Podcast appearances and mentions of marshall fields

Welcome to 2025!As we step into the new year, let me ask—do you set intentions, goals, or resolutions? For me, I like to focus on a word of the year, and this year, my word is MOVEMENT—mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I'm feeling great about how I've kicked things off! Today, I want to share a memory from 2003 during my time at Marshall Fields—my biggest and best customer. Those were special days filled with meaningful connections with the chefs, managers, and staff. I truly cherished the deep relationships I built with so many of them. We also had a tradition—a Wednesday ritual that started with a full day at the store and ended with happy hour at the Renaissance Hotel Lobby Lounge. This was every week for several years. It was drink after drink, laugh after laugh, and story after story. At the time, it felt like fun. But looking back, it was also drink after drunk, topped off with the dangerous and reckless choice of drunk driving home. This memory is a reminder of how far I've come on my journey. It's moments like these that shaped my decision to quit drinking and embrace a life of clarity and purpose.

WGN Radio's Dave Plier talks to former WGN newsman Roger Badesch about the return of holiday catalogs, inspired by the old Sears Wish Book. Plus, Dave & Roger take a look back at stores we shopped that are gone but not forgotten like Marshall Fields, Wieboldt's, Montgomery Ward, Zayre, Venture and more.

Send us a textEpisode 92:Guest Name: Michelle MetcalfGuest Business:  Moda MichelleSummary StyleEPISODE SUMMARY In this episode of Black Businesses Matter, we speak with Michelle Metcalf, the founder of Moda Michelle, a fashion brand designed for the ‘seasoned' woman. As a first-generation American of Jamaican and Barbadian descent and an alumna of Howard University and Northwestern University, Michelle shares how her cultural background and family have deeply influenced her journey. She highlights her mother and sister as two of her biggest inspirations.With over 20 years of experience in marketing strategy, merchandising, and branding at companies like Marshall Fields, Target, Best Buy, Avon, and Mattel, Michelle dives into her extensive background in fashion. She emphasizes how the people around her influence her designs, and how their reactions motivate her creative process.Michelle also offers a behind-the-scenes look at her current production steps and the exciting preparations for her upcoming Chicago Fashion Week launch. Although she doesn't sew, she provides insight into how she approaches the design process and shares her strategic plans for marketing and branding.If you're interested in fashion and entering the fashion industry, this is an episode you won't want to miss!Visit modamichelle.com to learn about exclusive releases!IN THIS EPISODE, I TALK ABOUT…What was Michelle like as a child?  What are some of her inspirations?Michelle's marketing Strategy BBM Brag Moment Peer-to-peer mentorship Why do Black Businesses matter?What brings Michelle joy?Stream and download the Black Businesses Matter Podcast NOW for FREE on Apple Podcast, Google, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify!Connect with Moda MichelleConnect with their  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theemodamichelle/Connect with their website: https://modamichelle.com/Support the showTo connect further with me:Visit my website: Thel3agency.comConnect with me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thel3agencyFollow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larvettaspeaks/Connect with me on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/thel3agencyBe sure to follow our podcast on Instagram. I can't wait to see you join us and take the pledge of #blackbusinessesmatter

Fashioncast®Episode #49, July 16, 2024Stacy Igel, Fashion's Queen of CollaborationListen closely fashionistas! On this episode we introduce you to “fashionpreneuer” extraordinaire Stacy Igel, Founder Boy Meets Girl apparel company and best-selling author of Embracing The Calm In The Chaos.   As Stacy says, she was interested in fashion while “still in the womb,” and her history since birth reinforces her prenatal yearning to build a career in fashion.  What makes this episode so appealing is that Igel is both a steadfast businessperson and a creative.  Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Igel made her mark as a hosiery salesperson when Marshall Fields hired her while still in the eighth grade!  She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she tripled majored in design, merchandising, and retail.  She soon moved to New York City to learn the fashion business from the ground up, and in 2001 she launched the Boy Meets Girl apparel company.Whether interviewing Igel, or writing about her, one always is in high gear.  Igel is kind, intelligent, professional, and yes, humorous.  But more than anything else, Igel is full of positive energy, and constantly multitasking like the entrepreneur, designer, and mother you would expect!Fashioncast could have easily produced two episodes out of this interview, one focused on Igel's phenomenally successful company, Boy Meets Girl, and another on her equally successful book, Embracing The Calm In The Chaos. The book details Igel's fashion journey including the launch of her brand.We found Igel's interview full of one surprise after another.  This is after all, someone who has made her way in New York's fashion world through twenty years of grit and determination.  Boy Meets Girl sports a Who's Who list of collaborations with industry heavyweights from Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom to Bergdorf Goodman and the Chicago Bulls.  Igel has come a long way since dressing classmates in grade school!Of course, Fashioncast probed Igel about sustainability, the lack of a business curriculum in fashion colleges, and the big issues she believes are headwinds for the industry.  We are certain you will find Stacy Igel as energetic, knowledgeable, and entertaining as we did!Please enjoy the show!www.boymeetsgirlusa.com                www.stacyigel.comhttps://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Calm-Chaos-Perseverance-Collaboration/dp/140023493X

Hello Sweet Friends - Enjoy this replay of episode #26 (from the early days of the podcast). It's quite snooze-worthy and I hope it keeps you mildly entertained while you drift off to sleep. With Love, Laurel Receive an infusion of Divine Love + Serenity from the angels in tonight's episode. Then Laurel returns with more history about the Marshall  Fields & Company department store from the book Marshall Field and Company, The Life Story of a Great Concern. You'll learn about how they set the bar high when it came to window and merchandising displays for dry goods retailers and also more about the benefits for store employees. The story begins at 20:45.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday.   

Kim Hayes' background as a culinary employee at Macy's and Marshall Fields laid the groundwork for her lifelong dream: to open a pizza farm with her husband, Brad. They've spent the last 10 years renovating the Alpha & Omega Farm in Princeton, MN, about an hour north of Minneapolis, creating "Pizza Nights" on Thursdays and Saturdays in the Summer and Fall. Steve spent the day with Kim as she prepped for a recent dinner service. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pizzacity/support

This week is fun with a special guest, Ed who was in the music business and will share his experiences with you today! Enjoy and happy Christmas season! -IF YOU LIKE THIS WEEKS EPISODE HELP US GROW THIS PODCAST BY RATING, SUBSCRIBE, AND FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @MARYBS5THSON. FINALLY, PLEASE SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH THOSE YOU LOVE TO HELP US CONTINUE TO CREATE CONTENT FOR YOU TO ENJOY EVERY SUNDAY MORNING OR ANYTIME! 

This episode is a rerun of a classic episode from last Christmas. Enjoy!This week Jeff will share a bunch of thoughts about Christmas, television, life, and memories. This episode is action- packed. He also, offers a sweet tribute to Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Enjoy this cup of coffee with Mary B's 5th son this Christmas holiday season.  -IF YOU LIKE THIS WEEKS EPISODE HELP US GROW THIS PODCAST BY RATING, SUBSCRIBE, AND FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @MARYBS5THSON. FINALLY, PLEASE SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH THOSE YOU LOVE TO HELP US CONTINUE TO CREATE CONTENT FOR YOU TO ENJOY EVERY SUNDAY MORNING OR ANYTIME! 

Creating great window displays can attract eyes and bring in new customers, especially around the holidays. Amy Meadows of Windows Matter joined the Main Street Matters webinar to talk about tips, tactics, and tools that can make your store windows stand out this holiday season. Amy started Windows Matter consulting firm after decades of experience in retail window design and visual merchandising, including being the head designer for the famous Marshall Fields windows in Chicago for 25 years. This was a wonderful conversation full of ideas and strategies on how to make your window displays stand out this holiday season. Windows Matter: https://www.windowsmatter.com/index.phpHeart on Main Street: https://www.heartonmainstreet.org/Watch this webinar or register for future webinars: https://www.heartonmainstreet.org/educationHoliday Foliage: https://holidayfoliage.com/Vickerman: https://www.vickerman.com/Fiverr: https://www.fiverr.com/Frontdoor Back: https://frontdoorback.com/

Stan Freberg was born on August 7th, 1926 in Pasadena, California. Shortly after graduating from high school, he found work as a voice actor in both radio and animation. In 1957, now thirty-one, he was given his own thirty-minute comedy program on CBS, Sundays at 7:30PM eastern time from Hollywood. He debuted on July 14th, 1957. His cast featured Peter Leeds, June Foray, Daws Butler, Marvin Miller with vocalist Peggy Taylor, Billy May's orchestra, and the Jud Conlon Rhythmaires. His comedic style was biting. He was a shrewd satirist who targeted mediocrity, complacency, and stuffed shirts. He specialized in lampooning American life. On his first show he ripped American capitalism with a long skit about two competing Las Vegas nightclubs, the El Sodom and Rancho Gomorrah, set in the near future. The CBS higher-ups didn't get it. So, he destroyed Lawrence Welk in a skit that became known as “Wunnerful, Wunnerful.” Billy May's orchestra played a Welkian arrangement of “Bubbles in the Wine” while Freberg—doing a credible Welk imitation—kept yelling, “Turn off the bubble machine!” until he was drowned in the foam. Freberg “interviewed” the abominable snowman, presented a group of musical sheep, and staged a western skit, “Bang Gunley, U.S. Marshall Fields” spoofing the overdone sound effects of many classic films. He attacked censorship, with Freberg attempting to sing Kern and Hammerstein's “Ol' Man River,” only to be stopped by a “citizens committee censor,” who sounded a buzzer at any line he found objectionable, leading to rewriting the lyrics as “Elderly man river.” In August Sponsor Magazine reported that CBS thought network radio could see a return to sponsors buying full programs that fall. CBS was pitching The Stan Freberg show for ten-thousand dollars per week. However, by October it was obvious that network comedy couldn't return to its previous highs and The Stan Freberg Show was canceled after the October 20th episode.

Meet Heidi Watson, Chief Creative Officer and Fashion Director at Evereve, a contemporary fashion retailer with over 1 million customers, 100-plus stores from coast to coast, a booming e-commerce business, and a fast-growing subscription box service, Trendsend. While Heidi's career has always been in retail there have been many crossroads in which she had to make a leap of faith. Leaning on her clarity of what was most important at that stage of life and tuning into her intuition Heidi focused on choices that moved her forward. Throughout her career Heidi has been on the forefront of major retail trends including launching women's activewear at Marshall Fields and serving as a buyer for the newly created e-commerce team at Target. This conversation with Heidi is rich with wisdom on:Leading high performing teamsBetting on yourselfMaking key decisions based on what is most important to youKnowing your value and communicating what you wantAnd so much moreI can't wait for you to meet this amazing woman. Enjoy!Show Notes:Connect with Heidi on LinkedInEvereve 

Yes, all three in the title are correct and there is even more. Marnie Vincolisi was born in Chicago in the 1950s. She and her older brother were raised by her mother and her grandmother as her father left the family and was not heard from for forty years. Marnie did not attend college in part due to the challenges of having dyslexia, although she did not realize her specific circumstances until later. Marnie by any definition is an entrepreneur. She did work for a bit as a hairdresser in the main store of Marshal Fields in Chicago. However, she grew tired of that and so created her own toy-manufacturing business. She will tell you about the business and how eventually she realized that such also was not to be her life path. Near the end of her time building toys she had the opportunity to reconnect with her father whom she never knew growing up. For the past thirty years, Marnie has been teaching Reiki as well as helping others develop and grow through her Reiki skills as well as through the use of other tools she has learned. Today her company, Light Internal, helps people around the world. She will tell us about that. I trust you will appreciate Marnie's thoughts and wisdom. By any standard, this incredible person is quite unstoppable. I hope her attitude and thoughts will help each of us be more unstoppable as well. About the Guest: Marnie Vincolisi, Founder and CEO of Light Internal, has been an entrepreneur for her adult life, constantly changing and creating businesses that bring her joy and align with her spiritual focus. For the last three decades, she has devoted her time to developing a unique way of transforming people's lives through past life regression, energy clearing, classes, meditations, and the authoring of books. In her material, the focus is on appeasing the intellectual left brain with detailed information, then allowing the intuitive right brain to feel the spiritual shift. Marnie helps you access your inherent intuition with guided practices, sometimes using pendulums, quartz crystal healing, or Reiki meditations but always using simple instructions to make learning Reiki and spirituality a fun experience. Anyone can make lasting positive changes with Marnie's spiritual healing and products. Her joy reflects in her private practice – online classes, blogs, and lectures. She continues to explore new avenues of enlightenment to keep her energy clear while sharing her discoveries with others. She is an enthusiastic and well-informed speaker traveling internationally, conducting tours, seminars, and energy treatments. Marnie draws upon her business experience, extensive knowledge in holistic health, and refined innate healing abilities to guide others to clearly understand how to balance their mental, physical, and spiritual presence. Marnie does not teach anyone anything they don't already know; she merely awakens the inherent knowledge within them. Marnie's initial Reiki training occurred in Frankfort, Germany, after which she returned to the States and developed the Light Internal System of Reiki. Ways to connect with Marnie: Marnie's three books: Finding Your Inner Gifts, Inner Gifts Uncovered and Claiming Your Inner Gifts. Youtube: Marnie Vincolisi Instagram: @marnievin Tiktok: @lightinternal LinkedIn: Marnie Vincolisi Websites: https://lightinternal.com/ Book page https://bit.ly/3vV30UH Book Amazon: https://amzn.to/3M99Mvq B&N https://bit.ly/3FqknzE About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Hi, once again, this is Michael Hingson. Your host for unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to chat with Marnie Vincolisi, and I'm glad I asked her in advance because there's an I at the end and my screen reader says Vincolisi, but it's not it's Vincolisi. Good, good name all the way around. Marnie has an interesting story to tell in a lot of ways. She's written a number of books, she happens to be a person with dyslexia, dyslexia, she has formed her own company. And we're going to get into all of that. And the best way is for money to tell her own story. So Marnie, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 02:05 Thank you. I'm glad to be here and glad to share my story with your audience.   Michael Hingson ** 02:11 Well, and I hope my audience and I'm sure my audience is glad to hear your story that you're going to share. Why don't we start by you talking a little bit about kind of you as a young morning where you came from, and growing up in some of those things. It's always fun to start at the beginning.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 02:26 Okay, well, let's start at the beginning. I grew up in Chicago, my mother and father divorced before I was even born. So they're, and things happen in the family that put them very far apart. And so I never met my dad never had him in my life, lived about 40 years. That way, I grew up in the 1950s in Chicago, raised by my mother and my grandmother, who were, you know, to single women alone in the 50s, which was not common. They lived in fear. They felt that, you know, things weren't going their way, or they struggled with money, and they felt control was a really good way to raise children. And that didn't work so well for me. But I, you know, I did it, I got through it. And so I've written, I've written five books I've talked about that. I will talk about that. I am dyslexic in the 50s. They didn't know what dyslexia was, didn't talk about it didn't understand it. I remember dancing with my little black ballet shoes on and there was a red star on one side and a blue star on the other so that I would remember which foot I was supposed to use. So my dyslexia was right there when I was like three years old, going around and dancing, but no one ever connected that with reading at school, so I did pretty well in grammar school. But when I went to high school, we switched from Chicago to Skokie, Illinois, and our high school had a very high Jewish population. And those kids studied hard and it was, you know, going from city school to suburban school. It was so hard for me. I just couldn't get what they were saying and and how to write down the concepts. So after about two years in high school, I realized I can't even get through high school. How am I gonna get through college? So I dropped the idea of going to college and getting any other education and went into hairdressing. And I enjoyed it. I really had fun with it. moved from Chicago to Denver, and in Denver, I changed my vocation and I started a toy company, and it was called The Pee Wee TP company and I made a little play tents for children and Then I made costumes, and I travel around the country and I'd sell things at fairs. This is before the internet, this was before cell phones. So all the research I had to find on my products I had to do in the library and something called the Thomas directory. The Thomas directory had information about, you know, companies and where to buy, you know, different types of things, because I was putting all these things together. So this is a pretty successful cottage industry. I'm decided one day, well, things are happening. Okay, so my books that I write are on metaphysics or personal empowerment, and intuition. And, you know, intuition comes in many different ways. And I was running a toy company that was running pretty well. But I kept getting a message that needed to be doing something different. But I didn't know what that was. And I certainly didn't want to leave something that was bringing me income. So I, my van was actually my intuition. Your intuition comes through different ways. Some people hear it, some people see pictures. But this was my van telling me do something different. It never broke down the 15 years, I was in business until that last year, and it would break down on the road. And but I'd be right in front of a gas station. So it always protected me. But the last time it broke down, I was going, I was in Kansas, heading to Chicago to do some a big Christmas show, and then over to Texas. And I pulled into a gas station because the wheels were making this grinding noise. It was sort of strange. And I pulled in and the guy put my, my van up on a hoist, unhook my trailer, put it up on the hoist and the wheel fell off. He just fell right off. And he said, Lady, there was an angel on this wheel. I said, I know I put her there. So the bearing was fried. I said check the other bearing. He says, Oh, they don't both go out at the same time. I said, Well appease me, he did. And sure enough, he said you wouldn't have made it 30 miles on that bearing. So at that point, you know, he didn't have the parts, you have to order them and it was going to take three days, I realized, I am not going to get to Chicago, I'm not going to be able to do that big Christmas show. And maybe perhaps I need to listen to what's going on here. So this full story is in my first book that I wrote called Finding Your inner gift. But I won't bore you with all those details. I'll just let you know that. I stepped into what was a small hotel motel. And I sat down on the bed and I said, That's it, I quit. I talked to the universe. I said, I'm not going to do this anymore. I quit this business right now this moment. So the Vanguard fixed, I drove back home, I cancelled all my shows. From September to December, I sell toys. This was a big deal. And I just went into that place of trust, just trusting the universe that something's going to come my way. And what what came my way after about nine months, which I thought was an interesting gestation period was Reiki, someone mentioned that I should learn Reiki Reiki is a hands on healing modality. And so you might wonder, why am I jumping from hairdressing to Toy making to, you know, Reiki, because because I was dyslexic, I didn't think I was smart enough to, you know, work for a company, I didn't think I was a value. It took me decades to realize that I really am smarter than I think. And just because I don't spell right. And I don't comprehend when I read, I'm valuable, and I can bring that value to other people. So that's how I started my metaphysical business. Well, along this way, somewhere along the line, I just I found that I could find my dad, I never seen him, never met him. And in my last book, it's called they did the best they could discovering your path to compassion. In that book, I talked about how I found my Dad, how I learned all the stories about my family from the late 1800s in Italy, you know through now, just so many synchronicities and and stories and realizing how I was lied to all of my life. And you know, all those unrealistic expectations that I had, yet I was able to find compassion for the people that unknowingly hurt me. So that's basically me in a nutshell.   Michael Hingson ** 09:58 What a story Yeah. That's okay, though. Well, several things. So were in Chicago. Did you grow up? On the   Marnie Vincolisi ** 10:07 north side? Okay. And after I got married, I live closer to the lake. But yeah, north north side, Chicago. And you lived in Chicago, but you were the south side, correct?   Michael Hingson ** 10:19 Yeah, I was born on the south side and live there only for five years. And then we relocated to California. Although I've enjoyed it every time I get a chance to go back, as we were talking earlier. We both Miss Franco minutes from Marshall Fields when i Miss Marshall Fields for that matter, but oh, yeah, Marshall Fields and Franco mints. But along the way, several years ago, while traveling through O'Hare Airport, I discovered Garrett's popcorn. So that's always a treat when I go to Chicago now, and I actually stayed downtown for a meeting, and got to go to one of the Garretts facilities downtown. And found it was just the same as it was at the airport. Very good.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 11:04 All right, yeah. Well, my treat when I go to Chicago is going to the art museum. I just love it. I run up the stairs and go see the Renoise and I have my special places. Monet, Georgia O'Keeffe are some of my favorites. But you mentioned Marshall Fields. And that's actually where I was a hairdresser. So I was a hairdresser at Marshall Fields.   Michael Hingson ** 11:30 I like the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, although it's been a long time since I've been there. And I'd like to go back. But usually when I go to speak, I'm never there long enough to be able to go see the museum. So I've got to work that out somehow.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 11:43 All right. Yeah. That's, there's so much information in Chicago. It's just a wonderful place to be and I love the lake.   Michael Hingson ** 11:49 I'd love to like, well, so you grew up being a person with dyslexia, dyslexia being dyslexic? When did you realize what was really going on?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 12:02 That's a good question. I. But it must have been somewhere in my pocket when I started writing. And once I started teaching and writing, which was in my 30s, I realized that I had to really organize my thoughts in order to get that information out to other people. And so I would, I would bullet point things, I would, you know, write write the paragraph, but then underneath that bullet point, or number it so that it was very explainable and the things that people tell me about my books, my first three books are on personal empowerment. And people have told me gee, if I wrote a book about, you know, Reiki and hands on healing and intuition, I would write a book like this. And, and they often say, it's so easy to understand. And so I had to make it easy to understand for myself, which helped other people.   Michael Hingson ** 13:04 Well, you and I gather that you've been pretty successful at doing that.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 13:09 Yes. And, you know, I've got, you know, of course, people that would go over, you know, my copy and, you know, we talk about what's not clear or how I put in angles instead of angels, you know, different words, you know, letters that I would switch, but one thing that's helped me a lot is Grammarly, and I don't know if your listeners are aware if they write that much but Grammarly, I think, think you can get you can get a free version. And it'll go through everything that you write, whether it's on the computer, on your on your phone, on your tablet, it will you can download it so that it's checking your spelling and your words all the time. And that really really saves me a lot. So I'm really happy with Grammarly that's helped me I think I've   Michael Hingson ** 14:00 tried Grammarly, but it's been a while and I found it to be a little bit inaccessible. And maybe it's improved. But for me using a screen reader, there were some challenges with it. But yeah, I think that's in the past. And maybe they've improved it because they certainly could.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 14:16 Yeah, yeah. And another thing I found that helped my dyslexia is when I was writing my memoir, when I was writing, they did the best they could. I took a class and an online class. It's great courses, it's called, and it was on how to write nonfiction. And I went through that whole course and I of course, took notes. And I followed what they said and it really helped me put everything together in a way that it would be interesting for people because, you know, one thing they talked about was, you know, if you write and you just list things. It doesn't give the reader you know the picture and I'm sure you would understand this, when you're reading, you want to see the picture you want to see, you know, what did it smell like? What did it feel like? What was the temperature outside? What were they wearing, you know, what were they looking at, you know, through their eyes. And I was able to really capture that. And they did the best they could. And many people have told me that as they read that book, they find that my stories are similar to theirs, you know, we all go through struggles as children. And, and so it shows I went through the same things, the characters may be different, the location could be different. But the hurt in our heart could be the same, you know, feeling unloved, or not honored. It all, it's all similar. And so in my book, the second half of the book shows how you can deal with those issues, and not hold a grudge, find compassion for those that and, and people don't hurt us willingly, it usually is unknowingly. And so,   Michael Hingson ** 16:03 and ultimately, no matter how much even if it's intentional, they may hurt us in so many different ways. The reality is, we really hurt if we allow ourselves to be hurt. I mean, that is we're dealing with a mental situation, we have control over how we deal with that kind of pain. Oh, absolutely. And we have the ability if we choose to exercise it to not let that kind of hurt, injure us or affect us to the point where we've turned negative and, and as a result become very bitter, which doesn't mean that we don't recognize that there was a hurt, but we do have control over how we deal with it. And I've used the example of the World Trade Center many times being in it when it was attacked by terrorists. We didn't have control over the World Trade Center being attacked. But we do have control over how we deal with it. And I think that's true. And in all cases, it's really up to us as to how we want to deal with situations we face.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 17:12 Exactly, exactly. And I, you know, I do counseling. And as a Reiki Master, I'm able to move energy as well as counsel people and in their counseling. I do talk about, you know, how we can look at that person that unknowingly hurt us? And what happened to them? What put them in this situation, you know, people have, you know, these kinds of things at work, where they've got co workers or a boss that just really gives them a hard time. And so this is about how can we look at what's the struggles that they're going through so we can better understand their situation? And perhaps why they treat us the way they do. And once you understand that better, you can let go of that hurt and that pain and like you say, have have you have a different way of looking at it rather than saying, Oh, they did that to me. And it's not fair. And it's like, yeah, we move beyond that.   Michael Hingson ** 18:10 Yeah. And the other part about it is, Was it intentional or not, if it's intentional, in a sense, that will only determine differently, perhaps how you deal with it.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 18:22 Right. And if it was intentional, I would say they even hurt even more than you do. Because someone that acts out and is mean to another person, there's something that's really hurting them inside, and you can find what's hurting them, you can find compassion, you don't have to forgive them for what they did. But you can find compassion for why they acted that way.   Michael Hingson ** 18:45 Well, but even forgiveness is a very important thing to do. Because even if they hurt you, and it was very deliberate, you can forgive them, which doesn't mean that you're going to put yourself in a position to allow them to hurt you some more, as my wife used to always say, Don't put your sails in their wind. But it doesn't mean that you can't forgive them and recognize and move beyond it.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 19:09 Right. Right. I totally agree. And that's the kind of things that I talk about in my book is is how to get through and just sort of float through through life. You know, they did the best they could. I was going to call that walking in grace. But I realized the title really didn't tell you a whole lot about what's inside the book. But you know, walking in Greece, that kind of thing of Yes, things happen. And I can be graceful about how I deal with it and be kind to people. And that's what I look at. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 19:44 tell us about you. You finding your father You said that you after for two years finally did that. Can you talk about that a little   Marnie Vincolisi ** 19:51 um, I can. Let's see because I was doing art shows. I happen to be Are you traveling to Chicago for an art show? And two weeks before I was leaving, my, my mother called me out. And she moved from Chicago out here to Denver after she had retired. And she told me that a friend of hers in Chicago, someone that was actually in their wedding party said, they're saying some prayers for a Tony, even police at our parish, do you think it's the same person. And my mom, you know, didn't know for sure, but maybe thought that it was. And so she called me up. And she said, Well, they're saying prayers for your father at the parish, not that he was ever a father to you. And those words, just like, hit me in the heart. And when I shared with her months later that she said that she Oh, that's a terrible thing to say, I would never say that. So it's interesting how we respond to a shock. Here, my mom didn't have any contact with him. As they say, they got divorced, the families were in kind to each other. And there was a confrontation, and my dad left the city and stopped paying child support after about a year. So that was really a hardship on my mom in the 50s, trying to, you know, raise two children. And what also happened to her is, she got divorced, and she moved in with her mother and father. And the month after the divorce was final, her father died. So now she's got my brother, who was about a year older than me, myself brand new baby, and has to take care of two children and her mother. Because my grandmother didn't work since she was instance, she got married. I mean, that's how things were back in the, in the in the 20s, and 30s. And Grandma did have one job, when she was 19, she worked for the Western Union. And her job was to deliver the messages that came in. So they would come in on a telegraph. And they'd have to be quickly brought over to another room where they would be typed in and sent out. And they were rollerskates. So at 19, grandma took the messages and roller skated from one part of the building to another. So I figured well, in the late 40s, you know, her skill of roller skating was not going to really give her a very good job. So hence why she didn't go out and get a job. So my mom, you know, here she is, you know, having to support, you know, two children herself, and her mother was really tough. And that's how she lived the rest of her life. But anyway,   Michael Hingson ** 22:35 I can see her so roller derby wasn't in her future, you're saying   Marnie Vincolisi ** 22:39 she wasn't going to be a roller derby queen. So I can sort of understand why my mother was angry at my dad, and you know, but that that really hurt me. So her saying that you know not to do this ever father to you, I didn't feel open to say, and Mom, give me the name of that friend of yours. So I can go find him. You know, that door was not open. And, and so in my book, I talk about how I go into my mom's condo, I have my children take her out to lunch. And I go inside and I'm rifling through her index cards to try to find this woman may see and find her number. Yeah. And, and I did find it. I did call her up. So when we get we went to Chicago and brought the kids with us, but this confrontation of meeting my father, I didn't know what would happen. So in the book, there's a beautiful story of how I go to Macy's house. And we look in the telephone book for his name. And, and it was there, which shocked me because my mother had an unlisted number. My father had an unlisted number, neither one of them wanted to find each other, you know, he would have been thrown in jail for not paying child support. And you know, so all that. So I thought, well, this, this can't be this can't be him. But I look at the address. And the address is around the corner, from Macy's house, this woman's house, who is in their wedding party, he lived around the corner from them, which I talked about synchronicities in this book, this one was way too bizarre. My mom would visit Macy, they would go out for walks on hot summer nights in Chicago, easily have walked by his house. Never saw him, right. So I'm thinking probably not him. But let's you know, Macy said, Well, here's his phone number. Why don't you call him up? I said, What would I say? I said, No, I'm not calling him up. I'm walking over there. So my husband Macy and I walk over to his house and I knock on his door. And the it was hot summer day was the third of July, the wood door was open. The screen door was closed. An old four year old man walks to the door and white hair did They look really healthy. And I asked him, I said, Are you Tony vocalise? He says, Yes, I am. I said, Well, I said, Were you married to Lorraine? He said, Yes. I said, I'm your daughter, Marlene. And at that time, originally, my name was Marlene. And he looks at me and he said, I had a son named Jimmy. And with that, it just, it just shocked me. I was like, story of my life. You know, everybody, I felt my brother was more honored than I was in the family. Here I am Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, once again, he doesn't remember me. But he remembers my brother. And I just sort of took a little step back. And my husband placed his hands on my shoulders just on my back. And he just gave me a little nudge. And I could hear him his thoughts in my head, saying, Go ahead. You can do this is okay. And so I again spoke, and I said, Well, I'm his sister. I'm Marlene. And you said, I had a baby girl. I only held her once in my arms. I said, open the door, you can hold her again. Dead silence. He's staring out into space. Nothing's happening. No one knows what's going on. And Macy finally says, Tony, Tony opened the door. This is your daughter open the door, you know. And with that, it takes him out of that shock. And he opens the door. And he falls into my arms and he just sobs and he says Marlene Marlene, I never thought I'd see you again. This is a miracle. This is a miracle. God sent you to me. And that's how the story began or continued. Just a little blip of 40 years. Just a little blip, just just a little blip.   Michael Hingson ** 26:54 So you were able to reconnect. Well, how did your mother react to all of that?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 26:59 Well, I that that that was another story. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you this, he had lung cancer. And if you know anyone that has lung cancer, he was not you know, the doctor told him the beginning of the year, he wasn't going to be around long. And this was July. But he says to me, you know, we were sitting on the sofa and and he says, I've got to take you to my sister's, one of the sisters had just passed on two weeks before that. And he says, I gotta take your two sisters. Well, all I had heard from my mom is how, how mean his sisters were to her. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, here I am. You know, I've gotten through this part of actually meeting him and saying hello, and finding out that, you know, he does love me. But now I've got to be taken to the sister uglies, you know, so I'm like, Oh, my gosh. And then scarier than that was he said, Well, I'll drive us there. And so here's this man who can hardly walk, and he's going to be our chauffeur. But it was okay. We got there and met the sisters. And they were just so so glad to see me. It was it was just beautiful. So yes, I come back home. And you know, I've got to tell my mom, I, you know, I didn't even tell my brother I was going. And so I I call up my brother and tell him what happened. He says, You got to tell mom, I said, I'm not telling mom. He says you got to tell mom. I said, Nope. I'm not telling mom. I hang up the phone. And I paced back and forth for about a half an hour. And I was like, he's right. I gotta go tell my mom. So yes, I did go tell her. She was definitely not too happy with me. But you know, it's family. And over the weeks and the months, she softened, she got better. And I was actually able to have her reconcile with these sisters that she didn't like, you know, my dad passed on and three months later, and I would travel to Chicago for business. And sometimes my mom would come with and visit her sister and I asked her to come with and I actually got her to go see my Aunt Mary. And they knocked on the door and it was, you know, bygones be bygones you know, beautiful Italian family that that forgives and forgets. And I really feel they taught my mom how to do that. Because my Mom hung on to her anger for a long time. But once she met them, they became friends again. And it was you know, it was beautiful.   Michael Hingson ** 29:26 So again, what was your profession at the time that all this happens?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 29:29 Or do you my I was I had I had a cottage industry making toys,   Michael Hingson ** 29:35 or you're still in the toy business that I was in the toy business. Your van was not sending you strong enough messages yet to change   Marnie Vincolisi ** 29:43 that at that point. But you know, you know we reach parts in our life that just completely change how we deal with life. And I think after meeting my dad and understanding that the love that I didn't have was really there. I think it gave me the strength To stand up and say I can I can do something more, I can do something better. And the work that I'm doing now, which I've been doing for over three decades, is really heart centered. It's helping people. It's, it's showing people how they don't have to suffer emotionally or physically. And I really think meeting my dad catapulted me in into that position. I mean, I already I always have that. I mean, I was a child of the, you know, in this in the 60s, a teenager in the 60s, you know, flower child. So, I looked into meditations and yoga way back when no one was doing yoga. No, you know, I mean, well, people but you know, not not in the masses that they're doing it now. And, and my toy company, even when I sold those toys, I saw my tents as a safe haven for children to go into, I would fill those with light. So that if there was any disturbance going on in the home, that the children could go into that little tent, and it would be a place where they would feel loved and peace. And so I always worked with energy through I'd say, from my 20s on. So stepping into the vocation that I have now is as an intuitive. It was easy. Yeah. It was familiar to me. And I think meeting my dad helped help do that.   Michael Hingson ** 31:24 Well, when you decided to change from toys, what really made you go into learning Reiki and being a Reiki Master and going into the whole profession that you have now? Because that's quite a major change in direction.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 31:40 That is a jump, isn't it? Five years before I started learning Reiki I, I looked, someone gave me a book said, oh, you should you should, you should look into this, you should do Reiki and I thumbed through it. I said, I'm not a healer and threw it off to the side. But within five years, and after meeting my dad, and just knowing that my business had to be different, and it had to be, I wanted it to be something that helped people more than I was doing now, rather than just games and toys and playing. And so someone presented Reiki to me again. And this time, it clicked in my head. I was like, Okay, I'll look into this. But what happened was that the friend of mine that told me about Reiki says you need to go to my Reiki Master, I said, Okay. And she lives in Germany, outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and I'll tell you, you know, Boulder, Colorado is a very metaphysical community. And you can throw a rock in any direction and probably hit a Reiki Master, you know, diamond doesn't. But somehow I was guided to leave the country, which I've never done before. And go to this woman and and learn Reiki, so I went there. She was very German, she was very strict. She was very traditional, which is not how I teach Reiki now, but um, and, you know, why did I go there? Well, I found that I had a past life, in Germany, in this town at this church. I mean, I would say, maybe a year or so before that, in meditation, I saw past lives. And, and so I understood on a feeling level, at least I saw in my own mind's eye lives that I'd had before and when I was in Germany, and as I've traveled more throughout the world, I find that when I'm at a place where I've been before I get emotional. In Egypt, I stood by Coptic jars, I had seen myself as the one in Egypt that took the organs out of nobleman and put them in Coptic jars. And when I started these particular Coptic jars, and I saw many there, I started to sob. And I walked away, I came back three times. And every time I stood by those jars, I cried, knowing in my mind that those were the jars that I worked with. So in Germany, I'm standing in front of this big church, we go into her small village, and we're walking around, and I stand in front of these big wooden doors. And I started to cry. And I was like, I was a priest, in that church. And then I was guided to just turn around, and I turned behind me, and I saw ruins of a castle. And again, in my mind's eye, when I did meditation, I saw myself tortured as a priest because I didn't follow the way they wanted me to do it, which is how I am now. And I said, that's where I was tortured. And even walking through the countryside, I saw a small church and again, tears came to me and I knew I had lived there. That was where I was my parish as a small boy. So why did I go to Germany, all these all these things that sometimes you just do because you just feel you Should Do you ever get that Michael? Oh, yes. And you don't understand why, you know, why did I quit my toy business in the moment? Because I knew there was something out there. I knew it.   Michael Hingson ** 35:09 And that's all the understanding, you need to make a choice. If you're certain, then that's what you do. My favorite example of that kind of thing is a real simple one. Do you ever play Trivial Pursuit?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 35:21 Not very well.   Michael Hingson ** 35:24 But how many times do you play the game? Or do you interact with other people who are playing the game? Somebody asked the question, you know the answer, and you just say, Well, that can't be right. And you give a different answer. And it's the wrong answer. And the one that you thought at first was the right answer truly was correct. All the time and Trivial Pursuit. So when I play Trivial Pursuit, I have learned to listen, because usually, it's the right answer. And we, we ignore our inner guide. So much, we ignore those things that are really telling us what to do. So as they say, in Australia, New Zealand Good on you for what you're doing and how you do it. So what did what did you write?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 36:14 Let me let me let me just segue on top of that, I'm going to give a little exercise that that I have in some of my books on how to build that intuition. I mean, just what you're saying you second guess it. So I say this is what you do for the next, if you want to, if you want to create a new pattern, you do it for 30 days, or at least 21 days, you know. And so every time you have an intuitive thought, you should write it down. Just just by having a little notebook, of course, now we've got our phones. So in your phone, you could have in your notes and intuitive thought I wasn't going to go down the highway this particular way. I'm gonna go the other way. And you find out that the way we're first gonna go now has a block of of traffic. Yeah, it's an intuitive thought you go to the grocery store, you think you need something, you get it? And you find out yes, indeed I do. Just keeping track of all those intuitive thoughts, because we have way more than we think we do, you will start building that confidence within yourself to trust as you found to go with that first thought. So that's one practice. Okay, back to your question.   Michael Hingson ** 37:20 People have asked me if I ever felt any nudge or reason not to go to the World Trade Center on September 11. Even though there was a very severe thunderstorm that came right over our house at 1230. That morning, I never had, and I can sit here today and say I never had a single inkling that I shouldn't go. There was no message that said Don't go. And what happened, though, at at the World Trade Center for me, I think justify that just all the experiences that I had that day, but the reality is that we we do get so many different kinds of things that if we would, but listen, we would be so much better off, but we tend not to we ignore them, or we say that can't possibly be right. And then as you say, it turns out it is and I think your exercise is a very good one, that people who don't listen to those inner thoughts really are, are missing out on something extremely valuable. Well, right. So, so go ahead.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 38:34 Yeah, well, and you know, you go into the Trade Center, we could call that divine order, because it completely changed how you work and what you do and, and how much more you can give to people than you were doing there. And I don't feel divine order is necessarily God given. I mean, it can be if that's your belief system, but I feel our divine order comes from within ourselves. We know within ourselves, we've got something more to do that can help people society life grow. And we follow that.   Michael Hingson ** 39:06 Well, of course, the reality is that is God. And I think it's all interrelated. What did you make a master think of your past life experiences? I assume you divulge those to her when you were in Germany.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 39:21 You know, I can't, you know, I don't remember a lot lot with her. We talked a lot I shared it. She was she was very stoic. Let's say that way. You know, so there wasn't you know, a lot coming from her. And I'll tell you this when I first learned the energy, I didn't feel it. I mean, when I teach people Reiki, they feel the energy coming through their hands and all through their body, but with this woman, I didn't feel anything happening there. It wasn't because she wasn't a good teacher. It was just, I was just different. I but I it was about trust. We're going back to why did I follow through, I get attune to the energy which channels the energy into you and you feel it. I didn't feel any of that I didn't feel energy coming out of my hands. But in my heart of hearts, I knew this was my path. And as I continued to practice it and get move on to the higher levels, I started feeling a lot more energy. But it really helped me to teach people to tell them, I didn't feel anything, but it works. And it's channeling love into the body. Reiki is channeling the infinite love of the universe, into your head, into your heart, you channeled it out your hands to a situation to a person or to yourself. And it's just working with love, it's, it's pretty simple.   Michael Hingson ** 40:45 Well tell us a little bit more about what Reiki is.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 40:49 Reiki, like I say, is channeling the infinite love of the universe, through your body into another one, when we heal at the deepest level, we heal through love. On some level, we're allowing the medicine to work, allowing the procedure the doctors giving you to work, or just trusting that your body can be better. And so building that love in and around a person allows them to get better and understand things in a different perception. And we sort of talked about compassion, but you know, compassion, and we talked about looking at what goes on with other people. It's perception, how do you perceive something that makes you ill, you know, a lot of illnesses that come in are from stress doctors, they'll tell us that, you know, this is happening, you know, because you're stressed, you know, your heart is hurting, or whatever. So if we could be less stressed, that means that we would have to have a different perception of what's happening around us. And coming into a space of love or feeling love around you or asking love to come in you is going to put you to a softer space, so you can see things in a different way. So Reiki channels in loves and gives you a new perspective. And once you have the new perspective, you can act differently, you can feel differently, your body's going to relax, because Reiki just doesn't come into your physical body, we have four bodies, we have a physical body, we have an emotional body, which is an etheric body, it's about you know, inter to offer our our skin, hence why we like to hug, why we shake hands, it's that touching of that emotional body that we're really looking for, the mental body is a little bit further out probably about 18 inches out, we're all those thoughts that run through our head are right there in our face. And then the spiritual body is right at the edge. So Reiki not only comes into the physical body, but goes through the emotional body, palms that emotion goes into the mental body gives you a new perception of the thoughts that you've been having. And it's charged with that spiritual body, which is that God given right that we come into our life with   Michael Hingson ** 43:01 is Reiki always hands on. So it's a physical touch or something that you can do remotely.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 43:08 Yeah, some masters teach it hands on, yes, you can do it remotely. When you move up on the levels. It's definitely can be sent remotely. And I work with people all around the world. And even though I do counseling, at some point, I might say, you know, just close your eyes relax, I'm going to direct this healing energy, this loving Reiki energy into and they you know, I always check in, you know, what do you notice? And what do you sense what's different? What's the same? And they feel it even across the miles? And that's that's the beauty of it.   Michael Hingson ** 43:41 That's certainly pretty cool. And it's great to have that that kind of experience. How about your, your family, your children husband? Do they do Reiki or   Marnie Vincolisi ** 43:55 I have trained let's see, two of my three children, you know, not all of them go along. But two of my three children have learned it and and use it not as practitioners but just in their everyday life. My little granddaughter I one time I picked her up from from preschool. And she says, Wait a minute, no, no, I can't go right now I have to go help Billy. He fell down. And I have to go give him Reiki. And she went over to him and put her hands on him. And then you know, just a few seconds and then and then came back again. So it's it's sort of cool.   Michael Hingson ** 44:32 Well, it really is and it's always good to explore.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 44:37 It is and and it's fun. And what I find with Reiki is that when when I trained someone in Reiki and they can go home and place their hands on someone and someone actually feels calmer. Their headache subsides. Their backache goes away. It makes them realize, Oh my gosh, if I've got this within me, and I can do this, I can do anything. And, and I've seen it over and over, over the decades that I've taught that people step out of their vocation that they had and moved to something that serves them better. They, they moved to new locations, they change family, they change, not family, but you know, friends, it really empowers them, it really is an empowerment kind of thing. It's not like you've got to learn it and, you know, be a practitioner and give treatments to people, but it just shows you that you have the power to change your life, and understand and perceive what's best for you and follow it. Right. So there's a lot of aspects to it that people don't think about when they think of Reiki hands on healing. But again,   Michael Hingson ** 45:42 it requires you to be open, and to absorb information and process it. And I noticed when I was reading some of the information about you, you talk about getting information into the left side of the brain, and then allowing the right side to accept it spiritually.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 46:03 Yeah, it well and spiritually, because the right side is the feeling sensing part. And that's the part that we don't trust. Yeah. And once we start trusting it, we can get a deeper a deeper connection to what we see as as spirit or power beyond us, or power within us. You know, however we focus on that. And, you know, Reiki is not the only thing I do. I mean, I also you know from that it stems out into meditation, which again, helps people understand that they have the power to do what they need to do for themselves to come, there's themselves down, you know, they don't need to, you know, take take drugs to be more relaxed. And that, and vegetation, people get so scared about meditation, I've got to have absolutely no thoughts. It's like, no, that's, that's not what it's about. It's about just changing that thought from that auto rewind that you have. And So meditation is putting in a different thought, seeing a different picture. And you don't have to do it for hours on end. 20 minutes is good. And when I start people out, I say do it for five minutes, just close your eyes, you know, just think about ocean waves, I often start with the breath, watching how your lungs rise, and just drop down. And when we breathe, the rising of our lungs take some effort, but when we exhale, they just drop all by themselves. And it's going into that space of letting go. Breathing in and letting go.   Michael Hingson ** 47:37 That's really it. It's not about having no thoughts, it's not having directed thoughts, it's letting go and letting your mind really go where it chooses to go. And you just doing that and following along and not trying to control.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 47:55 Right. And it gets to be fun. I mean, there's a sensation in your body that is so uplifting when when you meditate that like, yeah, I want to I want to hit that again. Yeah. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 48:10 And, again, if you learn how to do that, and to let go and to let your mind direct you, if you will, again, that will enhance your your being in your life a whole lot. And it will help you in understanding so many things about other people. And and what's happening to you as well. Yeah, well,   Marnie Vincolisi ** 48:33 you know, we we give our body a rest, we will lay down at night and we sleep. But we never really give our mind that that reprieve and meditation, just 20 minutes a day gives your mind that rest and we start figuring things out better and start working with both sides of the brain. And we know the left side is our that analytical side, the right side is the feeling side. But if we could be in that whole brain thinking we could we could do the analytical and allow the intuitive right brain to tell you which direction to go. And so just like you were talking about trusting your intuition, you can do that if you meditate because you're gonna get that whole brain thinking going on. So you're not battling it. You know, when you've got that one idea that comes in and the other one says, No, that's not it. You know, the intuition comes in. And the other one says, Now that can't be it. They stop arguing. Yeah. They start they start communicating better. Yeah. And I just got here I've got meditations on my website. I know you'll put it up for your, for your audience. It's light internal.com And there's mp3 is on there. And you know, when you start with meditation will listen to somebody it's a lot easier to have because as as a meditator and as a Reiki Master, I'm able to bring that calm energy into my voice and into you. So you're gonna get into that space a lot faster. And if you don't listen to mine, there's other People out there, but find someone that sounds good to you feels good to you makes you relax. And it's a lot easier to listen to. One, when you get started,   Michael Hingson ** 50:10 you know, you were talking about sleeping, and we don't really let our brains do the things that that they should. The fact is that there should never be anything wrong with taking a few minutes at the end of the day just to relax, maybe just think about the day, think about what worked, what didn't work, and let your mind direct you as to how you deal with it tomorrow. But we don't tend to learn how to be introspective,   Marnie Vincolisi ** 50:37 right, and you know, at work, and now not that many more people are working at home. But when people worked more in the office, there were you know, you would get coffee breaks, yeah. And then they stopped, the coffee breaks, but people that smoked would go outside and smoke, they would take their break. So I would I would tell my students tell you what, you know, you don't have to go out and smoke. But just give yourself five minutes, just put your hands on the computer screen and close your eyes or a keyboard. And just close your eyes for five minutes and give yourself the break that other people are taking. But yours is much healthier.   Michael Hingson ** 51:14 And more productive. And more.   Marnie Vincolisi  51:16 Yes. And and I think companies are beginning to learn that, that people are more productive when they're happier when they're relaxed. And there's ways to give them that.   Michael Hingson ** 51:28 Tell us about the different products and services that your company does and the name of the company again, and just a little bit about how people can reach out to you and learn more about what you do and so on.   51:41 Okay, well, my website's a great place to go light internal, a lot of people want to call it light, eternal, and it's like, no, it's the light that's within you. Okay, lightinternal.com I write a weekly blog. And in there, sometimes I'll have meditations that you can listen to. I talk about things that are pertinent with what's what's going on how we can see things differently, how to deal with, you know, angry people or things that upset us. Lots and lots of information in there. And so you'll find that on the site, as I've got YouTube videos, so if you put my name in, you know, Marnie, Marnie, Vin or Marnie Vincolisi, I'll pop up on YouTube. Facebook, not so much. I got hacked on Facebook a few years ago, and was able to get back on I was like, Oh, well, let that go on Instagram. I'm on. I'm on Instagram. My products are I've got five books. Three of the books, the first books I wrote, we're about personal empowerment using Reiki and other meditative type techniques. One is called Finding Your inner gift. Second one is inner gifts uncovered. And the third one is claiming your inner gift. And then you asked about my family. So another grandchild who lives in San Francisco, I was telling her story, as we were going through San Francisco, I was in the backseat with her my daughter's driving. And you know, she's getting sort of fussy, and the story that I told her turned into a book. And it's, it's called the House who found its home. It's a children's book, it's a good reader for early readers, because there's repetitive statements. And it's about a house, it was living in a place that was too tight and too bright and too noisy. So the House took off to find a new place to live. And of course, it's because it's my book, The House learned a valuable lesson. Yeah, and the last book is they did the best they could discovering your path to compassion, with beautiful guidance on how you can work through issues that might be bothering you. But as I said, there's mp3 there's as well. And you know, and anytime that you've got issues, I'd love to work with you through hypnosis, guidance. Counseling, does moving energy for you. And that's my counseling. So it's all there on the site on lightinternal.com. And   Michael Hingson ** 54:13 you do that worldwide. So anyone who is listening who wants to can certainly reach out to you and I hope that they will   Marnie Vincolisi ** 54:20 write and all my books I can, I can ship worldwide as well.   Michael Hingson ** 54:26 Did you publish them yourself?   Marnie Vincolisi ** 54:28 I did. I did do self publishing the first three books I did self publishing, because they were my processes. And I didn't want to give them away to a publisher because I know if it doesn't sell the way they want and the books off the shelf. Yeah, you know, once I learned how to do that, I just continued with my other books and self published. And I just love the creative nature of it. The last book, you know, I created the cover the background that you see here is is the cover of my latest book. And let's see I can sort of see it here. I worked with fonts and how to do the layout and just that creative part of me that right brain, Mason, create your own books and create how they lay out and do your covers. And it's just fun.   Michael Hingson ** 55:14 So that's certainly not allowed dyslexia to stand in the way and your brain has dealt with that.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 55:21 It has, it's some pretty good,   Michael Hingson ** 55:23 which is cool. I want to thank you for being with us again, on unstoppable mindset. And clearly, if we're going to talk about someone who's unstoppable, that would be you. I am so glad that you, you found us because you actually found us and said, I want to be a guest on your podcast, which I'm grateful for you to have done. So very much. That was great.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 55:45 Right? And I've so I've so enjoyed meeting you and hearing, you know how you've dealt with diversity and what you've gone through. I mean, I love your story about riding your bicycle at seven years old by yourself and a neighbor complaining. May I May I take a moment and ask you that. So my father in law was blind. And so I learned, you know, a lot of things through him. So when you were riding your bike, did you listen for how the air went by you to know if there was something along the side of you? I mean, you knew how far I mean, how many turns to the end of the quarter? Yeah. How many times did you go around? Tell me how you did it?   Michael Hingson ** 56:22 No, it's not so much the air going by you. It's just all the echoes and all the sounds. I mean, it's like, how would you describe to someone when you're riding a bike, what it looks like, and what you see how do you describe that sense. And it's the same thing, you're using different senses to do the same thing. And the fact is that with all the different kinds of noises echoing and so on that you can hear, it's possible to ride a bike. Now, I'm not going to probably want to be a bike messenger in New York City. But I, I enjoyed riding a bike. It's been a long time since I've written but I've enjoyed it. And you learn to trust your senses, which is what we've talked a lot about here.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 57:04 Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that with me. And thank you for having me on. I've really enjoyed meeting you. And I hope I get to talk to you again.   57:12 Well, I think we definitely ought to stay in touch by by all means. And and when you're listening out there, please go off and give us a five star rating, especially if you can go to iTunes and do it. We love that five star rating is always helpful. But we want to hear your comments and read your comments. So feel free to leave those as well. Email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com or go to www dot Michaelhingson.com/podcast. And you can hear all the episodes and leave us comments there as well. But definitely, we really appreciate you giving us your feedback and giving Marnie your feedback as well. Reach out to Marnie. I know she would be very happy to talk with you. And if you feel there's some ways that she can help them. Let us know how it goes. We are always interested. And we're not going to we're not going to let Marnie get away. We're going to have more times to chat definitely we have to do more of this as we go forward. But I really enjoyed you today and you having us be a part of your life. And I want to thank you one last time for doing this and for coming on a sample bites.   Marnie Vincolisi ** 58:25 Thank you. And thank you for being here, Michael.   **Michael Hingson ** 58:33 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Jody Hudson was born in Michigan but has moved a number of times since graduating high school. She spent 15 years in the retail industry. She then spent five years being a stay-at-home mom before finding new employment in the nonprofit sector. Her story sounds somewhat typical, right? Not really. Jody has a much different story to tell which you will get to hear on this episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Jody is the penultimate unstoppable person. Jody's second child, Alex, was born in 1995. Alex was a very active child and worked hard at everything she did. While in the fifth grade, Alex began exhibiting physical symptoms which eventually lead to her no longer being able to be an athlete and active person. In high school, she began losing weight. No doctor could diagnose what was happening. It wasn't until college that happenstance lead Jody and Alex to a doctor who correctly diagnosed Alex's condition as Lyme's Disease. Listen as Jody tells hers and Alex's story. She will tell you about the book she wrote as well as about the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation. This episode is very powerful, and Jody leaves us with strong advice we all can take to heart when we are presented with life challenges. About the Guest: Jody Hudson, Grants and Philanthropy Director for California CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), is a fundraising professional with over 15 years of nonprofit leadership experience. She is the CEO and founder of the Alex Hudson Lyme Foundation, an organization that seeks to increase research efforts and patient support for Lyme disease and MCAS. Before joining California CASA in 2021, she served as Vice President of Development and Communications for Girls Scouts of Central California South and, before that, led the Catholic Charities Diocese of Fresno as Director of Operations. In 2018, Jody was honored with the Marjaree Mason Center Top Ten Professional Women Award. Hudson is also an author and speaker. Her book, My Promise to Alex: Through Pain Comes Purpose, is a memoir about her daughter's journey with Lyme disease and her passing at the age of twenty-two on March 24, 2018. For more information on Alex's foundation, please visit www.alexhudsonlymefoundation.org About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes You have been listening to the unstoppable mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes please visit w w w dot Michael hinkson.com/podcast. Michael Hinkson is spelled mi ch AE l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site. Please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of anyone or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hangsen.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free ebook entitled blinded by fear. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessibility and is sponsored by accessibility. Please visit w w w dot excessive b.com excessively is spelled ACC e ss IBE. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again ne Michael Hingson  00:00 Access cast and accessibly initiative presents unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet Hi, I'm Michael Hinkson, Chief mission officer for accessibility and the author of the number one New York Times best selling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion, and acceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The Unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessibility, that's a cc e ss I, capital B II. Visit www.to. Access a b.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well, Hi, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Jody Hudson and Jody has got a very good and strong and compelling story to tell. She is a person who has worked in the world for a while. She is the Director of of grants right for California casa.   Jody Hudson  01:43 That's correct. The advanced philanthropy director,   Michael Hingson  01:46 advanced philanthropy director Wow. And, and, and again, but there's a lot more to Jodi than that. So we're gonna get to it. So Jodi, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Now, where are you? Exactly.   Jody Hudson  01:58 So I'm in Fresno, California. And we have just been getting hit with these recent rains. It's really sad to see what's going on out there. But in fact, before I jumped on, we just had another big downpour. So we're, we're right now good, but you never know when a next one is going to hit us.   Michael Hingson  02:18 Yeah, we don't get that level of rain in Victorville. I don't think it's rained here today. We had a little bit of rain Tuesday, but we just don't get that kind of rain here. And as I mentioned earlier, I heard on the news that there are a few places in the Sierras that have had something over 670 inches of snow, and they've gotten more snow this week. So how will this affect the drought it will, at least in the short term, but whether this is really going to have enough of an effect on the aquifers to really give us long term aid remains to be seen. But the way it's going, I think we're going to see more years of a lot of rain and other things happening. So we'll we'll kind of see how it goes.   Jody Hudson  03:05 I yeah, I agree. It was crazy. Last week, the 99 was shut down because of flooding. So you just never know what's going to happen. Right?   Michael Hingson  03:15 Go figure I know. Well, so let's start a little bit by you maybe telling us some of your background. As a younger God, what you did when going to school and all that give us all the highlights from an earlier time.   Jody Hudson  03:33 Oh my goodness. Okay, we could be here a long time because I'm not a young man. You know, I'm in my early 60s here now. But now I'm teasing.   Michael Hingson  03:41 So just talk about the early parts.   Jody Hudson  03:44 So I'm a Michigander born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, went to school at Central Michigan University where I graduated with a degree in retail. I've always loved fashion clothing. And so that's what I did for quite some time. Worked at Marshall Field's Lord and Taylor made my way west to Los Angeles. My claim to fame was that I was the manager of the Chanel boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. I felt like I had arrived, so to speak. Then got married and made my way to Fresno where I currently reside. Two children, Garrett and Alice, my son's 29 My daughter's 22 And I stayed at home for about five years just to be a stay at home mom. And then when I decided to get back into the work environment, I got into the nonprofit world which I absolutely love. I have a servant's heart and it really spoke to that worked at Catholic Charities for about 1314 years. I worked at Girl Scouts for a little bit until I couldn't eat any more cookies. It was not good for my waistline and at all. And then I've been with California, Casa for two years, and we oversee all of the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. I am a product of foster care, I was born to a single mother who put me up for adoption. So I was in the foster care system for the first six months of my life until I was adopted. So I've kind of come full circle in that whole realm. But so that's what I'm currently doing. And then we'll get more into my true purpose and mission, which is the Alex Hudson line foundation.   Michael Hingson  05:46 So Marshall Fields, so did you get good deals on Franco mints?   Jody Hudson  05:50 Oh, my gosh. I know, Chris, and at Christmas time, because I worked out in Chicago at State Street at their flagship store. And during Christmas time, they'd have like the big pyramids of frango mints and I just devoured those. Like there was no tomorrow I have a weakness for sweets. I could not have sweets in my home, because they will be gone. I don't have willpower. I don't know what the word means.   Michael Hingson  06:17 No. Have you ever had mint? Meltaways? Yes. Which do you like better? Franco mints? Yeah. I like them both. But I do have to admit that there is something about Franco mints.   Jody Hudson  06:29 Oh my gosh, that just brought me back. I love that brought me back in time for sure. Yeah, and I miss them. I do too. I do too. I love those Frank moments. So good. It's kind of like melt in your mouth.   Michael Hingson  06:42 Yeah, really tasty stuff.   Jody Hudson  06:44 I think that's probably why girls with the Girl Scout cookies, then men's is my favorite. Because I was born and raised with the kids go mess with men. Go into the cooking mode. Then minutes. So what's your favorite Girl Scout cookie?   Michael Hingson  07:00 And Miss? Then Miss? Yeah. Although I've also enjoyed venture foals, which is one of the newer Well,   Jody Hudson  07:06 that's yeah, that's one of the the newer ones.   Michael Hingson  07:09 A new one rasberry one that I haven't tried yet. Yeah, you   Jody Hudson  07:12 know what I'm not a big fan of of the data, kind of like to keep my my the fruit and the chocolate all separate love them both, but really like the the combination together, but anything with chocolate, mint, peanut butter, I'm down for all of that stuff.   Michael Hingson  07:31 So I bought a case of Thin Mints. Well, actually, last year, I guess, I bought a case of Thin Mints. But somebody misunderstood and they made the order for two cases. Oh, and so I accepted that and I took them all. But even with the one case, what I did with two would have been the same with one which is they all mostly get put away mostly in the freezer. And for me, especially out of sight out of mind. And so most of them are still there. And they will be eaten over time. Which makes it a little bit frustrating for the Girl Scouts every year because I don't buy a case every year. It'll take me three years sometimes to eat those two cases, as I said, out of sight out of mind. But I do know where they are now having thought about them. This may cause a open so   Jody Hudson  08:26 I think I know where you're going after this little conversation here.   Michael Hingson  08:31 Yeah, I promise I won't get up and go do that while we're talking. Okay, but still. So So you got into this whole idea of the nonprofit Well, I actually another memory going back to Chicago and Marshall Fields. Do you remember Robert Hall? I do. Where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down? Down? Down?   Jody Hudson  08:52 Yep, yep.   Michael Hingson  08:55 Ah, those were the days having been born in Chicago and live there for five years and been back occasionally. But still. Great stories, great stories.   Jody Hudson  09:05 Yeah, I just don't like Chicago when it's December, January. It's like 80 degrees below with the windchill factor and you're trying to make your way from where you live in Lincoln Park down to State Street a little bit.   Michael Hingson  09:18 A little bit tough. And even with the L it could be tough. Oh yeah.   Jody Hudson  09:23 Oh, yeah. But boy, I had good good times there. I just graduated from college. So I was making a little bit of money hanging out and living with my sorority sisters. So it was just like an extension of of college. But when you have a little bit of money, it's a little bit more fun. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:41 Well, you were you bring back memories for me also, a few years ago, I was in Chicago for a speech or I was there for a convention I don't recall which now, but they were doing the event where you Um, to raise money for something, they did the Polar Plunge so everybody would go and jump in Lake Michigan. And I think Rahm Emanuel was the mayor. And Jimmy Fallon was there and they decided they were going to go do the plunge. And I was watching it with my cousins on TV. And they went in the water. It was zero or colder. Oh, we were very happy to be in a heated house. And the reporter said, these guys are doing it all wrong, because they went in in their suits, you know. And as soon as you get out of the water, you can go into a tent that was warm, where you could dry off. But just before they got out, a woman got out who was just wearing a bathing suit. And the reporter said, How much smarter she is because it'll dry right off and she won't be cold very long. And they were right, you know, but Well, that's the difference between intelligent people and politicians sometimes, I guess. I don't know.   Jody Hudson  11:01 My gosh, when my dad had a summer camp in Grand Haven, Michigan, and that brings me back to those memories that summertime with like the Polar Bear Plunge, we had that with the kiddos getting up early in the morning, like at six o'clock and going down. And if you if you did it every day, then you got like a special award. But yeah, I never did it. I watched my campers go in. But I'm like, Yeah, that's too cool for me.   Michael Hingson  11:29 Yeah. But you know, it's part of our country. And it's always fun to go to, to different places. And of course, go into Chicago go always for me at least. There I'm sure better places. But I like to go to UNO's and get a nice good deep dish pizza to   Jody Hudson  11:46 deep dish pizza. And it's a fun place to be in Chicago on St. Patty's day too. So Oh, yeah. That's always a blast. Dine the river green and drinking green beer and all that good stuff. Yeah, Chicago. Chicago is a fun fun city.   Michael Hingson  12:02 Yeah. Memories will tell us about California casa a little bit. So you've been doing that for now? What two or three years? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  12:10 for two years. And as the grants and philanthropy director, I helped to raise money not only for California, casa, but for our network. So California, CASA is the the parent, the umbrella so to speak, over the 44 Casa programs throughout the state of California. And we our initiatives, our mission, our you know, philanthropy, everything is in support of foster children. And there's 80,000 foster kids in the state of California. And what a casa does is they are that one person that link to help these kiddos to navigate through the court systems to be that voice for them, to help them where maybe they don't have a mom, dad and adult anybody to help guide them through life. And it can be transformational for these children to have a casa appointed, watching over them, it really makes a big difference.   Michael Hingson  13:24 Do foster parents help with any of that? Or is this really kind of pre them or our in spite of them? Sometimes,   Jody Hudson  13:31 you know what I mean, it's kind of done in conjunction with them as well as a CASA is a volunteer, they go through a training which I went through a training as well, just to kind of better understand what a CASA volunteer does, it's about a 3040 hour training commitment. Once you go through, you actually get sworn in as a casa and the in the court system. And then you are assigned a child and you could be assigned a child for maybe a year, two years, some people have had classes for, you know, even greater longer periods of time. It just depends upon, you know, the the cases. But it really is such a great meaningful program. And we definitely, you know, right now, we have probably 12,000 classes, but as I said earlier, there's 80,000 foster kids, you know, in the state of California, so there's definitely a gap. And that's what we try and do is you know, raise money raise funds to recruit classes, to train them to help the local network, you know, really pouring into the hearts of these foster kids.   Michael Hingson  14:51 So are their centers that these people are based out of or how does it work?   Jody Hudson  14:55 The classes themselves? They Yeah, so There's, you know, like I said, 44 class of programs throughout the state of California. So there's like a casa in Kern County, there's a casa and Fresno County. It's all, you know, based upon that the counties, each county is really supposed to have a CASA program. And, you know, there's what 51 counties, I think, in the state of California, so, yeah, 58 So we're, we're missing obviously, a couple of Casa programs, but each CASA program is you know, their own 501 C three, they, you know, raise their own funds money, they have their own board, executive directors, own staff, and we come alongside them to support them, and to give them you know, additional training, additional resources, and help where we can, we were lucky enough California casa, to be working with a lobbyist team who petitioned and we did receive a state appropriation in Governor Newsom budget for $60 million. And that is, you know, going to be funneled out to our Casa programs. However, as we know, the state of California is a little messed up right now with with budgets, and we only received the first wave of that $60 million, we received $20 million, and we were able to pump out that money to our network. But the other two bases are in jeopardy right now. And we are petitioning and trying to get that money back. So we will see   Michael Hingson  16:39 is that because of the legislature in some way or what? Yeah,   Jody Hudson  16:45 we are very grateful for what we did receive, and that was a blessing, we didn't even think that we were going to get that. And it really is to help our, our programs with infrastructure, it's to help them with, you know, recruiting, it's to help them just really build upon their their programs. So yeah, we're hopeful though, the, you know, legislators and other government officials and senators and people in the Capitol, they were not happy that our funding was was cut, because they really have become aware of our programs and the impact on the foster children. So we do have some really good people in our corner. So we'll, we'll see what happens.   Michael Hingson  17:30 He cut it. Who cut the funding, if the governor had it in his budget, and so on what happened,   Jody Hudson  17:37 it was in the legislative portion of the budget. So I don't know all the details. Yeah, in our inner workings of how all that happens. And, you know, with politics, things can be moved around, things can be cut, because maybe they're negotiating and looking for something else. Who knows what goes into all of those discussions. But like I said, we've got a lot of good champions and people in our corner, and it wasn't just cost of that was cut, there was a lot that was cut. So yeah, we're just hoping that we're gonna get that back.   Michael Hingson  18:14 I remember. Now, a number of years ago, the national level, there was a major discussion about the government. And what it had been doing through what was called the Talking Book program, which later became the National Library Service of the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And they, the Congress decided that they wanted to cut a bunch of the funding. They said, we can get things from other ways. And one of the magazines that was produced under the program was playboy. And the Congress people's fee with a conservative said, Well, that's ridiculous to publish Playboy, that blind people can take advantage of all the pictures and stuff. And the answer to that was, that's correct. But go read Playboy read the articles, because there were there were many, well written articles. And mostly, they are really good articles in Playboy. The original story, the short story, the fly came out of Playboy among other things, and eventually it got dealt with, but people do get some very strange ideas about things from time to time, don't they?   Jody Hudson  19:26 They sure do. And, you know, I've never seen a playboy, but I did hear that. There are some really great, great articles in there. So but yeah, so you know, well, we'll just have to kind of wait it out. I mean, we're so full speed ahead. And we are, you know, implementing what we can with the the funding that was awarded to us in our in our programs and and we're grateful for that.   Michael Hingson  19:49 We are a 501 C three, right. So you do you obviously do a lot of soliciting outside of what the government provides.   Jody Hudson  19:55 Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have, you know, government money. We've got you no private funding. So, yes, we have different pockets that we definitely, you know, reach out to. But, you know, from the pandemic, it's it's tough. Yeah, for for fundraising for nonprofits, I mean, everyone, you know, that was was losing out because they weren't able to have fundraising events and other things. And people were really tightening up their belt. So, yeah, well, we'll have to see how how things work out. But the nonprofit world is definitely definitely hurting.   Michael Hingson  20:37 Yeah, and it's gonna be a process. Well, for you, though, what made you go into the whole idea of doing nonprofit stuff? So it's different than what you've done in the past?   Jody Hudson  20:49 Oh, absolutely. Retail and nonprofit, very, very different. But   Michael Hingson  20:54 although you, you can tribute it to the nonprofit of Marshall Field's with Franco mints, but that's okay.   Jody Hudson  21:00 That's right. So, so I had my son in 93, I had my daughter and 95. And then I stayed home for for five years. And then when I was deciding to you know, get back into the workforce, one of my girlfriends, became a development director over at Catholic Charities, and she called me up. And she said that she was going to be starting this position at Catholic Charities, and she was going to be forming a women's Guild and that she wanted me to be on it, there was gonna be about 12 of us that were going to, you know, be the the pioneers of this Guild, and a common, you know, take a tour of the facility and see what I think, see what I thought so sad to say, I mean, I'm Catholic, but I had never heard of Catholic Charities before. So got my car went and down and opened up the doors, took a tour, I saw the clientele, I saw the people there that were, you know, waiting for services. And I just had this aha moment where this was where I was supposed to be, I was supposed to be giving back. I was supposed to be helping those, you know, less fortunate. And I told my girlfriend Kelly at that time, I said, Yes, I go, I want to be part of this guild. But even more importantly, I want to see if there's employment here, I would love to work at Catholic Charities. And as luck would have it, there was a position open. And it was for in the food pantry overseeing the food pantry. And check this out, overseeing the thrift store. Well, I think with my degree in retail, and working on Chanel boutique, I qualified to oversee the Catholic Charities thrift store. So the joke was always, you know, hidden, here's Jody from Rodeo Drive to Fulton Street, where Catholic Charities was and yeah, the price tags are just, you know, a couple of zeros off, but hey, she's, she can handle those. So, I fell in love with it. And it was so good as my kids were getting older, you know, to bring them to these, like food drive events, and, you know, the the farmers market that we would have, and they would see what the face of poverty looked like. And they fell in love with it. And you know, they were always there supporting my fundraising efforts. And and, you know, just supporting, giving back. So it was it was wonderful. It was really good. It must   Michael Hingson  23:45 get pretty emotional. Because you see so many people who are facing challenges and so on. How are you able to just move forward and not take it so emotionally personal, if you will?   Jody Hudson  23:59 You know, that's an excellent question. And it was very hard for me in the beginning, I wanted to take home these children that I saw, I wanted to fix everything I wanted to be the Savior. I wanted to be the knight in shining armor and I realized that I couldn't do it right. I mean, there I was limited in what I could do, but I could go out and raise money so that the pantry would be full of food so these families could eat so these families could you know go into the thrift store and purchase clothing or be given clothing, clothing and hygiene every so often so I can I can do you know what I can do in my in my wheelhouse. But you're right, it was tough. The first six months, I took it home with me there was no separation of my work and my life. But it just became more of a driving force for me in my job, more motivation to really get out there. and get the community involved with our mission and what we were doing. And even though the names of Catholic Charities, we never asked what people's religion was, hey, if you have a need, then we're going to be there. And we're going to meet that need.   Michael Hingson  25:18 Yeah. And it's, it is a an issue and a challenge for, for I know a number of people to get beyond the being so emotionally involved that you can't separate it, while at the same time developing a greater empathy. And I in fact, I think it's, it makes sense to develop the empathy and the understanding. But you can't take it personally because you didn't cause it all. And all you can do is try to work to fix it.   Jody Hudson  25:45 Right? And, you know, I said about my children going down there and being exposed to that, to this day, my my son, he'll tell me, Mom, he goes, it's a blessing and a curse, this empathy that has been passed on to me because he wants to be now that fixer, and he wants to, you know, when people come to him and share their problems, I mean, he wants to, you know, help them and he's going through that process right now realizing that he can't fix everyone's problems, right? He can, he can only do so much. But yeah, it's definitely tough. What does he do? So he used to work at Merrill Lynch. He graduated from ASU in 2008. Teen got a job right out of college, I mean, super smart, young man. And he worked at Merrill Lynch for over a year. And that just wasn't him. Like I said, he has that empathy, that very sensitive heart. And we also had a, you know, family crisis during that time. And I'll get into that later. But he just really, and then we had, you know, the pandemic hits. So he left Arizona, came home to Fresno to try and figure out what it was that he wanted to do. And now he's been with his current job for over a year. And really, really excelling in it and doing well. And I think he has found his niche. And he works for this organization called behavioral stars. And they are assigned troubled children from the school system. And he meets with these kids one on one, he has about 12 kids right now in his caseload, and he really tries to work with them on behavior modification, trying to work with them on just, you know, being a positive influence in their lives, because so many of these kids come from such troubled homes that they don't have that. And so Garrett is kind of trying to fill that void. And he's done very, very well, just this morning, he sent me over a text and he had to present to his team on some like motivational, inspirational messages. And it was like a 2030 minute presentation. And I love the two YouTube clips that he shared, and one of them spoke about how, you know, you can't let your past you know, dictate what you're doing today. It's like the overcoming and, you know, we're all going to have challenges, but how it's how you rise above from it. And I love it, because as he is administering to these kids, and helping them with their life challenges is also healing for him.   Michael Hingson  28:44 And it's clear, you've passed on a wonderful legacy that that he is taking advantage of, and he'll he'll expand out and I suspect,   Jody Hudson  28:58 Oh, absolutely. And, you know, I wrote a book, and I keep telling my son, I go get, your story is going to be even far greater than mine. And I can't wait to read your book one of these days, because it's going to be so inspirational with everything that you have gone through. I mean, I'm just really, really proud of him for climbing Klein, and just, you know, making it happen.   Michael Hingson  29:25 Well, we've talked about Garrett, and we should get to Alex, I know you want to talk about all of that. So you said that Alex was born in 1995. Correct. And, and a lot of things have happened. So tell us a little bit about Alex, if you will.   Jody Hudson  29:42 Sure. So Alex was supposed to be a Christmas baby. Her original due date was December 25. But she came a little bit early and she was just a sweet, sweet baby. She and her first five years I mean just a very sweet, shy, innocent little girl. And then she discovered sports and the tomboy in her really came out along with the the big brother that was right by her side helping her. So she was very active. She played soccer, she played softball, she ran track, she did cheerleading, volleyball, you name it, and she was very, she was a very good scholar to her brother definitely had more of the smarts. But he didn't apply himself out, worked much, much harder for her grades, and did very well with that. And then in the fifth grade, she started developing joint pain, inflammation, and we thought it was all related to her sports. And that's what the doctors thought as well that she was just an overworked you know, athlete. And so she would suck it up. She would like tape up her legs, ankles, do the ibuprofen. Well, that went on for several years, and nothing really changed. In fact, it just kept getting worse. To the point where her freshman year in high school, she was playing basketball running on the court, and her knees ballooned up to be like the size of grapefruit. And she dropped to the ground. And she was carried off by her teammates and coach. And they ran some X rays. And they discovered that she needed to have knee surgery that she had some issues with with her knees. So she had one knee surgery done on her right knee and they said if that took and did well, and it was successful, then they would do the left knee. Well, it didn't help but it didn't change anything. So basically from her freshman year in high school on Chica never run again. She it was the beginning of the the end for her because she couldn't play sports any longer. Everything that she had identified with was gone. And in high school, that's especially hard when you lose your your peer group. And so she really went through a dark period for a while only had maybe a friend or two, started losing weight started developing digestive issues. Then we, you know, started thinking, well, maybe he's got anorexia or an eating disorder. I mean, we just really went through hell and back. And she graduated from high school went to a junior college because we were still trying to figure out what was going on with her health. And she did well at junior college and applied to several colleges and ended up getting a full ride at UCLA. But she wasn't able to carry that out because she was losing weight. And she was down to about 87 pounds. And we were going from doctor to doctor probably 40 Plus doctors, and Alex on her own just by going on the internet, found this doctor down in LA who specialized in digestive issues. And she said mom goes I think I found a doctor that might be able to help me. And at that point, I'm like, Sure. What's what's another doctor? I mean, we we've been, you know, striking out with all of our local doctors and everybody at this point, just that she and I both were crazy, right? Because they would run tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with her. So we got in the car went down to LA. And within a half hour of talking with this doctor, he asked me Mrs. Hudson, has anybody test tested Alex for Lyme disease. And I innocently said, What is Lyme disease. And then he told me what it was and this was in 2017. And I'd really had never heard about it. And here I am from Michigan, you know, thinking that maybe I would have heard about it growing up. But we consented to her getting tested for Lyme disease and a couple of weeks later, sure enough, came back with a diagnosis that she she had Lyme disease. So now test, what's the test the test. If you go to a regular doctor, most of them are still testing with an outdated western blot test, which will give you false reads on it. This doctor was smart enough to have outs tested through iGenex and iGenex is out San Jose area. And they are very detailed. I mean, it's everyone sends people to iGenex just to because they know that testing that's part of the problem with Lyme disease. testing can be so. So what's the word I'm looking for? Not not reliable, inaccurate, inaccurate? Yeah. So tested her with the iGenex. And that's what it came back with. So in that moment, you know, I had to first of all, as a parent, figure out what this diagnosis was. And then second of all, how do I treat it, because I'm disease, you just can't go to any doctors, so many of them don't know about Lyme disease and how to treat it. And therein lies the problem trying to find proper doctors that know about this disease. And also, you know, the the treatment, because it's not like cancer, where there's a tried and true path. With Lyme disease. It's almost like, here's your buffet, you can do antibiotics, you can do this, you can do that. Or maybe you can do a combination. And it's a trial and error. But Alex didn't have have time to go through a trial and error. You know, she was at 80 pounds and 2017, down to a handful of foods that she could eat without reacting. And I had to get her better quick, like,   Michael Hingson  36:17 do you before going on? Do you have any sense of how she got Lyme disease?   Jody Hudson  36:25 No. And that's the thing. 35% of people that get Lyme disease will have what's called the classic bullseye rash, where it's a circular little red ring on your body of the point of impact where people are a bit, the majority of people don't know they have Lyme disease, until maybe they've been sick for a while. And by then it's hard to treat, because it's you know, once it gets into your bloodstream, and in your system, it can wreak havoc on every part of your organ. I mean, people have died from Lyme disease, because of, of, you know, getting into their heart, people have died from it from, you know, getting into their brain. It's, it's really quite horrific. And I mean, that can be adopted at this point from everything that I had to get schooled on real quick like in 2017. Till she passed away in 2018. But yeah, the majority of people when when you first have Lyme symptoms, it's like a summer flu. So you, you know, might have just being you know, feeling lethargic, joint pain, inflammation. And it's not until other symptoms appear when it can really become quite critical, like an Alex's case where it affected her whole digestive system.   Michael Hingson  37:53 You How did you how did you end up handling it? What did you do, because you certainly had to do something in a hurry.   Jody Hudson  38:01 So what I did was, you know, social media can work for you or against you. And in this situation, it definitely worked for me two things happen once I got Alex's diagnosis. Interestingly enough, she was diagnosed in May, which may is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and our local TV station, KC 24 had just done a episode a segment on Lyme disease. And I knew these people very well through all of my fundraising efforts at Catholic Charities. So I called them up and said, Hey, you guys just did a episode. You guys just did an episode on on Lyme disease. My daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I need to know these three women that you spoke with because I need to find out how to treat my daughter. So that was number one. Number two, was I took to Facebook with Alex's consent. And I basically made a play saying, you know, my daughter has just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I'm still trying to figure out what Lyme disease is. If anybody has any resources, know of any doctors locally, can put me in touch with people, please, you know, DM me, and you'd be surprised at how many people that I didn't realize had Lyme disease in the central valley that reached out to me. And Jessica Devine was one of them that lived right in Clovis, a couple of you know, Fresno, who had been diagnosed with Lyme disease had been battling it for a couple years. And she gave us the name of her doctor in Pismo Beach, and that's where we started. So it definitely helped by, you know, getting the message out there. And when you're a parent, parent and your child is struggling and you need answers, you do what it takes. aches. Right?   Michael Hingson  40:00 Right. So you reached out to that doctor.   Jody Hudson  40:04 So we reached out to that doctor. And then at the same time, we googled best Lyme facilities, best line treatment, because, you know, I'm a mama bear. I single mom at that time, Alex's dad wasn't in the picture at all, financially, emotionally, any of that. And I was working parents. And I thought, Okay, I need to tackle this, right. I'm going to roll up my sleeves, we've got a diagnosis, we're gonna get the doctor treatment, she's going to be better in a couple of months time, I was so naive. I had no idea what I was facing. And so we had this appointment with, you know, this doctor in Pismo in June. So Alex had been diagnosed in May that this appointment for June. But then I started researching best Lyme clinics. Sofia Health Institute was one, there was a couple others and I basically got on the phone. And I begged and pleaded to get into these facilities. And insurance doesn't cover a lot of this. In fact, it didn't cover most of it. In a year's time, I spent over $100,000 Trying to get Alex better, I sold cars. I had people give me money. I mean, it was crazy what I did. But again, any of us would do that in our situation with a sick child. So we went to the doctor in Pismo, we also went to Sofia Health Institute. And with every doctor that we saw, it was a whole new protocol. Everybody, you know, had their own opinions. And it was just, it was just really tough. Like I said, you know, with cancer, it's tried and true. These are the treatments that you go through. But with Lyme disease, because there's so many different co infections. You have to figure out who you know what symptoms are the most troublesome, you start there, and it's like, okay, eliminate that. So that symptom, and then let's move on to the next. And that's what we were trying to do with Alice. But at the same time, she kept losing weight, and she couldn't be strong and healthy enough with her treatments. Because she was so malnourished, so it was just, it was a mess.   Michael Hingson  42:35 And no matter what happened, nobody was able to come up with any solution that seemed to help.   Jody Hudson  42:41 We had a team of about 12 doctors we had, because as I said, once Lyme disease is in your blood system, which for Alex, it had been since. You know, if you go back when her symptoms first started, which we thought was just that overworked athletic body. It was in fifth grade. Now here she is in college, right? So I mean, it'd been 10 years that this had been living in her her system. So she had cardiologists she had a gastro doctor. She had, you know, a doctor, the doctor in Pismo that was kind of like the the lead on this. But we had so many other people that we had to bring onto the team. And then not to mention, just she was in and out of hospitals, just trying to get IVs and other stuff in her system to keep her healthy.   Michael Hingson  43:42 When did you get to the point where you realize that you weren't going to be able to fix her and how did you reconcile that?   Jody Hudson  43:52 So May of 2017 She got the diagnosis by December after going through a whirlwind of in and out of hospitals, different doctors. I knew in December that I was losing her she was we just we couldn't get a leg up. And from June until December, we literally had gone cross country Now mind you, I was still trying to hold down a job at this time, right? So I was just going back and forth and people were giving me their their sick time and vacation time. And I was just trying to uncover anything that I could to get her her better. But we realized that not only did she have Lyme disease, she had something else called mast cell activation syndrome, which she basically was allergic to almost every type of food she was down to like four or five safe foods. She could eat. And I detail all this in my book because I mean, it could take hours and days to go into all of this because it's just such a crazy, crazy disease. But   Michael Hingson  45:12 was that caused by the limes? Disease?   Jody Hudson  45:15 Correct? Yeah. When your immune system is compromised, it creates havoc in your in your system. And so everything gets Miss wired. And her histamine levels, everything we're, we're off. So you know, her treatments, she would try and have different types of treatments. And her supplements things that normally she could take before now, it was as if it was an enemy entering, you know, a danger zone here, she would try and swallow these supplements and take her, you know, treatment. And her histamine levels would just start attacking, thinking that was, you know, something bad that was coming into her system. Just horrific the pain that she was going through, but it was December. And I remember, you asked me, How did I reconcile with this, I remember getting in my car, and just driving. And I pulled over and I found it on the dashboard. And I had the serious conversation with God. And I was in tears. And I basically said, listen, here's the deal. Like I'm telling God what to do, right? I said, here's the deal. I go, you either take her right now, because I can't deal with this anymore, or you heal her. But this purgatory is not working for me, I cannot do this any longer. And that says, you know, and so that's what he did a couple of months later.   Michael Hingson  46:47 So you had so hard and I have some associations with Lyme disease in a different way. First of all, when I was living in New Jersey and the selling some products, I knew a couple guys who had accompany the turns out they they did have Lyme disease, it was apparently somewhat controlled, but they did have it. And I only know that because they told me but my fourth guide dog was bit by a tick relatively soon after we moved to New Jersey and we knew she was bitten we, we got the tick and we got it out of her and and the vet said there's nothing you know, we can do to analyze it or anything. And you know, as long as she's okay, she's okay. Well. One of the things I've learned about guide dogs is that they are and a lot of dogs, especially when there's a lot of love, and they want to please, they're incredibly stoic. We never detected any illness in her until May 1 of 1999 When I called her to dinner, and she didn't come and we found her on her bed, almost unresponsive. And through getting her to an emergency vet and then going elsewhere and so on. And finally meeting a woman who we regard as a very dear friend, although I haven't talked with her for a while Tracy Gillespie, who is in the University of Penn system. And working for emergency vet in Toms River, New Jersey, as I recall. She said Lynnae has glomerular nephritis. And it is morphed from Lyme disease. So she wouldn't keep the good stuff in her system, the kidneys would pass it out along with the bad stuff because the Lumeria went bad. So she had to retire. And we were able to keep her for three more years. But still, we we knew that there was was something there but it was just one of those things. So I appreciate all you are saying that's my closest brush, fortunately, or whatever with Lyme disease, but it's it is a very insidious thing.   Jody Hudson  49:04 It really is and you know, that's can be carriers of Lyme disease and, you know, with with the ticks and that's why I always when I'm you know talking make make sure that I recognize that it's not just humans. I'm glad that you shared that story. I mean, it is, you know, as we do tick checks from head to toe on our body, we need to do that as our animals come in from the outside because they are just as susceptible to it as as we are.   Michael Hingson  49:38 Well I'm being a guide dog. We kept a close eye on her so we found it right. Still it occurred. Well so. So Alex past, God listened to you and and did take her then what did you do?   Jody Hudson  49:57 So, what I did was yes, she she passed on March 24. In fact, tomorrow's her five year anniversary, I cannot believe. Yeah, I can't believe it's been five years and some aspects of it, I feel like it was just five, five minutes, five days and other times. So I feel like maybe it's been longer. But she and I were very close, we were just with everything that I'd gone through being divorced. And being a single mom, I mean, the mother daughter bond is very strong. To begin with, and ours was especially strong just with our our life experiences and challenges. And when Alex was, I mean, she was bedridden for for several months before she passed away. And she was always so positive. And she kept, you know, thinking that she was going to be this Lyme warrior, she was going to, you know, get to UCLA, finish that degree and start her own nine nonprofit. And when we knew that, God, you know, had other plans for her, I made a pact with her and said that I was going to basically carry her torch for her. And so after she passed, money started just flooding in. There was a GoFundMe account that someone had set up for me and I started receiving quite a bit of money. And I knew that was going to be my my seed money to start the outsets in line Foundation. And here again, I was working for a nonprofit, I was still working at Catholic Charities. And I thought, Okay, I'm gonna, you know, petition, I'll get someone to help me to, you know, see what that looks like. And, you know, people have told me, it's going to take about a year to get a nonprofit up and running. So that okay, good, that will give me time to adjust and make the transition. Well, I received status that I had been awarded 501, C, three for the outsets, in line foundation in 30 days. And in my classic CPA, comment, my CPA when I got the letter, I said, Okay, roll in, tell me that this is like a joke. Like, this isn't true, right? Like, I really didn't get this approved so quickly. And he said, God, sometimes the good Lord does things that there are no explanations for Congratulations. You have a 501 C three. Yeah. And so yeah, we were up and running in June, we started our first fundraiser, we were able to work with global Lyme Alliance and do a research grant with them, we were able to award some financial grants to lyme patients. So we, you know, we're doing everything according to Alex's wishes, and five years later, we're still doing that. So it definitely, like I said, before this mother daughter bond, I know I'm not doing it alone, I know that she, you know, is helping me every step of the way. And you wrote a book. And I wrote a book. And that was something that I did not expect at all, like I am a business woman, I write reports. I don't journal I don't write for fun. But this was something that was just laid on my heart. And I was a member of the Fresno State book club. And there was a gallon there who had just written a book, and I started talking to her. And I said, you know, I feel like I need to get this stuff out of my head and onto print. Because just as I'm chatting with you, there's so much that people didn't realize of the journey that Alex and I went on, especially that last year, even my closest group of friends, you know, when they read my book, they're like, God, God, we just didn't realize everything that you had gone through, we thought we did. And I said, No, I, I feel bad. I wasn't able to catch everybody up on this, I said that I was running so fast to get my daughter better, that I didn't have time to bring my team along with me. So this book was written for so many different reasons. Just to let people know how amazing my daughter was and what she went through, also to, you know, give people hope, inspiration. And also just to, you know, give validity to this horrible disease that so many people's still in the medical community don't recognize, or, you know, give it such a stigma. So the book came out. Last February, I self published it and Uh, you know, it's, it's done pretty well, I mean, I've received over 100 plus five star reviews on Amazon, which, to me, if I just, you know, was able to impact one or two people at that, wow, that would be great, you know, people would really understand what I'm trying to convey. But you know, just the, the impact, and what I'm getting back from it that people, you know, write to me or call me. It's just so overwhelming, you know, and for them to appreciate my daughter and love my daughter, with what she went through, it's pretty, pretty touching.   Michael Hingson  55:42 What a blessing. Well, tell me, what would you like people to take away from listening to you today.   Jody Hudson  55:51 So what I want people to take away from listening to meet today is, no matter what challenges you have going on in life, it's how you show up that people are going to remember. And for me, in that moment, when Alex passed away, it could have been so easy just to throw the covers over my head, and give up and be, you know, this grief girl, but I didn't want to be defined by that I wanted to, you know, have people look at me, and be that example, for others be that example for my son, be that example for my friends, that no matter what I had gone through, that I can still show up every day, and that there's still like to be lived. And to do that, also, you know, in honor of my daughter, right, with everything that she went through, how could I just lay it in bet. And I mean, she's suffered far greater than, than I did, and, and I just, I couldn't do that. So I needed to make some, you know, purpose out of what she went through. And that's what I'm I'm trying to do and I'm trying to accomplish?   Michael Hingson  57:05 Well, how can people reach out to you and communicate, correspond or learn more? And   Jody Hudson  57:11 yeah, so we have a website alexhudsonlymefoundation, website, www dot alexhudsonlymefoundation.org, there's ways that you can get a hold of me on the website, you can also go into Amazon, and look for my book, my promise to Alex written by me, Jody Hudson, I would love it if you know, people would, you know, by the, by the book, and, you know, support me through that, because all the proceeds from that book, go right back into the foundation. And, you know, if people are out there, struggling right now with, you know, medical mysteries, you know, check out Lyme disease, check out and see maybe if that's something that you might have in the doctors just haven't been able to diagnose. You know, be your own advocate, never, never give up. And that's one of the things that Alex and I never did, no matter how many times that door was slammed in our faces from the medical community. We still kept opening it up and trying to get to answers.   Michael Hingson  58:22 Never giving up is extremely important. We do it all too quickly. And we, we don't realize that we can do a lot more than we think we can.   Jody Hudson  58:33 Amen. Amen. You don't know you know how strong you need to be until you are in those moments where strength is all you got?   58:42 Well, I want to thank you, Jody, for being with us today. And for telling your story and having the courage to do it and to continue doing, what you're doing and anything that we can do to help through this podcast and so on, please let me know. And we met through accessibility, which I'm really happy about. And I appreciate your desire to help in dealing with inclusion and website accessibility but more important, anything that we can do to continue to promote what you're doing. We're in so I want to thank you for that. And I want to thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate it reach out to Alex through Jodi reach out to Jodi especially and Alex will know and we want to hear from you please email me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. Accessibe is A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to www dot Michael hingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening and like especially if you're on iTunes, please give us a five star rating. Those tend to show up a lot and we appreciate it. But Jody most of all, once more. I want to thank you for being here and for not only inspiring us but I hope educating a lot of people about Lyme disease and just being stronger and more unstoppable than we think.   Jody Hudson  1:00:00 Thank you so much for having me and listening to my story and Alex's story It really means a lot to me   Michael Hingson  1:00:11

In this episode, we'll join our Wardrobe Manager, Jess Savalle, and founder Margery Krevsky Dosey as they discuss how the wardrobe selection process has evolved over the years. About Margery:Margery Krevsky Dosey is the Founder and Chairperson of the Board of Productions Plus a national talent/marketing agency. As an executive for over 40 years she is the recipient of several business and professional awards. The author of “Sirens of Chrome” a book which chronicles the history of auto shows she addresses the importance of auto show talent .  She presently resides in Ann Arbor, MI with her husband and dog, “Louis”. About Jessica:Jessica Savalle is the Senior Wardrobe Account Manager at Productions Plus. She has 19 years of experience in the Retail/Wardrobe Management Industry, including time with Macy's, Marshall Fields, Justice, and Louis Vuitton. She has done it all in roles ranging from management and sales to alterations and buying. Jessica will provide a comprehensive breakdown of how wardrobe is selected for our automotive talent and the ins and outs of how it all comes together. About our host, Joe Stearns:Joseph Stearns is a member of the leadership team at Productions Plus and is our Podcast host. He has been an actor, performer, and arts administrator for over 30 years. He was the founder and artistic director of Signal Ensemble Theatre in Chicago. His mission for the Productions Plus Podcast is to share the experience and knowledge housed within Productions Plus to help talent succeed. About Productions Plus:Productions Plus has been providing excellence in brand representation since 1981. We are the largest SAG-franchised, full-service talent management agency and our niche has been representing Product Specialists for numerous global automotive brands. We represent thousands of actors for TV/Film, print, commercials, product demonstrations, trade shows and auto shows. We are excited to launch our new podcast which will feature several of our employees, talent and brand partners chatting about what we do best- connecting people and brands! Follow us @productionsplus on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedinApply to work with us by downloading the Productions Plus App and registering to be a Talent

What is the classic Chicago TV commercial or business that is your remember that is gone but not forgotten? Roger Badesch, retired WGN Radio news anchor, returns to ‘The Dave Plier Show' to talk to Dave and our listeners about vintage Chicago commercials including Boushelle (Hudson3-2700), Victory Auto Wreckers, Empire Carpet, Zayre, Wieboldt's, Marshall Fields, Lincoln Carpeting and United Auto Insurance; […]

Hi Beautiful Friends-It's been one of those weeks with lots of quiet time interspersed with unexpected busyness. As a result I haven't had the spaciousness to record a new episode for you for our Wednesday episode. So here is the second installment of the tale of Marshall Fields & Company (episode #22). I think you'll enjoy it!With Love,LaurelLots of beautiful wisdom and light flows through tonight's episode for you. The angels bring forth the theme of "Divine Harmony" and infuse this episode with waves of love to help you up-level your "perception filter" as they call it. Then Laurel returns with more history about the Marshall  Fields & Company department store from the book Marshall Field and Company, The Life Story of a Great Concern. You'll learn about the beginnings of their bargain basement as well as their famous candy kitchen. The story begins at 26:45.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday.  

Hi Dear Friends, I'm still in the quiet spaces coming into the new year. That's why I'm posting a replay of episode #21 to keep you company as you drift off to sleep. I'll be back on Sunday with a new episode for you.  With Love, LaurelReceive a beautiful infusion of light from tonight's episode. We begin with bringing in the energies of miracles and the sweet ways these can show up in your life. You'll hear Laurel's story about meeting "Mr. G." on a plane ride home and the serendipity that came with their "chance" meeting. Then, for tonight's story, Laurel opens up the Way Back Machine and you'll travel back through Chicago's history to learn about the early days of Marshall Fields & Company, a high-end department synonymous with elegance, quality and exemplary customer service. The story begins at 20:58.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday.

What would a holiday season be without shopping? Marshall Fields was a staple of the holiday season but sadly is no more. Today we talk all about the fascinating history of Marshall Fields.

The Stan Freberg Show, originally broadcast September 22, 1957, College Football Report. A sports interview, A Hollywood agent with canine clients, Bang Gunley: U. S. Marshall Fields (sponsored by "Puffed Grass" cereal). Also Claudia, originally broadcast September 22, 1948, One Lives, One Dies. Tense drama in a doctor's office. Visit my web page - http://www.classicradio.streamWe receive no revenue from YouTube. If you enjoy our shows, listen via the links on our web page or if you're so inclined, Buy me a coffee! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wyattcoxelAHeard on almost 100 radio stations from coast to coast. Classic Radio Theater features great radio programs that warmed the hearts of millions for the better part of the 20th century. Host Wyatt Cox brings the best of radio classics back to life with both the passion of a long-time (as in more than half a century) fan and the heart of a forty-year newsman. But more than just “playing the hits”, Wyatt supplements the first hour of each day's show with historical information on the day and date in history including audio that takes you back to World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. FDR, Eisenhower, JFK, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, LBJ. It's a true slice of life from not just radio's past, but America's past.Wyatt produces 21 hours a week of freshly minted Classic Radio Theater presentations each week, and each day's broadcast is timely and entertaining!

All publicity is good publicity, it's how you respond to it! How did Andrea Cargill get into the celebrity chef scene and start managing Chef Katsuji Tanabe a former guest on the Better Call Daddy Show?  Andrea says it's important to do the work we care about, and that might have something to do with her military roots!  How can we do to get more involved in our communities?  What has Andrea learned from working in the media?  How can you navigate with tragedy happening in the background? We don't go through things, we grow through things, even being a co-victim in a homocide!  Better Call Daddy: The Safe Space For Controversy. Shout out to Arsiak (episode 200) and Chef Katsuji (episode 211) Andrea Cargill was born and raised in Puyallup, Washington, a suburb south of Seattle. Where she developed her love of professional sports, coffee and the finest fashion's that Nordstrom had to offer. She spent her childhood before and after school with grandparents, Thomas and Evelyn. Both born in 1922 during the Great Depression. Who helped shape her determination to help others and approach life with a mentality of seeking to understand. Andrea is an independent Talent Agent and Manager. That started in the most non conventional way. A prior career in Corporate America and once described as the “Connector”, helped catapult her into this exciting world. Fulfilling to say the least, though STEAM and assisting inner city children are her passion. She is on the Board of Directors for a STEAM Center in Marshall Fields, Chicago, Illinois. Started a STEAM initiative with Major League Soccer teams in various cities to raise money for children. Andrea loves volunteering her time feeding people with World Central Kitchen, spends Christmas morning with Cozy Connections in Seattle and is on the committee of Vote Early Day. Andrea has a deep love for traveling, music, reading, working out and a curiosity for life. She's described as an open book, with transparency extremely important in both her professional and personal lives. The best advice she once received was from her Papa Thomas: “Always do what you feel is best, even if it goes against everyone around you. We never grow in comfort zones.” “The Highest Human Act is to Inspire.” - The Late, Great Nipsey Hussle Cozy Connections https://instagram.com/seattlecozyconnections?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Youth For A Better Future https://instagram.com/youthforabetterfuture?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Connect with Reena https://youtube.com/c/BetterCallDaddy bettercalldaddy.com instagram.com/reenafriedmanwatts twitter.com/reenareena linkedin.com/in/reenafriedmanwatts   Me and my daddy would love to hear from you, subscribe and drop us a five star review ratethispodcast.com/bettercalldaddy podchaser.com/bettercalldaddy  

From Tia Neyman I know bios are supposed to be written with a serious tone and used for blatant self-promotion.  However, in my opinion, they are seldom read and in too many cases a great deal of liberty is taken with the truth.  Now one is required of me so here goes a rather “all too much me” written take on “me.”I am a native Houstonian and as such have tremendous pride in my city and love the “old historic buildings that avoided being torn down.  I fantasize about the truly great elegant stores that reigned in my youth.  In fact, my absolute favorite building of the past, a landmark Houston owned store run by our very own Sakowitz family, is frequently a destination for perambulating our dog to which, much like a verse in a once popular song, is currently a downtown parking garage.  Paved paradise and put up a parking lot… Shame! Shame!I started modelling as an elementary student and professionally at age 14 I signed with an agent named Glenn Tillotson.  I modeled Saturdays with 2 or 3 other teen models in the Sky Terrace Restaurant in Sakowitz downtown store, my first exposure to elegance and refinement. I walked all their teen fashion shows which were mostly back to school shows in the fall and holiday. Around 18 or 19 I signed with the leading fashion agency in Houston and built a career.  I worked regularly (a feat of accomplishment in Houston) building a huge part of my work in trunk shows (likely due to an innate comprehension of modeling actually being a form of sales), fashion shows and special fashion events eventually branching into print and commercials including voice on camera.  This required me becoming a member of SAG/AFTRA.  Client stores included Neiman Marcus, Sak's, Marshall Fields, Frost Brothers, Joskes, Foley', etc.  My husband at the time was a jeweler. He was murdered when I was into the 6th month of a high-risk pregnancy.  Total financial destruction as well as emotional devastation.  It was a turning point in which I straightened my shoulders and charged headfirst into creating a plan to provide for myself and soon to be born child.  I expanded into Dallas, Chicago and New York.  Clearly not the usual start to your average modeling success story.  In my opinion the secret to success in the industry is common sense and business ethics also referred to as a strong work ethic.  I worked tirelessly. Rules were different in that era. There is protection in the industry now to prevent models from being taken advantage of.  To model successfully you have to be thick skinned because you face constant rejection.To save myself embarrassment I will skip the next era of my personal life.  Suffice it to say my strong survival skills were put to good use, and we all have a husband or two we'd prefer to forget….At 35 I again married (one last time) a witty gentleman who worked for a then little known company called Enron. At some point we decided to turn a hobby of mine into an actual business. Be very careful making business decisions drinking margaritas and eating Mexican food on a Saturday afternoon! We took my personal stress management hobby of making pearl and gemstone 18k gold jewelry into a business and grew it to a company that provided work for women who only wanted to work the hours their children were in school, retired looking for something enjoyable to do to earn shoe money or full time, benefits paid staff. It was exhausting, but TiaMia was not only an education in how to turn mistakes around but how to sell, inspire & create.  Great friendships were made along the way and having to retire due to ill health and the additional stress traveling imposed on health broke my heart.Enter the tragedy of health crises in my life!  I was diagnosed with a rare genome of Hepatitis C, and because it was rare discovering a cure was the result of years of treatment failures.  These treatments were gruesome, expensive, time consuming and living Hell. My family was supportive, my Great Dane Merlin tirelessly at my side and my faith, not to mention failing to realize how seriously ill I actually was, saw me through it all.  Originally, I thought once I was cured of the Hepatitis, the Cryoglobulinemia Vasculitis and the Hyponatremia all would be gone, and my life would return to normal.  I “thought…” The treatments used to save my fingers and toes as well as my life brought on more scary health issues after the fact.  Massive arthritis, ongoing Hyponatremia and quadruple joint replacement seriously interfered with my plan, my life, my normalcy and challenged my sense of humor!  All through the Hep C I trained Pilates daily. When I wasn't as ill I ran and lifted weights.  I managed to stay in surprisingly great shape given my age and my health challenges.  Training kept me sane, reduced the tears and frankly, averted my potential frustration with a broken system centered on a few acquiring great wealth at the cost of millions of people in poor health.At 50 I started studying ballet. Now, a wise woman my age would start with one day a week. I was not wise, and I was a wee bit of an obsessive perfectionist so I danced 5 days a week, sometimes 6, took group classes, private lessons with a Vaganova trained Russian dancer and eventually started pointe work. Walking fashion shows built strong feet plus my training helped maintain strong legs.  I was naturally limber so ballet became the replacement in my heart for modeling and TiaMia.  My current ballet master has stuck with me through joint replacements, neck surgery, back treatments, injuries…..Then I turned 60! The popularity of older, gray haired models spurred the idea in my head I could return to the fashion industry and once again model. Sort of a Phoenix rising from the ashes story.  Well…. It took off with a bang.  Sort of!  I had to learn this thing called social media which did not exist in my era of modeling!  My tenacity allowed me to hit the ground running after running mostly into brick walls.  I was relentless and kept asking questions, exploring options and agencies and basically sorting “BS” from fact.  I booked and walked a few Fashion Week shows and discovered I loved print.  In fact in one month, I had the cover of one magazine and editorials in three others!  I was on a roll except for one unanticipated event: Covid!As the world ground to a hibernating halt, a friend who worked as a stylist introduced me to a designer. Together, with 3 other models residing in Houston. New York and the UK, we filmed self-videos in our homes and surrounding safe areas which ultimately were merged together to form one sensational marketing piece for a jacket designer.  Covid has eased and my return to modeling has not regained its original traction. This makes me sad, but I trust that God will continue to throw options in my path, and it's up to me to make productive choices.  I've been fortunate to stumble into the life of likeminded women who believe in and support our fellow women.  Ironically, the majority of our conversations invariably involve cars and shoes.To summarize my story, life is a series of triumphs, mistakes, tragedies and comedies.  It's what you learn from these experiences that form the better you.  There are always people you stumble upon that can become lasting friends or are simply likeminded providing opportunities that open a door to another step in life. A personal challenge is the isolation that occurs for older people, especially those with health challenges. It's not just my fellow over 60 peers or the health challenged living in constant pain crowd.  It's sadly a direction our world has taken by creating Ageism and devaluing the over 45 population.  We have a culture that literally worships youth.  Young women likely know little of elegance and glamor but are overwhelmed with marketing strategies promoting sexiness, turning objectifying oneself into a fashion statement and lifetime goal. Young teen models tend to hang on to the stories I tell backstage at shows about eras past with details of Christian Dior and the New Look Era, the glamour of old Hollywood style and real stockings.  The art of dressing elegantly.  Young women know little of how to be the true originals and not following a pack.  Daring to embrace the self.  It makes me sad. 

What is the classic Chicago TV commercial or business that is your remember that is gone but not forgotten? Roger Badesch, retired WGN Radio news anchor, returns to ‘The Dave Plier Show' to talk to Dave and our listeners about vintage Chicago commercials including Boushelle (Hudson3-2700), Victory Auto Wreckers, Empire Carpet, Zayre, Wieboldt's, Marshall Fields, Lincoln Carpeting and United Auto Insurance; […]

Receive an infusion of Divine Love + Serenity from the angels in tonight's episode. Then Laurel returns with more history about the Marshall  Fields & Company department store from the book Marshall Field and Company, The Life Story of a Great Concern. You'll learn about how they set the bar high when it came to window and merchandising displays for dry goods retailers and also more about the benefits for store employees. The story begins at 20:45.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday.  

Lots of beautiful wisdom and light flows through tonight's episode for you. The angels bring forth the theme of "Divine Harmony" and infuse this episode with waves of love to help you up-level your "perception filter" as they call it. Then Laurel returns with more history about the Marshall  Fields & Company department store from the book Marshall Field and Company, The Life Story of a Great Concern. You'll learn about the beginnings of their bargain basement as well as their famous candy kitchen. The story begins at 26:45.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday. 

Receive a beautiful infusion of light from tonight's episode. We begin with bringing in the energies of miracles and the sweet ways these can show up in your life. You'll hear Laurel's story about meeting "Mr. G." on a plane ride home and the serendipity that came with their "chance" meeting. Then, for tonight's story, Laurel opens up the Way Back Machine and you'll travel back through Chicago's history to learn about the early days of Marshall Fields & Company, a high-end department synonymous with elegance, quality and exemplary customer service. The story begins at 20:58.You can learn more about Laurel and the angels at illuminatingsouls.comReceive an inspirational message from Laurel + Illuminating Souls each day via email. Join our Daily Inspiration Blast for a sweet little morsel of goodness delivered to your mailbox Monday thru Friday. Tonight Laurel is reading from Marshall Field and Company, The Life Story of a Great Concern by Samuel Herbert Ditchett · 1922

Merry Christmas Eve! By gum we're going to do at least one holiday book this month, if it kills us. Heck, for that matter, why not go local? You see, Kate and Betsy both live in Evanston, Illinois and it just so happens that one of the most famous Christmas songs out there started its life as a children's book by an Evanston author! Yes indeed, we doing a deep dive into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer today circa 1939. And not just any book, but a reprint of the original story (pre-song and pre-television adaptation) that was handed out for free in department stores all those years ago. How does it hold up to modern scrutiny? Only one way to find out: Show Notes: Kate would like to correct her earlier statement that this scene is set in Chicago (though Chicago is mentioned). That said, here's the scene she refers to, early on in our show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxtLxqBolJI FURTHER CORRECTION: At one point in the podcast Betsy says that Robert L. May wrote the book for Marshall Fields. She then almost immediately says it was Montgomery Ward. The correct department story was, in fact, Montgomery Ward. Here's an NPR piece on the behind-the-scenes tale of Rudolph: https://www.npr.org/2013/12/25/256579598/writing-rudolph-the-original-red-nosed-manuscript We find it interesting that Rudolph began his life as a department store's character and this year Macy's is doing the same dang thing! https://youtu.be/DwIUIrk56cQ Betsy Recommends: The New Vic production of Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas in New York City!: https://newvictory.org/tickets-and-events/2122-live-performance-emmet-otters-jugband-christmas/ Kate Recommends: This link to the article about ostrich cells used to make COVID detection: masks: https://tanksgoodnews.com/japanese-scientists-use-ostrich-cells-to-make-glowing-covid-19-detection-masks/ And this Etsy artist that makes ostrich ornaments: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AnimalsThatGoPlaces?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=180973083 And these socks: https://outofprint.com/products/the-monster-at-the-end-of-this-book-socks For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/24/fuse-8-n-kate-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-by-robert-l-may-ill-denver-gillen/

WGN Radio's Dave Plier and Dave Schwan talk about the history of Christmas around Chicago including the Christmas Tree Ship, The State Street Parade, Marshall Fields' Windows and Walnut Room and more. Also included is the history of legendary department store, Marshall Fields, with author Gayle Soucek.

In this episode, Ariel is joined by Lillian Anderson to talk about the power of business and her incredible journey from running a toy store in her 20s to business leader in the massage world, and how she empowered women on her journey. KEY TAKEAWAYS Nothing is ever given to you. You have to have your hands open – which is the symbol for people giving you money – to have the opportunities that are put in front of you. What women haven’t had is the education on how to use the opportunities in front of us. The toy store was successful because I was there and I worked it with passion. I was the number one seller of marionettes in the United States. I outdid Marshall Fields. By the time I was 24 my entire family was working for me. Try supervising your own mother! To empower employees when they’d reached the top in my companies (in other words, the next job they could go for was mine – and I’m not ready to retire), I ask them to look for another career. I don’t fire them, I help find them something else where they can grow further, even if that’s going back to school to improve themselves to gain financial stability and mental stimulation. We live with so much anger and frustration: Figure it out, if you need counseling, help or assistance, go get it and find your peace. Your life will be so much easier BEST MOMENTS "You need to be willing to be able to reach out and try, “no” just doesn’t exist." "Look at life as an adventure and in a positive attitude." "No one wants to be bored at work, they need to grow as people, so you have to help. You can’t hold people back, especially if they’re women." "I want to be in a position to forgive, if not to forget, and give the grace to someone else to do the same thing." ABOUT THE GUEST Lillian Anderson has been involved in the real estate business for 30 years and in the holistic health world for 20 years. Social: If you would like to contact Lillian Anderson, you can reach her at lilliananderson032@gmail.com. ABOUT THE HOST Ariel is a Licensed Massage Therapist, Registered Clinical Hypnotherapist, Reiki Master, Empath and Psychic who has been involved in holistic healing since 1988. She is also an educator, speaker, author and mentor for empaths, spiritual seekers and medical professionals. To reach Ariel, go to www.arielhubbard.com, where you will be able to contact her directly. Please let her know you heard her on the podcast and the assistance you need or questions you have. Website: www.arielhubbard.com Podcast: Woman Power Zone on all major platforms LinkedIn: @arielhubbard IG: @arielhubbard Facebook: @HubbardEducationGroup YT: @arielhubbard11 CH: @arielhubbard Pinterest: https://pin.it/6Z6RozSSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back everyone for part 4 of the series for the month of September. This is the last episode of the month for Marshall Fields Day Memories. This week Jeff will continue to talk with his special guests about their experiences working in the 1970's at Marshall Fields. They will spill the beans on what it was like working there at that time. Get ready to laugh, sigh, and learn something with Jeff this week. This week the movie review will be all about Taxi Driver. As always, the coffee review is something we least can forget. Can anyone say Nebraska??? Enjoy your Sunday Morning Coffee with Mary B's 5th Son.-IF YOU LIKE THIS WEEKS EPISODE HELP US GROW THIS PODCAST BY RATING, SUBSCRIBE, AND FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM @MARYBS5THSON. FINALLY, PLEASE SHARE THIS PODCAST WITH THOSE YOU LOVE TO HELP US CONTINUE TO CREATE CONTENT FOR YOU TO ENJOY EVERY SUNDAY MORNING OR ANYTIME! 

Episode 11 aired on CBS Radio September 22, 1957. A sports interview, A Hollywood agent with canine clients, Bang Gunley: U. S. Marshall Fields (sponsored by "Puffed Grass" cereal).

The Stan Freberg Show, originally broadcast September 22, 1957, College Football Report. A sports interview, A Hollywood agent with canine clients, Bang Gunley: U. S. Marshall Fields (sponsored by "Puffed Grass" cereal). Also Lum n Abner, originally broadcast September 22, 1948, will Abner buy a ranch?

This week Jeff has invited Mary B' 3rd son Joe, his wife Claudia, and Jeff wife Pam to be the guests on this week's show. This episode is the 3rd installment of the Marshall Fields Day's Memories Month. They really get into what it was like to work At Marshall Fields in the 1970's and what it was like behind the scenes. As always, Jeff will give you his coffee and movie review. This week it is Glengarry Glen Ross. A amazing film with Jack Lemmon, Alex Baldwin, and so many other greats. Please enjoy your Sunday morning coffee with Mary B's 5th son.

Today Jeff is continuing his conversation from last week with his  wife, brother, and sister-in-law. They will discuss more of the exciting and crazy adventures, from the glory days of Marshall Fields in Chicago, Illinois. Imagine the glorious smell of designer clothes, fresh coffee, and Frango mints wafting in the air as you listen to wonderful and cherished memories. As always, the coffee and movie review is as juicy as ever! This week it is a classic - Joker is Wild, with ole blue eyes himself: Frank Sinatra. Enjoy your Sunday morning coffee with Jeff and his guests.

Welcome to our Marshall Fields Day Memories episodes.  We are kicking off this September's month long journey extravaganza with part 1! We are so excited for everyone to take part in this incredible walk, jog, and sprint down memory lane with Jeff, Jeff's brother, Jeff's brother's wife, and of course Jeff's WIFE, PAM!!!! As always we have our new and improved coffee review and movie review. This week it is Seabiscuit. Please enjoy your Sunday morning coffee with Jeff and his guests this special month.

August 18 is Marshall Field's Birthday so Arthur Miller's Art Class will be about Marshall Fields relationship with Lake Forest Show Notes: LF has been the home of Marshall Field 5th for many years and now a daughter has a weekend house here as well, a rehabilitated 1911 Shaw mansion. Marshall Field, I died after a Jan. 1, 1905 or 1906 golf game on the Chicago area, catching a bad cold a third of a century before antibiotics. P.D. Armour had died the same way playing outside with his grandkids five or so years earlier. After Field died, John G. Shedd took over as the second president of the firm, continuing to grow it, including working personally with Edward H. Bennett ca. 1907 on the Walnut Room, with Bennett's design. Shedd died in the late 1920s, having given LF lakefront homes to two daughters, Mrs. Schweppe on Mayflower and Mrs. Reed, later Keith. Mrs. Reed rebuilt the garden and house, the latter with David Adler. Mrs. Reed also built an indoor tennis court and adjacent living quarters, where they lived while the 1931 Adler house was built. The two sisters donated the 1931 LF Library, in the same cruciform plan as their father's late 1920s Aquarium, Chicago. When wings were added in 1978, Mrs. Reed's son, John Sheed Reed, was the donor; he was chair of the Santa Fe RR, then headquartered in Chicago. Field I had been planning to build a museum downtown for 1893 fair anthropology artifacts, etc. his nephew, Stanley Field, in the cold golf party, inherited the job of creating the museum. After court losses over putting the museum in Grant Park, they created new landfill south of the grant Park landfill, from coal ashes from the Loop, hand shoveled, and built the building, which opened in 1921. Field also built a Lake Bluff lakefront home at the end of today's Lakeland Rd. One of the first branch stores of Fields was in the west building facing the park in Market Square, 1931, eventually expanding to take over the whole building. The upstairs by the 1970s was women's dresses and sports wear. The basement sold linens, etc., and the main floor accessories, cosmetics, and a few men's clothes. The malls, with a bigger Fields at Hawthorne, cut into that trade in Market Square. By 2006 the Fields successor company, Macy's, closed most of the store, though kept the cosmetics business as Blu Mercury. Have an idea for a topic or guest? pete@lakeforestpodcast.com Buy us a beer? ok! https://www.patreon.com/LakeForestPodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lakeforestpodcast/message

This week Jeff explores present day Chicago with a friend. He meets Kevin and learns about a new coffee place. Jeff shares a fun story regarding his 19th birthday in the Southside of Chicago with his brothers and some friends. As always, he will have his coffee and movie review. Listen for some exciting news about some upcoming birthday! Enjoy your Sunday morning coffee with Mary B's 5th son.

This week Jeff has a special guest with him and of course the special guest is.... Jeff's brother Red. This time they discuss all the important behind the scenes info about Marshall Fields. Ohh the good ole days. If you've ever been to Fields before they closed in the 2000's then this is the episode for you. Jeff will have the movie and coffee review, as always. The song is a great one this week!!! Take a listen with Mary B's 5th Son. 

WGN Radio’s Dave Plier welcomes award winning reporter Martha Teichner of ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ to talk about her new book ‘When Harry Met Minnie: A True Story of Love & Friendship’, how her parents met at Marshall Fields and the ongoing success of the iconic Sunday morning program.

Thank for tuning in to the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast! On today's episode you will learn all about the extinct department and big box stores that most of us grew up shopping at. You will learn the backstory behind Circuit City, Radio Shack and Midwestern favorites like Marshall Fields and the Boston Store. I referenced an Onion article which discusses Linens 'N' Things and the memorable contents of their store, as only the onion can do: https://local.theonion.com/new-linens-n-shit-opens-1819569948Contact me anytime: Email- popcultureretrospective@gmail.comTwitter- @popcultureretroInstagram- popcultureretrospectiveEnjoy the show! Please rate on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends and family about the show!

Roger Badesch, WGN News Anchor and pop culture enthusiast, returns to ‘The Dave Plier Show’ to talk to Dave and our listeners about vintage Chicago commercials including Boushelle (Hudson3-2700), Victory Auto Wreckers, Empire Carpet, Zayre, Wieboldt’s, Marshall Fields, Lincoln Carpeting and United Auto Insurance; and Chicago’s most legendary pitchmen Elmer Lynn Hauldren (The Empire Carpet man), Al Piemonte, Linn Burton, Harry Schmerler and […]

It’s been the Men’s Store for Marshall Field’s, a fitness center, and now it's filled with art and artists. Dennis Rodkin takes us on an historical and architectural tour of 33 E. Washington for Reset’s “What’s That Building” series.

Inspired by Leona Woods, the only woman who worked on the Manhattan Project, Atomic Love (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2020) tells the story of Rosalind Porter, a physicist recruited by Enrico Fermi to join his team at the University of Chicago. During the war, Rosalind had fallen in love with Weaver, a fellow scientist working on the project. After the bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he suddenly drops her, and she’s fired from the project based on a false report claiming that she’d become unstable. Now she works at the antique jewelry counter in Marshall Fields’ Department Store and struggles to pay her Michigan Avenue rent. It’s 1950, five years after the war ends, and suddenly Weaver is trying to get back in her life. He broke her heart, and probably got her fired, so she never wants to see him again. But the FBI gives her a chance to make it up to all those who died because of her work on the atomic bomb. All she needs to do is go back to Weaver. Jennie Fields received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, The Middle Ages, and The Age of Desire. A Chicago native who loved Marshall Fields and used to live in the same neighborhood as her protagonist, Fields was inspired by her own mother’s work as a University of Chicago-trained biochemist in the 1950s. Fields now lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is working on her next novel. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inspired by Leona Woods, the only woman who worked on the Manhattan Project, Atomic Love (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2020) tells the story of Rosalind Porter, a physicist recruited by Enrico Fermi to join his team at the University of Chicago. During the war, Rosalind had fallen in love with Weaver, a fellow scientist working on the project. After the bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he suddenly drops her, and she’s fired from the project based on a false report claiming that she’d become unstable. Now she works at the antique jewelry counter in Marshall Fields’ Department Store and struggles to pay her Michigan Avenue rent. It’s 1950, five years after the war ends, and suddenly Weaver is trying to get back in her life. He broke her heart, and probably got her fired, so she never wants to see him again. But the FBI gives her a chance to make it up to all those who died because of her work on the atomic bomb. All she needs to do is go back to Weaver. Jennie Fields received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, The Middle Ages, and The Age of Desire. A Chicago native who loved Marshall Fields and used to live in the same neighborhood as her protagonist, Fields was inspired by her own mother’s work as a University of Chicago-trained biochemist in the 1950s. Fields now lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is working on her next novel. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inspired by Leona Woods, the only woman who worked on the Manhattan Project, Atomic Love (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2020) tells the story of Rosalind Porter, a physicist recruited by Enrico Fermi to join his team at the University of Chicago. During the war, Rosalind had fallen in love with Weaver, a fellow scientist working on the project. After the bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he suddenly drops her, and she’s fired from the project based on a false report claiming that she’d become unstable. Now she works at the antique jewelry counter in Marshall Fields’ Department Store and struggles to pay her Michigan Avenue rent. It’s 1950, five years after the war ends, and suddenly Weaver is trying to get back in her life. He broke her heart, and probably got her fired, so she never wants to see him again. But the FBI gives her a chance to make it up to all those who died because of her work on the atomic bomb. All she needs to do is go back to Weaver. Jennie Fields received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, The Middle Ages, and The Age of Desire. A Chicago native who loved Marshall Fields and used to live in the same neighborhood as her protagonist, Fields was inspired by her own mother’s work as a University of Chicago-trained biochemist in the 1950s. Fields now lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is working on her next novel. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marshall Fields, WGN, and now Second City? The famed sketch and improv company is now up for sale. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune breaks down the latest news.

The Stan Freberg Show, originally broadcast September 22, 1957, College Football Report. A sports interview, A Hollywood agent with canine clients, Bang Gunley: U. S. Marshall Fields (sponsored by "Puffed Grass" cereal). Also Lum n Abner, originally broadcast September 22, 1948, will Abner buy a ranch?

The Stephs share their favorites in Top Two including burgers and cocktails, Fall cookbook preview, recipes from Macy's and Marshall Fields, and Locals to Love.

I joined O'Connell Group in 1995. During my more than two decades in executive recruitment, I have been passionate about building strong productive relationships, acting as a trusted advisor and mentor, while building my clients' business and my candidates' careers. Prior to O'Connell Group, my experience includes a decade in consumer packaged goods, retail and durables at such great companies as Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Marshall Fields, Herman Miller and Ralston-Purina's Continental Baking Company. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kris-holmes-966548/

Friend, comedian and mall mouse Ashley Hamilton joins Paige and Emily (via Zoom meeting all the way from NYC) to talk about missing the malls and grocery stores of LA, braving the cold to shop at superior Chicago-area mall Old Orchard and how Macys ruined the Marshall Fields legacy. Plus a long tangent about Jessica Biels now-defunct childrens restaurant Au Fudge.THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY STITCH FIX!Save 25% on your first Stitch Fix box by visiting www.stitchfix.com/mallTHIS EPISODE SPONSORED BY IMAGINED LIFE! A new podcast from Wondery.Each episode of Imagined Life takes you on an immersive journey into the life of a world-famous person.FOLLOW ASHLEY:https://twitter.com/AshleyHammmhttps://www.instagram.com/ashleyhammm/FOLLOW MALL TALK:https://www.instagram.com/malltalkpodhttps://twitter.com/malltalkpodJOIN THE MALL TALK PATREON:https://www.patreon.com/malltalkpod/FOLLOW MALL TALK:https://www.instagram.com/malltalkpodhttps://twitter.com/malltalkpodBUY MALL TALK MERCH:https://www.teepublic.com/stores/malltalkpodcastMALL TALK IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST:https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/mall-talk

EP215 - What to read during a pandemic This episode is a list of suggested resources to read for those looking to do some professional development in the commerce space.  (all book links are amazon affiliate links) The episode also features an interview with Rishad Tobaccowala (@Rishad) Rishad’s is the author of “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” published by Harper Collins. Additional writings can be found on the Re-Inventing blog. The interview starts at 15:50 of the podcast. Rishad also has an amazing photography feed on Instagram @RishadT. Another book mentioned on this list is Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Digital Disruption – Stephen Dennis. Stephen is hosting a virtual book launch party (including @retailgeek and some e-commerce celebrities) on Tues April 14 at 4:15pm ET, that will include myself and some commerce guest stars. Pre-register here. Here are some always updated resources: A complete list of recommended books for commerce Pros (including a superset of the list provided here, is always available here: Recommended Books. A list of 250 commerce influencers to follow on twitter. That list includes 50 commerce journalists. A list of recommended commerce podcasts. A list of recommended commerce websites and newsletters. Finally, when the pandemic is over, here is a list of commerce events. Here are all the specific resources mentioned on todays show: Personal Development How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life – Scott Adams Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter – Scott Adams Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America – Scott Adams The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind – Jonah Berger  Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data, Rishad Tobaccowala  Startup / Entrepreneurship Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t – Jim Collins Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great – Jim Collins The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail – Jim Collins Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers – Geoffrey A. Moore Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Peter Thiel Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture – Ben Horowitz The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses – Eric Ries The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right – Atul Gawande Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader – John Rossman (John was a guest on Episode 181) Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win – Jocko Willink Future Is Faster Than You Think – Peter Diamandis E-Commerce / Retail / Case Studies Sam Walton: Made in America: My Story – Sam Walton I Love Capitalism!: An American Story – Ken Langone The Perfect Store: Inside eBay – Adam Cohen In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives – Steven Levy The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World – David Kirkpatrick The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon – Brad Stone Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World – Doug Stephens Remarkable Retail: How to Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Digital Disruption – Stephen Dennis Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy – Lawrence Ingrassia (Larry was on Episode 207) Movies Glengarry Glenross Boiler Room The social network Girlboss –  Based on Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso’s autobiography #Girlboss Office Space Startup.com TV shows Undercover Boss Shark Tank The Profit SiliconValley Halt & Catch Fire Mr Selfridge Succession Mr Robot Black Mirror Non Conventional S1s – Casper, Chewy  (Retail Roadshow) Shareholder Letters (Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway) Company conference calls – (Amazon/eBay/Shopify/Etsy/Alibaba) Investor Relations Don’t forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 215 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded live on Wednesday, April 8th, 2020. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 215 being recorded on Wednesday April 8th 2020 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I’m here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:39] A Jason and welcome back Jason and Scot show listeners first of all we hope everyone is saying safe and enjoying some time with your family as we all go through this battle with the the Coronavirus one of the unexpected trends that we’ve noticed about this fun pandemic self quarantining time is that folks are trying to carve out a little bit of time for professional development. So we thought you know let’s do a show where we talk about some of our favorite books for kind of listeners and starting with kind of the. You know the colonel of e-commerce and Retail where we spent a lot of our time but then also expand out a little bit and talk about more professional development type titles. Sound good to you Jason. Jason: [1:23] Yeah that’s awesome but before we jump into the actual books I just want to get a couple things on record like I’m trying to ascertain how Millennial you are Scott are you a paper book guy or are you ebook / Kendall guy. Scot: [1:37] I am strange I guess so I like to read fiction before I go to sleep because if I read like one of these books were going to recommend before I go to sleep I won’t go to sleep I get so fired up I know that’s probably strange but that’s how my brain works so then so I use Kindle for my fiction reading in the evenings and then most of my nonfiction before working from home full-time I commuted to an office and this is back in those days if you remember so I have about a good hour in the car maybe a little bit longer and I would audible the nonfiction stuff out for some reason, you know that that combination of being on a commute and having it being read really lands well for me and makes a little more engaging. Jason: [2:30] Yeah interesting so your moat so you’re very little Papyrus and your Kindle / audiobooks. Scot: [2:37] Correct yeah are the reason is I’m I read a lot and I don’t know I’ve never been to your house but she came to my house I have like literally 20 but cases full book so there’s a practicality of you know my wife and I are both Avid readers and essentially every square inch where we can put books as full so we had to switch to digital. Jason: [2:56] Yeah no I went through a similar Journey I’m in a condo and I imagine we have less storage space than you I say imagine but I know for a fact we have less storage space than you and. Wait it just like I beloved I loved owning these books and I felt good about owning them but like. [3:18] I just didn’t have the space and then when I travel all the time it’s actually annoying to carry books because if you’re going to finish one that means you have to bring to physical books with you and swept them around. On this on the trip so I kind of have pivoted to only owning books digitally and I’ve actually started this. Economically unhelpful habit what I like to do now is I buy the Kindle version and I buy the audible and for most of the books most of the business books that they have this great whisper SYNC feature where you can. Toggle back and forth between the audio book and the Kindle version and it it keeps you synchronized to the place and, what I’ve found that useful for is if it’s a book on listening to and there’s some super important Point that’s made in the in the audio version, I like to stop the audio version crack open my iPad go to the Kindle and it’s already right what I just listened to and I can highlight that, and then you know Kendall has this great feature where Aggregates all your highlights and notes so so it’s almost like I can do I can highlight text in the audio version of the book which is. Kind of cool in handy. Scot: [4:33] Be cool if you had dyslexia do this where you could say have it read it and then pause it and have a highlight like an audio could you do a voice on voice highlight. Jason: [4:43] Not to my knowledge that would be a cool feature Alexa has good features for listening to audible books but I haven’t if there’s a marker highlight thing I have not experienced it yet. Scot: [4:55] Jeff if you’re listening please take that as a feature request thank you. Jason: [5:00] If he’s listening you know he’s listening so then. Scot: [5:01] Yeah I didn’t want to brag but. Jason: [5:04] Yeah I do I also want to address the elephant in the room before we get into the book list of books we were having this conversation offline a little bit. Are books even relevant anymore like is it the like I feel like for a lot of my career books were super important and it was like you know their books that were. Like really influenced how I did my job and things I learned and we’re super valuable. Today like it doesn’t seem like the best source for for timely relevant information. Scot: [5:37] Yeah yeah into that and then you know attention spans I definitely feel it personally and I see it in my kids the social media has given us kind of these this snack size kind of appetite for content right and it’s increasingly hard to just sit down and open up a three or four hundred page book especially like a business book and then you know things are changing so fast. It is hard to find those books they really stand the test of time so so yeah I agree and then you know so because of that we’ve actually thrown in a couple more you know we probably call this a media show not just books because we have a couple kind of streaming TV shows and movies that maybe kind of were interesting to certain folks that don’t want to sit down with a book be it audio or or paper or ebook. Jason: [6:28] Yeah and that is funny because I am. You know I was thinking about the books I wanted to talk about in the show and we’re going to we’re going to go through a bunch of books I actually built a web page with a wider list of book recommendations and so I was like oh this will be my comprehensive list of all the books I’d recommend someone read. And there are a bunch of books that are some of my all-time favorite books that I actually couldn’t bring myself to put on the list because while they were super important when they were written in 1990 or 2,000 or 2010. You know I don’t think they did stand the test of time and so it was interesting to me like a lot of the books that were quote-unquote about retail I feel like retail has changed so much. Heck retails changed so much from three months ago that I didn’t find that those books held up really well but there were a lot of my hall of fame books about like. Customer psychology and those sorts of things which are Super relevant even though they might be 20 or 30 years old so it’s kind of interesting. Scot: [7:30] Yeah absolutely let’s jump into it. Jason: [7:33] Yeah let’s let’s do it so side note if anyone’s listening in the show on exercise equipment we will put a complete list of all the books in the show notes and I’ll put a link to the website I reference so no need to try to take notes during the podcast and with that out of the way let’s jump in what are you reading right now. Scot: [7:53] Yeah I thought we’d kind of cut them into categories and and since we are talking about you know personal development thought we’d start with that category book I read a couple years ago and I just kind of stumbled on this because I started following his daily Paris group periscopes he does a daily kind of a coffee kind of periscope it’s got out Adams the author of Dilbert. So he’s a cartoonist you may think what does this guy have to do with anything well he’s probably the most, educated cartoonist well I don’t know if cartoonist are educated but he has an MBA he’s an economist he’s got you know a lot of different things there he’s a trained hypnotist oddly enough so he wrote a book called. How to fail at almost everything and still win big I wanted to start with that one because it has two big ideas that I found really interesting. So these things you kind of already natural naturally do maybe but it was cool the way he framed him and talked about him so the two big ideas from that book are this concept of using systems versus goals. [9:01] And and this is super helpful because you know he uses a kind of weight loss example where it’s easy to set you know it’s very easy to say hey I want to lose X pounds and then you fall off that pretty quickly because it go like that is increasingly hard to get to if you get off track it’s easy to throw away that goal an example of a system would be you know I’m going to measure my calories every day and make sure I come out Nets X calories and exercise to get there that’s going to be my daily system and if you can kind of commit to a system it’s a lot easier because you can build it into a day it’s easier to track, and then sure enough you look up and boom you’ve achieved your goal be it weight loss or whatnot this one’s really important because. You know I talk a lot to Young Folks at software companies and things and the question I get is like how do I organize my day and that’s kind of part of the system to is making sure that your so let’s say you’re just starting out in a sales career or something, spend time prospecting spend time managing your pipe and build a system and then improve that system over time and before long, got this really great system for managing your life so that’s a really good one Hill goes into a lot more details, the second framework I really like in that book is this idea of continuing to your life to build your skill stack. [10:21] I have a computer software background and knew nothing about Finance marketing I’ve never taken a, ticket some econ classes but I’ve never taken like the classes you would take for a business degree or an MBA so but I’ve learned all that over the years and you know it’s part of my skill stack now so that it’s this really interesting idea of thinking and visualizing right you want to improve your life and your career. What can you add to your skills fact that you don’t have. The third point in that book that’s really interesting is he talks about one of the biggest skills that you can add to that skill stack as persuasion. [11:00] So Persuasions pretty important so you know I’m an entrepreneur so on any given day I’m having to convince you know an investor to invest in my company an existing investor to invest more customer to do something an employee to do something recruiting an employee every pretty much all my day is persuasion convincing this random guy to do a podcast with me those are just examples of you know things that we’ve that use persuasion for so you know as an entrepreneur I use it all the time but even if I know a lot of our listeners you know maybe you’re working in a larger company as kind of a what I would call an intrapreneur you’re kind of on the digital side of a large company well you actually have a bigger persuasion mountain to climb than I do right because a lot of times you got to convince some dude in a store to give you credit for a sale or fill in a word or whatever it is so so I wanted to also fold in here that Scott Adams has two books on persuasion once called win big lie others called Loser think that’s more recent just came out this year. And then so I strongly recommend does to and then he actually I like his approach this a little bit better than some other folks because it’s very practical and he gives you kind of you know, tips that you can actually start to apply like how to pay somebody in these kinds of things but then once you’ve read that then I’m more technical approach is by this guy that’s considered the Godfather persuasion Robert child Nene. [12:26] His two books are influence the psychology of persuasion and then he has a newer book called pre suasion a revolutionary way to influence and persuade. What’s kind of mind-blowing about, this is what you get your head around persuasion pre suasion is you can actually Prime people to be persuaded faster and easier so that’s kind of interesting there’s actually a step before where you can actually. You get pretty good at persuading people you can get better at doing it quickly by using pre suasion, so those are two that’s kind of a whole class there in that genre of persuasion and the Scott Adams is a really good introduction into this if people haven’t really read on it. Read about it before. Jason: [13:10] Nice I love all of those and it’s funny persuasion I talked about a lot in presentations. And there’s a funny backstory to to the book he was like he was a candidate for his cognitive psychology PhD when he wrote the book and he basically, in his Studies have discovered that we are all hardwired with these cognitive biases. And it dawned on him that evil marketers could use those cognitive biases against consumers and sort of persuade them to, take actions and buy things that weren’t necessarily in their best interest so. Supposedly he wrote the original influence thinking that like you know what have you made consumers aware of these cognitive biases they’d be less likely to be affected by them and so he had this altruistic goal of like informing people so they wouldn’t be, manipulated and the book became a global international bestseller because every marketer in the world. But the book has a manual to use to trick consumers into buying things. [14:17] So I just love that story I’m a big fan of that category 2 and I actually am reading a new book that just came out last month that’s in the sort of. Cognitive psychology space it’s called The Catalyst how to change anyone’s mind and it’s by an author I like Jonah Berger Joan has a professor at Ward and I think and, he wrote a previous book called contagious and contagious was all about like what are the attributes that causes something to go viral and it became kind of a, Bible in the social media space and so this new book, is about how to actually convince someone to change their mind and like early in the book he makes the point that like you know most people’s inclination is to, argue with people or debate with people which is an entirely unsuccessful way of getting someone to change their mind and so he. He works across all these different Industries and he finds case studies with like. [15:19] The FBI’s best hostage negotiator right and he makes the point that hey you think about this hostage negotiator and he’s got to convince. Someone to do something that they absolutely don’t want to do that’s going to have a horrible outcome for them right so give yourself up, and go to prison and so he talks about like the tactics that that negotiator uses and the approach they take, the try to successfully you know have these like super high stress situations come to us more safe, conclusion by getting the the criminal to change their mind and so it’s fascinating and there’s a bunch of sort of practical advice if you really want to change someone’s mind versus just, feel good about arguing with someone it’s super helpful book so I think it’s a good tool to put in the marketing Arsenal. My other recommendation in this category is a new book that just came out this year called restoring the soul of business staying human in the age of data and that’s written by Richard tabaka Walla and I think it was released this January. Scot: [16:29] Hey Jason you know Richard Wright. Jason: [16:31] As a matter of fact I do he’s a longtime former coworker of mine and I actually invited him on the show, so without further ado, please welcome to the show the former Chief growth officer publicists gentleman who was named by Time Magazine as one of the top five marketing innovators in the world and a guy who could get me fired with a single phone call, Rishad tobacco Wawa. Rishad: [16:57] Thank you very much and I’m glad to be here. Jason: [16:59] We are thrilled to have you Rashad you know we did overlap at publicist and a fun fact I don’t know you had a much longer and more storied career their than I have had but I have an annual review every year and I always sit down with my boss, and he asks what my career aspirations are and I say well my ultimate goal is to be Rishad. Rishad: [17:19] Well who are you are you have you lack imagination. Jason: [17:23] Yes I could see how that would be your perspective but my boss is perspective is that I should set more realistic goals. Rishad: [17:29] That’s great. Jason: [17:31] But all joking aside you you’re someone that has done almost every role in boob assist your, super beloved and as you are stepping down from a full-time role at poobah says you’ve had this like I want to call it like a year-long victory tour where I feel like you visited every office and all your old friends and you just have this. Never ending stream of Twitter photos of you with. 10 20 30 year friends that you you worked with that are now all the luminaries and leaders of our industry and it’s like I think it speaks really well to you this enormous network of people you. You’ve cultivated that all these act in public like they love you. Rishad: [18:16] Yes it’s either that or I have to like two pictures over the years one of the two. Jason: [18:20] Exactly well I’ll let our listeners be the judge but I do want to get your book and talk about that but a tradition we have on the show is before we get into that we like to get a kind of brief. Um synopsis of your career and how how you sort of develop the point of view that you shared in the book so can you share with our listeners your background. Rishad: [18:43] Sure absolutely so I grew up in India came to the United States after getting a degree in advanced mathematics to get an MBA at the University of Chicago. And I started my career with a company called Leo Burnett which is that advertising agency. And I thought I’d stay there for two to three years and 37 years later I was still there. The last time my business card said Leo Burnett was sometime in 1994 which is about 25 years ago. I worked in account service on big class like PNG. And then moved into our direct marketing department and saw something called digital in 1994-1995 launch one of our first digital agencies. Then helped launch Stockholm which is what about media companies. And then we merge with another company eventually we got bought by publicist in 2002 which is about 18 years ago. And over the years at Goldman says I helped build the case for some of our digital companies that we bought each digit SI cherries a fish and for the last five six years, I served what was the direct wobblers sort of the board as both the chief strategist and the chief growth officer. [20:03] At about two and a half years ago as Maurice Levy step down and he was the CEO. And I’d work with more recent another gentleman coach actors who are 25 years. I sort of said at some stage I need to do something different and once they were convinced that what I wanted to do was be a writer and speaker. And I could still be related with the company we began a transition which is sort of that to are you talked about. And I am still senior advisor to the group I still have an office my key card still works but I no longer am a full-time employee which means I have no clients to look after. No boss and nobody working for me otherwise still connected in some way to the company and my focus really is writing this book which I began about three four years ago with Concept and thinking about it. And the basic Trend was I was getting a little bit worried. [21:02] That as the world was becoming more data-driven more digital more math driven. That companies were making mistakes of becoming too left brain. And I call that the spreadsheet will be coming spreadsheet driven companies and I believe that successful companies need to combine the spreadsheet which is obviously very important that the data. But combine also that with the story which is the people that culture. The values and and thinking about it over 3/4 years I began to realize that companies that combine the two, what companies that actually did well and companies that tilted either two words the spreadsheet too much like let’s say a Wells Fargo you began to open Fake accounts or like Boeing ship the plane which wasn’t ready. On the other hand if you watch was too much to the right you end up ended up with a company like we work which is all story but total bullshit at least from an economic perspective. Jason: [22:03] It’s a story just not a true story. Rishad: [22:05] It’s not a true story exactly so the whole idea is if it’s all story without a spreadsheet you have we work it’s lots of spreadsheet without a story you’ve got to Wells Fargo. But you combine the two industry after industry companies that combine the two. Not only are more successful in the near-term but their stock price does well and in every sort of stuff and it says compared your Southwest United Airlines or, you know Pixar / Disney to a lot of other companies or Costco to the old Walmart and you began to see that. This this basic belief that was all about that data and math was actually very short-sighted. And in fact heard companies more than help companies and given that I was a digital Pioneer have an advanced degree in mathematics and people think I know the stuff I’m not anti math anti data anti digital anti anything. And so that’s how I read what I wrote for book and surprisingly it appears that I wrote the book for a post covid-19 world so people said you know this was going to happen and I said no. The book is as in fact it resonates even more today than it did two months ago. Jason: [23:21] That is awesome and it’s great that it’s even more topical I still have to imagine from your Publishers perspective it’s not optimal the launch a book when you like can’t fully go on a book tour right. Rishad: [23:33] Yeah well I was somewhat fortunate in the fact that because the book came out on January 28th in the United States and Feb 20th outside the United States and I had started sort of promoting the book. Immediately unlike January 1 as soon as the holidays were over so I got to be on the road actually from Jan 1 to approximately March 7. So I was had good eight nine ten weeks of doing so now we’ve somewhat slowed down but I have one particular advantage. To really one is as you know Jason. When I speak I speak without notes or slides or multimedia which basically makes me a very zoomable Sky possible. [24:25] Speaker and so I’m still speaking which helps on the book tour without actually physically going anywhere. But the second thing that helped you know to a great extent was the fact that my book actually. Resonates with the times that six of the twelve chapters seems to have been written specifically for today’s world like I have a chapter on how you manage workforces. When they’re not all together in one place have a chapter on how you lead when you’ve got tough times and so those two things which is my ability to basically speak without notes and the fact that people are very hungry, in this including our chapter on when you’ve got time how to use it. And also how to upgrade your mental operating system all of which what people are doing so it turned out to be. I wish we weren’t in these circumstances but it’s turned out to be all right but I’m looking forward to going back into the work you know the world out there, and and because I was writing about humans and not about an event in time the book doesn’t age so the fact that there’s a pause in the book tour doesn’t hurt because when it starts it won’t be. Problematic. Jason: [25:42] Be dated at all when you. Rishad: [25:43] It won’t be dated at all if I could be more relevant on the other hand. You know it’s not pleasant to see what we as a society are going through some writing a lot these days and I’m trying to think of the positive side of the troubles we are in. And so the framing some stuff from my book I call this era which I think is so not the Great Recession that we occurred in 2008 2009 but I called this era that we’re about to enter the Great reinvention. Because I truly believe that people are going to come out of this different than when they went in one because. Nothing like this has happened before in my 40 years if I could most people’s lives and which is everybody in the world is affected all at the same time. Which is rare the second is we all are effective for 60 to 90 days, and habits change in 60 days so either you start or stop doing things in 60 days then when you restarted it’s very different and very you know unusual. And so I do believe coming out of this people are going to be looking for safety they going to be looking for society they going to be looking for security it’s going to be a different world and so I’m thinking a lot about that these days. Jason: [27:01] Yeah I feel like another thing I saw you talk about when you were talking, sort of coming in the book on social media that really resonated with me is hey everyone saying we’re working from home we aren’t really this is not work from home this is work under duress. Rishad: [27:18] Yes so the key is this is completely work under duress because you know we have three big challenges and that is everybody who’s listening to this so the first. As long as you’re a human being I think you have these three challenges but it’s sort of differentiates a little bit on you know what your state in life is ETC. The first one basically is we are extremely anxious about own health, help us people our parents our kids our team members so you know you normally don’t work from home with this anxiety that people are dying in the thousands and you could, get that if you go to the grocery store so that’s number one, the second is you basically have this particular area of fear and the biggest fear that we have R2 and most of them are around economic, which is will my job still exists because every day you see companies layoffs, between 10 to 50 percent of furlough between 10 and 50 percent of the employees, so that’s the second one in the third is uncertainty which is when will this end how will this end and nobody works from home under those circumstances where you basically have kids sitting in the house with you. We shouldn’t be there worried about your health what about going to the grocery store water that your job will disappear. Right there is not under any circumstances working from home is basically working under duress. Jason: [28:47] Yeah no I totally resonated it is funny like I like you travel a lot and so when I’m home I often do work out of my home office and free pandemic. I would be super concerned about my family interrupting a work conference or something like that and I if it ever happened I’d be really embarrassed and one of the things that’s been kind of funny about our present circumstances is I have kind of a cute I won’t tell him this but but acute four and a half year old son and now I almost create an opportunity for him to come in and interrupt every meeting because it’s almost expected and appreciated and. Makes me feel it helps me like form a more personal bond with the people I’m interacting with. Rishad: [29:32] So I actually posted something that was it’s a real story and it happens to be the CEO of one of our very large clients. His mate his name is Laxmi under a salon and he’s the CEO of record been Seeker or now known as RB. Which happens to make products like Lysol. His products actually are doing very well there Lysol and they’re like Trojans and apparently you know condom sales are going up in Lysol sales are going up. And he basically there’s an interview with HIPAA The Wall Street Journal and literally the way it ends is his mother he’s living in London with his 79 year old mother, and his mother comes in and says you have not taken the garbage so he stops his board meeting and takes the garbage out. Jason: [30:19] Yeah I love that the. I did want to pick one bone I do have a small bone to pick with you though you you referenced earlier than no slides thing. [30:31] And this is funny one of the reasons that I think of you frequently in my career is because but you do do a ton of, client and public presentations in your you know very in demand public speaker and as you noted. You never use slides I’ve watched you from the the wings a lot and it seems like, you’ve jotted down you know the key bullet points that you want to discuss on a napkin or something and and you walk up there and had this really engaging conversation with the audience and it feels like. There’s there’s less Detroit as between you and your audience and I feel like it really facilitates you, um sort of having a bond with them and it feels more interactive and authentic which is all great, I also do a lot of public speaking and I use a ridiculous amount of slide so a it always makes me feel bad about myself because I feel like. I’m using a prop that you don’t need but but even worse than that, I’m usually doing those slides at like 3 a.m. the night before the presentation and I’m thinking to myself you know Richard went and had a nice dinner had a cocktail use the cocktail napkin to jot down his notes for the presentation tomorrow and got a good night’s sleep and I’m sitting here at 3 a.m. You know trying to find the right image to put into a stupid PowerPoint deck so I. Rishad: [31:58] Difference the big difference is when I see your presentations I enjoy that and I say thank God I don’t have to do such amazing presentation. Because the big difference is while you do have amazing slides you you use them as a backdrop but you speak without you know reading numbers from them or reading words from them, you basically use them as sort of a prop but not as some kind of crutch so a lot of people use things as a crutch you don’t use it as a crutch use as a prop but the two reasons of the two or three reasons that I don’t do the slides one is because it requires work. Oh I just you know I’m down lazy but as importantly when you do slide somebody then says they want to see them and that requires like having a meeting to prepare the meeting which is a bit difficult. But the most important reason and this you can’t do obviously because you share a lot of very valuable information which requires you to have those slides because when I look at your slides this isn’t just like a using slides because you, using them because they actually add to the show but one of the reasons why I don’t use slides and why you actually don’t use them as much as you think you do. [33:09] When you don’t use slides people play the slides in their head so when I’m speaking. Actually there is a slideshow going on it’s sort of like a form of radio it’s like the theater of the imagination and what I began to realize is people think I’m speaking to all of them because they’re visualizing. Their own slide where and that became what I found is very powerful which is not only if it was just that I’m going to save time and be lazy that doesn’t make a good presentation I’d get fired for doing that, it’s because actually if you think hard enough about the audience and you customize it which is what I do. People in the audience that actually played in their own minds I think you wrote everything just for them. Jason: [33:57] Yeah that’s awesome. Scot: [34:00] Jason speaks people close their eyes and envision the slides and sometimes they make kind of light snoring noises. Rishad: [34:08] Yeah but you know what happens is he has so many slides you gotta Clyde’s are so strange, got to have a look at that because you’re seeing this big car wreck train wreck happening and you’re trying to figure out like how is this going to play out that’s what you’re going because you should see a slides they’re almost like. It’s this almost like Van Gogh on drugs. Scot: [34:29] This is fun we get to team up on give Jason her time I like this. Jason: [34:34] In my defense and I feel like you gave me a nice compliment their Rishad which I really appreciate but the in my defense it is true like my sides tend to images that support whatever story or point I’m trying to make as opposed to, actually having the information on the slide and so the one thing I do dread is for your point like when a client or show organizers like hey can you send me your slides in advance or can you do and I’m like, well I can but they would make no sense because they’re not the content like they’re not the story, you know it’s like it’s kind of like asking to see the illustrations from a book without saying the words. Rishad: [35:14] Exactly exactly at that so that that’s out of the way it is and so what are the the you know the fun ways I try to sort of also redo. Just like I thought of rethinking the presentation. You should as you’ve read my book what’s unusual is I read mented the book without people without changing the format of the book so the, it’s obviously available as a book at an audible at a Kindle and everything else but, I sort of thought about that most nonfiction business books tend to only have one good chapter and then somebody just repeats and repeats and repeats, and so I decided to write 12 different books instead of it being a book of essays is actually a theme and the theme is the story of the spreadsheet. That’s I basically said I’ve written the first Spotify playlist of a book where you can basically read every chapter in any order. And as a result people that Amazon are now asking the question how come they don’t have a shuffle mode on Kindle. Scot: [36:14] The other question you kind of outlined companies that are to Excel and opposite in the Spectrum do you have a case study of a company that kind of does a good blend between the two. Rishad: [36:29] Yeah so I would basically say that in every category I select having in almost every category I could name like one particular leader. So in in the world. So the film for me the leader always was Pixar because Pixar basically told amazing emotional stories using state-of-the-art technology. I basically think about it pizza delivery it’s Domino’s, right the improves their Pizza they basically read the very thought of themselves as a Distribution Company or logistics company that delivers pizza. But they really want to own the entire category of pizza so they’re willing to give you a coupon for Domino’s anytime you buy any pizza so now if you go to a grocery store and you buy a pizza you have think about dominoes, which is absolutely brilliant in Airlines at Southwest compare Southwest to United and I believe that the most. For many years it was one of the most underrated technology companies don’t of course that was not underrated was Adobe so if you look at the decisions that adobe made in Adobe right now is the second most valuable Enterprise technology company after Microsoft. [37:40] And so categoria and many see these leaders and I know some of these folks who lead these companies they have these amazing people who combine the spreadsheet on the story and they and and and and often it is leadership that makes the difference if you think about Microsoft. For 10 years its stock price went nowhere and Steve Ballmer yelled and screamed Windows Windows Windows. Write it it stack ranking math machines and everything. In such an ideologue basically came on he gave everybody the spoke growth mindset he talked about basically a becoming a learning organization versus a know-it-all organization, you focus basically on business primarily, right and productivity he got out of a lot of the consumer business with the exception of Xbox and and in effect, and he got rid of the windows Division and the stock price went up fourfold in 3 or 4 years. And he’s a much more Humane boss with a company that is much more people oriented. But on the other hand it’s results are better than anybody’s. And so you know whenever anybody tells me they make decisions with numbers I tell them two things one is you are not human being because humans select with their hearts they use numbers to justify what they just did, and if you work in marketing and tell me you make all the decisions with numbers are in the wrong World on the other hand if you do make all your decisions with numbers and let’s see working in the world of. [39:10] Finans sooner or later you’re not going to have a job because AI does a much better job with numbers and computers do a much better job with numbers than human beings so anytime you make it you saying it’s all about data or All About Numbers my stuff is don’t be silly and for most companies do with the exception of a few like an Amazon a Google or Facebook and a few others. Data is very important but I sort of defined data is electricity. Which is it’s so important that you can’t work in the future without electricity but on the same hand almost no company differentiates Itself by through its use of electricity I don’t see a company saying I use electricity better because I’m better. Different better and so there’s this confusion and that was one of the reasons I wrote this book but it’s it’s kind of remarkable because it’s you know I found that. [40:00] Because the focus is it still help people think see and feel differently about how to grow themselves their teams and their company, that it is resonating with all kinds of people CEO CFO CMOS young people because part of it is it’s training on how to think, and we have forgotten how to do that so big part of this book really is a, you have amazing potential and I call everybody a leader but here are some things that people may have never taught you and you may want to think about and that’s probably why I think people should read the book, which is it will make you more productive as a CFO of a company just bought 300 copies for every employee in his company and I said you’re a CFO what you buying this book called the purpose of business and all of that, he said when I read it and two of The Twelve chapters maybe five percent more productive I decided therefore, that each of my employees will become 10 thousand dollars more productive so what the hell your book will be cause 20 bucks by. Jason: [40:58] Yeah and that absolutely is one of the things I love about the book as I feel like in my day-to-day life, my colleagues and my clients get like really focused on The Shining baubles right like everything’s about the new marketing tactic or the new ad unit or the new e-commerce platform or whatever the widget is and it. In the long run it feels like all of those things. Are only 10% of the business problem and the other ninety percent of the business problem is the people behind those tools and how they work together and how they collaborate and. Um and I feel like your book is a lot of super practical advice about improving the 90%. Rishad: [41:40] Yes and explains what and how to frame the 10% and because I know that 10% so well I can talk about framing that 10% and then focusing on the 90 because I truly believe there are only two ways to change a company. And that is to basically either change the people or upgrade the people mind sense right everything else is a press release. And we don’t play enough attention to that so this basically says a year so you pay attention which is if you get upgrade the ninety percent of the people, how they work the talent the skill sets the company will do better it’s not different than you know world class sports teams usually world class sports teams have a disproportionate share of talent, and then they have a coach that make sure that they work together and not at counter purposes and they win. Jason: [42:29] Yeah the that is terrific on the flip side though I feel like one of the challenges with your book is because it has these twelve chapters and there, they’re sort of very varied in topic it’s your book is really annoying to summarize. Rishad: [42:45] Yes that and that’s part of the the two parts of the book that is sort of annoying which is what it’s as hard to summarize the way I’ve basically summarized it is it help you think see and feel differently about it to grow yourself your company and your team which is number one, and number two I would basically say is it basically says that for to succeed you have to come by. Everything you know about the left brain part of you which is the spreadsheet out of you and combine it with the story part, add depending on the situation that combination can be 75 30 25 or 25 75 or 50/50 it’s never hundred zero. Jason: [43:26] Yeah. So Rishad apologize we are coming up on time but I do want to let our audience know about one other important Rishad fact. And that is that, in addition to being a great business leader and now author you are very accomplished photographer and it seems like you you use your opportunity to travel all over the world to capture these, amazing landscape and Architectural photography wherever you go. Rishad: [44:01] Yes it’s one of the key things which is you know in fact I mention it there’s a chapter in my book on how to use Stein. And you know one of the key things is I look at photography as a way to see the world differently but also to remember that it’s passing Us by. Which is one of the reasons the opening line of my book is time is the only thing we have, and these days we now truly recognize that time is the only thing we have whether we have too much of it or we are worried that we will die and have too little of it. Jason: [44:33] Yeah I feel like in a pandemic there’s two kinds of people there’s working parents that have none of it and then there’s there’s empty-nesters are people without children that like suddenly have discovered some more of it. Rishad: [44:45] Absolutely absurd. Jason: [44:47] Rishad speaking of time we have sort of ran out of it but I’m thrilled you are able to drive by and I can’t wait for this pandemic to be over so you can get back on the road and you can update your Instagram feed. Rishad: [45:00] Absolutely but thank you again thank you for your audience and thanks to both of you all bye. Scot: [45:04] Thanks for Sean unfortunately I have not read your book but it is on my list and coming soon. So the next category that I wanted to jump into is what I would call start-up entrepreneurial books and again you know this is for my entrepreneur buddies out there most impressive read them but if your intro preneur I think there’s a lot you can pick up from these so I want to start with some of the classics so one of my favorites and I go back to this one probably once every two years just to kind of. Remind myself of some of the concepts is good to Great by Jim Collins, he’s kind of a recluse and he was just recently did a little PR tour so there’s some podcast he did one with see you do it with Tim Ferriss and they do Joe Rogan no I don’t think he did but he did a couple podcast that were were just outstanding he has a little addendum to the book called turning the flywheel where he talks about evidently apparently, he helped to Amazon deliver develop the flywheel that we all talked about all the time and he has a lot of really other interesting examples of flywheels in that little short book. [46:14] This one actually spoke in the same conference with him recently and unfortunately he has passed away in the last year and this is the innovators dilemma by Clay Christensen this one for the longest time I couldn’t understand the early days of e-commerce why big companies were acting the way they were like it was so clear to me that this was going to be the thing and they’re like yeah we’re just going to Outsource this whole thing and it’s going to be a small part of our business and I’m just like. [46:38] Wanting to shake them and say my God can’t you see this is going to be the future and I didn’t understand of have a way to put that into you know understanding why these big companies were so hard to move and then the innovators dilemma came out and I was like this guy totally nailed it he totally just makes a lot of sense now to me another classic one and again for for someone like me that starts these new products and has to figure out all right why isn’t this getting the adoption I want it to how do I how do I. [47:07] Get up that curve is called crossing the chasm and that’s a really good one for any any kind of a start-up any new product that you have out there it’s got a lot of kind of great ideas for every every adoption curve has this dip in it how do you get across that tip that’s the chasm. [47:25] I think that’s Jeffrey Morris all right yep and then so those are kind of what are called Old chestnuts so totally stand the test of time you can pick them up today and they’re so extremely relevant some of the more modern ones there’s one called 0 to 1 by Peter teal this was interesting because people have a kind of a binary reaction to it I just got a funny it says it’s called zero to one you know most startup people don’t like it but then I found a lot of kind of more General business people love it so that’s interesting I’d be interested to hear how readers react to it what am I one of my challenges has been there’s not a lot of books for startups when you get past like a hundred people there’s tons of books for how do you find product Market fit and like the early days of the startup but there’s you’re having historically been a lot of what do you do when you get to kind of like 10 million and a hundred people how do you get 200 million or a billion and this is where probably my most, my most favorite modern book by Ben Horowitz is called the hard thing about hard things and it’s with the first books I found we’re actually kind of explains all the stuff of how you’re going to feel problems are going to hit when you get to like them employee number 200 and all the things you need to do to push through that so that’s one of my favorites. [48:43] Speaking of that earlier stage you know I think I’ve practiced that this, got put into writing as Lean Startup so how do you how do you get something out and get feedback faster that’s pretty much a staple because agile software development is worked its way into all aspects of companies now but at the time it was kind of a weird thing to Think Through. Um it spiffy we have to implement a lot of processes and procedures more so than I’ve ever had to do in any other company so there’s a book They’re called the checklist Manifesto that I found absolutely helpful and then Ben Horowitz just recently came out with a new book that’s kind of moron company culture which is really good what you do is who you are and then one of the last ones in actually want to add another one. [49:29] Is Think Like Amazon we had John Rossman actually on the podcast and I go back to that, there’s a lot of cool Amazon isms in there that I’m using on a daily basis like this concept of a two-way door of if we make a decision let’s be able to get out of it, and I found that a really useful framework there’s like 10 or 20 of these in that book for me that are really helpful to help explain to someone why we’re doing what we’re doing and why would you why would you try this if we just have a plan for I’m doing it well here’s why we don’t want to get stuck on the wrong side of that door for example the other one is Extreme ownership I’m doing this from memory and this is by Jocko will will Nick ex-navy seal my partner is 50 is an army guy and you know when I first read this at kind of it’s all about you know being a Navy SEAL and going out and killing people your kind of like well what’s that have to do with business, and but you know increasingly especially in these times when it does feel like we’re under Fire, I found that a lot of the concepts and that one are really really good and he has a great podcast to Listen to If you want to get super fired up and like where if you’re having a down day and you want to watch some of his YouTube stuff that’s really really good content to kind of get you out of a little bit of a funk or depression. How about you Jason. Jason: [50:56] I think he’s got some Jocko has a couple extremely highly regarded appearances on the Tim Ferriss podcast as well. Scot: [51:05] Yeah yeah absolutely and he’s on Joe Rogan all the time as well. Jason: [51:09] And then for listeners that are following the John Rossman was on episode 181 talking about things like Amazon. Yeah so that’s an awesome list I am reading another book that I would kind of put in this category. The came out this January called future is faster than you think and it’s by this guy don’t. Knew nothing about Peter diamandis and I don’t know if I’m pronouncing his name properly but this is a topic that you and I talked about a lot it’s this this concept of exponential growth. And how everything particularly in technology is getting adopted at a much faster rate than ever before and so it’s kind of. A framework for thinking about how. How to operate in a world in which the future is coming at you faster than ever before and so you know it’s like as we’re doing this podcast Disney plus just got its 50 millionth subscriber right and. Five years ago it took Netflix much longer to get 50 million subscribers and you know way before that it took HBO much longer to get 50 million subscribers so, just kind of a interesting helpful book to sort of help you think about running a business in a in an accelerated world that’s growing at an exponential rate. Scot: [52:37] He said one of the founders of Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil they’re biffle’s. Jason: [52:43] Yeah hence the his hands his love of exponential growth. Scot: [52:47] Yes absolutely it’s kind of interesting because I you’ve seen me talk about this tonight I lead with that example A lot of times of exponential growth and how we’re not used to it it’s really interesting in this world of viral contagions that there is a bunch of people that just can’t get their head around exponential growth. They’re like you know well .01% what does it matter you’re like well you know if you keep moving the decimal every other day that’s a pretty quickly. Jason: [53:16] Yeah I think unfortunately a lot of people are learning about exponential growth in the context of the pandemic right now. Scot: [53:22] Yes yeah the the hard way cool anything else on the general books Journal business set. Jason: [53:30] No I have a longer list again I’ll put on the on the web page but that you know that I think that’s a great great list for now. Scot: [53:39] Cool so then the third category we wanted to talk about is what I would call kind of e-commerce retail digital retail payments and that kind of thing this category I found the ones that hold the better test of time for me and our little more engaging or when I would call business biographies so one of my favorite in the world of retail is Sam Walton made in America this one’s hard to find because it’s out of print so you have to buy it kind of used but it’s really good it’s got a lot of great stories about how CM would just fire around America and you know be over some City and be like we’re going to put the Walmart there anyways in this little. [54:19] Kind of I don’t know what kind of plane it was but and then you know sure enough they would build a Walmart there so that’s a really good one talks about you know the whole concept of Walmart and how I scaled it up that’s pretty amazing in that same genre Ken langone who started one of the founders of Home Depot he has a book called I love capitalism that’s kind of his life story and it talks about. How you used to work for a hardware store and there could be a better way and did the big box thing and it’s really really a good history of retail and you know, just like Sam he’s had a very rich kind of post Home Depot business life also and then as we get into the world of e-commerce the perfect store which is, about eBay from Adam Cohen that was a bit old but still holds up pretty good I think the eBay story is really interesting from a Marketplace perspective the good Google case studies called in the Plex the Facebook one that I recommend is called the Facebook effect, it’s not a salacious as a lot of the other Facebook ones it really talks more about you know the iterative way they built Facebook. [55:27] The best kind of the go to Amazon book is called the everything store, my good friend Brad Stone you can actually find my name in that book if you want to go little spelunking there, and then a bird to little bird told me Brad’s working on maybe either updates that book or a new book so I’ll be kind of watching for that so much happens with Amazon your, but of course regular listeners know we spend half our time talking about all the new stuff coming on Amazon that it’s hard for him to keep that up and then Doug Stevens who is speaks it a lot of the events we go to has a really good book in the world called in the world of retail called re-engineering retail that, I think is interesting and kind of talks more about experiential kind of retail and a lot of the topics you talk about Jason. Jason: [56:16] Yeah yeah for sure all good ones the it’s funny I read a ton of business biographies, and I love reading them I do feel like some of them have these like. Pearls that are Evergreen and some of them are like super interesting at the time but I’m not quite sure have as much legs. [56:40] So you know it is a little interesting but you know other business biographies that I’ve read recently you know not too long ago we had weary and Gracia on from the billion-dollar brand Club, um which is cool because it’s talking about a lot of direct-to-consumer biographies many of those stories are not completely done yet so it feels like, work in progress, um another book that sort of loosely a business biography also on Amazon is Amazon for CMOS which is by Kiri Masters, I’m sorry like that but the book I’m reading right now in this category of. [57:23] Kind of like specific retail advice is called remarkable retail how to win and keep customers in the age of digital disruption, and that’s by another guy in our sort of speaker and social media ecosystem Steve Dennis and he’s a longtime executive JCPenney and then later Neiman Marcus, and so I’ve read the book but it actually doesn’t launch until next week so it’s why it’s releasing on April 14th, and because the pandemic he can’t go on a book tour so he’s having a virtual book launch, on on April 14th at like 4:15 in the evening so if you happen to be listening in this episode before Tuesday I’ll put a link in the show if you want to join the virtual book launch, and I will be participating and having a conversation and there’s going to be several other, surprised e-commerce guest stars so it might be a fun way to hang out on Tuesday afternoon if you’re available. Scot: [58:27] Very cool I’ve never seen the virtual book launch so it’s going to be exciting to see how that goes down I’m look forward to seeing how he signs books across Zoom. Jason: [58:35] Exactly. Scot: [58:37] It’s going to be some way. Jason: [58:39] Yeah I’m leaving that testy. Scot: [58:43] And then for those folks that do not want or need if you’ve read all these books already or you’re not into books that’s not your thing this category is kind of multimedia so shows movies streaming anything in that kind of category one of my kind of all time classic business movies is Glengarry Glen Ross you can’t work with a sales team unless you’ve watched this in this is where all these kind of chestnuts of ABC always be closing coffee sir closer closers there’s a lot of kind of sales people language that comes out of this movie and it really kind of. Catcher some does a good job of you know articulating to people that aren’t in sales what it’s the pressure of being a salesperson can feel like and of course it’s Amplified like like nothing else in the stakes are much higher than in reality but it’s pretty interesting how they do that another fun one is Boiler Room same kind of a thing Wall Street you got to put that in there, classic Michael Douglas Wall Street The Social Network. That’s a really good one to kind of see a dramatization of how Facebook was created at the music and that is exceptional this is one that I find a lot of people haven’t seen it’s called girl boss and it’s on Netflix it’s a Netflix original. It tells the story of how a retailer Jason you got to help me out with her name Sophia Amorosa Zurich. Jason: [1:00:07] That sounds right to me yes. Scot: [1:00:08] Yeah okay so she started this this apparel e-commerce site called Nasty Gal and fun fact it actually started out as an eBay so she started as an eBay seller this is really cool because it kind of shows this and I’m really super familiar with this life cycle because, it might company started a channel advisor we have like thousands of customers like this where you know it started out as she she wanted to make money to go buy something so she started collecting vintage stuff finding it and selling it and then suddenly you know you look up and your apartments full of boxes in your you got a seven-figure eBay business and then she kind of graduated out of that into a retail facility and so that did a really good job kind of showing that lifecycle that that’s really common for a lot of how a lot of e-commerce businesses are born you have to watch office space that’s kind of a classic comedy around kind of what life in the office is like Jason is a consultant I feel like you. You live that every day effectively and then another good one is start up.com. [1:01:15] This is kind of a documentary about these guys that started a company and its classic because a lot of times you see this sad situation where these these Founders will get together they’ve never really met each other and then they spend like the next two years just excruciating Lee arguing with each other and ending up with zero so so this this one kind of covers a situation like that and it’s a good warning of if you’re going to start a company pick your Founders a little bit carefully and then make sure you have those tough decisions early versus at the very tail end of the whole thing. On TV shows I really enjoy Undercover Boss that’s kind of a cool way to see it’s so it’s a little staged and. [1:01:58] More than three or four of them kind of get old but you know if there’s a certain business you want to kind of learn more about it’s a good way to do that shark tank is a lot of fun to watch with the family and kind of guests you know it’s a fun thing to see you know hey would you invest in that company and what do you think their evaluation should be um another really good one is the profit this is on CNBC and this guy you know I was going to name wrongly. Jason: [1:02:20] Marcus Lemonis. Scot: [1:02:22] Leah notice he owns Kemper world you probably got better idea. And all pretty much most the Sporting Goods things except for Dick’s right. Jason: [1:02:34] He’s acquired a number of them recently in bankruptcies so again. Scot: [1:02:39] Martin’s Gander Mountain yep. Jason: [1:02:43] There may be more available in the near future. Scot: [1:02:44] Yeah so a lot of his a lot on the profit you know there’s a good diversity of companies he goes in and turns around but there is a fair amount of retail there they’re not big box they’re usually kind of local retailers, how about you Jason and he anything in the multimedia category. Jason: [1:03:02] Yeah so you know. I like to watch a binge watch shows while I worked out and we’ve all had a little more time to exercise lately so I’ve caught up on a bunch of stuff that was in my backlog, um so I just recently finished the last season of Si

Roger Badesch, WGN News Anchor and Pop Culture Enthusiast, returns to ‘The Dave Plier Show’ to talk to Dave and our listeners about vintage Chicago commercials including Boushelle (Hudson3-2700), Victory Auto Wreckers, Empire Carpet, Zayre, Wieboldt’s, Marshall Fields, Lincoln Carpeting and United Auto Insurance; and Chicago’s most legendary pitchmen Elmer Lynn Hauldren (The Empire Carpet man), Al Piemonte, […]

Today I have a story to tell you about a crazy lady on a cruiser bike riding in Chicago on a hot summer day.  The other day I came across a terrific quote about entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurship is a personal growth engine disguised as a business pursuit." - James Clear Think about that. Entrepreneurship is a personal growth engine disguised as a business pursuit... So darn true. And this quote prompted me to tape a special episode today. When you're an entrepreneur and you're growing or starting or scaling a business -- it brings up all your own personal stuff. And you know what? It's not pretty in there. Is not pretty in the back corner of your brain when you're trying to do all the things and make the money and build and manage the people and keep it all together. Managing the entrepreneurial journey is flippin' hard and it takes a lot of mental jujitsu to stay focused and avoid BSOS (bright shiny object syndrome). Today's story is about a time when I was, honestly, the crazy lady on a cruiser bike on the streets of Chicago. I'm nervous to put this out into the world but what the heck, it's a true story and it might just help you feel not so alone. On a hot summer day, I'm riding my bike to work. At this point in my career, I owned a retail store and a wholesale apparel business. I'm selling my clothing line to Saks, Bloomingdale's, Marshall Fields (which is now Macy's), Saks Jandel and lots of other great retailers. And I have my own boutique in Lincoln park on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. I had this really great cruiser bike and I rode to work as many days as I could. It took me 43 minutes each way. Exactly. No matter what - it was 43 minutes. So I'm only about 4 blocks from my boutique when I approach a stop sign and come across this totally yuppie lady in her white luxury SUV, all perfect-y with a little blonde ponytail and Prada sunglasses. You know the type, right? Maybe it was Tory Burch or Coach sunglasses in a Lululemon outfit, I don't know, whatever. But it was a typical Lincoln Park lady and I was looking at her like like the judgemental b*tch I probably was at the time. I'm ashamed to event think about it. What happens next pains me... Have a listen... Show Notes and Links www.janehamill.com/cruiserbike Monthly Coaching with Jane: www.janehamill.com/membership    

September 24, 2018—Delma Galloway and Lottie Purcell, two 50-year employees at the Karastan plant in Eden, North Carolina, and Kemp Harr discuss the highlights of their 50-year careers at the 90-year-old Karastan factory. Listen to the interview for more details. The Karastan factory in Eden was built by Marshall Fields and has been making woven wool rugs for nine decades.

Jeff Toister Show Notes Jeff Toister helps customer service teams unlock their hidden potential. He is the best-selling author of The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide To Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service. More than 140,000 people on six (6) continents has taken his video base training courses on LinkedIn Learning aka Lynda.com. Jeff’s 15 training videos on LinkedIn Learning include Customer Service Foundations and Leading a Customer Centric Culture. Jeff was named one of the top 30 customer service professionals in the world by Global Gurus. He was also named one of the top 50 Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter by the International Customer Management Institute. Feedspot has named his Inside Customer Service Blog one of the Top 50 customer service blogs on the planet. Jeff holds a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) certification from The Association for Talent Development. Questions Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey Can you tell us about your journey in writing the book – The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service? What is culture? As entrepreneurs, what are some of the things they should be thinking about? What are some advice you would give to an employee or a business owner who is trying to sustain a service culture and with growth they have not been able to manage the culture with the massive growth that they have experienced? How do they scale but at the same time maintain that same service culture and experience? How do you stay motivated every day? What is the one online resource, website, tool or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? What are some of the books that have had the biggest impact on you? What is one thing in your life right now that you are really excited about – something that you are working on to develop yourself or people? Where can our listeners find your information online? What is one quote or saying that you live by or that inspires you in times of adversity? Highlights   Jeff Toister stated that what compelled him the spectrum of customer experience was the very first customer he served. He would love to say that it was a success story but it wasn’t, he didn’t do a good job and that changed things for him. He was 16 years old, he was working in a retail clothing store and he had gotten about 15 minutes of training and the person that was supposed to be training him said, “I’m going on break, good luck, here’s the key to the dressing room. Do the best you can, I’ll be back.” He was nervous as young kids often are and I didn’t know what he was supposed to do. A customer comes up to him and he’s just thinking, “Oh no, I don’t know anything” and that’s obviously the wrong mindset but that’s the mind set he had. The customer asked, “Do you carry Dockers?” it’s a brand of khakis and he knew what they were, he had no idea if they carried them or not and so he’s looking around the store and he’s hoping that there’s a big neon sign that says, “Dockers right here” but there was not. And being 16 years old and being inexperienced, the first words that came out of his mouth were, “I don’t know” and without getting a second chance to recover, he got angry and he said, “Wow, this is terrible service” and he stormed out of the store. He knows that that was the wrong answer, the challenge is when you’re employee in that situation how do you stop yourself from giving that wrong answer, that comes with experience, life experience and training knowledge and so in that moment he knew it wasn’t the right answer, he knew he didn’t do well and he never wanted to feel that way again, that was many years ago but throughout his entire career, he has always gravitated towards 2 things: customer service but in particular, What makes employees tick? How do we help our customer service employees perform their very best? And how do we remove these obstacles where we put them in a position where they are not as able to be successful? He has always been fascinated with customer service, he has always been fascinated with training and all of his jobs have focused on that and for the last 12 years he has been a consultant who helps organizations tackle these types of problems.   Yanique stated that she finds it interesting that it was a not so positive experience that propelled you into this because as a consultant that many times when a customer becomes loyal to business, if you track back the root cause, it’s usually a dissatisfied customer who dealt with an employee who was able to turn the situation around and just because of how it was handled, now every time they come back to that business they only want to deal with that particular employee, they’ll even wait sometimes if they’re on vacation to come back from vacation to transact business with that company and it all came out of a negative experience.   Jeff mentioned the “Peak-End Rule” (Psychology Term), he stated that it explains what Yanique said is true. It’s about customer perception or perception in general that we tend to not notice things that are normal. We tend to notice things that are different than normal and what really stands out is the thing that is most different and so the bad experience if you kind of think of that as the heartbeat of customer service, the bad experience is kind of like this really bad deviation from our normal experience and then a really good correction, really good fix is a huge difference. So, it stands out because it’s such a leap from a horrible experience to this great experience, it becomes imprinted in our memories and that’s the peak part, if it’s the last experience we had with that organization or that person, that really gets imprinted in our memories. So, the Peak End Rule kind of explains why that big gap, it’s so true when we recover from a bad experience, that’s what really sticks in our customers’ mind.   Jeff Toister shared that he’s glad that Yanique’s impression of his book was that it’s a practical guide and he really appreciate that because that was the goal in writing it. He found a couple things and one was that he consistently had this theme with his client which was culture, “How do we get our employees obsess with service?” and the other thing he found quite frankly was that companies tend to have money to invest in technology, they often don’t have the budget to invest in people and he thought, “If I could put this into a book and make it a practical step by step guide, maybe they can’t afford to hire me or you to come in, we wish they would. If they don’t have the budget for that, this book will give them everything I’m already sharing with my clients.” That was the starting point to say he’s going to make these ideas available. So where did they come from, they came from work he was doing but then he wanted to profile companies that were successful, and one of his biggest challenges in writing the book was, he didn’t want to include some of the usual suspects - the Zappos, the Southwest Airlines, the Nordstrom, the Disney, the Ritz Carlton, not to take anything away from those organizations, it’s just that we’ve heard their stories so many times, there are other companies out there that are delivering amazing service. So, you ask where did those stories come from? He started researching what other organizations have a strong service culture where they’re known, they have the reputation, maybe it’s service ratings, maybe it’s stories written about them, they’re known for having employees who are obsessed with service and then he started researching, what do they do and it was amazing to him that there was a consistency across all of these companies, in terms of how they approach it and so he was able to pull his own work and in the research he did into these companies and put them into the step by step guide and say, “Hey, there is something here. There’s a process that all of these organizations are following and we can give this recipe to anybody who cares to follow it.”   Yanique agreed that he tries to look at a very practical, operational way that any business, even if it’s a small business with just 5 employees would be able to extract that information and run with it in their own company.   Jeff stated that even a team because one of the biggest questions he gets is that people say, “I read the book but I’m not the CEO and I don’t even think my CEO cares too much about service, she says it important but I know she really cares about the budget.” And that’s fine, you can still use the book. He has examples in there with specific teams or departments, so whatever the size, whether you’re the CEO or you’re just leading the small team within a bigger company, the goals and the ideas that you can use these tools to create a service culture in whatever you control.   Jeff stated that he thinks sometimes culture is one of those words that we take for granted, we all say, “Culture is important” but maybe we mean different things. To him, culture when we’re talking about an organizational perspective, it’s a system of behaviors and beliefs, it’s how a group of people act or thinks and understand the world. Sometimes we think culture is a statement that says, “This is our motto or these are our values” and that’s not quite accurate. Culture is what people actually do, so if people are living those values each and every day then those values are accurate and they reflect your culture, if not, then they’re pretty empty. He gave an example, there was a bank in the United States about a year ago, there was this huge scandal because what they were doing was opening accounts for customers that didn’t request them. Millions of accounts were affected and the reason it was happening is because there were a lot of pressure for the individual employees to meet these very aggressive sales targets, so that’s what led to this huge scandal that the CEO resigned, there was a lot of fines, the Federal Government started to look into it. What was interesting though was that the CEO even in the moment when it was announce that the scandal broke and the CEO still had his job and he was announcing this scandal and this big settlement of a lawsuit, he still pointed to their culture as being customer focused and to him, that’s the perfect example of Your words doesn’t really matter if they’re not backed up by your deeds. How did people actually act? In that organization, the culture was about sales pressure and doing anything at all cost to sell a product. That was their actual culture. So, when you think about organizations and one of the organizations he wrote about in the book is a place call REI, if you love the outdoors, that’s the place to go for your camping equipment, your hiking equipment, bicycling, whatever. REI is an example of culture that really matches what they say. For example, if you go in and you’re looking for camping equipment, you’re not going to have somebody just kind of point you to the camping equipment aisle, the person who works there who’s going to help you is an avid camper, they love camping and they can’t wait to share with you what they know so that you can love camping too and that’s by design because they purposely stated that their goal as an organization is to help us all enjoy the outdoors. That to him is when culture matches what we’re saying, that’s pretty healthy but at the end of the day, culture is what we do, it’s how we perceive the world, it’s what we actually believe.   Yanique agreed and stated that in her process of dealing with some businesses this week, she called a company that deals with cooking gas and their office is not located in the city, it’s located on the outskirts of the city so it’s a 20-minute drive and she asked them if didn’t have any other mode of payment because she told the sales representative before they came that she will be paying by card and she specifically requested that the gentleman coming brings the card machine. He comes and he didn’t bring the card machine and of course he now informs her that she needs to drive all the way to the location to make the payment. So, she called them and said, “Can the payment be taken over the phone?” “Oh no, we just changed out our card machines and that’s not possible anymore.” Yanique called and ask them, “Do you expect me to drive 20 minutes outside the city just to get to you to make a payment for a service that you provided, I think you really need to talk to your finance department and think about a more customer friendly way to accept payments from your customers.” And it’s interesting because they were voted one of the best customer service organization in their industry and that left a bad experience. Even when the guys came, the service was good but then the payment part is a part of the service as well.   Jeff agreed and stated that whenever that happens, he always wonder why does it happen and is it that the person doesn’t want to do their job, sometimes but often it’s that they are put in that position or no one shared with that driver that Yanique had had that communication or that driver was specifically told, “We’re not doing cards so this is what you have to tell people.” Those employees are often put in a bad position where they almost can’t win.   Jeff stated that maintaining the same service culture and experience is a big challenge for a couple of reasons. One is that keeping culture exactly the same is impossible because culture changes, every time you add a new person to the team, every time you add a new product or a new line of service or a new channel, it changes just a little bit. He doesn’t know if it’s possible to keep culture the same but maybe consistent and have it grow and evolve in the right way, that’s maybe the goal for those businesses. The other challenge is scale, as businesses grow it becomes necessary for the business owner or the business leader to trust more people to do the work and that business owner can’t be in all places at all times, they can’t talk to every single customer and so the process of building a service culture really is about that scale question, “How do I instill in my employees what I believe in my core?” and the way to do that is that you have to make it clear, you have to articulate it. Just like how he was asked, “Let’s define service culture.” In these organization you have to define, “What does our culture look like?” and the tool that he uses is something called The Customer Service Vision, it’s a very simple statement, it could be something that you already have like a Vission or vision statement for your company but it’s very simple statement that says, “This is what outstanding service looks like.” And every employee in the organization has to understand what that vision statement is, what does it mean and most importantly, how do they personally contribute in their role and once you achieve that, then you can scale using that vision as a guide and that’s the first step, you’ve got to have that vision. The second step is employees all have to understand it and the third step is that you have to use that as a way of doing business, one thing he sees that business owners/ business leaders do that really hurt that effort is that they treat culture as a separate project, so people will maybe take time out of their normal job to do some cultural things, maybe on a culture committee or we’re doing culture as the theme for this year strategic planning and then we go back to work and just do our jobs, that’s not how you evolve culture, culture is our behavior so we need to use culture as a guide for making all decisions, it’s how we create strategy, it how we invest in technology and processes, it’s how we hire, it’s how we train people, it’s how as a leader you’re deciding what to put in front of your employees and talk about every single day and if we are not talking about culture and how outstanding service should look like then your employees are not going to believe that it’s important, they’ll focus and what you talk about and that’s the biggest challenge for leaders. Jeff also hear a lot of companies say to him, “We’re just so busy, we’re too busy to deal with culture.” And he would say, “No, you’re not because what you’re really doing is you’re still creating a culture, it’s just not the culture you need.”   Yanique agreed that with the point that even though they’re not focusing on culture, every organization has a culture but is it the culture that they really want and so if you don’t have intentionally activities, whether it be meetings, conversations, group outings, strategies built around what you’re trying to achieve, then the culture will emerge on its own. And so, you’d have a culture you don’t want all because there was no intentional act but not because you didn’t put any attention there doesn’t mean it’s not formed.   Jeff mentioned that often when you don’t put the intention there, it goes in the direction you really don’t want it to go.   Yanique mention that the take away from this interview is culture is not something that just doesn’t happen, it happens even without your intentional behavior behind it, it’s going to manifest and this is why you really have to intentionally work towards the culture you want. It’s like eating because we have to eat every day but if we don’t intentionally make an effort to eat healthy then we’ll eat anything and of course the body will just consume whatever you put inside of it and if you’re consuming negative thing then it will lead to disease and chronic illnesses versus taking an intentional approach towards eating, ensuring you do your meal preps, you exercise 3 to 4 times a week, you’re getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night, those are things that are intentional activities you schedule into your life to ensure it’s done every single day.   Jeff stated that he really likes this question because motivation is a part of something he looks at all the time, not just his own motivation but employee motivation. He thinks we often look at it the wrong way, we look at how we get motivated versus how to not be demotivated and so for him, motivation is easy, he does what he loves. He finds the inner section of what he loves to do and what he can be successful doing and where he has a little bit of skill. Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Other’s Don’t’ Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, one of his landmark books. He talked about this head shock concept for companies, it’s an inner section of what you love, what can you do well, what can you get paid to do and he takes that personally. And so, he gets up every day excited because he loves this. The demotivation happens not just for him but for everybody where we perceive that there’s obstacles that stand in the way of doing what we love. In a service environment, referring to his story about his first service encounter, that happens to employees every single day where they want to provide great service, almost every employee wants to provide great service but there’s some obstacle that they perceive is standing in their way and that’s what’s demotivating them. Every day he works on himself but he helps organizations and employees work on finding what are those obstacles and they can remove those obstacles, motivation becomes really natural.   Yanique stated that it’s interesting because she does workshops for organizations and a lot of questions that she hears from employees is that sometimes you can’t do what you love because you have bills to pay but then, if you have that kind of mindset which goes back into your attitude. Is it your motivation that affects your attitude or your attitude that affects your motivation?   In reference to Yanique’s question if motivation affects attitude or attitude affects motivation. Jeff stated that he is a big sports fan, so the team that’s winning, are they because they are motivator or are they motivated because they are winning. He thinks success breathes that and those two go together. Doing well, we feel good, we’re motivated and if we’re not doing well we feel bad with a bad attitude, we feel demotivated. There’s a concept called, “Learned Helplessness” that a lot of employees’ experience. What it is that over time they feel like they failed trying so they just stop trying. It gets really bad is a lot of times they stay in the same job, not every job is right for every person and so they’ll stay in the job or maybe they have those bills to pay and they don’t feel like they have another good option and so they kind of give up but they keep coming to work everyday and that makes it so much worst because it’s defeating.   Jeff stated that the tool that he uses every single day is a website called Highrise, it’s a way of keeping track of clients and projects all in one place. One of his core value is accountability and he believes if you say you’re going to do something, you do it. As an entrepreneur, you have a million things going on and trying to meet deadlines and maintain commitments and do what you say you’re going to do is extremely difficult. So, he uses that through every single day to keep track projects, initiatives, people and making sure he maintains all of his commitments but he also uses it to not just look at an individual commitment but how does that connect to all the other commitments he has made so that he’s not overloading his plate. He uses LinkedIn and Twitter every day as well and primarily to connect with other people and learn from other people and see what other people are doing as he thinks we are definitely in a relationship business. As someone whose passionate about training and adult learning, he’s always learning as well and that’s often where he finds “What are people doing that’s interesting?” So those would he his second and third picks.   Jeff shared that he loves to read and is sometimes reading 2 to 3 books at a time. He thought about and said, “What are the books that stick with me?” and that’s the challenge with the book, that we read a book and say, “Oh it’s good” and then you ask, “What have you used from that book?” Jeff shared that these are some book that he uses a lot. One is called Street Smarts by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham and what he loves about it is that it’s an entrepreneurial perspective on the business side of running a business and he thinks in the world of customer service and customer experience, too many of us are unfamiliar or tentative around the business side, the number side. He had a discussion online with someone the other day where they were upset that executives only care about the budget and the point he tried to make and comes from this book is, the way to get executives to care about customer service is you have to translate customer service into numbers because that’s their language and if we’re not doing that or if we don’t know how, we’re only hurting ourselves. The next one is a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen, it’s a system for managing your time and commitments and it’s a principle based system rather than go out and buy this portfolio and you have to use this specific software, it’s more about principles to use whatever you feel comfortable using. He uses those principles to do things that allow him to keep on top of things. For example, at the end of everyday he has zero messages in his email inbox and for most people that’s unbelievable but it’s because he has these set of principles that David Allen shared with him in his book that he uses every day. The third book is a book that really made an impact on him, it’s called Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips and what he did was he studied the United States’ 16th president which some people would say would be one of their most amazing leaders in history and he looked at some of the things that Abraham Lincoln did as a leader that we can pull from today. One of his favorite examples that he uses as a consultant and trainer is Lincoln was really the first president to spend a lot of time going to people rather than expecting people to come to him for a meeting or a conversation and the reason he did that, it’s management by walking around which we know now but the idea was, if you approach people in an environment where they feel comfortable and make them feel like we’re on an even keel and you’re not trying to intimidate them then they’re much more likely to open up to you and have an honest and frank conversation and he learned when he’s working with a client and he meets with their front line staff and ask them about their job, they are always ready to tell him exactly what is working well and exactly what they think is going wrong and he thinks it’s because of that principle of coming to them and making them comfortable.   Jeff stated he has this thing where he realizes that his audience doesn’t have a lot of budget to spend on customer service maybe technology but not on people. So, one of the things he has been trying to do is transform his own business where he can make resources, tool, concepts available to people at little to no cost and somehow still get paid. A few examples are his book, the investment on the book is USD $14.95 for the paperback or USD $9.99 for the kindle, that’s a pretty low investment yet he puts all the tools he uses as a consultant in that book so you don’t have to hire him because you probably have USD $14.95, you may not have his consultant fee. He has training videos on LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com and he has learned that a lot of his clients and companies that he works with already has a subscription to one of those platforms, so you can get his training without having to pay for him to come in, the video is right there, it’s available to you and if you don’t have a subscription, it’s fairly inexpensive and then things like this podcast, he loved this opportunity and really appreciate it because it’s a chance for them to have a dialogue about service but it doesn’t cost anything to subscribe to the podcast and learn from it and learn from not just himself but from some of the other amazing experts that Yanique interview. Those are free resources that anybody can take advantage of and he’s really excited about the opportunity to help people wherever they are in their journey.                                                                                          Jeff shared listeners can find him at – Twitter - @toister (www.twitter.com/toister) Customer Service Tip of the Week – www.toistersolutions.com/tips Insider Customer Service Blog – www.toistersolutions.com/blog   Jeff shared that he’s not a big quote person, the reason he’s not a quote person, the first reason is because he sees quotes and they sound great but then what do we do with them. He’s more of an action person and the second reason is he has done research on some quotes and he has been disappointed to find that that person never said that or that’s not what they meant. He gave an example, the quote, “The customer is always right” no one said that and it bothers him that we have accepted this as some mantra in customer service and he did some research on where did this come from, why do we believe this and there is not really an agreement but it came from a few places. One possible source says Ritz Carlton and he said, “The customer is never wrong” and the context was that even if the customer is wrong, of course they are sometimes, you don’t argue with them, you just find a way for them to help them become right. Marshall Fields who is a famous retailer, he said, “Right or wrong, the customer is always right” and his point was the same thing that the customers will of course make mistakes but we don’t argue with them, our role here is to help them become right, to help them succeed. He wished he had a great quote to share but when he finds those quotes and he found out no one ever said that but the story behind the quote often is much more interesting.   Yanique mentioned that in most of her workshops towards the end of the session, she always explains to the participants that the customer is always right literally is not a true statement because there are times when the customer is wrong but what we should be guided by is the principle that as employees, we are not here to prove the customer wrong, we are here to help them, they are wrong but we are not here say, “Hey Mr. Customer, you’re wrong and we are going to punish you.” But more like, “It’s okay, let’s work back to how we can undo what’s happened and find a solution so that you can leave here feeling good, let’s make this right.”   Links Highrise Street Smart by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham Getting Things Done by David Allen Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips The Service Culture Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your Employees Obsessed with Customer Service by Jeff Toister

Carmi has years of experience designing gift and home decor for retailer, big box, and global distributors worldwide. He learned naturally that having product stories attached to his gift designs results in big business. He is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Smashup Studio, a cutting edge design studio. They specialize in marketing original re-purposed Gifts and Home Accessories and are involved in all aspects of design, startup, manufacturing and marketing. Carmi newest venture is taking recycled motherboards and turning them into home decor and art sculptures. He calls them Computer Bugs to love! The Gift IndustryWhat brought Carmi into the gift industry [4:09] Discovering the art of buying and selling [4:49] The story of The Prosperity Tree [5:33] Pivoting to the design side of the gift industry [8:40] Collaboration with Make A Wish Foundation [10:36] The value of product stories – Good Luck Golf Ball [11:10] The value of product stories – Silver Pine Cone Story [11:35] Enter the latest product – computer bugs [20:38] Candle Flickering MomentsKeeping a relationship going after a major mix up for Marshall Fields [14:07] Business Building InsightsThe value of chance encounters and connections [6:46] Finding the niche for Prosperity Tree International [8:01] The power of stories [9:58] The bigger view on being copied [16:56] How to get your product concept to reality [25:04] A conversation on prototypes [28:30] It’s important to get feedback right from the beginning [30:40] Backing up your new product with inventory [31:53] About taking risks [34:08] Success TraitRelationships are key. Carmi values creating and building strong connections with his manufacturers and customers [35:28] Productivity/Lifestyle ToolBeing an international business, Carmi relies heavily on his computer and iphone. [38:14] Recommended Reading and Listening (http://www.giftbizbook.com)   Siddhartha (http://amzn.to/2qWZl5p) by Hermann Hesse Contact Links Website (http://www.smashupstudio.com) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/smashupstudio) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/smashupstudio) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmiplaut) If you found value in this podcast, make sure to subscribe and leave a review in (http://www.giftbizunwrapped.com/GooglePodcasts) . That helps us spread the word to more makers just like you. Thanks! Sue

REMEMBERING: Christmas in Chicago in 1940 plus merry music and miscellaneous memories of some celebrity Christmastime birth dates. Also: Seeing the Christmas windows at Marshall Fields in Chicago’s Loop and visiting Wieboldt’s ToyTeria.

Coming to you from the Chicago studio of famed photographer Marc Hauser, this edition of Booth One focuses (no pun intended) on Marc's work over 5 decades of taking celebrity portraits around the world. Along the way, we discuss his inspiring journey and the meaning of life. Marc began taking photographs as a teenager in the north Chicago suburb of Wilmette. At age 13, he was already working for Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine. Hauser has taken photographs for Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Life Magazine and Marshall Fields, as well as film shoots, album covers, concerts and family portraits. Marc relates his experiences and shooting sessions with Dolly Parton, Michael Jordan, Cindy Crawford, Woody Allen, Jim McMahon, Sophia Loren, Uma Thurman, Janis Joplin, George Burns and others. Truly a Booth One Experience professional! Here are some of Marc's images from his studio, along with a few stock images of the people and personalities we cover during this amazing and candid episode... Hauser took this candid shot of Michael Jordan on a basketball court with backdrop and lighting.             Hauser once traveled with the circus for 3 months, photographing performers, acrobats and animals. This iconic photograph of a show girl on a rearing elephant is one of his most famous. Sadly, one will not be able to see live elephants at the circus any longer, as more and more traveling companies are retiring their pachyderms for humane reasons. So this shot is indeed a record of circus world history. Marc discusses why Chicago is a city of loyalty and helping hands. Many people have aided Marc in his recuperation and return to working after a tragic accident in 2007 that cost him the use of a leg and his right eye. Chicago ain't known as the City of Big Shoulders for nothing! Marc's work can be seen at an upcoming show at Adventureland Go to Website, a gallery owned by another renowned Chicago artist and friend of the show, Tony Fitzpatrick. To see more of Marc Hauser's work, visit his website at http://www.hauserportraits.com/ . To schedule a photo session with Marc, call 312-243-7824 and ask for Tara. Marc is offering a sweet deal on Groupon View Deal Here . Bring the family - you won't be disappointed. Marc Hauser is The Real Thing! Kiss Of Death - Bill Backer, Who Taught the World to Sing. As vice chairman of the ad agency Backer Spielvogel Bates, Mr. Backer was responsible for the writing and creation of perhaps the world's most famous television ad - the classic 1971 Coca-Cola commercial of a diverse groups of singers on a hilltop in Italy, loudly proclaiming: "I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company" Watch on YouTube.  The commercial became a smash success, and recordings by both the Hillside Singers and the New Seekers became Billboard hits. The spot also inspired a 1991 Super Bowl ad, and served as a coda for the AMC series "Mad Men". Bill Backer was 89 and owned a thoroughbred horse farm in Virginia in retirement. Read the full NYTimes obituary here.          

Jolly ol’ St. John Ross asks helpers Ben Rice, Danielle Mandella and Jesse Jones what’s on their STABmas lists and it’s as you would expect: Marshall Fields confusion, Rickey Henderson, Civil War pardons, James Brown’s death, ovariotomies, Dido, a triplet of HOHOHOs, fifteen Christmas character Google searches, the synopsis’ of made-up movies “Frosty the Snowman … Continue reading »

Shep gets a job at Marshall Fields wrapping gifts

In her keynote address at the 28th Annual Wharton Women in Business Conference in Philadelphia Thia Breen president of Estee Lauder Americas and head of Global Business Development told the audience that she was nearly fired from her first job. ”That was the moment I started to understand: I am totally responsible for my own success ” said Breen whose first job out of college was unloading shipments of toys at Marshall Fields. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Annual International Jazz Festival, Arts Beats and Eats, Labor Day Festival, Motown Historical Detroit, Macy's, Hudsons, Marshall Fields, konkurs podcastu Polskie Detroit - do wygrania telefon Sony Ericsson w300i

Annual International Jazz Festival, Arts Beats and Eats, Labor Day Festival, Motown Historical Detroit, Macy's, Hudsons, Marshall Fields, konkurs podcastu Polskie Detroit - do wygrania telefon Sony Ericsson w300i