that we may have overlooked in there we need to throw in?Nick: No, I just can't really say it enough from the standpoint of building in flexibility is key. Most of the people that listen to the podcasts are going to have pretax money, but if they don't have any Roth money then just getting started can be really important to build that up. Because even if they're within a few years of retirement, just remember that we're still planning for 30, 40 years down the road. Having money that compounds over a long period of time and then has tax free withdrawals on the backside is a pretty significant leverage point and benefit.Speaker 1: Okay, one final question I'm going to ask you guys is you sometimes hear people say, if I'm still working, can I contribute or should I contribute to both kinds, the traditional or the Roth? What do you say when someone asks that type of question? Should someone do both the traditional for the tax reasons and then the Roth for the non-tax? What's your answer?John: We'll answer that in the next session.Speaker 1: Nicely done. Look at him teeing that up. There you go, folks. All right, I'll tell you what. We will take care of that on the next session and that way you have a reason to come back. A cliffhanger if you will. So if you've got questions about the Roth IRA, make sure you talk with your advisor about that. If you're not working with an advisor, you certainly should be. Reach out to John and Nick and give them a call at PFG Private Wealth. And you can reach them at 813-286-7776. That's the number to dial. 813-286-7776 here in the Tampa Bay area or go to their website, check them out online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That is pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you can get those next episodes as they come out. Nick, John, thanks for your time this week.Speaker 1: I hope everybody has a great week and you guys enjoy yourself and continue to get some good sleep while that baby's resting, all right?John: Hopefully it continues. I think it will.Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Nick, appreciate your time, buddy. Take care.Nick: Thanks. Have a good one.Speaker 1: We'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined with the guys from PFG Private Wealth, John and Nick.

Welcome to our new listeners and our new members in the Hate to Weight Discussion Group on Facebook! We’ve seen a few new faces in the group and we’re always excited when you can join us for the live show. No matter where we are in our weight-loss journey, it seems we are constantly testing and adjusting. John’s schedule plus the diuretic he’s supposed to take wreaks havoc on his eating window with Intermittent Fasting. And Emily had a day of Emotional Triggers that would have sent her into a binge-eating tailspin otherwise. And we had a lot of interaction in the chatroom this week, which we always love and appreciate! “One bad day doesn’t make a bad week.”  — Annette from our Facebook Group in the Live Chat! New to Hate to Weight? Make sure you’re subscribed so you’ll never miss an episode and so you can listen to all the back episodes! Don’t forget, you can interact with us while we record by going to the Hate to Weight Discussion Group on Facebook. We record every Thursday at 11 a.m.! Call in your WINS or RANTS anytime! 760-WINNING -— 760-946-6464 Meet Your Hosts: John Bukenas is a podcast editor from New Jersey. He started the podcast doing keto and intermittent fasting but is now gearing up for bariatric surgery (probably) later this summer. Emily Prokop is a podcast editor and consultant from Connecticut. She has been doing Intermittent Fasting since April 2018 and has lost about 70 pounds. She started with 16:8 and is now doing 18:6. In This Episode: John’s trying to get more steps in and is sore today. Welcome to our new listeners! We kind of throw you into the deep end at the beginning of this episode as we explain why we call Shark Week what it is. So, if you are offended by women’s menstruation, turn away now. And while Emily had a day of a bunch of triggers, she realized that after 80 episodes, she finally has the mindset not to run to food! John is testing and adjusting his eating window when it comes to Intermittent Fasting. BUT! He realizes that he doesn’t have to shame himself anymore. Yay! John had a bad recipe experience and we are determined to find a way to enjoy cooking. Emily tried InstaCart for the first time and we got to avoid the Big Kid Toy Aisle of Aldi. John gives us some more Dude Cooking ideas and we want to know, what is the food you can’t make for yourself? Fun Tip: At the beginning of the year, go through your pantry and it’s easy to find the cans and containers that have expired. John JUST realized that Chia Pets come from Chia Seeds! “You DON’T throw out Ferrero Rocher, you just don’t.” It’s always interesting when we have to explain our diets to people. We both really love the science behind Intermittent Fasting and we talk a bit about it. We have more resources over at HatetoWeight.com. So many great #WinningWednesday Posts! We have really worked on our triggers over the course of the show and we’re getting stronger with every episode! Later, Weighters! We’d love to hear your scale and non-scale victories! Come celebrate your wins over in the Hate to Weight Discussion Group on Facebook!  Links Mentioned: Emily’s HappyLight CPAP.com InstaCart Chia Seed Pudding Recipe Follow our amazing listener Theresa Crout for her Annual VooDood Challenge! Website | Facebook | Instagram  Want more resources? Check out our resources page! Join Us On Our Journey: Join our Facebook group: HatetoWeight.com/Facebook Follow Emily and John on Instagram Join us on Twitter: twitter.com/HateToWeight Visit our Website: HatetoWeight.com Email us: HatetoWeight@gmail.com Check out John on Brilliant Observations and She Podcasts Check out Emily’s other podcast: The Story Behind Like the show? Check out T-shirts inspired by Hate to Weight by Mark Des Cotes from The Resourceful Designer and Podcast Branding  Edited by John Bukenas of Audio Editing Solutions

We continue our discussion on social security this week. Today's show will focus on how you can integrate social security in your retirement plan and some variables you may need to look out for when doing so.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com----more----Transcript of today's show:Speaker 1: Thanks for coming back in with us. As we talk here on retirement planning redefined, we always appreciate you joining us here on the podcast. With John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth, and we're going to continue our multi-part series on social security. We talked about a few things last go around on the podcast, and we're going to continue that on this time as well. John, how you doing buddy? How's things going?John: I'm doing good. How are you doing?Speaker 1: I'm hanging in there. Doing pretty well. I think I'm doing about the same as Nick. At the time as podcast, our teams did not fare well this past weekend in football. How are you doing, Nick?Nick: Good. While we lost, I'm still cautiously optimistic.Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. That's good.Nick: I'm okay.Speaker 1: That's how fans do it, right? You still stay optimistic even when they break your heart over and over. We'll save that for another time, but I do want to continue on our conversation about social security. We had some good chat the last time. We has some good conversation about things to consider, so we're going to continue this piece on. As we teased the last time, and if you didn't listen to it, make sure you go and check out the prior episode. You can go to PFGPrivateWealth.com. That is PFGPrivateWealth.com, and you can subscribe to the podcast, Retirement Planning Redefined, you can subscribe to that and listen to past episodes as well as future episodes. Let's get into this part. We're going to talk about how to integrate, really, social security into your retirement plan. So what's a few steps to start and start thinking about when it comes to the integration of it?John: Yeah, you know, one thing we wanted to touch on with social security is just how important it is in someone's retirement plan. A lot of people don't realize it really equates to almost 30 to 40% of their retirement income, and a big factor of why it's important, it's actually inflation protected. On average, historically, social security is average about 2.6%. So it's really nice to have a set of income that's actually going to be going up with cost of living adjustments. It makes a big difference.John: Just kind of give a quick example. Let's say if you're starting social security now, it's $2,000 per month. Within 20 years at 2.6%, that'll be about $3,340 or so, which is a big jump in income. It's important to understand how valuable that is in how much that really does help out someone's retirement plan.Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about some taxation and some benefits there. Nick, what are some things to think about when it comes to the benefits of the taxation?Nick: From the standpoint of I guess making sure that people understand how social security works. From conversations that we've had, a lot of people are under the impression that because social security was funded via the payroll taxes that we talked about in the last session, they're under the impression that there's not going to be any sort of income tax when you start to receive it.Speaker 1: Right.Nick: As many people do know, that is incorrect. The formula that they use to calculate how much of the benefit is taxable to somebody is a little bit convoluted. Essentially what they do is they look at a modified adjusted gross income number, which includes your adjusted gross income, half of the amount that you receive from social security, and then a tax exempt interest, aka, interest from municipal bonds. They add that together, and then they really kind of look at a chart. And then dependent upon if you are single or married, it's going to determine what percentage of your benefit is going to be includable in your taxable income.Nick: If we were to say that your benefit amount was 2,000 a month, and your combined, that income formula that we kind of talked about, puts your income over about $38,000. 85% of your benefit, or about 1,700 of the 2,000, is going to be added to the other income sources that you have to determine how much you're going to pay in tax. We just like to make sure that people understand that although that benefit is coming in, oftentimes they look at the gross amount, and they don't necessarily understand that, hey, once you're on Medicare, your Medicare, it gets deducted out of that. You're probably going to want to have some sort of federal income tax withheld from it. That benefits starts to drop down. So that's something that we always make sure we focus on and make sure that people understand.John: When we're doing planning, and people find out that the social security is taxed, they are not happy.Nick: Yeah, and sometimes we get asked when did that happen or how did that happen? It really happened in the 80s, during the Reagan administration, is when it took place. Realistically, for most of the people that we're working with, they've been in the working world for 30 years, and that's been in place. It's not something that's necessarily very new or anything like that. There's really minimal ways that you can actually reduce the impact on taxes. Realistically, the only other sort of income that's not includable in that is any withdrawals that you'll take out of a Roth IRA. So dependent upon their overall situation, and dependent upon the structure of what they're going to have to take out, required minimum distributions and those sorts of things, we may look at different strategies, like converting traditional money to Roth money, and determining if that makes sense.Nick: I'll say this, that people do tend to hate taxes, and I know that sounds kind of funny, but the point being is that sometimes they'll try to make irrational decisions just to try to deal with maybe a tax issue without figuring out that hey, you know, they may only be paying an effective tax rate of 12 or 13% on their income, which in the scheme of things is really low. And so making sure that they understand that, and that they don't need to make rash decisions with how they structure their decisions is an important kind of thing. Social security just kind of factors in, it's important for people to understand how it works and how it's taxed. It's more of just kind of an FYI sort of thing.Speaker 1: Well, really good information here. We're talking about how to integrate social security in a retirement plan. John, did you have another point about the taxes here on this?John: Yeah, so one thing that we do in planning is we really start to map out someone's taxes into retirement, and a big chunk of that is their required minimum distribution age 70 and a half. If we can see how much taxes they're going to pay, we can really make some strategies for someone's social security based on that. But again, the plan kind of gives you the roadmap so you can make the right decision based on your situation.Nick: And to kind of add on to that. More specifically, when we map that out and we look at it, what we're looking to see is when those required minimum distributions are due at 70 and a half, because people, by default, like to put them off as long as they can. Sometimes it will actually make sense to start taking money out of their IRAs first and wait on social security. Whereas the default for most people is take social security first, and then take out the money for the required minimum distributions. Structuring those decisions together as one is a really important way that you can kind of add in some tax planning into your overall retirement planning.Speaker 1: All right, so we're going to continue our conversation on the next podcast as well, part three if you will, about social security. But before we get out of here for this particular episode. Any other thoughts about some of the things we've covered today, gents?John: Yeah, so it's kind of going back to what we first talked about with social security being important in someone's plan and inflation. The reason that is is when you have a portion of your retirement income that's guaranteed, it really helps us kind of map out how we should invest or basically implement a distribution strategy from the rest of the assets. So having that base of, let's say, 30,000 guaranteed income coming in, that's going up with cost of living, helps us really map out the rest of the investments and how we should strategize behind that.Nick: I think another good tool or, you know... Because as an example, my father has a pension, he's a retired fireman, and I have to constantly remind my mother what kind of the equivalent of a lump sum of dollars would be if he would have a lump sum versus the amount that he gets every single month through the pension. If we're saying on average the social security benefit amount for somebody that's been working for their full life, and waits until their full retirement age to take it, is around 2,000 per month. Let's say it's a dual family household, so we're talking about 4,000 per year. That's really the equivalent of a safe withdrawal rate and a million bucks.Nick: One of the super common questions that people ask us is how much can I take out of my retirement account each year? The safe withdrawal rates around 4%, so 4% on a million, $40,000 a year. 2,000 a month times two is closer to $48,000 a year. So we're talking about one plus million bucks. If that money was sitting in an account at least generating income, even though you couldn't invade principle, that sometimes gives people some perspective on how valuable that social security income really is to them in our overall planning.Speaker 1: Well again, we are talking about social security. We've gone through a couple of pieces the last couple of podcasts. We're going to do another one coming up in just a couple of weeks here, and continue on with our conversation with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth, around social security. If you have questions and concerns, and you probably do because social security can be quite confusing to a lot of us who don't deal with this every day. Well then reach out to the guys, give them a call and let him know, because they do obviously work in this arena every day. Having a conversation, getting a second opinion if you've already got one, maybe you have no plan at all, or maybe you've had no conversations around it,. Well, just reach out and let them know that you'd like to talk.Speaker 1: 813-286-7776 is how you can reach out to them if you'd like. here in the Tampa Bay area. 813-286-7776. And of course, you can also just go to the website, PFGPrivateWealth.com. That is PFGPrivateWealth.com. Check out the team on the website there as well. You can also subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you choose, Apple or Google, or so on and so forth, and listen to past episodes as well as future episodes. So guys, I'm going to say bye this week for you, and we'll be back next time here on the podcast, so make sure you tune in for more Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. We'll see you next time.

John Shaughnessy has solved the mystery of the ancient pyramids built all over the world. Amazing lost scientific knowledge on how the moon is a grandmother clock that regulates large cycles on Earth, like ice-ages and interglacial periods. If you're interested in the civilizations of the ancient past, Shaughnessy proposes a revelatory, mind-blowing new theory... MENTIONED ON THE SHOW Why the Pyramids Were "Really" Created by Brandon Ellis GUEST LINKS - JOHN SHAUGHNESSY Pyramid Gravity Force 1 Video lecture Pyramid Gravity Force: How the Earth's Pyramids Work by John Shaughnessy There is Something About the Moon... by Wendy Salter and John Shaughnessy HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT John: Well, I'm John Shaughnessy. I come from Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts a few miles outside of Boston, downtown Boston in a small suburb. I first got introduced into space, generally the... whatever you want to call it, the Cosmo. I got a part time job working on the weekends at the Museum of Science. And in the Museum of Science, they have a place called the Planetarium. I was taking tickets. I sold tickets to the Planetarium show and I just fell in love with it. I was doing special effects. I was involved with running around during the show and changing slides in the old Don Howard projectors. I had to place myself Saturday, Sunday mornings, I'd get in there early. I had to place myself, this big giant sized projector, I could... After I knew what I was doing, I was click shutting the lights down and having my own light show and... That lasted about two years but it sowed a seed in me. Later on, like, I've always had, say, psychic anomalies that would just come in and I would know stuff before it happened or... to the point where I freaked out my friends I was hanging out with. You know, I just shrugged it off, made a joke out of it, because I didn't know what was actually happening. Back in the day, you didn't have a class in middle school on how to deal with your psychic personality, you know what I mean? Slade: I still don't think they have that on the curriculum. John: Yeah! You know, there's reasons for it, you know? It scares the hell out of people. Well, the ones that are in control, anyhow. That all being said, I joined the navy. It was my first geographical cure and you know, jumped into the service. I was on a small ship, the USS Miller and we did a couple of major cruises. I was at three 6-month deployments. One of them, it was like a small shakedown cruise just going up and down the eastern seaboard, say, from Halifax to Puerto Rico and maybe down to the Bermuda Triangle. One particular day in the Bermuda Triangle, I had an event and that kind of shook me to the core. You know, we're a mighty ship and it was a clear blue day. Not a cloud in the sky and the ocean was the same colour as the sky, really. You couldn't tell where the horizon began and end. We just lost power - this mighty ship with backup generators, batteries. Everything just went completely dark, still, quiet. There was no waves. Just amazing, and it was about 10 minutes of just sitting there. The eerie thing is it wasn't a lot of talking. It was like we were just looking into each others' eyes, because we had little battery lights that lit up so you could catch people's faces. It was like a show made up of mimes, you know? We were just looking at each other. It was, What's going on? What's happening here? So it was pretty profound. After we got the power back, generators finally kicked on. We got going and really, there was no real investigation that actually came down to the crew. I wasn't an Officer. I was just an enlisted man, so it kind of triggered something in me and I started chasing the paranormal, you know? One of my favorite books back then, I forget the author, it was 'The Probability of the Impossible'. It was like, maybe hundreds of incidences where things just defied logic and science. So I just got hooked into that and the Bermuda Triangle. There was a lot of books back then of the Bermuda Triangle and von Däniken. It was Erich von Däniken's work I grabbed a lot. Chariots of the Gods. Started reading a lot. I was always interested in the unknown, the mysteries. If somebody couldn't figure something out, I'd show up. But if everybody had it all figured out, it didn't interest me. So any puzzle or conundrum wasn't working right or something like that, I kind of enjoyed solving those problems. It's just how my brain worked and a lot of times, I would get intuitive... I'm the type of guy who would get from A to C without going to B. A lot of areas in my mind.. I have the mind where I can put things together inside my brain. I don't have to draw things. I can just, you know, build up systems and troubleshoot without having to do the hard work on the bench, so to speak. I can walk it through and all that while working and kind of works like that. So I got into the power industry. I'm retired right now. I got into generating electricity at the utility level. Gas turbines and boilers, steam turbines, so pretty large machines. 100,000 horsepower. I got into hydroelectric dam operations. I used to supervise, I was a supervisor in the big utilities, Con Edison Northeast Utilities, and retired now. So that's good. So I can put more of my work into my real passion and that's these leftover enigmas that seem to be sprinkled all over the planet. One particular time I got into... I was watching, getting into the pyramids. I touch topics and I just dig deep into them. I read all I could. I just get obsessed with it and I just hit a wall. I just hit a block. I was fascinated with gravity early on. I thought that was an awesome field to get into and try and unlock and basically get some kind of anti-gravity machines going. I did a lot of experiments. I was able to manipulate the weight of an object in an apothecary scale with rotating mass. As I got deeper and deeper into this, I would be reading Einstein's theory of special relativity, a lot of Tesla's work. Self-taught, really. Whatever I kind of got obsessed with, I just dug into it until I got to the bottom or got bored with it and couldn't get any further. One particular day I came into the living room. The TV was on and Michio Kaku's a pretty famous physicist out of New York. He was cutting right to a commercial and he kind of just, the last words he said as I was doing the dead drop into the lazyboy was, 'We still don't know what these pyramids are doing!' Then it just went off to a commercial. I muted it like I usually do. I just had an epiphany in my brain, just a thought going, I wonder what's on the other side of Giza? You know, the Giza Plateau pyramids. I've always had globes around me. If you came into my house, there's globes, atlases, maps and things of that nature. So I was pretty up on geography and, like I said, I got a little bit of training when I was 16 at the Museum of Science because I was obsessed with how the universe worked. So I got up, I walked across the living room, looked at the globe. There's a floor-mount globe about a three feet high and I found Giza and I spun it 180 degrees. Same latitude. Not antipodal, latitude. My finger landed right on a Hawaiian island chain, right? So that's strange. Just my background in gravity and the tidal lock with the moon and things like that automatically clicked in subconsciously, like this, the only real connection here is gravity. It's such a large distance. Therein lies the basis, the foundation of a theory that I've put out into the world with books, videos, talks, conferences and so on and so forth. So as time went on, next couple of weeks, my brain was just set on fire. I was driving down the road writing down notes. It's like you got this proverbial download of 30,000 words in about 5 minutes. And you're like back-engineering what you just took in kind of, type of thing. Because it was pretty profound. You know, the hair on the back stands up, on your neck stands up. You get the shivers. You know you're on to something. Long story short, I started saying, If Giza lines up with Hawaiian hot spots, what are the other pyramids doing? You know. So you gotta back out of my early theory that there's a connection between the two and say, Well if there's a connection between those two there's gotta be a connection to the other ones. Lo and behold, every time I went to a large cluster of pyramids, a large pyramid, 180 degrees and on the same latitude, there would be a volcano that aligned with it. So the pyramid at sundown in Mexico aligned with Mount Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, which is an ancient volcano. It has a, if you can believe it, an alien-shaped, elongated, not alien, elogated shape skull for a magma plug, and it's got huge claws at the base of it and nobody knows where it came from, who built it or anything. They rival the size of the Spinx, so that's interesting. Then I went over to the Chen pyramids, a large cluster of pyramids and that aligned with the... ironically, the Bermuda Island, which, unbeknownst to me at the time, it was made up of two ancient dormant super calderas that actually make up that island. And then there's El Tigre. It lines up with the Andaman Islands. Down in Guatemala, those pyramids are twice as high as Giza. As I said, El Tigre, the other name escapes me but... La Dante. It was like, 'Okay, these pyramids are lining up with these volcanos, or this strip of volcanic islands, or another island with a volcano.' So after I get up to 20, and then 30, and then 40, I said, 'Okay, alright. There's definitely a connection here.' And I'm like, at the time I didn't have it all figured out. I don't know if I have it all figured out now but I'm pretty deep into the theory. I was like, 'Okay, what's driving this...' My mind at the time, I just felt like gravity was static on the earth, that my concept of gravity was static gravity like, we have the gravitational field and it's x amount of meters per second, the force of it, and... After writing the book, I wrote my book and then a lot of times you get as much information as you have, and you have to get it out of you. You have to put it in writing and so I put my first book out, Pyramid Gravity Force. During that process of putting that all together, if you look at the cover of my book, it's the earth, the moon, and a large pyramid. A large super-imposed pyramid on the planet earth and I got a little one-line diagram that goes from the pyramid down to the core and back out to the moon. So that's where the gravitational energy was coming from that was actually connecting these spots together. Now, at this particular geographical time, geological time, sorry, geological time frame that we're in right now, the Nile Valley pyramids are aligned with the Hawaiian hot spot. That particular alignment is active right now. That in and of itself is, I call the Hawaiian hot spot the Magma Relief Valve of the planet in that particular location. It's the only constant erupting volcano because it's artificially controlled from the large pyramids on the other side of the planet. So basically we spin through the gravitational field of the moon, and that is the perpetual motion. This is a perpetual motion energy machine and you get the feedback from that energy when you go down to the ocean and see the tides roll in and roll out. I mean, this is a massive energy connection between this heavenly body we call the moon. So I said, 'Okay, it is the engine, the mechanics behind the system that basically lowers the gravitational field. When the pyramids of the Giza plateau spin through the moon's gravitational field, it lowers the gravitational field under the Hawaiian hotspot and allows that magma to dribble out. Now, granted, different alignments out there in the solar system like we just went through, not to get off topic. I gotta watch out or we won't be coming back. I mean, this is a real weird alignment anyway. I'll just touch this. Hopefully I can get back to where I was going. Slade: I'll bring you back in a minute. I'll bring you back. John: Well, I mean, this is where I've sold a minimum in conjunction with that, at the same time, we have all the planets on one side of the sun. You have this huge draw of gravitational pull collectively by all the planets, and that's why... Consequently, we have this very hot summer that we just went through. On top of when the sun is at a solar minimum, it actually puts out more radiation. It's actually hotter. Most people can probably identify.. when they walk outside, it feels like someone's jumping on your head. Slade: Yup. John: Pushing down on you. It's like someone's deflecting your field. It's like you're carrying a 50lb backpack around everywhere you go. Slade: It's making us feel a little crazy, right? John: Oh yeah, definitely. It's a lot of energy coming in and most people probably intuitively will just duck in from one shaded place to the next. From one air conditioning place to the next just to stay out of it. Anyway, so that all being said, getting back to the moon and the pyramid here. When we spin through the, the alignment of the pyramids and the Giza Plateau, they're set up in the Orion configuration, or dogleg. The smallest pyramid cuts into the moon's gravitational field. Because we spin in to the moon's gravitational field. So what this does, this way they have it set up, so if you can visualize, the earth spins in to the moon's gravitational field, it sets up the Fibonacci vortex, okay? And then the other larger two pyramids, GP2 and GP1, follow suit and flow through it. Now that creates a huge gravitational vortex in that zone and it goes through the planet and lowers the gravitational field on the Hawaiian hot spot and allows the magma to freeflow . That all being said, that's kind of the mechanics of what's going on with Hawaiian hot spot and the Giza Plateau pyramids. Slade: So it's controlling the volcanic forces at work in the earth, right? It's stabilizing something, right? Like what's the purpose here? John: When you step back, the god built the planets. If you go back and all the, you go into the ancient texts, it was built by higher minded beings, God, whatever you choose. And you put a planet together like Earth, you're gonna ask, What are my biggest challenges here? One of the biggest challenges on earth is magma control, like controlling tectonic plate slips. Most of our volcanism, volcanic activity on the planet are, build up pressure, explode, kill everything for a hundred miles around and seal it back up again. So that all being said, I mean you've got the Ring of Fire, which we have, you know, consistent volcanic activity. And right in the middle of the Ring of Fire is the relief valve of the Hawaiian hot spot. So it's actually, when we do go into these alignments I just alluded to this past summer, well since April. We went in, all the planets are on one side of the solar system. When that happens, going back just 120 years, you can go back thousands of years now, but just the last 120 years that actually happened SIX times. Every time that happened, we had a 3000% increase in volcanic activity on the planet. So, stepping back, your inner solar system, your planets in the solar system and it's affected by outside gravitational influences by the planets. So you're the host planet for intelligent life. So you want to keep it calm. So what you do is, you build some pyramids and you create this relief valve using the gravitational force of the moon, which is the biggest player of gravity on the planet. The other planets do increase and decrease that force, but nevertheless the moon is the biggest gravitational force. When these energies come into play on the planet, and create magma pressure, and especially in intergalacial pressure like right now we're in the warm up period, so you're in expansion, the poles are rising, the plates are getting squished together on the equatorial region because of heavier ocean. So you get a lot of... we're going from pumpkin-shaped to spherical-shaped. So you're in a constant changing environment. So this tool, this mechanism, this engineering, that's been on the planet for eons, I think it comes and goes. These things have been, probably have been rebuilt before. These pyramid systems, they've been rebuilt as the little ones underneath have been... As a technology comes back into the human consciousness and mainstream grabs it and says, 'Hey, these things are important. We'd better do something about this.' They're actually playing a critical role in our survival. And that re-emphasizes the rebuild and the physics and everything else that comes along with this. To sum that up, that's what this is. It's terraforming, and it's also, I hate to use the word geo-engineering, because it's got a bad rap lately, but it's geo-stabilizing. In essence, when you get control over... You saw that amount of magma come out of the Hawaiian hot spot just recently because the alignment of the planets and solar minimum piggyback. And that alignment we had a lot of magma... If you didn't have the Hawaiian hot spot, the lower gravitational field with the pyramids and the Nile valley manipulating that and allow that magma just to flow out freely, and after that the Hawaiian hot spot just sealed up for a year or so. It'd have been a catastrophic explosion beyond biblical proportions. We could have been going into the Stone Age a lot sooner, so... And what that particular location does, it lowers the lower mantle and upper mantle pressures and allows it to bleed out. And it prevents super calderas like Yellowstone Super Caldera from erupting. There's another giant super caldera in South America. So there's a reason behind the madness. All the magma. No pun intended. But there's a reason behind magma control so that's what it's all about. That's kind of where I've pulled this all into some serious scientific theory. And what backs up my gravitational theory is the moon and the high tide. A lot of people aren't aware that on the moon side, you get the high tide. On the moonless side, 180 degrees opposed to it, you get a high tide also. I call that the moonless high tide. So you get the moonless high tide and a moon high tide. Therein lies the evidence. Physical, repeatable, observable evidence that this is how gravity works on the planet. Recently, just recently, like the last couple of weeks, Russian scientists released a study and got published, I think, by Itmo University, I forget the name of the university in Russia. They built the Giza GP1 to scale using the same material. And what they did was they submerged it in bath of, not a bath, they submerged it with electromagnetic energy. And what they were able to find was, the three chambers inside the pyramids, the king's chamber, the queen's chamber and the subterranean chamber actually were focal points, okay? They were concentrating the energy inside these focal points. And then they did the same thing with the non-ionizing radiation, we know it as radio waves, some form of radio wave. They got the same result. They published the result. I put a, it's in my book, you know, the different language but the pyramids of subatomic particle lenses and they published the videos on YouTube in my name on pyramids being lenses. And I've also put down, in the chambers were the focal points. I've gone out and spoke about this. I had a Russian interview on, it was like their version of the History channel. I got about 15 minutes. They were really great. They do a lot of great graphics, bring in my theories and about four years ago, three years ago I think it was, three or four years ago, so I got on Russian TV and I got to expel on that. Somebody must've been listening, 'Maybe this guy's got something going', they were actually pretty advanced in their search for understanding what the pyramids do and what it's all about. So that all being said, that came back recently to me as, okay, proof positive, your theory's right in a lot of aspects. They're actually coming back with physical repeatable evidence that are being done in controlled labs. So the next step is getting the industry to, the mainstream paranormal New agers to look at these alignments that are... There's a connection between the pyramids and volcanoes. These things are... You're not putting 6 million tons of stone together to run a couple of light bulbs, you know? It's just... It's not... And I'm not putting down anybody that comes up with theories of what have you, because it's those theories that we all build our theories on. You know. Get higher and try to figure out what's going on. Slade: So what is this... What's coming up? What does this mean? You talked about the fact that this is controlling the ice ages, right? There's going to be a pole swap at some point, correct? John: Well I'm probably the only one out there that's not in the pole-swap camp. Slade: Okay. John: But I'll tell you why. Getting into my science there, and looking at the planet and knowing how the subatomic particles flow, just like the astrophysics did, theoretical physics community and all the what do you call it, neuron, electrons, galvatron, croutons, whatever. They all come in from the poles and they go out the equatorial region and they rotate back in, just like magnetic flux line, they call it. That's so famous. That image of the magnetic field on the planet that creates the Van Allen belts and so on and so forth. But what these, I call them 'planet builders', what they've done is they've created a huge... The Antarctica continent is shaped like a hexagon, just like Jupiter and Saturn. In effect, it kind if ties in with the tetrahedron. So it's a tetrahedron. In my book, the tetrahedron, the shape of this particular continent, sets up to be a subatomic land. It's like a giant pyramid. It concentrates the inflow of subatomic particles in the southern hemisphere of the South pole. Now if you look at the North pole, there's nothing really up there. It's water. Ice. There's no giant land, so... What you have to visualize is that you're going to have a higher flow coming in to the North pole and a slower flow coming in to the South pole, because the continent is right there. Antarctica. So what that does is slows down the subatomic flow. And it also slows down, or blocks the flow, to singularity. So you have a larger, say like a 70% of subatomic flow in the North and 30% in the South. But the flows are actually going at different velocities. So this is what locks in the magnetic field. Slade: So this is maintaining the magnetic field and it's also ultimately making the planet more habitable? John: Right. Slade: Without it, it'd be too chaotic and volcanic for us to even be here. John: Yeah, exactly. So it's all part of a huge system. Anywhere you go, any continent you go to. That's why I'm a naysayer on the magnetic pole swap because the people that built this planet, that did the last rebuild terraforming, they're geniuses. They're not gonna... They don't want to come back and rebuild pyramids every year. They do it and they make it last. And they see the human consciousness when it needs to be and when we get to that level so we can understand the technology and re-utilize it and build it and re-build it. And things of that nature. Slade: Let's talk about that for a second. So first of all, let me ask you: When you talk about the planet builders, are we talking Atlantis, Lemuria, Ancient Aliens kind of concept? Where do you come in in that whole thing? Do you think somebody came here and set this all up for us? John: Yes. Slade: Well tell me a little bit about that. Because you're obviously a very science-minded guy, but then you also, you do mention Edgar Cayce. And you talked about how you were intuitive, that you get these downloads, which was crazy because this is the first time you and I ever talked, but the people who listen to this show, that's something we talk about a lot. So when you say it's coming into the consciousness, talk to me about, are you one of the people who's bringing this through currently? Do you see yourself as, okay, I'm meant to bring this information in and put it back into human consciousness? John: Yes. Yes, I feel with the trying to stay humble and keeping your ego in check is like... And yeah, I feel that my information is radical. It's new. It's not mine. This stuff was already here, you know? I'm just saying, 'Hey, I think this is the way these things work.' And this is the proof that I have. This is the physical evidence. So yes. I think there's a, it's part of the human consciousness. We get seated at different ages in the human history. This last go from the ice age into the intergalacial period was, I feel that was when humanity peaks at the peak of the intergalacial period. And then we go into the ice age and we drop off and we forget everything. Only to come back and do it again the next intergalacial period. Hopefully we won't be on the oil economy. We got sidetracked into this oil economy by some corrupt individuals. But anyways... Slade: So this is waves of rise and fall of human civilization, right? John: Right. Slade: Okay. John: Yeah. Like it's, I'll just make a point. Michael Cremo, I don't know if you know. He's done a lot of work and he's got a lot of evidence that modern man has been down here for a minimum of half a million years. There's evidence all over the place that supports this. Obviously it's buried because it goes up against the narrative, whatever the narrative is, at any particular day, so... It's just a rise and fall of humanity. Now to come into this environment, you have to take the physical form of a human being. Whether it's just walk-ins or people just coming in to you who are what have you, or you're just a real mature soul and you've ascended to a real high level of consciousness. You've got the Buddha, Gandhi... You have a lot of very mature souls. Jesus Christ and going on and on and on. I'm just talking. There's a lot of them. I'm not getting everybody obviously. I don't want to offend anybody. Just saying, there's... We get seated with these master, these masters, really, of human consciousness. And in the middle of that, we get people like Tesla, Einstein, Newton, Galileo, a lot of the Greek philosophers, you know. They come in and they pass a message along. They bring in ideas, technology, concepts, sciences, and things of that nature. So it's just a re-circulation of the human consciousness on the planet. And it's like the old proverbial saying that your soul is here to have a human experience, not the other way around, you know? So... And I think it's a tool for growth. For the spirit, if you believe in reincarnation. You know, you keep coming back and hopefully every time you come back, you utilize that space and time to ascend to a higher state of consciousness. Then maybe eventually you don't have to come back. You can just sit up on the moon and watch the big show. Slade: So in your theory, the information that you're accessing, is kind of held in the collective consciousness. Some people call it the Akashic Records. There's some other dimension where this knowledge exists and different ones of us tap into it and... I actually think a lot more people tap into it than we even give credit for. You know, there are those Ascended Masters that are kind of like the rock stars. Then there's a bunch of us that do it a little bit here and there, right? Just humbly, you know, thinking of it that way. John: Yeah. It's a collective group. Yeah, I wouldn't be where I was at... Maybe I'm supporting somebody I don't know, and they're going to come up with something that's going to add to it and... You know, the Russian scientist's doing this research and then... The time spans are amazing. I mean, you're only down here for a short amount of time and all of a sudden, you're starting to get this wave of science, you know? And it's all coming together collectively from different parts of the world. And from places you'd never expect. It's like, we're a very small pocket of humanity. People in this new age, 'truth seekers', they call them, I call us. We're not satisfied with the story. We're lifting up the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, going behind the curtain to see who's running the machine, you know? So we're a small pocket. We do add to the human family. We do add a consciousness that helps, will help in the future, I think, to navigate us through changes that are coming. And that's what I think it's all about. Slade: Do you think there's something we're supposed to do in particular, like, do the pyramids need to be refurbished in some way? Do they need to be maintained or something like that? John: Right, I mean, my mind's always going on about that. Where are we at? What do we need to do? Are we at a critical stage right now? Four years ago, they came up with there's three times the amount of water trapped in the transition zone between the upper and the middle mantle. And I'm thinking, so that ties in to the volcanism. That ties in to the magma control. A lot of times, I just get overwhelmed. I have to jump on the couch and take a nap. Slade: Do you think we're in danger of breaking something? John: Yeah, I think we're going up fast. The only thing I can say to sum up where I'm at, the science and everything. And I go back to the icicle sample. Thank god for the icicle samples. Because we can get some grounded, we can ground our thoughts on this particular source of time. It goes back a million some odd years, but... They've done a great job showing intergalacial periods and ice ages. For the most part, it's like clockwork. It's like 104,000 ice age. 13,500 on average for the intergalacial period. That all being said, all the ice is not going to melt in intergalacial period. If that ice is 1,000,000 years old, we just came out of the ice age 13,500 years ago, something big is... A lot of people are going to wait for the ice to melt. But my theory in my other book, 'There Is Something About the Moon' gets into the physics of what controls the ice age. And that is, as the ocean rises, the gravitation - this is common knowledge - the moon's gravitational field is shifting from the glaciers and the polar caps... The actual claw... There's actually five images on the moon and that tells a whole story also but anyway... So transfer to the hard surface of the ice to the girth of the ocean. What that does is it, it in effect is causing the earth to tilt from 23.5 or 23.4 to, it's gonna go to 19.4. And Tiwanaku, the Gate of the Sun, the name escapes me now, but that's 4 degrees off. The Gate of the Sun, the sun is supposed to rise in the middle of it, and it will once we get back to the ice age tilt. The ice age tilt goes from 23.5 to 19.4 degrees, and then the sun will rise up in that Gate in Tiwanaku. I think it's in Tiwanaku. But anyway, long story short, there's a highway in Mexico and they've been marking the summer solstice sun at high noon and it's been travelling 100 miles, feet, north.. south.. Let me back up a bit I'm stepping on my words here. They're actually marking it and they're marking the tilt. They're acknowledging the tilt is changing. So we are going to a lower tilt. Now I mean, you gotta go like a thousand miles to get one degree. It's a pretty significant move. We don't think it is. You know, 23 to 19, you wouldn't think it'd be that big, but it's actually a significant drop, a significant movement. And the sun actually coming up over the Tropic of Cancer in the summer, what do you call it, solstice. The summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. So what's going on is that the solstices are squeezing the Tropics, the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn will move to 19. And what that does is lowers the light on the upper latitudes, both in the north and southern hemisphere. And essentially, we're going into ice-building mode, okay? So this is the control mechanism that the moon also ties into. It's a multi-faceted engineering system that protects the planet. So if we're melting faster because of human activity, which we probably are because of the higher greenhouse gases that they surmise based on the previous ice core samples, we are way off the charts. We're going to accelerate the melting of the ice and it's going to hit what I call is the high water mark. And I think maybe [unintelligible] island out in the Pacific might be the high water mark island. It's only 5 feet high. I mean, 5 feet's a lot of water but it is... As the water increases in volume on the earth, you're gonna get more of a larger degree tilt in a period of time. So instead of 100 feet a year, you could be getting a quarter mile. At some point, it's gonna really pick up pretty quick. And that'll launch us into the Ice Age. But this is a good thing! Because we're in an environment where you can't flat-line. Because there's so much energy, you know, the sun, the Milky Way galaxy, the planets... You're either going up or down. And that's just the nature of the beast that we're here. Hopefully we attain higher level of technology that operates on the natural energy that the planet makes besides burning stuff. We're in the burn-scorch technology. Slade: Yeah. It does seem like there's probably some better stuff we could be using. My mind is spinning out as you're talking. I'm thinking about, you know, maybe I'm getting downloads too. But I'm seeing all these potential explanations for what we call astrology, I'm seeing how a lot of this ancient architecture that we have, the Henges and all this stuff that the Aztecs left behind. They really are some kind of calendars or... Like you were talking about, they're marking the stuff on a highway but that's like the really scratching on the chalkboard version of something that has been left behind for us, right? John: Mmhmm. There's a book by Derek Cunningham. He surmised that the Sacsayhuamán, you know the saw-toothed walls up there, and I did the same thing. We're different theories but he's kind of, said there was a language being... Those shapes of blocks are actually a language. Slade: Ooo! Interesting! John: Again, it's like a lot of these little tiny pockets of information. These people come in, they do the download, and they're gone. You know? So it's up to the next generation to come in and pick up and keep putting this together. But I think it's all experimentation. That whole plateau up there is literally instrumentation of where we are in the ice age, or intergalacial period, and you can actually measure the degree of tilt on a lot of these obelisks. The three big power centres: You've got the Vatican, Washington, and some other place that escapes my mind. It has these obelisks and they actually measure the tilt. That's what those giant obelisks do. You can keep an eye on and measure what's going on. There's a huge one in St. Peter's Square where I've been before. That all being said, there's instrumentation all over the place. You got Stonehenge. You got the pyramids. You got the temples. The temples are, haven't completely been transcribed as a lot of... There's information on the moon. You know, the images on the moon also tell a story of where we are in the intergalacial period. There's a famous stele with Akhenaten and Nefertiti. They're with their three children. They have a disc and they have the lines coming down. At the end of every one of those lines, is a saying, iconography of the moon, the claw, right? So you have this claw coming down. And you go through, this is actually a very short period in the span of time between the ages. This is actually just a very rare point in time on earth. The intergalacial periods are very short span of time. A normal weather pattern is an ice age on the planet. 100,000 years building ice and you know, it's habitable, humanity survives it, and life does flourish, but obviously not, you know, a mile under a glacier, but... That all being said, as far as I'm concerned, a lot of the hieroglyphs and steles and images in Egypt, because Egypt seems to have a huge amount of information on the moon and Mars and a few things. Past life on the planets. So essentially, that stele, that round circle in the middle is the moon, okay? And we rock back and forth. And you can read the moon as it comes up out of the ocean or out of the horizon with the naked eye. Any higher than that you have to get binoculars because you have a lensing effect when it comes up out of the ocean. But that tells us where you are in a time on the... There's two clocks. You got the moon clock, which I bring in through with my research with co-author, researcher, Wendy Salter, we kind of put this whole thing together on what the moon is. So there's a way of reading where you are in the intergalacial period and the ice ages. Just to sum that up. Now the other big clock is the wobble of the earth, where you know it's a 26,000 year old clock (approximately, it's a little less than that). That actually is the only time we really have besides the moon. Like, if we didn't have wobble, we wouldn't really have any real time clock. Because we're just in a Milky Way band just floating around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy and all the stars remained the same. If you didn't have that wobble, you wouldn't have the change, the zodiac houses where the sun rises up in the zodiac house. We're in Pisces right now, going into Aquarius. So those are two giant clocks. So it's like the wobble was made on purpose, to give us time. For me, every time I get into, you know, why is it like that? And it comes back with an answer. That's the answer I got for the wobble. It's not like a defect. It's not... Everything is perfect on this planet. The solar system is absolute perfection. The highest level of knowledge. Universal knowledge. Slade: Wow. Okay. Just to sum up for everyone because, again, we're just scratching the subject here, and possibly starting like, 10 different conversations that I could go on. John: You gotta take it easy on the listeners, you know? Slade: I'm going to link to all these things in the show notes for everyone. But just to break it down so everyone knows where to go to get more information. You've got a free YouTube video of a lecture that you gave. It's a pretty good length. The main book that we're talking about here called 'Pyramid, Gravity, Force - How the Earth's Pyramids Work'. And then you co-authored with Wendy Salter, a book called 'There is Something About the Moon'. What are you working on next? John: Just the last couple of weeks, I brought in some discoveries on what controls the solar minimum. The irony here is, the orbit of Jupiter is 11 years. The solar minimum is 11 years. It's like, Hello! Is anybody paying attention? Even though the earth rotates past Jupiter 11 times, it only comes in direct alignment between Jupiter and the sun, the last 11 years, right before the solar minimum, so it comes into direct alignment between the sun and Jupiter. And so basically I put a paper out. I put a video out and I do try to get my stuff published. I put stuff out and I send it to the journals and hopefully someday they'll get it through. But the bottom line is that what a lot of people don't understand is Jupiter is not in orbit around the sun. It's like a binary orbit between these two bodies, like they actually wobble on each other's axises, or elliptic orbits, rather and they kind of bounce out and around each other. So Jupiter's movement actually creates a corkscrew orbit of the sun and that also has an 11 year cycle on it also. But long story short, what happens when the earth gets in between Jupiter and go full circle, going back to the point I wanted to make, once the earth gets directly in line with Jupiter and the sun, it actually blocks the gravitational field and kind of filters it, it lowers it. That is the source of all the turbulence on the sun, the sun storms, the black spots, the giant magnetic storms. Once the earth comes in front of it, the sun just goes into this pure fusion environment. This fusion or fission. I always get the two mixed up. But anyway, it just goes into a ball and there's no spots at all for three or four months. Sometimes six months, it depends. So it actually shuts down all that turbulence. Once the earth passes out, it's like two or three months later, the torque begins between these two giant heavenly bodies and you get the massive storms. So that was a recent discovery that I've just brought in and... It's tough. I'm not in academia, so I'm outside. But I think that's where you do the most work. I don't have any constraints. Nobody's saying I can't say this and... I can say whatever I want. I don't have to.. Slade: Right. John: So this is like what's good for me and I think it seeds the, whatever you call it, the mainstream world of academia. It resonates out and they'll grab it and, you know, put something together with it. I mean, we need to know these things. We really need to get on top of what effect these planets are having on our environment. Because we're in a critical stage where we're pretty critical with the heat. There's a lot of environments that are changing yearly, rapidly, very fast and... Prior to that, I put a system together to forecast volcanic activity a little tighter with the alignments with planets and the moon and the moon's Metonic cycle. It's a huge influence on, say, volcanic eruption. So like right now, the prediction system we have right now, the USGS (United States Geological Survey), every country that has a volcano has some kind of prediction. Basically it's like, Okay if it's rumbling, they put a warning out to the local people, societies that are living at the foothills of these volcanoes. Guatemala, we lost a lot of people just this past summer. They put the warnings out to them and the people there are saying, 'Well it's been rumbling the last 10 years. Nothing happened.' I'm trying to get someone to help me build a software because all this information is available. What you can do is, you can go back the last time a volcano erupted and you can time stamp it and go back and say, Okay, get the time stamp on the last time it erupted. Go back to a solar simulator and find out where the positions of the planets were. And then also go back to the moon's Metonic cycle. And what it is is, and this is what I've done is, I've gone back and looked at where that eruption was and I went back and saw they were in the same alignment that it was 400 years ago. I don't know the date off the top, just to make a point. And so, what this does is you can go to these people and say, 'Hey look. We know it's been rumbling the last 20 years. 100 years. Nothing's every happened, but the last time it did erupt, the planetary alignments were in this position and the moon was in this particular part of the Metonic cycle.' So you have more concern. So you're coming in with a little bit more heavier warning than 'You should get out of here.' Slade: Yeah. John: It's tough for people to just pick up and take off. Their whole lives' are around these volcanoes. So that's kind of what I'm working on. I'm working on that type of thing. I'm working in on tying in this new ocean system into my volcanic theory that said three times the ocean are locked up in this material called ringwoodite. It's a blue crystal-type looking thing but it actually has a high percentage of water in it. It's equivalent.. the numbers are wild. One of the numbers was three times the equivalent of the surface ocean volume is trapped in this lime. Trying to figure out, is this something we need to be concerned with? It's a huge amount of water and my thing is, seeing that all the ice doesn't melt, we know that because, you know, going back a million years, we've had 10 ice ages with this ice that doesn't melt. And then you have the Biblical flood stories from every ancient text. And I'm thinking, Does this water that's trapped in that section of the planet, is this something that somehow ruptures and bleeds out to the surface for 40 days and 40 nights and goes back down, you know? Slade: Yeah! Ohmygod. John, this is all so truly truly fascinating. We're just scratching the surface here. I want everyone to go and check you out so that they can see the amount of research and detail there is behind all these stories and theories. Tell us where we can go to find you online. John: I'm on Facebook under my name John Shaughnessy. My websites are http://www.pyramidgravityforce.com/ and http://www.tisatmoon.com which is abbreviation for There Is Something About the Moon. You can go there too and that'll link you up. Both my books you can get on Amazon, Kindle or Lulu books. Yeah you can get my emails also. I'm available. Contact links are on those two sites. I have 62 videos on YouTube and yeah, I'm pretty much out there. Google 'John Shaughnessy'. Put 'Pyramid' or 'moon' behind it because there's a lot of John Shaughnessys. I guess we have a reputation of breeding like rabbits. There's thousands of them. So you want to get the right guy. Put pyramid and moon in and you'll get me. Slade: I'll be sure to put all those links that you just mentioned. Make them really easy for people just to click on. John Shaughnessy. Thank you so much for taking some time this morning to talk to me. John: Alright. Really appreciate you having me on too, Slade. Thanks again. Maybe we'll do it again soon.

John Sekevitch, President of CyberSolutions.io, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss, conflict between direct and indirect sales, making your partners money, customer experience ownership and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.   Jen: Hi, everybody, welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer. And today I'm joined by John Sekevitch, who is President of CyberSolutions.io. Welcome, John.   John: Thanks, Jen. It's good to be here. Hi, everybody.   Jen: It's great to have you here. And before we dig into sales leadership and channel, tell me a little bit about Cyber Solutions and what that organization is.   John: Well, Cyber Solutions is a channel. Right now there's roughly a thousand companies representing about 5,000 different offerings in the cyber security space. And each one of them wants to have access to cheap information, like the security officers of major banks and financial services, organizations, large retailers, and other high tech companies with intellectual property to protect. And as a result of the challenges that these companies are having in going to market and getting access to their targeted executives, they work with channel partners such as I in terms of bringing their products to market.   So right now, I'm representing a couple of application security companies, a threat and vulnerability management company, risk management company, one involved with threat intelligence sharing, and finally, another associated with risk scoring and security scoring for cyber insurance purposes. I think what's going on is it's very difficult for new companies to get access to the market. So more and more companies are going right to channel partners rather than trying to field a direct organization first, and then expand into the channels. And I'm sure we'll probably get into some of that later.   For the most part right now what I'm doing is helping these companies and representing their offerings to roughly 100 of those types of companies. So I have established strong relationships over the past 20 years, and I can get them into places they wouldn't be able to get into themselves. And I think that's typically why companies are looking for their channel partners.   Jen: Well, this is a real treat for us. Typically on the podcast, I'm interviewing channel executives who represent a vendor and they're talking about their best practices, and their triumphs and challenges in engaging a channel of partners to help them achieve their revenue goals. And so, what's so great is you bring the perspective of the channel partner, which is a really powerful voice that many of our listeners need to hear. So I'm excited. This is going to be great.   John: Yeah, I've also been on both sides. So I've definitely been that head of sales and marketing who was looking to expand my direct team into places where they weren't able to get into, or to just scale to the market opportunity. So I have recruited and worked with channel partners, and not only in this situation of my own company, but prior to that being a channel partner of IBM and being a channel partner of Oracle, which are two of the biggest that work with channel partners and have a lot of the best practices in the space. So I'm happy to share my perspectives from both sides of the table.   Jen: That's exactly what I wanted to dig into next. Looking at your background, you've had these executive leadership positions that you've held over the last 20 years, companies like IBM, like Net SPI. You've worked directly in sales and marketing like you mentioned. So you have a vast amount of business experience, and so I imagine you understand what works and what doesn't when it comes to channel, but also really business in general. Channel is just one aspect of an entire business. I'd love to hear, what are some of the biggest changes that you've seen in channel sales and marketing?   John: Well, I think the biggest change I've seen is more and more companies starting with the channel, rather than starting with their own direct sales organization. I think that's just symptomatic of what's happening out in the marketplace, which is, it's very difficult to do direct sales these days without spending a lot of money on marketing. For the most part, in my experience everybody's kind of focused on a handful of executives, and those executives don't answer their phone and they don't respond to emails. They get their insights from their relationships, their trusted relationships.   And so more and more, hiring a sales guy just because they have the ability to sell isn't enough anymore. What you're looking for is potentially getting a channel partner who already has those trusted relationships. In the cyber security space for instance, there's a company called Opto, and Opto has relationships with most of the top banks and financial services, organizations and large retailers. So as a result, everybody wants to get their attention so that their products are being represented. What's interesting is that now the channel partner is in power, because of the fact that they have these relationships, and they can try to exact a pound of flesh out of the product or offering provider.   So what's interesting is you'll see things like big commission payouts for the direct side being in the 5% to 10% range, and on the channel side being in the 20% to 25% range, regardless of whether or not they're selling at this price or not. So I'm seeing starting with the channel rather than the direct, and also the power of the channel to be able to dictate economic terms, which hasn't been the situation in the past.   Jen: Well, working for Allbound, where we believe in the power of selling with partners, I'm definitely biased, but we started our own channel partner program very, very early on. It was one of the first things we did as an organization, and I love my partner leads. I talk frequently about how they're my favorite leads, because like you said, they're coming from a trusted adviser. So when I get a lead from one of my agency partners, that is not just a lead, that is somebody who is coming to us because someone that they trust and work with on a regular basis recommended me to them. So it's the warmest hand-off that you can possibly get in sales. I think that's part of why we're seeing these organizations starting those channel partner programs earlier and earlier on in their business.   John: Right. But there's also a lot of challenges in an effective channel program. For instance, you were just mentioning getting those channel leads. Well, one of the things that has to be managed is the channel conflict between the direct organization and the channel. Who has what responsibilities? What account responsibilities? What happens if the channel's not getting the traction that you were hoping to get out of a particular territory? How do you get a channel partner to support all of the sales reps rather than just one or two sales reps? And so these are all things that obviously you need to have executive leadership over. You always need to have somebody who wakes up in the morning caring about whether those deals are being done by the channel or being direct.   I've always had situations where I ran sales and marketing and had responsibility for the whole number. However, I always had somebody who was responsible for that channel. To think that that person who has responsibility for the total can also be the person who has responsibility for the channel number, is just not going to work because they can always get their number with the big number, rather than working through the channel. So you need to have deal headquarters, if you will, to make sure that everybody knows what's going on. And you've got to have trust in the partners to be able to share access to your salesforce.com or whatever CRM system that you're using, and also to have content that's relevant to the channel and not just for yourself.   So one of the things that companies are struggling with is the fact that they barely have enough content to support their own people, much less what's needed by the channel. At the end of the day, the channel still needs to have content. They might have relationships and that might get them access, but they need to have content to be able to share with their relationships to advance the value propositions that they're trying to represent out there.   Jen: Absolutely. They're your volunteer salespeople. They're out there selling on your behalf. They need to be empowered and enabled. So my next question I was going to ask you was, really, how do you determine if and when a company is ready to build a channel partner program? You mentioned a couple of things, you mentioned having a leader who is responsible for that revenue. You mentioned making sure they figured out some of those internal processes to avoid conflict. You mentioned content. So are those really hard and fast signs and if you don't have those three or four things, then you really can't launch a partner program? Is there anything else? What do you think is really the bare minimum for an organization to really start selling through and with channel partners?   John: Well, I mean, if you start with a channel partner program, then you don't have to worry about channel conflict. You're just going through the partner.   Jen: This is true, yeah.   John: So when you hire a person who has that experience, it'd be a different person than you would if you're going to hire the head of an internal sales organization, if you will. The other thing is what are you going to do about leads? Are you going to develop leads for your channel? A lot of companies are looking for both sides. So I remember working as a channel partner for Oracle, and we were a systems integrator for their e-commerce solution, and for a while, that company lived on business given to them by Oracle. But then came to the point where Oracle was expecting them to be bringing business to them. So there's got to be that give and take, if you will. So I would say that, if you're going to start with just a channel, be prepared to use your marketing and inbound resources, and perhaps even some of the inside sales resources to feed the channel, not just looking for the channel to feed you.   Jen: That's really great advice. I think about that, and I think about some of the mistakes that I've seen organizations make mostly around being under-resourced. So an organization, maybe that's been selling direct and then decides to build out a channel partner program, that group decides, "All right, we're going to hire this one person to really spearhead this and own it", except that person might be an operations type of individual, or a sales type of person...   John: Yeah, typically.   Jen: Right. Or maybe marketing but...   John: They're moving the paperwork, they're not moving the market. And that's a mistake. I'm glad you mentioned it.   Jen: Right.   John: I mean, naturally it is important to have somebody who moves the paper because of the fact that these people need to be paid. And if they're not being paid and if it's not worth their while, they won't put the work into it, and that's bad because sometimes you've given them exclusive territories, and they're not making any money on it, and they decide to walk away from the commitment so then nobody's pursuing these opportunities. So you got to be concerned about whether or not the channel's making money, because if they're not making money you're eventually going to lose them.   Jen: Are there any glaring mistakes that you've seen executives make in the channel? You don't you have to tell us who they are, or what companies they were. Just wondering if in your experience you've seen any like big failures that maybe, our listeners who are either building channel programs or nurturing them can learn from?   John: Well, there might be some people on the line that are familiar with this company, IBM for instance. So IBM pays 20% to 25% commission to their channel partners. The caveat is the fact that they pay 20% to 25% based on a deal that sold at list price. So the thing is that when it isn't sold at list price, and those of you on the podcast probably understand that there's never an IBM product that gets sold at list price. So consequently, these channel partners are making 5% to 10% instead of 20% to 25% because of the market realities that these IBM products need to be sold at a discount in order to be competitively priced.   So consequently, they lose a lot of the channel traction that they could be getting because even though the 20% to 25% seems like it's a reasonable commission to be paid, it's not actually being paid, and the result is the channel's not making any money, and they eventually lose some of that traction. So that's probably the most glaring example, other than just flat out, taking all the cherry accounts as in-house, and leaving the dogs and cats to the channel. That's again, not paying attention to whether or not the channel's making money. So you may be able to get somebody interested in it to begin with, but when the results don't stand up to their expectations, you eventually lose a channel, and I've seen that happen on a number of occasions.   Then the other thing is that you have to be continually diligent about whose account it is. On the one hand, it's the channel's account, but they're buying your product. And so consequently, you have to have a way of being able to stay involved so that they end up being a happy client. Because when they throw you out, you're going to get the black eye, not necessarily the channel partners. So something that needs to be coordinated is how do you maintain some degree of account ownership and ownership of the customer experience when there's a channel partner involved.   Jen: That's a really great point. That's something that we're seeing grow in importance, particularly in this as a service subscription economy that we're in, and where buyers have more choice than ever before to move from one product to one solution to another. Gosh, I mean, making sure that if you're a vendor you have the ability to easily collaborate with your channel partners or vice versa, so that you could ultimately take care of the customer, because that's what's most critical to your business. I think that's really, really great advice.   John: This is becoming a complication nowadays, because as customers move towards annual subscriptions versus perpetual licenses for many of these solutions, we're talking about paying commissions off of smaller numbers, or you're paying commissions off of just the first year rather than years two and three, type of thing. Again, this is all related to asking “Is my channel making money?” You can imagine if you got a $100,000 deal for a one year deal, and you're getting 25% of it, what do you get? You get a $25,000 doesn't go very far, but if you can pay them up front 25% of a $300,000 deal for instance, now you've got a bigger hit.   However, you don't get your money until years two and three. So you just have to figure out how to do that. So maybe instead of offering 25%, you offer 20%, but you pay the full three years upfront, that type of thing. These are all things that, again, focus on is my channel making money? If your channel's making money, you're going to be successful. If your channel's not making money, you won't be successful.   Jen: I couldn't agree more. It's perfect, perfect mic drop. Before I let you go, a lot of listeners of The Allbound Podcast are in their partner program infancy, and they're not the IBMs and the Oracles of the world. They are maybe some smaller mid-market SaaS companies that are really setting out to to build a partner program for the first time. Do you have some tips that you could share with folks like them, maybe the CEOs of those types of organizations? What do you recommend they do to really get started? Maybe it's even things they need to think about.   John: Well, I think what you're kind of describing is somebody who's already got a direct sales organization and now they're looking to expand into a channel, because otherwise, if you started with the channel you'd already have it there, so it's a little bit different. So let's assume that there is a direct sales organization, and now you're going to supplement that with the channel. So the first thing I would do is get somebody and invest in that person who is going to worry about the channel. Who's going to work with your inside teams to feed the channel? Who's going to set up the deal center to be able to manage channel conflict? Which accounts are the channel's? Which accounts are the inside team? Who's going to manage that? Who's going to put together the compensation plan that's going to be attractive to the channel, and still help the product company make money?   And then the other thing from a customer experience, is how are you going to share ownership of your mutual client? What are the expectations that you're going to have for your clients, for your channel's clients, and what are the expectations? How are you going to be participating in it? So I think if you take care of who's feeding the channel, who's compensating the channel, and how, and then also, how are you going to manage your mutual client? I think those are the three things that are most important to have a successful channel on your hands.   Jen: Excellent. Excellent advice. Well, this has been so great getting a chance to talk with you. Gosh, I could probably stay on the line even longer, and just pick your brain, but I won't. But before I really truly let you go, John, at the end of all of our podcasts, I have a little bit of a speed round of more personal questions, just four simple questions that I'd like to ask you. Are you open and ready for it?   John: Sure, sure.   Jen: All right. All right.   John: They're all related to channel, right?   Jen: No. They're actually not all related to channel. They're all related to you. So the first question is what is your favorite city?   John: My favorite city is Los Angeles. I like the ocean, and I like warm weather, and it's got a buzz to it. So I'm a Los Angeles type of guy, as compared to all my compatriots who seem to be Silicon Valley guys. So I'm a Los Angeles guy.   Jen: Southern California, awesome. Second question for you, are you an animal lover?   John: I am an animal lover. We have had cocker spaniels for years, and they live a long time, very painful to see them leave. We just had one that passed in the last few months. And so my wife is now in the process of getting a Saint Charles, I think is the type of cocker that she's expecting to get next, so we'll have one soon.   Jen: Aw! Those are so adorable. Will this be a puppy?   John: Oh, it will be a puppy, yeah. We always start from scratch and go through all that pain. But cockers are a lot of work, I'm telling you. So if you're looking for a puppy or a dog that is not a lot of work, I would not recommend cocker spaniels.   Jen: I don't think I've met a puppy that's not a lot of work. So if anyone out there on the internet knows of puppies that are easy, let me know. Okay, question number three, Mac or PC?   John: Mac for sure.   Jen: And last question...   Jen: What's that?   John: The only way I made much affordable, however, is every time I bought one, I bought a share of Apple stock. And so it's been able to keep up.   Jen: There you go. All right, my last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses paid trip, where would it be to?   John: All-expenses paid trip would have to be someplace in the US. I'm a US guy. Where have I not been? I've not been to Charleston, South Carolina. And I think I need to go there. My wife and I have thought about doing that and it's like, it never gets to be the right time to go to Charleston, South Carolina. But if you were going to pay for it, I'd go.   Jen: That's the first time that someone has picked Charleston, South Carolina as their destination of choice. So I need to ask you a fifth question which is, what is so amazing about Charleston, South Carolina that I am missing?   John: I think it's just the architecture. They've kind of kept their hands on the old, while still having all of the modern conveniences.   Jen: All right.   John: And it's warm.   Jen: And it's warm, and it's warm. Well, lovely. Thank you. Thanks so much for sharing your time with me today John, talking about channel, talking about South Carolina. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally and just connect with you, what's the best way for them to do so?   John: Just my corporate email's fine. Its jsekevitch, S-E-K-E, V like Victor I-T-C-H@cybersolutions.io.   Jen: Wonderful. Again, thank you so much for your time. And thank you everybody else for tuning in. And I hope you'll join us next week for an all new episode of The Allbound Podcast.   Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com. And remember, never sell alone.   Intro: Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Jen Spencer as she explores how to supercharge your sales and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to The Allbound Podcast, the fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners.

Jonathan Seeber, most commonly known as John is the single dad of Tristan his teenage boy. John is also a musician, cook and accountant. He is one of the members of Post Rapture Party, an Alternative-Indie-Melodic-Dark Rock band and 6 Minutes to Midnight a band with an Alternative-Reggae-Rockabilly sound (check them out on facebook) both from the Seattle area. From growing up on a bicultural environment to living abroad he brings a different perspective to the table from his life experience, specially by raising his son that has Autism. On his own words “Autism is a really broad term” and he takes it to heart shedding some light into what it really means and the challenges that it entails.  In this episode he will share some tips and tricks for tax paying parents (aren’t we all…) and share some of his experience with raising a kid that has any kind of autism. We will learn about his roots and the native American customs of passing down their heritage to their sons and daughters making sure that they live through their heritage and experience part of their culture. We will learn the importance of being patient with our kids and the importance of knowing how and which battles to pick. Dealing with children is not easy and John is not short of challenges yet he gives us an amazing perspective: “Jamal: What is the one thing that has you the most excited about being a dad? John: Just the adventure. Seeing all the daily accomplishments and trials and tribulations. Going from being this tiny baby in my arms all the way up to a teenager almost the same size as I am.” Words that he holds true to heart during this interview showing us the amazing and unconditional love he shares with his son. “John: Your children, all of them are going to be different. They may agree with you on certain things, they might not agree with you on other things. But be patient. It is definitely about patience.”   Stay tuned for yet another amazing Diversity Dad episode filled with great stories, advice and inspiration.   “Autism is a really broad term.”   “I have been to Juneau and Anchorage, the climate specially during spring and summer is very similar to western Washington except that the mosquitos are huge.”   “You had lots of adventures with your son educating him on his culture.”   “What is the one thing that has you the most excited about being a dad? Just the adventure. Seeing all the daily accomplishments and trials and tribulations. Going from being this tiny baby in my arms all the way up to a teenager almost the same size as I am.”   “As the parent of any teenager out there I think (the challenge) is really learning how to pick your battles. Especially when you have a child on the autistic spectrum.”   “My grandmother looks at my mom: You know what? One kid takes 24 hours a day. 5 kids take 24 hours a day.”   “Just be patient.”   “As Tristan moved into being a teenager I can see some of the family rebellious traits popping out. Just be patient, learn, pick the battles.”   “Your children, all of them are going to be different. They may agree with you on certain things, they might not agree with you on other things. But be patient. It is definitely about patience.”   INTERVIEW LINKS: POST RAPTURE PARTY https://www.facebook.com/PostRaptureParty http://postraptureparty.moonfruit.com/   6 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT https://www.facebook.com/6MinutesToMidnight      

It’s an exploration into relationships this week – why is John friends with Robin? How important is the power balance between Elis and John? Just how much does Elis love Dave’s body? All this plus sweaty Vin. There’s all the regulars too - Humble Brag Of The Week, Winner Plays On, Tick Off A Taste and Email Of The Species. Remember, you can get in touch on Saturday@radiox.co.uk (if you’re on e-mail. You’ve got to be on e-mail), and you can tune in across the UK every Saturday from 1pm til 4pm! Keep it session. Keep it Radio X.

Heyang: 欢迎收听这周的英语词汇小百科，我是赫扬。 John: Yeah, so this week we are looking at idioms in the English language related to Greek and Roman mythology. A lot of these are used quite often in English. It’s similar to成语 I suppose. Just because it’s a huge part of our culture, that for many people, we don’t even necessarily question where they come from. So the first one is Pandora’s Box, for example to open a Pandora’s Box means to invite trouble. Heyang: 潘多拉的魔盒，你一定听说过，其实它的意思是灾祸之源，也许不是一个非常吉利的说法。It’s that a little bit unfortunate to say it？ John: Definitely. The problem with Pandora’s Box is you never know exactly what’s going to be in there. Some of them might be good, but most of it is probably going to be bad. Heyang: And also isn’t that the name of the planet in the movie Avatar, I wonder if there is any association there. John: And the next one is the Oedipus Complex. This was actually coined by Sigmund Freud. Basically it was the psychological concept that all men want to kill their father and marry their mother and this is basically what ended up happening to Oedipus, even though he did not know it. Heyang: 欧狄浦斯情结，也就是恋母情结，是常常来形容这种让人觉得有一点点乱伦的感觉的一种男女之间的关系。 John: Yeah, and so really these days it’s used more just to describe perhaps a bit of an unhealthy relationship between a mother and her son. And the opposite or perhaps the complementary complex for girls, called the Electra Complex, very, very similar, you know that somehow the girl wants to replace the mother in the father’s relationship. Heyang: 那这个就是恋父情结了。 John: And there is the Trojan Horse. I think most people are publicly familiar with this term already. Trojan Horse, basically, it is a threat that is wrapped up in some type of present or something like that. Heyang: Trojan Horse就是内部的破坏集团的意思，同时也有隐藏的危险的意思。And in the modern world, is it used to describe the computer virus as well? John: Those are Trojan. Trojan viruses are viruses that get on to your hard drive or your computer somehow and don’t do anything until they are triggered by certain events or just maybe like a time bomber or something like that. And there is Achilles’ Heel, so the weakness of an individual which ends up leading to his downfall. Heyang: 这个词的意思是致命的弱点。 John: Then the Midas Touch. We don’t use it so often any more, but certainly everyone knows what you are talking about if you do use this. So the Midas Touch means basically a person who is always lucky and is said to have the Midas Touch. So Midas was a king who wished that everything he touched turned to gold. It’s actually a bit of tragic story, but the way we use it these days is more positive. Heyang: 这个意思就是点石成金术，而且同时形容某些人十分的幸运，但是现在使用率并不是那么高了。 John: And then there is the Sword of Damocles, so it’s imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. So the idea is the Sword of Damocles hanging above your head and might drop down at any moment. Heyang: 达摩克利斯之剑, 同时也意味着时刻存在的危险。 John: And there is the Gordian Knot, which is an extremely perplexing puzzle or problem. Very, very interesting story behind this one: Alexander the Great, came upon the Gordian knot, it was fame throughout the entire world that no one could actually untie this knot. And you know how he solved this problem? Heyang: How did he do it? John: Just cut it in half with a sword. Heyang: That sounds very much like something that Alexander the Great would do. 戈耳迪之结就是非常难解之题。 John: And then there is the apple of discord. It can be any subject of disagreement and contention. Heyang:不和的根源、发生纠纷的事端就是apple of discord的意思。 John: And the last but not least, Swan Song, a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. Heyang:天鹅挽歌，也就是最后的杰作的意思。这个是个很简单的词，可以把它记起来哟。