Podcasts about me well

Bob Carrothers has 29 years of experience, he facilitates peer-to-peer boards of CEOs and executives, creating environments conducive to skill enhancement, informed decision-making and superior results. Bob is certified as an Emergenetics advisor and Predictive Index practitioner, equipping him with a profound understanding of human behaviour and cognition.    Questions · So, we always like to ask our guests, in your own words, could you share a little bit about your journey? How you got from where you were to where you are today? · What would you say maybe if you could pick three overarching tenets or competencies that you believe CEOs need to practice or embrace in order to really achieve the three areas that just mentioned. · What are some of the key things that make an organization successful? · Now, Bob, can you also share with our audience, what's the one online resource, tool, website or application that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? · Now, can you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that you have read, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it had a great impact on you, whether it be personally or professionally. · Bob, can you share with our audience what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. · Where can listeners find you online? · Now, before we wrap our episodes up, Bob, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track. Do you have one of those?   Highlights Bob's Journey Me: So, we always like to ask our guests, in your own words, could you share a little bit about your journey? How you got from where you were to where you are today?   Bob shared that it's been a very interesting journey. He started out as an entrepreneur; he had companies involved in the meat trading business. So, they bought and sold animal parts, lungs, livers, kidneys, everything that was most people would consider waste from an animal, and then they would resell them to people we knew wanted them, mostly to pet food companies, that's where the tonnage went. And then others to went to Mexico. Others went into sausage making, Chorizo making on the West Coast. They just find a buyer and go do it. And they'd go into a packing house and buy their entire production of lungs or livers or whatever, and then resell it into the pet food canning business. So, it's been an interesting ride.  In 1996 he got out of that business. He sold it to his management team, and they took it over, and they're still running it. And then after that, he started another company that failed miserably. He lost a ton of money. He was crushed, and it was hard and then he looked around, and he'd been a Vistage member, and he loved it. And he knew that with all the ups and downs he's had in his life, he could help people from making mistakes and doing what he did and living that life. So, he reached out to his past business chair, and he hired him, and that was in 1996, so he's been doing this ever since, September of 1996, so it's been quite a ride.   Overarching Tenets or Competencies CEO's Need to Embrace to Unlock Their Potential, Enhance Performance and Achieve Their Goals Me: Now, you focus on empowering CEOs to unlock their full potential, enhance their performance and achieve their goals. Based on your many years of experience, Bob in this space, working, I'm sure with CEOs and entrepreneurs across different industries, what would you say maybe if you could pick three overarching tenets or competencies that you believe CEOs need to practice or embrace in order to really achieve the three areas that I just mentioned.   Bob shared that he thinks they need to establish a great culture in their company and mind it. Nurture it and protect it, because culture trumps everything, nothing else matters. Your people won't be happy, you won't keep people, you will make your customers angry, your suppliers angry, and you'll do a really bad job because your employees won't care. And so, that's the first thing he would say, is build a strong culture.  The second thing is to hire correctly, be slow to hire and fast to make them available to industry. So, that's really important. If the employee can't do the job they were hired to do, they need to move on and then hire the right people. Put a lot of effort in your hiring process. And the other one would be, watch the money. You've got to keep track of your cash flow, you got to predict what the cash is going to be down the road. Bigger companies have CFOs to do that, and then they'll report to the CEO. Smaller ones, often the CEO will do it themselves. But you have to do it, because if you run out of cash, you're out of business. It's just really simple, if you can't make payroll, then you're gone.   Key Things for an Organization Success Me: So, Bob, in working with these different organizations, right? We're trying to establish what are some of the key things that make an organization successful? And so, the customer experience is critical in all businesses regardless of whether or not you have a face-to-face type of interaction or you're just digital and people are communicating with you solely through the internet. But leadership is very important for a business, whether you're a solopreneur or you're a fortune 500 company, regardless of the size, it's driven by the leader in the organization. As it relates to customer experience, if you were to maybe give us an example of a use case, a good use case, example that you've observed over the years in working with these CEOs, what do you think are some of the key things that make them be able to have a successful customer experience, one in which their customers are their brand advocates, their evangelists, their word of mouth advertisers. If that company decided not to advertise for the next two, three years, they would still be doing great business because their customers view them as fans. What would you say are key things in that?   Bob shared that there's one company that comes to mind, and that CEO was brilliant, and the culture in the company was extremely strong. He would walk around his plant every day, and he knew everybody's name and met family members, and he'd walk up to him and just say, “Hey, Charlie, how you doing? How's the family? How's your wife? I heard your son Robbie is sick.” He would do that, and the employees felt that they were cared for.  He never stopped setting goals, he never stopped doing things that would make the work fun. He was trying to reduce shrinkage one day, and it kept bugging him, it was going on for months, and he decided he'd just do a little contest, and he went out and bought an old junker car and a whole bunch of sledgehammers, and every day the group, the employees reduced the amount of shrinkage, they could go out and beat up on the car. And it was just amazing how much fun they were having and how just beating a car, they hit their goal for sure, and it cost the CEO, like, what $500 to do that.  He had other contests like dunk the CFO, where he had one of those dunking tubs. Certain goals were reached, that was out in the parking lot. He saw him with his customers. One of their Vistage speakers impacted him so much that he invited his customers from around the country to come to his plant, see the plant, and hear this speaker present, and because it made such an impact on him, he wanted his customers to be better too, so he thought this speaker could really help him.  What else did he do? Whenever he'd walk up to somebody and they promised to do something for him, he recorded it on his phone, so he'd pull it out and before he saw them, pull up their name and say, “Hey, how are you coming on that project we talked about?” And the accountability went through the roof. Just little things like that, simple things. But he had one goal, that if the company reached so much in revenue sales, he knew that if it did, they'd make extra money, if it was over and above the regular goal, it was big….hairy….audacious goal, and he said, “If you guys hit this, I will take the entire company to Las Vegas.” Because he knew if they increased the revenue that much, the profits would go up enough to pay for the trip and then some. And he was legendary with his employees. Just things like that that are special.   Me: I think one of the things I took away from what you said just now that it's not the big things, it's like always the little things, the minor details, and they go very far away with another human being, because it shows them that you value them, you appreciate them, and they're just not there to milk, to get more money, money, money. But you value them as a person, and you recognize the fact that your success is just as important as their success.   Bob agreed, that's exactly right. That's what it takes to build a great company, is the culture you create. You want people waiting in line to go to work for you.   Me: I know right, that's awesome.   App, Website or Tool that Bob Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without, Bob shared that he hates it, but he can't live without it, it's called email. Buries him, but it's the communication is so fast, and we can send documents back and forth, and he doesn't think anybody could live without email now. We all curse it, but it's there.    Me: Agreed, because in the absence of email, we have to go back to posting a letter to your customer or to your friend or family member, and we all know the Postal Service takes forever for you to get that response. So, yeah, email is amazing.   Bob shared that he remembers those days and they'd send off a contract and wait and wait and wait to get it back, just because of the mail, or an invoice. It just was crazy. And then came fax machines, and they were huge. He bought one once and his accountant, and said, “Why do you want that thing? Nobody else has them.” And he said they will, even though they will. And that became huge, and then email took over for that.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Bob When asked about books that have had a great impact, Bob shared that Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't was a book that had an effect on him. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant is another one. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People.   Me: I'm actually looking at the book right now. It's sitting right in front of me.   Bob shared that that's one of the major ones. And another one he wrote was How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. So, there's several.    What Bob is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's really excited about, Bob shared that he's always excited about cheering, he sees so much, and he loves what he does. As far as he's not in any training right now, but Vistage offers trainings all the time, and he also does stuff outside of Vistage. But right now, he's getting ready to go on a holiday in a sprinter van, it's an RV, and that's kind of got his attention. Plus, he's got two Vistage meetings next week.   Me: So, those are your things that you're working on that you're really excited about. Fantastic.   Where can listeners find Bob online? LinkedIn - Bob Carrothers Website – www.vistage.com   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Bob Uses When asked about quotes that he tends to revert to, Bob shared he does, he's a big fan of Albert Einstein, and he had a quote that was, “The same level of thinking that caused a problem is not going to fix the problem.” That's not exact, but that's what it means. And that's so true. Another one is, “Everybody's a genius. But if you want to teach a fish to fly, they're going to fail and feel they're a loser from then on.” And some people just can't get it. And sometimes when things go wrong, you got to look at the people involved, or the thinking involved and reapproach it with a different level.   Me: Okay, so that second quote is more to say, maybe you need to take a few steps backward just to move forward, just to reevaluate and do it again.   Bob agreed. Reevaluate if it's an employee and they just can't get it. Maybe they're just not set up for it, and it's better to find another position for them, or another area of responsibility, or perhaps they're just not right for your company, like you got to have the right people on the bus as Jim Collins say.    Me: True. If you have the wrong people on the bus, it makes the journey that much harder.   Bob agreed, they got to be in the right seats.   Me: Well, thank you so much Bob for jumping on our podcast today and sharing all of these awesome insights as it relates to Vistage and your journey and just what are some of the key things that makes a leader successful and makes an organization successful as they navigate their customer experience through the journey of their customers lifetime. So, I think your conversation today was extremely insightful, and I just wanted to extend our deepest gratitude to you for taking time to share with us today.   Bob shared that he's really enjoyed this. Yanique ask great questions and make him think so, thank you.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest  Links • Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't by Jim Collins • Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim •    How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie •    How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Alan Versteeg, an engineer turned sales management expert, initially approached the sales world with skepticism, but soon turned it into a thriving career by applying the engineering principles of cause and effect to sales and sales management. This success led him to co-founding Growth Matters, where Alan and his team have developed over 2,000 sales managers across 45+ countries and diverse industries.  Known for his candid and light-hearted approach, Alan's passion for the sales profession shines through in his insightful talks, leaving audiences engaged with his wisdom, expertise, and memorable one liners.  Questions · Now, could you start by sharing with our listeners a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got from where you were to where you are today. · Can you share with us maybe two overarching themes that you try to help sales professionals master in terms of their mindset, to get them to where you need them to be in order to master their sales? · What are some barriers that you believe a lot of salespeople face, why it is you believe they're not successful? · Now, Alan, could you also share with our listeners, what's the one online resource, tool, website or application that you absolutely can't live without in your business? · Can you also share with our listeners maybe two books that you've read? It could be a book that you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but it still has had a great impact on you. · Could you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. · Where can listeners find you online? · Just want to ask you as well, Alan, in your experience, in the journey of your lifetime, if you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, if for any reason, you got derailed. Do you have a quote or a saying that once repeated or just remembered it helps to get you back on track? Highlights Alan's Journey Me: Now, could you start by sharing with our listeners a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got from where you were to where you are today.   Alan shared that he started as an electronic engineer, it wasn't his fault, he grew up watching Airwolf Night Rider and MacGyver, so he thought that's what he'd be doing. Unfortunately, he lost his dad when he was quite young, he was about 12 years old, but he was an engineer, so he thought that'd be a good thing to do. But he was doing it for about 3 years after graduating, and he read a book called You're Born an Original, Don't Die a Copy by John Mason, and he said, “If you passionately hate what you're doing for more than 2 weeks, you need to stop,” and he'd been doing it for two years. And a friend of his suggested he goes into sales, which he then tried and please if your listeners don't drop off now, but he got asked to leave his first sales jobs, but it was frustrating. As an engineer, he believed in cause and effect. He believes that there's things you do that get you certain outcomes. He was doing everything they told him to do, but he couldn't find a way to get through, he'd be good at his product, he was passionate to what he was doing, but he wasn't able to succeed.  And then he worked under a manager, he said to him, “Alan, is sales a job or a profession?” So, he knew the right answer, the right answer was, it's a profession. And he said, “Well, how hard did you study for this profession?”  And then the penny drops, and from there on out, been a passionate reader, 50 to 60 books a year, generally related to psychology, self-development and sales and over time, realized that the big change in sales is sales management, and that's a short view of his journey to where he was and how he got here.   Mindset Needed for Sales Professionals Me: Now you deal with a lot of sales professionals, and I can imagine it starts with their mindset. Can you share with us maybe two overarching themes that you try to help sales professionals master in terms of their mindset, to get them to where you need them to be in order to master their sales?   Alan stated that it's a great question, and it speaks to the tone of your podcast. So, the first mindset they have to own is that “Selling won't help, but helping will sell.” That the sale is the reward for an intent to create value. And that's the starting point when we realize that we are service orientated, that we're there to drive value into the client's business or life, that there's something specifically we're trying to do, that were truthfully customer centric it's not just a word, and we realize that selling won't help, but helping will sell.  You'll find that salespeople do really well. There's a wonderful book called Selling With Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud by Lisa Earle McLeod, and it shows the research behind the top performing sales professionals globally sell with that noble purpose, with an idea to serve. So, it's definitely one of them.  The second one is probably an extension, he said to sales professionals, “If you believe in the product you sell and you believe it can add value to the person you're serving, then it would be borderline negligent to avoid offering them that value.”  Many salespeople, specifically today are fearful of cold calling or proactive sales calling or reaching out or picking up a phone or speaking to someone, and they take on a very much non-human sales approach, as opposed to going, “I believe, with certainty and conviction that what I have to offer will make their lives or their business easier, and I'm here to help, and helping will sell. So, I'm going to depart from that point.”  And what you find is doing that, apart from that point, the skills, the body language, all the risks that start to develop quite naturally, but often we avoid that, we try to train the skill, but we avoid the mindset.   Barriers To Overcome as Salespeople Me: So, once you tackle their mindset, now you have to ensure that what they're selling, as you mentioned before, is actually helping the customer and adding value to the customer's life. What are some barriers that you believe a lot of salespeople face, why it is you believe they're not successful?   Alan shared that he thinks the big barrier specifically in professional selling is conviction of the value proposition, and before that is clarity. And he'll give a couple of examples.   When he speaks to business leaders, they often say to him, “You know what Alan, the challenge with our sales teams are they just don't understand our value proposition.”  And he says, okay, great. What is your value proposition? And they struggle to articulate it. Now, if you think about this, why is it that entrepreneurs can sell quite effectively without ever having been trained in that skill, and the reality is they have clarity and conviction of their value proposition. He thinks with many sales professionals, we're teaching them the product, we're not teaching them the impact it has on the customer's life.  Once we buy into the impact, once we have the conviction, selling is a natural part of how we are as humans and Dan Pink wrote that book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.  And his (Alan) example is we have a brand over there, it's called Woolworths, it's a high-quality brand, high quality food brand. And if you said to anyone, “But why shopping in Woolworths? They're so expensive.” They dive into a defense, without being paid by this company, they will sell very hard the value of doing that.  The same could be said for someone who's an Apple phone fan. And he can continue, once we have conviction of something, the ability and need to persuade is actually quite natural. So, he thinks what's missing from an individual's perspective is that conviction of the mindset.  From a corporate, it's the fact that we speak about customer centricity, but none of our measurement metrics or meetings actually align to that.   Me: Now, I found that in a lot of organizations, they're heavily sales driven, right? I find it as a customer service trainer when companies hire me to come in and train their team, especially the leadership teams in customer service, or even customer experience design or customer journey mapping, there's a lot of emphasis that I hear them talking that they have these exorbitant sales targets to meet on a month to month basis, and with these targets that they have to meet, they don't have as much time to give to customer centricity or to give to the experience, because it's all about meeting the target. How do you strike that balance as a salesperson? What would be your recommendation?    Alan shared that there'd be two components. The first would be at an organizational lens, speaking to what you're saying. He thinks organizations have forgotten that when you take care of the customers, the number takes care of itself. So, we are so focused on the month, on the quarter, on the year, we're not focused on the value, and that's a shift that needs to happen.  But practically, the way that shift happens is in the account planning process, when we start treating our customers and accounts and saying, what is the value we're delivering. Many companies go, what more can we sell them? What's the white space we can sell into? What does that look like? And that's the big organizational.  From a salesperson's perspective, the only thing you can do is you need to figure out how to allocate your effort. And the way he says that is you have to beat everyone equally but handle them differently. You have to segment your customers, otherwise you can't take care of the ones that need to be taken care of, and your competitor is going to snatch them up. And in any sales business, he's ever worked with, if you lose, and it's generally about 10%, if you lose about 10% of your customers, you lose about 90% of your revenue.  But organizations are just focused what's the next sale, what's the next sale, what's the next sale? And what happens is, we're putting two barrels on the truck, and three barrels are falling off the truck because we're not focused on the customer service.  And we almost see it as something separate, and it's not. The way he articulates this is there's a thing called the value gap, it's the gap between what customers expect and what they experience. And it is everybody's job in the organization to close that gap.   It's not, “Hey, sales go set the expectation. Hey, service go and deliver against that expectation.” It's an organizational mindset that we exist to close the gap between the customers expect and what they experience.  And he thinks their leadership needs to start realizing that taking care of customers, the numbers take care of themselves, and that talking to a spreadsheet or talking to a CRM system or talking to data doesn't change people's behaviour.  So, leadership needs to take a different perspective on this and going, what is it we do now that lays the soil in the seeds for the numbers we need?   App, Website or Tool that Alan Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about online resource that he can't live without in his business, Alan shared that right now ChatGPT. He thinks that we are negating its value in sales if we're using it incorrectly. So, he'll give you a context.  As salespeople, we need to be creative and optimistic, and we're not fans of admin. So, the good news for sales professionals is a lot of our admin is going to be replaced by technology, but that's going to leave a lot of sales professionals wanting because what do you do with the time that you used to spend putting your data. But he really leverages the tool to shorten his learning curve, understanding a customer, understanding what the challenges are, understanding key things. It's a tool to summarize, it doesn't replace him as it shouldn't, it enhances him.  And he was listening to one of Yanique's earlier podcasts, you talk about the human-to-human connection, and there's this thing now where we talk about human-to-human selling. And he's like, well, if you think human to human selling is new, then you haven't been around for millennia, because that's what it is. It's a human-to-human task enhanced by technology. But right now, if he talks about probably 60% to 70% of his time is given back to him because he knows to leverage ChatGPT.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Alan When asked about books that have had an impact, Alan shared that that's a tough question with all the books he read, but he's going to give one that he always recommends. The first one is called The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness by Jeff Olson, and the premise of the book is that simple disciplines practiced consistently over time, lead to a life of greatness, and simple errors in judgment made consistently over time, lead to a life of blame. There's no Hollywood moment, there's not one big movement, they're just simple disciplines. Look at any leader, any sports hero, any person who succeeds in their profession, they practice the disciplines. So, there's definitely one that guides his life.  And then the other one is a book called The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller, and it's really about forgetting this construct of work life balance and finding out what's the one thing I can do such that by doing everything else is easier or unnecessary. And it talks about this work life counterbalance, and how you just keep the things that matter, you don't make them extreme fluctuations and the things that don't matter can be extreme. You can be heavily buried in a work project for three months, but during that time, don't forget your health, your family time, the things that matter. Just tone it down a bit, not all the way down. Those are two books, he'd say, personally, really drove him.  As a business professional, recently read that 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan, wonderful resource for anyone that's listening, that is an entrepreneur or business owner, 10x Is Easier Than 2x.   What Alan is Really Excited About Now! Me: Now, Alan, could you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about, either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.   When asked about something that he's excited about, Alan shared that he's recently moved to a smaller coastal towns that's been really good for him personally, but the big thing happening for him business wise, is there's a very large global brand that they've managed to secure that's 10x'ing our business, which is a plan they had based on that book that he's read, and starting to see how that effort, energy and focus is paying off, is really rewarding. When you read a lot of books, you can get sometimes caught up in the story and not in the action.  And what's really great to see, in a proud moment for their business, is now really starting to take on some recognized global brands who are looking at effectively three guys from South Africa and saying, “We want to partner with you to do this.” So, it's a proud moment that's come, your overnight success is the longest night of your life.  But really what it's been powerful is seeing the practices that they put in place now starting to bear fruit. And when you say, take care of the customers, the number takes care itself, it's actually quite prolific, how?  And you know this, he's preaching to the converted, but when you understand that the only thing that matters is how customers experience you, then everything else becomes a lot easier, because their ability to grow is because they just have a track record where they phone a customer, and they love what they've done with them. And that doesn't mean it's easy to scale, it's still hard to scale. But he thinks that'd be the big thing right now, is seeing how by applying certain principles, you can stretch your own mindset, stretch your own goals, stretch your own vision for your business, and really start to play where you always believed you can.   Where can listeners find Alan online? LinkedIn – Alan Versteeg   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Alan Uses When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Alan shared that he has quite a few, but one of his favourites, because of its depth is, “How you do anything, is how you do everything.” And the reason that's so important is it's easy to be in a good mood when times are good, it's easy to be of a good character when times are good, it's easy to be a pleasant person when times are good, but when things are challenging, that's where your character gets tested.   And how you do anything, is how you do everything. And he says to leaders all the time, Richard Branson said it so well, “The best way to take care of your customers is to take care of your employees.” Because the minute you take care of the employees, the customers feel that. And it's because how you do anything, is how you do everything.  You can't be polite to your customers but rude to the person waiting at you at a restaurant or trying to help you at the airport. Airports are so fascinating because everyone complains to people who are really just trying to get you somewhere safely and within strict guidelines that people, they don't treat people well.  And he believes that how you do anything, is how you do everything. And in challenging times, that tests you, can I remain of good spirit? Can I remain a good demeanor? Can I remain patient as a person when things are difficult? Can I maintain my faith?  Because it's easy to maintain my faith when things are great, it's difficult when you're in the lion's den, and that's for him, a quote that just guides him and says, just remember, they still shape your character, this is a test of your character and a bad day for the ego, is a beautiful day for the soul. It's time to grow.   Me: Well, thank you, Alan, so much for hopping on this podcast and sharing all of these great insights with us. It was very insightful to understand your perspective as it relates to sales and customer service, and to reinforce a lot of what we do talk about on this podcast, Navigating the Customer Experience as it relates to ensuring that the customer experience is not just managed effectively on the outside, but it needs to start on the inside. And you said it beautifully when you gave Richard Branson's quote that if you take care of your people on the inside, and they'll definitely take care of your customers on the outside. So, I think it was a really great conversation and I just really wanted to extend our deepest gratitude for your participation in our conversation today.   Alan shared an extended thanks to Yanique and the work she's doing in this space. One of the things that he definitely picks up in everything Yanique shared, the customer experience is not a thing, it's a culture and when we actually realize this, everything becomes easier, because it seems obvious, it does take a lot of work, as you know, it's a profession. But when companies understand it, the only reason we exist is to create value for customers, then the customer experience is the report card. So, thank you so much for the work you're doing in this space and for having him on the show.   Please connect with us on X @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience.    Links •    You're Born an Original, Don't Die a Copy by John Mason •    Selling With Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud by Lisa Earle McLeod •    To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink •    The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness by Jeff Olson •    The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller •    10x Is Better Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less by Dan Sullivan   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

I've had the exact same conversation with about 8 people this week and it went something like this…Them: “How do you increase sales in your business?”Me: “Well, here's the 4 things to focus on….yap yap yap….but none of that will really matter if you don't focus on low self worthy beliefs.”Them: “I don't struggle with that.”Me:

Serena Chan is a Research Advocate at Dovetail with a background in exploratory and UX research. She plays a pivotal role in crafting memorable experiences for customers, advocating for them within the company and partnering with people who do research to build a community and best practices at Dovetail.  Before joining Dovetail, Serena held UX design research and product roles across various industries, including health tech, entertainment and social enterprises. Passionate about democratizing research, she champions the importance of prioritizing insights from customer-facing teams to drive the development of truly customer-centric products.  Serena holds an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts, though her academic journey started with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health. Her early career spanned roles in public health, during with which she was inspired by the intersection of design thinking and global health at a transformative conference. A poet and community gatherer, Serena leverages storytelling at work and leisure to facilitate a more deeply connected, equitable, and regenerative future for all.    Questions  ·     Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity for them to share in their own words, a little bit about their journey. ·      Could you tell us a little bit about Dovetail and what your company does? ·     Now, as a subject matter expert in the area of customer experience, could you give us maybe two or three, I would say areas that you believe organisations need to focus on as we continue to traverse through 2024 and beyond? · If you were to pick one organisation, what would be, let's say two or three characteristics that they have that makes you loyal to them and keep going back over and over again? ·   Now, could you also share with our audience, what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? ·    Could you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two books that you have read that have had a big impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it's had a great impact on you. ·     Could you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. ·      Where can listeners find you online? ·     Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track. Do you have one of those?   Highlights Serena's Journey Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity for them to share in their own words, a little bit about their journey. I know I read your bio, and it kind of gives us a quick summary of the journey that you did have to get to where you are today, but we'd love to hear from you, in your own words, how is it that you got to where you are today?   Serena shared that one of the earliest jobs she's ever had was in customer service, customer experience. So, she thinks that's been quite the through line in her career and why she's also sort of excited to be here today.  Starting from her first job in private tutoring when she was just in high school, to volunteer work and working in customer service jobs, there's some element of being of service and working with people that she was always drawn to. And after graduating college, it led her into the world of health tech start-up and joining a customer success team for the very first time.  And for her, that was the first opportunity to really be that bridge between hearing their customer needs, and sharing that back with their product team, helping you have that informer product roadmap and innovation and business strategy. And working in that intersection, that hub really got her quite excited. So, that's kind of led her to continue to pursue her career from grad school to consulting and freelance work to now her work at Dovetail.   About Serena's Company - Dovetail Me: So, could you tell us a little bit about Dovetail and what your company does?   Serena shared that Dovetail is a leading customer insights hub, they work with lots of teams of folks, whether they're in user research, or product management, design, innovation, whether you're a software company, or they have some people also building physical products, some people building really large things in the world, like construction, machinery and things that are like tractors that farmers use to all kinds of software that we use in our day to day as well.  So, they are a platform where these teams are able to really harness the insights they're hearing from their customers, whether it's customer interviews or survey data, things ongoing like CSAT and NPS and sentiment and have that then inform better product and decision making across the business as well. So, the work she does at Dovetail is really closely partnering with their customer teams, and coaching them in best practices from onboarding and being successful in Dovetail to how they can further grow customer centricity and the culture of that at their organizations.    Areas Organizations Need to Focus on As it Relates to Customer Experience for 2024 and Beyond Me: Now, as a subject matter expert in the area of customer experience, could you give us maybe two or three, I would say areas that you believe organizations need to focus on as we continue to traverse through 2024 and beyond?    Serena shared that we're all navigating so much change. And one thing that she always returned to is just talk to customers, it's easier said than done for a lot of people. In her role, she does work with customers in the day to day, so that makes her job a lot easier. But for other people who maybe it's not the majority of how they spend their days, it can be hard to really remember, oh, yeah, let me go and actually get in front of customers, if you can't talk to customers, that's kind of point one, than two like, really leverage the type of customer data you already have. So, honestly, most of the people at their company who are talking the most customers are sales, customer success and support.  And so, their product managers and their designers, they'll talk to customers, but they also try to go within their Dovetail workspace and pull from the interviews that they've already had, the customer calls their sales team has already had, the support tickets that have come through. So, if you can't go and talk to customers immediately yourself, then draw from those who are talking to your customers day in day out, that was kind of step two.  And then point number three is really trying to kind of complete the loop, she's really lucky that their customers are also some of the best at giving feedback and sharing their insights and their requests, because they're also people in the space of customer experience. And so, trying to really complete that loop and try to bring them along the journey. They're trying to do more ways of running early beta and alpha kind of programmes to test new things. They're building up Dovetail, they're also trying to co design and really do more kind of participatory type of practices with their customers, bring them along the journey and have them be part of that process.  So, really, those three steps, talk to customers, the second, talk to the people who do talk to your customers, and also leverage the existing data you do have. And then the third being kind of complete that loop and really make sure you're integrating the feedback you're hearing into your product and business decisions, and then share it back to your customers, because they're always super appreciative to hear that you're taking the feedback and how quickly they're moving and iterating on that.   Me: Now, I heard you mention in your feedback just know in terms of the three areas that you believe organization should focus on, that you are blessed to have customers who are very willing and able to give feedback. I'm not sure if that's cultural, but if you could maybe just give us a little insight.  What if you are in a culture where it's hard to collect feedback from customers? It's not very easy, they don't voluntarily give it to you and even when you intentionally seek it out, it's hard to kind of pin them down to get the information that you need from them. What would be your best recommendation to approach if you're in a business like that?   Serena shared that think about kind of what are those first points of contact? Is it that someone is hearing about you through some marketing channels, or maybe they're talking to someone in the sales process, even those are important touch points and opportunities for insights, especially if you're trying to understand your customers motivations, their desires, she thinks those are actually some really powerful touch points that we can leverage more in general.  Of course, there are teams that go out and do proactive research, whether it's user research or usability testing, things like that. And they tend to rely a lot on that. But there's also so much room to lean on people in other functions as well who are talking to customers day in day out. And even if they're not existing customers, talking to prospectives is really helpful, too.  So, she learned a lot from sitting in with their sales team and understanding the needs and desires of their prospective customers and seeing how can they currently serve them? Where are the gaps and opportunities?  And then how can she bring that back to their product team, their leadership team and say, “Actually, these are the current needs we're hearing from people, people who are interested in buying our software, or have similar visions and wanting to really grow customers centricity and these are the things they are asking for, which we may or may not have at the moment yet.”  So, she thinks these are some other kind of creative ways to talk to people who, unless you have a completely sales process where no one's talking to anyone, then that's maybe on the more rare side, but you probably have someone that's talking to your customers.  And then also, her bias too is in the onboarding process, they have a pretty hands off approach as well, you can definitely self-serve and leverage Dovetail Academy and kind of learn at your own pace. But then they also do have a team of customer success managers, and that's kind of where she started at Dovetail was actually in customer success.  And they work with so many customers in the onboarding process and that's also so much wisdom to learn what are your customers understanding, what is harder for them to understand, what are the common questions and challenges and pain points that are.   In many ways, empowering their customer success folks to basically be like their frontline design researchers in a way, they're the ones who are often closest to the day to day pain points, as well as their support team that their customers are facing.  So yeah, really explore kind of what are some ways you're already your current company is already talking to customers and try to get closer to those people sit in, sit along on their calls or watch the calls if they have that uploaded into a central place.   Characteristics of a Loyal Organization Me: Now, Serena, as a customer, right, so I want you to kind of take yourself out of the role that you're functioning, providing service, but more so service being provided to you. If you were to pick one organization, and it's up to you if you'd like to share the organization, but I'm more focused on the traits or the attributes that the company has, if you were to choose one company that you really, really love? What would be, let's say two or three characteristics that they have that makes you loyal to them and keep going back over and over again?   Serena stated that she loves this question. For her, what's funny is actually, the farmers market came to mind, which isn't necessarily a company in a traditional sense, it's maybe more like a gathering place, a marketplace. But it's a place she loves and she thinks about why she loves it. And there's some amount of structure, you go and you know what to expect, you know what vendors are generally there but you also have options, you have a specific time and place as well. And for her, it's also this sense of community and kind of community gathering place, that's actually a big thing they're working to invest in and grow at Dovetail as well as how do they actually build a gathering place for people in research and design and product to come and gather and learn from each other. And she thinks that's a huge opportunity for a lot of companies to leverage that within their customer base.  So, for her, she personally as a customer really enjoy being able to just meet other people in a very casual sense and feel that sense of community, whether at a farmers market, they're her neighbours, or as someone in like a customer experience kind of space like that similar to maybe conferences or virtual or in person meetups and events that vendors or companies may hold. So, leveraging that aspect of community, and then also having an element of discovery. There's some things that she knows and she can rely on and there's some elements of novelty that also keep her coming back. So, that's what comes to mind for her.   App, Website or Tool that Serena Absolutely Can't Live Without in Her Business When asked about online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Serena shared that she's going to take it from a bit more of a personal approach to how she shows up in her work. And for her, it can be any kind of app, but for her, it's like a mindfulness practice app and tool, she sees that as very much a part of her professional toolkit.  She personally have really enjoyed the open app recently. And why she says this is because so much of the work she does is to witness and listen to their customers, to facilitate workshops, whether with customers or internally.  And she thinks so often, especially in the start-up world we're really quick to want to fix things and want to solve things and iterate and pivot and all of that. And that's great, and it's necessary and it's important to move quickly. But if we're not taking the moment to pause and to truly listen and understand what it is our customers are sharing with us, and also how the greater industry and world is shifting to, then we can't do all the rest or it'll kind of be done in a haphazard way.  So for her, actually, her mindfulness practice, her kind of deep listening and meditation practice is a core part of how she shows up in her work and with her customers and also in holding space as she facilitates internally with her teammates as well.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Serena When asked about books that have had an impact, Serena shared that she really loves Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, this is a book all about the art of creative living. And for her, it has impacted both her professional and personal lives. And really the kind of one liner from it is like, “What is creative living, it's a life that is more driven by curiosity than by fear.”  She thinks one of her strengths and being able to navigate a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity, especially in the start-up world, is her ability to kind of lean into curiosity, and not just operate out of reactivity or fear or all of that.  And so, the more we're able to flex that and lean into curiosity when we're trying to understand our customers, lean into curiosity when there's a workplace challenge, or a product issue that comes up, lean into curiosity in terms of crafting our own careers and lives. This is kind of how we can apply that creative energy into how we show up in the day to day. So many of the listeners are deeply creative people whether or not you identify as an artist or designer or capital C creative person, but she thinks we as humans are deeply creative and the more we can channel that kind of energy, the better we are able to show up for our customers and our businesses and our communities and for the society as a whole.    What Serena is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that she's excited about, Serena shared that she recently adopted a dog so she's newly a dog mom. He is actually napping, napping right next to me right now! And something she's learning is you never really know how it goes when you are trying to love and care and train a rescue dog.  He's brought so much joy into her life, he's brought a lot of wonderful trail runs and play and novelty and exploration. And she's also lucky to have a dog friendly office so she brings him into work as well. And they like to joke that he's the Chief Vibes Officer. He's also bringing a lot of joy at work too, so in many ways, even though he is such a personal part of her life, he is also really helping her also build better bonds with her colleagues and he'll also show up in the back of a meeting room as she's on a customer call.  And so, sometimes she thinks even just remembering like, we're all humans, we are all trying our best, and people will see her dog and kind of, it just creates that kind of human connection. So, it's been a very special time and she's learning so much every day and celebrating all their little and big milestones as they go and that helps her remind herself of her capacity to keep growing and learning and adapting to change.   Where Can We Find Serena Online LinkedIn – Serena Chan   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Serena Uses  When asked about quote that she tends to revert to, Serena shared that for her, it's “Ride the waves.” She's a beginner surfer herself, but someone who's grown up swimming her whole life, so the water is a really restorative place for her but also challenging. She lives in San Francisco pretty close to Ocean Beach and these are some gnarly waves they get out there. And much with the tumultuous lives and professional worlds we live in and the changing world, sometimes all we can do is just show up and practice riding the waves and enjoying when things are calm, but also learning even when it feels stormy, we can get through it and just keep riding the waves.    Me: Well, thank you so much Serena for taking time out of your very busy schedule and coming on our podcast, sharing all of these great insights as it relates to customer experience, some of the things that you believe organizations need to be focusing on for 2024 and beyond. And of course, all the great things that your organization is doing. And we just really appreciate you taking time to share all of this great insight with us today.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links •     Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

 Eric Williamson is the Chief Marketing Officer at CallMiner. As CallMiner's Chief Marketing Officer, Eric oversees all global marketing functions from brand and events to demand generation. Eric's marketing team works very closely with channel and sales to drive pipeline and CallMiner's explosive growth. Eric has over 20 years of experience in both technology and consumer products marketing from both the vendor and agency side.  Before joining CallMiner, Eric was VP Brand & Digital Marketing at Acquia - an open DXP platform built around Drupal - where he led brand, creative services, webops, editorial, and demand generation. Prior to Acquia, Eric was on the agency side of marketing working as SVP Digital & Social Media at MullenLowe, and before that as VP Digital Strategy at The Martin Agency.  During his career, Eric has worked with a variety of B2C and B2B brands including Google, Microsoft, Intel, GEICO, Walmart, P&G, Pizza Hut, Acura, Royal Caribbean, and Hyatt. He earned his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, and an MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas.    Questions ·      Could you share in your own, how it is that you got from where you were to where you are today? ·      Now, could you share with our listeners what is CallMiner and what exactly do you do? ·      The CallMiner CX Landscape Report, could you share with our listeners, I would say maybe three to five of the top themes or insights that we were able to garner from that data and that report? ·      What are your views as it relates to how leaders are actually utilising the CX data? Are they supporting and using it to make data driven decisions? Or is it just one of those reports that's generated and is there as a KPI but you're not really doing anything with the information. ·      Now, could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? ·      Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that you've read, it could be a book that you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but to this day, it still has had a great impact on you. ·      Now, could you also share with our listeners, Eric, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. ·      Where can listeners find you online? ·      Now, Eric, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you got derailed or you got off track, this quote kind of helps to get you back on track.   Highlights Eric's Journey Me: Now, before we jump into the conversation, I always like to give our guests an opportunity to share a little bit about their journey. So, could you share in your own words, how it is that you got from where you were to where you are today?   Eric shared that Yanique did a pretty good job of covering his bio and in her intro, so thank you for that. So, he started his career out as essentially a BDR or an SDR is what they're called, typically, at least in SaaS, which he thinks is one of the best first jobs you can have, especially if you have aspirations of doing something in either sales or marketing. So, you talk to a tonne of CMOs, who that was their first job as well, so that's where it started.  He spent a lot of time working in digital advertising and then ultimately integrated big agency advertising for a lot of big brands and then flipped over to the client side and worked at a tech company called Acquia, which was covered just briefly in that intro. It's an open DXP player, built on top of Drupal, which is an open source project. And essentially, think of it is an open source competitor to something like Adobe Experience Manager. So, spent three or four years at Acquia.  And after that was introduced to the CEO at CallMiner, and had a lot of great discussions and he has been at CallMiner as their Chief Marketing Officer since 2020. And they've had a really nice run so far, they've gone from about 40 million ARR to a little over 80. And they're still seeing some nice growth despite maybe some of like macroeconomic headwinds.   What is CallMiner? Eric shared that CallMiner, they are the leader in conversation intelligence, specifically focused in more on customer service. So, if you think of any large company that has one or more large customer service agents, contact centres. So, they'll utilize their platform to ingest, so record and analyze every single customer interaction, whether that be a phone call to a customer service agent, texts to and from an agent, chats with an agent, survey data, all of that gets analyzed, and it's able to then turn around in real time and provide that customer service agent with guidance on to how to be able to deliver a better customer experience, guidance on how to answer the questions or access resources better. And then ultimately, if you're able to mind through millions of customer interactions, there's extremely valuable insights that can be discovered. And so, through machine learning in their artificial intelligence, their platform delivers that which is the larger value proposition.   The CallMiner CX Lanscape Report and the Insigts Garner From That Data Me: Alright, thank you for sharing that information on CallMiner. In leading up to the interview with you, Eric, I was shared a copy of the report, The CallMiner CX Landscape Report, and I'm sure you're familiar with it right as the Chief. So, could you share with our listeners, I would say maybe three to five of the top themes or insights that we were able to garner from that data and that report?   Eric stated that first and foremost, the CX Landscape Report that Yanique's referencing, it's an annual report that they publish so, it's original research for them. So, they do a survey of 700 plus CX and contact centre leaders across the globe and then what they'll try to do is keep a lot of those questions the same year over year as new trends and topics tend to emerge, they'll introduce a few new questions, but that way they're able to ultimately keep a pulse on what is important, and what sort of trends they're seeing with CX and contact centre leaders across the globe.  In this particular one, so in the one that they published in late 2023, obviously, and this is not going to shock anyone but one of the biggest topics that was not new but he would say the focus on it was extremely heightened, is around artificial intelligence, you'd have to be living under a rock to not notice just the media firestorm around artificial intelligence, in particular generative AI in 2023 and even today.  A lot of the typical data that they'll look at in that report, and the findings have to do with, like he said, trends that contact centre professionals and CX professionals are seeing within their own organizations. But he would highlight a few specific findings around artificial intelligence since that seemed to be the dominant theme. What's interesting is couple of themes would be that nearly this is not going to shock anybody, but nearly all of them are looking to implement some aspect of artificial intelligence in the next 12 to 18 months. The interesting sub stat to that is of those, over half aren't really sure what they're supposed to do basically, they know they need it, whether they were told this or whether they inherently think they need artificial intelligence in some way. So, they're investigating it, but they are a little bit lost in terms of where exactly to apply it. So, that was one of the first overarching thematics is everybody wants it, but they're not sure what to do with it.  The next is, now that we've moved a little bit beyond, maybe like the hype cycle of all of this, where he thinks everybody is rushing to go do something, and you've got a little bit of fear of missing out. Now they've started moving into the stage where companies are actually starting to try and implement some of these things. And what they've moved into now is sort of the reality stage, which is they're starting to realize that there's some risk inherently with this, largely around compliance, around the protection of their brand. Because sometimes these generative AI models can have hallucinations, etc. So, he thinks they're getting into the reality stage of actually trying to implement it and realizing that you have to take a much more responsible approach to how we think about this, and that there is no AI silver bullet out there that's going to solve all of your CX problems.  The last one, and the underlying aspect of this is actually something that they have heard, even before they started digging deeper into AI trends for CX leaders, and that has to do with how CX is positioned among the entire company/organization. So, in many cases, CX is disconnected from the contact centre, which is never good. Or you've got CX that is its own central thing, your meeting, you've got CXO, you've got a team. And then in other cases, CX is sort of sprinkled in multiple departments. And so what this kind of leads to is a bit of a disconnect, in terms of how you can roll out properly something as expansive as artificial intelligence within a piece of software across all these different pieces that are somewhat disconnected within the organization.  The other thing it leads to is let's say you've got a contact centre, and you've got all this amazing data, because of the disconnections here, some of that incredible data coming out of all these customer interactions is never actually making it further than the contact centre because of those disconnects. So, the last theme has to do with how companies typically will measure CX or a voice of the customer programme. He thinks as everybody who might be listening to this podcast know CX when it all comes down to it is largely has grown up and is still inherently based on surveys. So, whether it be an NPS or CSAT survey, but these are solicited surveys, solicited answers from a survey which sometimes can be very polarizing.  The big opportunity and where he think the industry is going is to combine that survey data with unsolicited data. And so this would be the data that comes out of contact centres and customer service centres, actual conversations that have a motion that we can measure versus solicited questions and answers. So, he thinks the combination of those two is where CX in general is going. And what you'll find is companies that are a little bit more mature and have a better org structure are already tapping into some of that data out of their contact centre.   Me: Wow, that's amazing. I think that's a great idea to merge the data that is collected from people who are actually talking to customers on a daily basis. I mean, the reality is, in a contact centre, customers only call for two reasons, right, to make a complaint or to make a request, there is no other reason why they're calling.   Eric agreed, that's correct. So again, you think of like, put it in the consumer perspective, other than the major influencers, when you go put something on a review about a hotel you stayed at or about some restaurant you went to on Yelp, largely it's because it was either an amazing experience that you just can't help yourself, or it was such a bad experience that you just can't help yourself. So, it becomes polarizing, which is why using surveys only is flawed to truly measure CX.   How Leaders Utilize CX Data Me: Now, what do you think leaderships' role is? Being in the industry and also being in marketing with a lot of exposure working with different organizations, what are your views as it relates to how leaders are actually utilizing the CX data? Are they supporting and using it to make data driven decisions? Or is it just one of those reports that's generated and is there as a KPI but you're not really doing anything with the information.   Eric stated that if you look at their CX landscape report or talk to most large companies, for the most part, they're using CSAT score which is survey based, or an NPS score as kind of a one metric, if you got all the way up to the CEO level that they're looking at on a regular basis to measure sort of the barometer of where their customer experience offering is at this point.  He thinks to the question as a whatever a marketing leader in his case, one of the main things that they're responsible for is helping to better align the organization to where the right data is making its way up, helping to make sure that data is organized in a way that a CEO or a Chief Product Officer, which is another beneficiary of a lot of this unstructured data and the insights from it, or even in many cases, the CMO for him isn't able to get the insights, the root cause of understanding what some of these issues might be that they're trying to solve for.  So, he thinks aligning the organzsation so that the data can reach the right people, and then making sure that data is packaged up in the right way to where it is executive friendly in some of the things that a leader should be thinking about and trying to make this better.    Me: And I can imagine also not just spitting out scores in terms of X percent of this type of customer feels this way, but linking it to tangible things, especially for leaders who think in dollars and cents, if we have a decline in this particular area over x period of time, what will this mean for our bottom line? What does it mean for future initiatives and innovation that we may need to implement? So, I would imagine that would be the kind of mindset they'd have to have.   Eric agreed, absolutely, excellent point. And even if as a first step you're continuing to just use NPS and CSAT, you should have an understanding to your point, by looking at all of your forecasting and previous years financials, you should be able to point to an increase in one point is going to result in this much the bottom line. So, he definitely agree with that point.   App, Website or Tool that Eric Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he can't live without in his business, Eric shared that sadly, probably the calculator on his phone just because he's constantly needing to tally up the percentages in different stats as he's doing some of his own reporting at an executive level, he must open that thing up several times a day.  From a website standpoint, they utilize the analyst reports quite a bit. So Forrester, who is one of the top tier analysts and the one who issued out the Forrester Wave that they're a leader in, so, he utilize them quite a bit from a research standpoint so that they can get a better understanding of where they predict the industry is going. So, he definitely tap into Forrester and Gartner quite a bit for that.  And then from a marketing standpoint, and Demand Gen. So, they have several vendors that they work with, so 6sense for their ABM intent platform, Outreach for their BDR platform. And he finds that some of the best resources that they can utilize for training for those particular teams. So, he spent some time looking through their most recent thought leadership and training materials to try and identify how he can help his team get better.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Eric When asked about books that have had a great impact, Eric stated that he would say from a business standpoint, so separate out fiction from a business standpoint, he thinks some of the classics like Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins, probably some of the ones that resonated with him the most and still, you can go back and reference. When he flip over to that sort of pleasure reading fiction, Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald has always been his favourite book. It's not a long read probably one of the reasons why, but he thinks he must have read that book 50 times.    What Eric is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's excited about, Eric stated just keeping it focused around CallMiner, his company and his team. He thinks one of the things that he's really excited about is all of them that are in tech SaaS, they really had a rough 2023, whether it be, layoffs in terms of correction on over hiring and 2021. But mostly, a lot of this is coming from just general macro conditions, macroeconomic conditions globally.  He thinks what he's excited about is towards the end of 2023, they started to see a light at the end of the tunnel and sent some positive signals that they're turning the corner a bit, which he thinks anyone who works in tech should be excited about. He'll be interested to see how Q1 and maybe Q2, go for 2024 to see if that continues to more positive signals, and they start to see their prospects and their customer base be a little less cautious with their budgets and a little less conservative and be willing to maybe do some expansion and some testing within the platforms that they offer. So, he's excited about that. And he thinks most tech companies are right now.   Where Can We Find Eric Online Website – www.callminer.com LinkedIn - CallMiner   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Eric Uses When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Eric stated that he doesn't know if this would be adversity, but they're constantly he feels like they're in the midst of adversity when they're trying to roll new campaigns out, roll new products out to the market. And something that he and several of his other C level peers, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” So, he thinks it's very easy to get in your own way, and try to make something so perfect that you know it's going to be success and that's just a fallacy. And it's much better to do all the due diligence, do all the work to make it as good as you can. But get it out there and then learn from it early and make some changes to it than it is to just be unrealistic that you're going to be able to perfect something before you launch it. Me: True. That's a very good quote. Excellent point. Eric stated that he doesn't know who to attribute that quote to, by the way, but somebody wrote it.   Me: Well, Eric, I just want to tell you, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule and hopping on our podcast, and sharing all of this great content as it relates to what CallMiner does, about the report that your company had published that you publish on an annual basis and the great insights that were able to be derived from it, as well as moving forward what organisations can look towards in terms of where they should be placing their energy in order to be yielding the greatest success as it relates to customer experience. So, just want to extend greatest level of gratitude. Thank you so much.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links •     Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins •     Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Leslie Pagel is the Chief Evangelist of Authenticx - a conversation analytics company dedicated to improving the way healthcare companies engage with patients. In this role, she creates awareness across the healthcare industry of more efficient and effective ways for healthcare organizations to deliver on their customer objectives. With over two decades of working with customer experience teams, Leslie helps clients actualize the voice of the patient to show how these voices prompt meaningful action.   Questions  •  We always like to start off by asking our guests to share a little bit about their journey. Could you share with our audience a little bit about how you got to where you are today? •  What has your experience been I would say, let's use maybe the last 12 to 24 months, as it relates to what customers are expecting. You mentioned conversational AI as a way to do the data collection and less reliance on surveys. But what have the customers been saying? What are some of the trends that you've been seeing emerging? What are customers really looking for? •  So, in terms of using conversational AI to be a better listening tool with customers, right? Could you share maybe an example, a real-life example for our listeners, that you've seen the conversational AI work in such an impactful way that it transformed somebody's life or group of people's lives? •  What's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? •  Could you also share with us one or two books that have had a great impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently. •  Can you also share with our listeners, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. •  Where can listeners find you online? •  Before we wrap our interviews up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, it kind of helps to get you back on track. Do you have one of those?   Highlights Leslie's Journey Leslie shared that her journey in customer experience started over 25 years ago before CX in customer experience was even a thing. She spent 20 years working with large global, primarily business to business organizations on a new strategy for creating competitive differentiation. And that strategy was the customer experience. And over the past several decades companies have grown to create a boardroom conversation around customer experience, because it is a very productive and effective differentiation strategy.  What we see over the over the decades is the pace of innovation has continued to accelerate, which makes it really hard for companies to compete on product alone or services alone and no one wants to compete on price, so companies were looking for new ways of differentiating in the market and they turn to customer experience. And so, she spent 20 years, the first 20 years of her career working with companies on their customer experience strategy, which largely was informed from traditional or historical methods of customer listening through large survey programmes, Net Promoter Score programmes, customer satisfaction programmes.  And as technology has evolved and artificial intelligence has become more mainstream, we're seeing a new method that companies are leveraging for listening to their customers, which then informs their customer experience strategy and that's conversational AI. So, when you take a historical look at customer experience listening or measurement, you see that the way that we capture customer input has changed, but what we capture and listen to hasn't, we're still very survey dependent.  And in the last two years, she's been really focusing on helping business leaders realize a different source of customer insight and that source is not survey data, that source are the conversations that customers are having every day with businesses when they've reached out to ask questions, when they reach out to make purchases, when they reach out to use the website, customers are interacting in moments. And companies have an opportunity to listen into those moments and the technology exists.  So, spent her entire career in customer experience is evolved more into a role today of helping leaders really listen to the moments of customer interactions instead of relying on survey data to keep their finger on the pulse of their customers.   Using Conversational AI for Data Collection – What Are Customers Really Looking For? Me: So, you have quite a wealth of experience in that area. Now you're primarily in the healthcare space, right?  Leslie stated that she is now, prior to working with Authenticx, she worked across industries, primarily focused on B2B. But then have over the past 5 years been really focused within the healthcare industry, working with payers, providers, being doctors, and pharmaceutical, manufacturers, pharmacies, and in that realm of healthcare. Me: What has your experience been I would say, let's use maybe the last 12 to 24 months, as it relates to what customers are expecting. You mentioned conversational AI as a way to do the data collection and less reliance on surveys. But what have the customers been saying? What are some of the trends that you've been seeing emerging? What are customers really looking for? Leslie shared that she would say, and this hasn't changed over the past 12 to 15 months, they've been saying this for decades. But customers, they are saying to the organizations that they do business with that one of the best ways of demonstrating care and concern for the customer. And by the way, in healthcare, caring and concern is essential in that customer experience. But customers have been saying that the best way to show me that you care about me is to listen to me, and to show me that you're listening to me by hearing what I'm saying and taking ownership of it and driving action in the business.  So that's nothing new, that's been there for decades. The other thing that's not unique to healthcare, you can see it in any business is eliminating friction from the journey. But in healthcare, friction in the journey means a lot more, it means delayed care, it means not getting access to the care that you need. So, really looking at pockets where there is friction, and that friction is impacting the patient in their ability to get the care that we need. And that also impacts business and business outcomes as well.  Me: Indeed, because at the end of the day, you're trying to build trust and loyalty and a higher level of retention. And if you're not getting what you're looking for, then they're probably not going to come back, especially if they have options.  Leslie agreed exactly. And there are a lot of options out there, that's kind of why leaders turn to the customer experience to differentiate as companies are innovating fast, your product doesn't stand alone anymore. And so, they are looking towards other ways of building loyalty and the experiences is the way that is where they're turning.   The Impact of Using Conversational IA Me: So, in terms of using conversational AI to be a better listening tool with customers, right? Could you share maybe an example, a real-life example for our listeners, that you've seen the conversational AI work in such an impactful way that it transformed somebody's life or group of people's lives? Leslie stated that the example that comes to mind immediately is they are working with a hospital system, and this isn't unique to hospitals across healthcare, there's a lot of focus on social determinants of health because social determinants research has found that social determinants have more of an impact on our health and wellness than healthcare itself. And so, there's a lot of focus across healthcare organizations on understanding social determinants of health and helping patients overcome those.  And so, they do work with a hospital system and one of the questions that they asked them to explore in their conversational data was related to scheduling and why are there no shows? Or why are there reschedules? And one of the things that they found in studying just a single topic of scheduling appointments was that social determinants of health in 14% of those interactions were having an impact on getting to care, getting to the care that they need, they were impacting, rescheduling or missed appointments, as well.  So, this hospital system through that learning, one, has a different appreciation and understanding when someone is calling in to reschedule, that it might not necessarily be because they're not feeling good, it could be because their caregiver didn't show up and they can't get to the appointment, or they're working three jobs and they're not able to get time off.  So, through that insight, they have been working with their frontline staff to one, help in those interactions when someone is calling around a scheduling appointment or rescheduling to offer services that might help that patient in need. But they're also taking their insights that they've learned to the broader community perspective as well.  Me: All right, so that's data driven decisions there for sure that would help them to enhance the journey of the customer. Leslie agreed, absolutely.    App, Website or Tool that Leslie Absolutely Can't Live Without in Her Business When asked about an online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Leslie stated that there's so many tools and resources that she uses every day. She would say for the work that she does at Authenticx, which one of the things that she does is to take the bird's eye view of all of the healthcare landscape and all of the conversations that are coming through their platform and listen more at an industry level and macro level.  And she relies on their own software to enable that perspective. So, that's one of the things that she wouldn't be able to do her job if she didn't have Authenticx because it's allowing her to listen at scale. This year, they'll have over 200 million healthcare conversations coming in through their platform, yes, 200 million.  And there's no way they would be able to understand that data at scale, a human can't do that at scale. And so, she relies personally on their platform to allow herself and their team to do the research that they do to help the healthcare industry at a macro level. So, that's one she would say.   More on like a personal professional side of it, LinkedIn comes to mind. She relies on LinkedIn to help spread the word to help open the eyes of what they're doing and how conversational AI is being leveraged in healthcare to drive outcomes, to drive business outcomes. So, that's another one that's more kind of on a personal professional side that comes to mind as well.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Leslie When asked about books that have had a great impact, Leslie stated that she doesn't have the tattoo but if she were going to get a tattoo of a book, it would be this one it's called Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business. Leslie stated that if she was at a networking event, chances are before they were done talking, she would talk about Conscious Capitalism. Conscious Capitalism is a book, but it is a book that articulates a business strategy, that is a proven business strategy with outcomes that benefit, not just the company in terms of profits, but also benefit humanity and help elevate humanity. And there's some principles in Conscious Capitalism as a business strategy that really resonates with her and that drive how she shows up in the world, both professionally and personally.  And some of those are really that for business, purpose, and profit must co-exist. We can't just focus on driving profit without purpose, and we won't have a company if we don't have profit. But the two of those must coexist, it really is the essence of the responsibility of business is to have a higher purpose, and to generate profit for the company, for the employees, and to be able to invest back in the organization for growth, for customers.  The other thing that really resonates with Conscious Capitalism is more of a shift in mindset from short term gains to long term gains, particularly publicly held companies are very focused on the here and the now and they think of the longer term opportunities and Conscious Capitalism is really more about focusing on the long term vision and outcomes and driving decisions in the here and now based on the vision and where the organization is going in the future. So, that would be her one book, Conscious Capitalism.    What Leslie is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something she is really excited about, Leslie stated that she would say the thing that she's really excited about is, she feels like where conversational AI today is it's not known or understood. And so, the thing that she's really excited about is helping organizations and particularly healthcare organizations understand what conversational AI is, and understand how they can leverage it to drive business outcomes and patient outcomes.  And so, they've got several things coming up that they're working on to help kind of spread the word. One is next, next month, they're going to bring together healthcare leaders from across all verticals, to their headquarters city in Indianapolis, Indiana, and have conversation around best practices for leveraging and listening to the voice of the customer. They're going to have conversation around the challenges that are present within the healthcare industry.   So, she's really excited about that. One of the things that they know, in their work is that when they really listen to customers, they'll guide the way and they're bringing their clients and other healthcare leaders together for purposes of listening, so they can help them guide the way and they can help them achieve the outcomes that they're looking for their business and for their customers.   Where Can We Find Leslie Online LinkedIn – Leslie Pagel             Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Leslie Uses When asked about a quote or saying to she tends to revert to, Leslie stated that she doesn't know who to credit for this quote, but she guesses it's more of a mindset and that mindset is to, “Focus more on others than to focus on yourself.” And it's not to say that focusing on herself isn't important, because it is and that's very intentional in her life. But when she's in a place of struggle, or kind of not feeling it, just reminding herself of focusing on others more than she focus on yourself is something that really helps her redirect her attention and re-engage in the work that she's here to do.  Me: All right, perfect. And I think that's even more relevant, that quote that you just shared, especially for the industry that you are in, because when it comes to healthcare, people usually are reaching out to organizations, or hospitals or clinics or doctor's offices because they need help, they're in pain, they're experiencing something that they're uncomfortable with and they need help. So, at that point, it's not about you, it's about them. So, that's a really good quote I think to have and to kind of remind yourself about, especially in the space that you're operating in.  Leslie agreed, exactly.  Me: Well, thank you so much, Leslie, for coming on to our podcast and sharing all of these great insights about the voice of the customer and the importance of listening. I think even as simple as it sounds, and as you mentioned, it's something that customers have want for decades, not just in the last 12 to 24 months, that we really should pay attention to the opportunities that we have, and that the greater tool that exists is conversational AI, and there are ways that we can integrate it into our everyday activities so that we can get a better understanding of what our customers are looking for. And that way we can really deliver that amazing experience that can hopefully help them to return again and again, and bring their friends and family, although we want them all to be healthy and be good and well.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest    Links •     Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business by John Mackey    The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience! 

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Narrative Syncing, published by AnnaSalamon on May 1, 2022 on LessWrong. Partial attempt to make sense of: On Doing the Improbable Epistemic status: On my inside view, this seems like a clear and useful distinction that could use a short, shared term. Hasn't been checked much by others. Some edge cases I'm still confused about. Also I may have a suboptimal term; help generating the right term greatly appreciated. I'd like a short term for such sentences as: “The sand is lava; if you touch it you die” (when introducing the rules to a game, not making a false prediction) “Colloquium is at 3pm on Wednesdays” (when creating a new colloquium, or adding weight to a common-knowledge agreement / Schelling point) “We don't shout around here” (stated normatively) I'm going to suggest the term “narrative syncing.” I'd like to distinguish “narrative syncing” from “sharing information” of a sort whose accuracy is not intended to be created/affected by the act of thinking/stating/believing the given sentence, i.e. to distinguish the sentences above from such sentences as: “It will probably rain tomorrow.” “3 + 5 = 8.” “The people over there in that organization seem to avoid shouting, and to somewhat shun those who shout – though I have no stance on whether that's a good norm, I'm just describing/predicting it.” That is, I'd like to use the term “narrative syncing” (or some better such term that y'all suggest; suggestions appreciated) to distinguish sentences whose primary purpose is to sync up with some set of other people as to how we all think or talk about a given thing around here (as opposed to sentences whose primary purpose is to describe a piece of outside reality). A situation where the concept of “narrative syncing” seems to me to add clarity One reason I'd like a short term for this, is IMO having such a term would've helped me understand some past social situations I was in. Example: Narrative syncing about “helpful” careers Sometimes participants at CFAR's/MIRI's “AI risks for computer scientists” program would ask me something like “what careers should I go into, if I want to help with AI risk?” And I would sort-of interpret this as a request for information, and would nevertheless feel a predictable frustration when I heard it as I braced for the subterranean/confusing-to-me conflict that I anticipated would follow my words, without really understanding why (I would anticipate this based partly on the particular person's nonverbals as they asked the question -- not all participants were like this). I'll elaborate how this interaction tended to go by describing a stereotyped conglomerate participant of this sort named Alec: Scenario 1: “I try to tell the truth” Alec: “What careers should I go into, if I want to help with AI risk?” Me: “Well, unfortunately, I'm not really sure. My own models are messy and confused, as to what paths there are to an existential win, what actions of yours might end up helping how much with each, etc. I'd mostly recommend you try to develop inside views on how to get to victory; although I happen also to like MIRI, who is [at that time] hiring engineers and scientists; Paul is also looking for ML engineers, and seems smart and like he's really trying; and ML seems likely to be a skill that more and more groups that say they are aimed at safety are trying to hire people with. But there aren't ready-made careers I know of that produce some reasonable guarantee of helping.” Alec: [nonverbals I interpreted as frustration/anger/desire to get me to act “correctly” again/turmoil]: “Why did I even sign up for this program?” Me, to myself: [... I guess people just really want me to simplify, so they can believe the world is easier than it is? I notice I'm confused, though.] Scenario 2: “I go along with what he seems to want” Alec: “What careers s...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Narrative Syncing, published by AnnaSalamon on May 1, 2022 on LessWrong. Partial attempt to make sense of: On Doing the Improbable Epistemic status: On my inside view, this seems like a clear and useful distinction that could use a short, shared term. Hasn't been checked much by others. Some edge cases I'm still confused about. Also I may have a suboptimal term; help generating the right term greatly appreciated. I'd like a short term for such sentences as: “The sand is lava; if you touch it you die” (when introducing the rules to a game, not making a false prediction) “Colloquium is at 3pm on Wednesdays” (when creating a new colloquium, or adding weight to a common-knowledge agreement / Schelling point) “We don't shout around here” (stated normatively) I'm going to suggest the term “narrative syncing.” I'd like to distinguish “narrative syncing” from “sharing information” of a sort whose accuracy is not intended to be created/affected by the act of thinking/stating/believing the given sentence, i.e. to distinguish the sentences above from such sentences as: “It will probably rain tomorrow.” “3 + 5 = 8.” “The people over there in that organization seem to avoid shouting, and to somewhat shun those who shout – though I have no stance on whether that's a good norm, I'm just describing/predicting it.” That is, I'd like to use the term “narrative syncing” (or some better such term that y'all suggest; suggestions appreciated) to distinguish sentences whose primary purpose is to sync up with some set of other people as to how we all think or talk about a given thing around here (as opposed to sentences whose primary purpose is to describe a piece of outside reality). A situation where the concept of “narrative syncing” seems to me to add clarity One reason I'd like a short term for this, is IMO having such a term would've helped me understand some past social situations I was in. Example: Narrative syncing about “helpful” careers Sometimes participants at CFAR's/MIRI's “AI risks for computer scientists” program would ask me something like “what careers should I go into, if I want to help with AI risk?” And I would sort-of interpret this as a request for information, and would nevertheless feel a predictable frustration when I heard it as I braced for the subterranean/confusing-to-me conflict that I anticipated would follow my words, without really understanding why (I would anticipate this based partly on the particular person's nonverbals as they asked the question -- not all participants were like this). I'll elaborate how this interaction tended to go by describing a stereotyped conglomerate participant of this sort named Alec: Scenario 1: “I try to tell the truth” Alec: “What careers should I go into, if I want to help with AI risk?” Me: “Well, unfortunately, I'm not really sure. My own models are messy and confused, as to what paths there are to an existential win, what actions of yours might end up helping how much with each, etc. I'd mostly recommend you try to develop inside views on how to get to victory; although I happen also to like MIRI, who is [at that time] hiring engineers and scientists; Paul is also looking for ML engineers, and seems smart and like he's really trying; and ML seems likely to be a skill that more and more groups that say they are aimed at safety are trying to hire people with. But there aren't ready-made careers I know of that produce some reasonable guarantee of helping.” Alec: [nonverbals I interpreted as frustration/anger/desire to get me to act “correctly” again/turmoil]: “Why did I even sign up for this program?” Me, to myself: [... I guess people just really want me to simplify, so they can believe the world is easier than it is? I notice I'm confused, though.] Scenario 2: “I go along with what he seems to want” Alec: “What careers s...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Three Reflections from 101 EA Global Conversations, published by Akash on April 25, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I recently attended EAGxOxford, EAGxBoston, and EAG London. In total, I had about 101 one-on-one conversations (+-10; depends on how you count casual/informal 1-1s). The vast majority of these were with people interested in longtermist community-building or AI safety. Here are three of my biggest takeaways: 1) There are many people doing interesting work who aren't well-connected I recently moved to Berkeley, one of the major EA hubs for AI safety research and longtermist movement-building. I live with several people who are skilling up in alignment research, and I work out of an office with people who regularly talk about the probability of doom, timelines, takeoff speeds, MIRI's agenda, Paul and Eliezer dialogues, ELK, agent foundations, interpretability, and, well, you get it. At the EAGs, I was excited to meet many people (>30) interested in AI safety and longtermist community-building. Several (>10) of them were already dedicating a large portion of their time to AI safety or longtermist community-building (e.g., by spending a summer on AI safety research, leading a local EA chapter, or contracting for EA orgs.) One thing stood out to me, though: Many of the people I spoke to, including those who were already investing >100 hours into EA work, weren't aware of the people/models/work in Berkeley and other EA hubs. Here's a hypothetical example: Alice: I've spent the last several semesters skilling up in AI safety research. I took several ML classes, and I'm going to be spending the summer working under [professor] at [my university] on [ML project that doesn't really have to do with AI safety]. Me: Wow, that's great! Have you considered working on the Eliciting Latent Knowledge challenge, or reading Evan Hubinger's Risks from Learned Optimization sequence, or trying to distill alignment articles? Alice: Oh, no! I haven't heard of most of these things. do you think it would be useful for me to do that instead? Me: Well, I'm not sure what you should do. But I would encourage you to at least consider these options and at least be familiar with these resources and opportunities. As an example, did you ever considering applying to the Long-Term Future Fund to skill-up on your own, and maybe visit Berkeley and some other EA Hubs? The point here is not that Alice should immediately drop what she's doing. But I found it interesting how many people didn't even realize what options they had available. Alice, for example, could apply for a grant to skill-up in AI safety research in an EA Hub. But she often doesn't even realize this, or even if she does, she doesn't seriously consider it when she's thinking about her summer plans. I don't think people should blindly defer to the people/models in EA hubs. But I do think that exposure to these people/models will generally help people make more informed decisions. Two quick examples: People skilling-up in AI safety researcher would generally benefit from understanding the major criticisms/concerns with current alignment research agendas. It seems useful to at least be exposed to some of the doomy people and understand why they're so doomy. People skilling-up in longtermist community-building could benefit from understanding the major criticisms/concerns with general community-building efforts. It seems useful to at least be exposed to the arguments around impact being heavy-tailed, mass outreach compromising the epistemics of the community and making it less attractive for people who take ideas seriously, and concerns around community-builders not knowing enough about the issues they are community-building for. One of the easiest ways to do this, I claim, is to talk directly to people doing this kind of work...

Michael Arnold is the author of the book, Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work from Home and he wrote it especially for those who are considering to work or are working from home and are seeking a work life balance.   He has been a work from home entrepreneur for over 15 years and he's worked with major corporations such as Cox Automotive, Verizon Super Pages, and Major Commercial Finance companies. His journey wasn't a smooth sailing one since he is also human just like us and he made many mistakes along the way. But he has lived to share some wisdom from his own experience to help people on their work from home journey to create successful actions on their own.   Questions   Can you share a little bit about your journey? In your book Slacking Off a successful way to work from home. Could you share with us maybe in five to eight or nine minutes, just what the book is about? Who is it targeted for? And how can it help our listeners. Could you share with our listeners since you have so much experience working from home, this was quite new for many people last year March when the pandemic just hit. Could you share with maybe our listeners maybe 1 to3 things, competencies or behaviors that you think someone who is working from home needs to embrace in order to be successful? Have you seen customer experience change much since the pandemic as a consumer or even as a business owner? How do you stay motivated every day? Could you also share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? It could be a book that you read recently, or a book that you read a very long time ago, but it still has had a great impact on you. Could you share with our audience, what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about - either something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to refocus you or get you back on track.   Highlights   Michael's Journey   Me: Even though we read a little bio about our guests, we always like to give them the opportunity to kind of just share with us a little bit about their journey. How is it in your own words would you describe how you got from where you are now to where you were before? How did you get to where you are today?   Michael shared that a lot of ups and downs and experimenting in different industries led him to be a work from home entrepreneur and a father and let's say, contributor to the community. And he thinks ultimately, like most of us, he started out trying to be everything he could be at a young age before he was 18.   Work normal jobs like McDonald's, Christmas tree lots, doing landscaping and lots of different things at a very, very young age. And still was looking to find what he enjoyed and that became understanding businesses really fast and sharing, whether it be speaking, or presenting or consulting and he thinks ultimately, when we learn from our mistakes, and we're better people for it, and we've survived the misses, the bullets that fly our way, metaphorically and can live to tell about it, he thinks that's essentially what's brought him here, is his ability to survive through all things or persevere, if you will.   Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work From Home What is it About and Who is it Targeted for?   Me: So, in your bio, we read that you wrote a book and we were having a brief discussion about this prior to actually starting the recording. And so, for those of our listeners that didn't catch the name of that book, it's Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work from Home. So, could you share with us maybe in five to eight or nine minutes, just what the book is about? Who is it targeted for? And how can it help our listeners.   Michael shared that he wrote this book because he's been working from home for 15 years, and he's worked for himself, he's worked for other companies, major corporations, very large corporations that have 1000s and 1000s of employees. And he's been mostly in either a sales role or a strategy role or a management role and what he found over the years is that basically people around him, including himself were struggling a lot with work life balance and usually the really successful guy or gal that's really good at work is missing out at home and very rarely are they balancing between the two and it doesn't necessarily mean these people don't exist, but it's just rare.   And a lot of times people who are putting themselves into work obsessively are successful, but again, not happy. And so, he created this book to help people who want to actually take that obsession which is amazing, it's not a bad thing; it's a great thing when you're doing it in the right ways.   And just get a little more time for themselves and help them invest more in themselves, whether that's with time and effort or even money.   Of course, if they find something that's good for them, because themselves, actually they are the most valuable product that exists, you can buy a car, you could buy a house, you can buy nice clothes, you can have all these things. But unless you're investing in yourself, it really isn't going to pay off as big as it would be if you did invest in yourself because that's what ultimately this book is to help you invest more time, effort into yourself and do it in a way that's unique. Pun intended.   Competencies or Behaviors Needed to Be Successful When Working from Home   Michael shared that he's using his book as the foundation here for this question because this is exactly how he set this book up was exactly the things you need to know and the things that you should have in place when you work from home, whether you're experienced or not. And that is one; you should recognize what you do when you're not working.   It sounds so obvious, most people are like, “Yeah, of course, I know when I'm not working.” But do you really because what he found over the years is that even for himself, which he uses himself as the example here is that sometimes what he actually considers not working for himself is different from what he considers not working for somebody else.   And he'll just very lightly explain a little more in that so there's no confusion there, nebulousness. Basically, what he would look at you and say, you're working when you're doing this and not working when you're on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, versus him might be different. He might judge himself less than he judges, or more or less than he judges you.   And so, what he did is he put himself up on the microscope and said how much scrutiny, all unbiasness, just straightforward, looking at himself, what's actually working, and what's not considered working.   Is being on Facebook for 5 minutes a problem, probably not that big of a deal in the middle of a work day.   But it's not technically working and it doesn't matter that your boss or your company or yourself, it doesn't matter what your employer says, what matters is actually how you feel and usually when people aren't doing a task as they are paid to do, eventually they start to, let's just say, have more problems, it starts very small.   So, ultimately, everybody starts off with what's called a slacking off day, which is you take one day and you just slack off, you actually avoid work the entire day, on purpose, and you just slack off, that's it.   And so, the only caveat or disclaimer to that entire thing is that you write down what you do, if it's reading a magazine, reading a book, on Facebook, watching TV, exercising, whatever it is you do to slack off, it's important to recognize that first and foremost, before you do anything.   Then you carry that into your work day and you have that list, whether it's digital or on paper in front of you to actually help you recognize when you're actually starting to slack off so that you (a) recognize that the next chapter of what you need to do, which is start to actually make time for yourself to slack off.   Why is it that some of us slack off? There's probably hundreds of reasons.   But he thinks fundamentally what the purpose and confidence that you need, or the let's just say consistency you need to have is being able to move throughout your day, and do it in a way that you're happy with. Do it in a way that keeps you going and if you have time to slack off in the morning or in the evening, or whenever, you'll probably slack off less during the times that you probably shouldn't be.   And so, ultimately you want to make sure that you recognize for yourself and keep yourself accountable because it doesn't matter if your boss is mean or not, doesn't matter if you're being watched or not, you're in an office or you're not in an office, the end of the day, the only person that judges you, is you and God. So, at the end of the day, you need to be right with yourself and God more than you need to be right with other people.   And of course, you should be respectful and ethical but that's kind of the gist, that's just a little piece. There's obviously a lot more but that should answer the question.   Changes in Customer Experience Since the Pandemic   Me: Could you also share with us as an entrepreneur yourself, there's a lot of things that have changed since the pandemic and you are a consumer yourself, you mentioned before we started recording that you were in an Uber for the first time in over a year. Have you seen customer experience change much since the pandemic as a consumer or even as a business owner?   Michael stated of course, it's consistently changing and something he wanted to say early on was that forgive him for not coming out with this book before the pandemic, because he started writing in 2019. But he thinks ultimately, it's a dream for most people to work from home, so, the fact that the businesses that are existing now are tailoring work from home experience and making it easier, it actually pushed a lot of people on the fence of making their employees work from home, making their businesses more work from home friendly, making their products more work from home friendly, and all the technology that comes with it.   There's a lot of reasons why working from home is beneficial and there's a lot of reasons why in certain jobs, they're not. But ultimately what we're finding, and please chime in here if you have something to say about it. But is that it's actually not as hard to work from home for a lot of these businesses, or even these services to provide work from home experiences as we thought.   Look at the weather channel people who are giving you the weather forecast from their home office, it's not that hard.   Me: I agree with you. But I think as you said, a lot of people were forced to embrace the whole work from home as the pandemic came, they were forced into it, if it was a choice that they had to make, and things were operating normal and we weren't going through a pandemic, I highly doubt that many companies would have even thought of implementing it. I've met with many business owners, or even senior managers who when they look at their balance sheets, in terms of so much savings that they've made as an organization, productivity has actually improved with employees working from home. Of course, with everything there are advantages and disadvantages, because I'm sure there are some other things that may still suffer as a result. But it still doesn't mean that there are a lot of industries where people were working, that they couldn't have worked from home and been productive and created the same or even better results.   Michael shared that there are a couple reasons for him, but he's curious, what's Yanique's thought about why somebody who's working from home is producing more than somebody who's in the office?   Me: Well, I worked from home before the pandemic, so I'm not even sure if I could compare myself. But if I use persons who I know personally, I have a friend that works in an insurance company, he works in the pensions department and one of the things he said to me why he feels he's more productive is he works many times way past 5:00 pm, because I guess when you're at work, when it's 5:00 pm, you get up, you pack up your stuff, and you head home, but because he's home, he just keeps working and sometimes he works until 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm, it's when he looks at the clock, he's like, “Oh, my I'm still working, it's time to shut the computer down and just kind of unwind.” So, I don't know if other people fall into that category but that was his experience. And I was like that wouldn't have happened if you were working in the office unless you were working on some special projects and it was required for you to stay back late. Ordinarily, people would just leave at the time that work ends and they go home.   Michael agreed and stated that that is exactly what occurs, we're our own worst critic and we're our biggest driver. So, it's like we're not only our own worst critic, but we're also our own motivator, that kind of leads into to what he was saying earlier, it's like that's exactly why he wrote this.   He wrote this for Yanique's friend, he wrote this for him, because and of course, anybody else who is like so happy about working from home that they're starting to form these habits that they're not paying attention to of overworking to the point where eventually, it doesn't actually produce much.   Now, he wants to say something, he's very much for somebody putting everything they got into something and he definitely don't advocate people being lazy. The point of the book being slacking off is actually to appeal to the person who is struggling because maybe they're slacking off too much or maybe because you want more time to yourself, but ultimately recognizing that it's okay to work 12 hours and 15 hours a day, it's actually not a problem.   He's doing business 7 days a week and he still always use his own book as a tool and a roadmap for himself to make sure he maintains a work life balance. But ultimately, you just you want to make sure you're taking care of yourself and you want to make sure that you sustain properly, because at the end of the day, you cannot not invest in yourself whatever it's nutrition or exercise or reading.   There are 60 books a year are some of the top CEOs in the world, 60 books a year is what they read while managing their own work and life, and he's sure they have their ways of doing it.   But ultimately, a year after doing that, working 9 hours a day until 10, o'clock at night, or whatever, eventually it becomes “Either I'm doing it because I'm great. Or I'm doing it for different reasons, or whatever.”   But as long as they don't have built in time for themselves, eventually, they're slaving away to a job and doing way more, and getting paid hourly, that's great. But it's like it may not be worth it.   He knows people, they get paid $1,000 to $2,000 an hour, and they work nonstop but they spend time with their family, they spend time for themselves and everybody's happy, or at least happy enough. And so, there's a difference.   So, that's really ultimately he thinks what's happening too which Yanique totally hit the nail on the head, what occurs we overwork ourselves, because we're like, that's what employers who are experienced in working from home, having worked from home people, that's what they know, they know that ultimately, you may get a lazy guy who will manipulate people or gal who manipulate people and you work very little but you'll get in majority people who will overwork.   How Michael Stays Motivated Every Day    Me: Could you share with our guests; how do you stay motivated every day? You work from home, what are some of the things that you do to kind of motivate yourself? Because the reality is we're human and even if you really enjoy what you do, which I do, personally. And so, there are days when physically, I may not feel as enthusiastic but there are little things that I'll do like maybe exercise or listen to some music to kind of just get my mood or energy up, what are some of the things that you do to kind of keep yourself motivated?   When asked about how he stays motivated, Michael shared that another part of his book is on this, he totally understands, some days you are less motivated than others. There's actually a lot of reasons for that. What he personally do is, he raises his purpose, if he's feeling less motivated today for whatever reason, he increases his purpose. So, if his purpose and this is another chapter in his book is to have you look at the reasons you're doing what you're doing…   Why do you work?   “It may be paying my bills?”   Don't be general, let's be specific.   Why do you do it?   “I do it to pay for this, I do it to pay for that. I want to go on vacation. I want to do this, I want to have that. Oh, wow, I didn't realize I expect to have a raise in the next year, or whatever it is.”   But your purposes are what drive you and we forget about those purposes if we've been doing things for a very long time, unless we're so successful that we're building new purposes.   But a barrier, whether it's personal or outside of yourself is something that is raised up in front of you, it's anything, it's unmotivated, it's problems, it's lack of winning, whatever it is. He just increases his purpose.   He says something's holding me back. Listen, he's facing something right now that's stopping him or attempting to stop him from doing things. He won't necessarily get into details, but he'll just say, every day he'll reach a point where it's definitely a little bit frustrating because he wants to go do one thing and he's got all these other things trying to get in his way.   And all he remembers and know is that as a being, nothing stops him ever. The only thing that actually stops him is him, that's it.   There's no one and nothing that's ever truly ever stopped him from doing or getting what he wants ever. But as a being, what you're talking about is motivation that does stop you.   So, just remembering like, if you can't figure out your reasons for why you're doing what you're doing, or you can't increase, add more reasons, add more things if you're unmotivated, that's what he does, he adds more things.   And he says, “Okay, I want all these things and that's why I do what I do. I now want double that, triple that.”   And he adds, he adds and he adds and he adds, give him more reasons why you do what you do. If you're unmotivated, add more reasons why you want to do more, you want more, you build more, not less.   A lot of people have a tendency to get lazy and downtrodden when they're not getting what they want himself included, and you just have to remind yourself, you're a producer and producing is what makes us happy when we're moving and shaking no matter what that is we're doing. So, increase your purposes is the simple answer.   App, Website or Tool that Michael Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business   When asked about online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Michael stated that he'd say just honestly, the calendar, Google Calendar, Apple. He uses the calendar a lot, he thinks if he didn't use it digitally, he would use a planner.   He thinks back in the old days, people used to use the book planners is just what they were with little calendars on them and that's how they wrote their appointments, and they look at their schedule.   Whether you're drawing it on a piece of paper, or you have it digitally, those calendars are everything. At the end of the day, time is all we got, that's really what we have, and we're either selling our time, or we're buying it. So, that should be the first thing that you teach your kid is about how to manage their time, that should be the number one thing other than obviously, how to survive of course.   But time is important, calendars are important for you, they are tools for you to use. He also wrote this book for the person that was like him, who, for years, refused to use a calendar, because he didn't want to be predictable, he did not want to be predictable for himself or anything.   He likes the adventure of spontaneous movement and things. He was that guy that would just barely make it to the deadline, but he wasn't ever late, he would just barely make it to the appointment, wasn't really late and he liked that and he could manage it very well. And he became very good at shooting from the hip and winning but when he actually started doing things on a calendar, goodness, then he was dangerous.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Michael   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Michael shared that there's a couple of books one he would say, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss, that's a great book on negotiating. He'll share 3. The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone. The 10X Rule, he was very surprised how good that was, he's a great guy (Grant Cardone), everything he stands for has been tremendous. And then there's another one called The Reluctant Messiah, which has been a really interesting book, it's more of a kind of a fictional. It's called the Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. It's kind of a book that takes you on this journey of a guy trying to coach another guy to help him through his life and it's just very metaphorical. But man, is it huge, it's such a great book. And he's not a big fiction guy, so when he looked at it, he was like, he read it, but it blew his mind. It was very, very cool.   What Michael is Really Excited About Now!    Michael shared that he's really excited about Slacking Off, he's excited about the book. Excited about getting this out to as many people right now during their work from home all over the world.   He created this book because he saw so many people having problems and becoming unhappy in their life and he created this to help those people, whether they looked at one chapter or all of them, it's a very simple, easy book, you can read it in like an hour and a half it's very, very simple, but it's full of stuff.   Other than that, he works currently in a medical technology field where he's trying to help a company name ROM Technology, essentially just develop business with them and help them grow as a company and continue to just progress, he supports them through a lot of different efforts. But it's mostly focused to help people get better after surgery and rehab, their legs or knees or hips, so they don't necessarily have to leave their house to do a certain amount of rehabilitation.   It also helps lower narcotic usage so that we have less people taking pain pills, it gets them better faster. So, a lot of time is dedicated to that too and he's very excited about it because it helps people and It costs less money and it drives down their narcotic usage, which he's not a fan of people taking pain pills unless it's absolutely necessary. So, it's a really, really great product and great company and they have such a great team and there are so many people supporting, so many doctors of specialties that doesn't even have anything to do with rehab, love it, and are supporting it. And he's been spending a lot of time trying to help them grow and do everything he can to play his part for sure.   Where Can We Find Michael Online   Facebook – SlackingOff Twitter – @SlackingOffBook Instagram – @slackingoffbook   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Michael Uses   When asked about quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Michael shared that he uses so many quotes. This quote came from Sir Winston Churchill, “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” Doesn't mean rebel against everybody but what it means is, do what you do and if you believe in something go for it. Doesn't matter if people say, don't go this way or you can't do this, or you can't create a podcast, you can't do your own business, do it. Do it, jump, take your risks and you'll surprise yourself, you'll very much surprised yourself.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners   Links Slacking Off: A Successful Way to Work from Home by Michael W. Arnold Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Jason Ten-Pow's passion for customer experience was sparked as a teenager working behind the meat counter of a carnival-themed grocery store in Toronto. Today, Jason is the CEO and President of ONR, the CX consulting firm he founded in 2009. He has a B.A. in political science from the University of Toronto and an M.A. in Quantitative Methods from York University. Jason lives in Toronto with his son Ronin.   Questions   Could you just tell us how it is that you ended up in the whole realm of customer experience? How did you get where you are today? Could you share with our listeners a little bit about the book Unbreakable? What are maybe the key themes that are in the book? And how do you think this book can help a manager or a leader in an organization? Could you share with us based on your research what are some of the things that influences customer's expectations? And then maybe also just touch on why do you think emotions plays such an integral role in somebody making a decision? And are there other factors that come into play? And if other factors come into play, do emotions out-weigh those other factors? Or do emotions always take the greater portion of the decision-making process? Could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you also share with us what is maybe one or two books that you've read, it could be that you read maybe a very long time ago or one that you read recently, that has had the biggest impact on you? Could you also share with us maybe one thing that's going on in your life right now, either something that you're working on to develop yourself, or you're working on to develop your people, but you're really excited about it. Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track, or just get you refocus if you feel derailed for any reason. Do you have one of those?   Highlights   Jason's Journey Jason shared that it's interesting, it's been a long and sort of winding road to get here but it's been fascinating nonetheless and he's learned a lot. It started out just being in customer experience and working customer experience in retail positions at a number of different companies early in my career, even in High School, he'd be looking and as he'd worked at these retail locations, he'd be seeing how different customers were treated and look at how customers responded to different treatment.   And you'd see certain customers that come in every week, and you wanted to know, what was it that got them there? Was it just force of habit? Was it all these other sort of things about their actual experience in the store that brought them back again, and again. And when he went into University, started to study public opinion, voting and decision-making theory and looking at how people made decisions. And it was really interesting to see, you'd always think that people are rational decision makers, that they would think, look at all the options and then choose the best option.   But as he went through a lot of these studies, what stood out for him was that there are just too many options out there and too many options available for individuals when making a decision. So many times, shoppers, or people who are making decisions are forced to take shortcuts. And what he found, what was fascinating is the shortcuts that most people take are ones that are steeped in emotion and it's these emotions that drive through decision making.   And as he did more and more research around that, he just found that that seemed to provide the key explanation as to how people make choices and how they make decisions, especially in today's very fast-moving world. And so, as he started working, he started working after graduate school, he did his graduate work in quantitative methods, which is a really cool name for math basically, and he tried to measure how people make decisions and trying to actually create an algorithm around how to measure the influence of decision making.   And so, his natural progression into the workplace was to actually follow in those footsteps. At first, he worked for a company that did a lot of market research, digital market research, and over time that evolved into really focusing on “Okay, what are the influences of this decision making that customers are making?” And then that naturally came back around 360 degrees and started looking at people's emotions, and what drives people emotions, and what drives them to make the decisions that they do.   And so, founded the company that really was focused on understanding the emotional underpinnings and how to establish and grow and deepen these relationships by delivering on the expectations of these customers. And a lot of these expectations were not sort of just the delivery of a product or service, but actually to make a connection and to deepen a relationship with them was through understanding their wants, needs and desires, and what are the emotional triggers that are associated with these things. And then how to capture their emotion and how to capture their attention, not just their awareness and to be able to build a relationship and to strengthen relationship and how to grow a brand and increase revenue and profits because most people think, falsely so that having good customer experience is just a feel-good movement, it doesn't actually have any sort of impact on the business, but that couldn't be further from the truth.   Great customer experience, actually, is what builds deeper relationships that drive revenue and profit. So, these are the things that they think about, and they talk about, and they help brands as they drive their strategy to deepen relationships with their customers.   The Book Unbreakable – What are the Key Themes and How Can the Book Help a Manager or a Leader in an Organization     Me: Amazing. So, I was lucky enough to get a copy of your book Unbreakable. I am in the process of reading it but I love it, it's been so intriguing since I started reading it last week, it's really, really got some great nuggets in there. So, could you share with our listeners a little bit about the book? What are maybe the key themes that are in the book? And how do you think this book can help a manager or a leader in an organization?   Jason shared that he'll talk a little bit about why he wrote the book and it's really interesting. There's this misconception as he just mentioned that customer experience is a feel-good investment, it has and it's not just a field, but what this book sort of walks through is the fact that it's not a feel-good investment, it's more than that. Only 6% of brands have actually reached the highest level of CX transformation, which means they're building unbreakable relationships with their customers. So, he really wrote this book for the other 94% of organizations out there that are really looking to build these unbreakable relationships with their customers, and aspiring to crack the code of how to link these relationships with increase revenue, profits, efficiency, and employee satisfaction. And finally, how to create a playbook to transform your organization from one that has in its interest, the prioritization of the customer to one that actually lives and breeds prioritization of the customer, and actually is able to see real dividends from deepening their relationships with customers.   Factors that Play an Integral Role in Making Decisions   Me: So, you spoke earlier when you were talking about your journey and how you got to where you are today, that emotions play a very integral role in customers making decisions. And you also mentioned expectations, which I think is so important. Could you share with us based on your research what are some of the things that influences customer's expectations? And then maybe also just touch on why do you think emotions plays such an integral role in somebody making a decision? And are there other factors that come into play? And if other factors come into play, do emotions out-weigh those other factors? Or do emotions always take the greater portion of the decision-making process? Jason shared that that's a really complex question. And he can give you a very logical and very easy to follow example. We go to the store every weekend to buy groceries and we make decisions all the time when we look at the shelf, about things that we want to purchase, things that we need to purchase and things we would like to purchase. What makes us take that extra step of actually going and picking up a product and putting it in the cart.   When we think about that entire process, a lot of it is steeped in emotion, it's like, “Oh, wow, this package looks a little bit more appealing than the next package.” Or “This is something I need today because I need to pick me up.” It's all about our state, we're human creatures, and human creatures, we have wants, needs and desires, but these wants, needs and desires are governed by our emotional state.   So yes, there are real practical implications around the decisions we make, “Hey, I need to buy mustard today but what brand of mustard I will purchase or what type I will purchase?” It's going to be influenced by something above and beyond that. So what is it? Is it I'm looking at all the different options on the shelf, there may be an entire shelf or row of different brands of mustards. Does my past experience play into it? Absolutely. But there's also that immediacy of, “Hey, this looks like an interesting product, this looks more visually appealing.” Those are all aspects of our motion.   Now, when we take that one step further, and think about when we go into a store to shop, if we're greeted at the front by a friendly face, now all of a sudden, you as an individual respond to that, you may be more open to buying. When you're at the checkout, and somebody asks you, how's your day going? How do you feel? Why do companies insist on doing that? Because they know that it plays into our emotional state. And if we're in a happy place, if we're in a good mood, we're more likely to make a splurge purchase. And so also, if we're hitting the right tone, our tonality, if we're talking to people in a certain way, if we're reassuring them, if we're making them feel wanted, needed and desired, then people respond positively to that.   Can you imagine someone makes you feel wanted, needed and desired? How many times will you dismiss them without even having a conversation with them or being thankful about it, it's very seldom that that happens. So as emotional creatures, we are bound, and influenced subconsciously by these sorts of feelings and emotions.   And we try to wrestle against sort of this rational state of being where we want to sort of look at all our options on the table and making sure we're making the right choice. But inherently, in today's day and age, with so many options available to us, we have to have shortcuts, or we could be spending hours, days, weeks, months, before we can actually do the research necessary to make the decision. And as with the way how fast the world is moving, we just don't have that time, time is our enemy. So, we're always trying to figure out faster ways to do things, better ways to do things, more efficient ways to doing. And you know what, at the end of the day, because we're emotional creatures, those are the things that bubble up to the surface and help us create those shortcuts for decision making. Me: Now, as it relates to us being emotional creatures, do you think gender plays our role, or better yet, even our culture? So, for example, Caribbean people versus people who are from North America versus people who live in the Middle East? Do you think those things contribute to people's decision making?   Jasons stated absolutely. Your tribe you belong to has a huge influence on not only what decisions you make, but what emotion govern your decision making. So, he thinks Yanique's hitting on a conversation they can spend hours discussing how Caribbean people are different. They have different emotional triggers versus someone that's North America, South American, European, absolutely, those things absolutely are vitally important, that's what makes us special, that's what makes us unique. If you want to build a relationship with a customer, you have to understand what culture they belong to, what tribe they belong to, because today, more and more, those are the things that are having important impact on our decision making. Me: Well, I've definitely seen it. As you know, as we were talking pre to the actual recording, you mentioned that you're from Guyana, and of course, I'm from Jamaica. But I've definitely seen that in Jamaica specifically, how we make our decisions is based on how we're cultured and how we're socialized. And I find that it's different when I travel to other parts of the world. So, I can imagine how hard it can be for a business, who has customers that are multicultural, because it would mean then that their approaches have to be multifaceted, it can't be one size fits all, because everybody's going to have their unique approach and their unique preferences and set of wanting how something is done, versus just having one thing that's rolled out to everybody.   Jason agreed that Yanique is right. And that's why the approach to customer experience is so important. Many brands see customer experience as a problem that needs to be solved, again, very, very wrong approach. Relationships are not a problem that needs to be solved, they're organic, they need to be nurtured and deepened by understanding the complexity of your customers, understanding who they are, where they come from, what their wants, needs and desires and then using that understanding to actually shape the way what you do and how you do it in order to better bring these folks into the fold, and that's a fundamental mistake that brands make today, because soon as you start with customer experience is a problem that needs to be solved, it takes you down a completely different road, around what matters and what's important and what you need to do to build relationships that are strong, unbreakable relationships with your customer.   App, Website or Tool that Jason Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business   When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Jason stated that he's a little bit biased with this because their company has this product, the solution called Bespoke, and it's absolutely imperative in today's day and age, that you have a product like this, a solution like this, and what it does, it amalgamate, brings together all your different customer experience data into one location, helps you analyze it, and then helps you internally as an organization to build activities and things you can do to train your organization to be more a team to your customers wants, needs and desires. There are so many different tools, there's Eloqua, there's Adobe, you have your voice of customer over here data, but all of these things are in silos.   What Bespoke does, it brings pieces, or elements of all this data together to tell a complete story about the entire customer experience so that you can understand very quickly, and on an ongoing basis how your customer relationships are developing, what are the problems they're experiencing, and how for example, you can train certain types of behaviours amongst your customer service representatives, or how you need to change the journey the customer is taking through the website to make a purchase. All these things are encapsulated into one place so your team doesn't have to go and hunt for all this information around their organization, it's all in one place and it provides not only the data, but it provides recommendations about the actions you need to take in order to build these deeper customer relationships.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Jason   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Jason stated that there's been so many. Paul Snyderman, he's a UCLA, Berkeley, he's written a number of books on decision making, and how people take shortcuts from a sociological and psychological perspective to their decision making. And those have been obviously very influential. We look around today, and we look at how culture plays such an important role and some of the people he spoke to are such great influencers for him in terms of this area as well, he doesn't want to start rattling off names of people. But those writers out there right now that are sort of talking about culture, and the influence of culture and how important it is not only to help us self-identify, but how to help us find our place in the world. Those are really some of the great writings he thinks that are coming out today that are really sort of helping us to move away from this concept that one size fits all solution, as Yanique mentioned earlier, is not the way forward, it's actually a deeper understanding of that complexity that helps you to make better decision making.   What Jason is Really Excited About Now!   Jason shared that the thing that really excites him is helping people understand how important every word they say, every action they make has a greater cascading influence on the overall assessment of a brand than ever before. And one of the things as their company is doing right now is really spending a lot of time training and helping people to understand how important it is to develop deep relationships with their clients that they have in order to not only build firmer relationships, but to understand how unique each individual is, and understanding how each individual is, and taking the time to understand each person not as a sale, or as an opportunity to grow your business but as a human being, how important that is, you'll get to the end, you'll get to the end of that sale, but it's not the sale that you're really after, you're after that relationship.   And the more time you take to understand the other person before you start to talk about what you have, what solutions you bring to the table, you need to start spending time listening and understanding what the other party, what their wants, needs and desires are. Too many times today because we're inundated with so many advertisements that's pushing, you need this, you need this, you need this, nobody is stopping to take the time to actually listen to what people are saying about their wants and needs and desires and just the fact that you take the time to listen, immediately as a brand starts to set you apart.   And these are the things that are really going to allow you to be successful, to build those relationships and even internally, their organization is constantly working to nurture that type of learning, and to share that type of learning across their organization.   Me: All right, that sounds like an adventurous journey. And it can be super challenging because people are such complex characters for sure.   Jason agreed, it is very complex. They're not saying it's easy, but they're saying the ROI for your investment does pay off.   Where Can We Find Jason Online   Me: Our listeners would have tapped into this episode, and they're quite intrigued with you, they're going to buy your book Unbreakable: A proven process for building unbreakable relationships with customers, guy's head on over to Amazon, make sure you get a copy of this book. But more importantly, they want to follow you on your journey, they'd like to connect with you further, where can they find you online?   LinkedIn – Jason Ten-Pow Twitter – @JasonTenPow   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Jason Uses   When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Jason shared that in the book he mentioned CSA (Collect, Share and Act). When you are unsure about the right decision you need to make, what you need to do is, first of all, make sure especially around customer experience, “Make sure you're collecting the right data, you're sharing that data across your organisation, and ensuring that you're taking actions that align with the knowledge you've gained from the data that you've collected.”   If you do those three things, you will guaranteed be better at building deep customer relationships. Why? Because this is the code that the top 6% of brands that lead the way in building unbreakable relationships, this is the code that they have cracked, it comes down to how well they do at collecting customer data, sharing that across their organisation not keeping it in one little silo but sharing it so everyone has this knowledge about who their customers are and what their wants, needs and desires are and make sure that when they're making important decisions and taking actions, they're actually using that knowledge to influence the decisions and the actions they take.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners    Links   UNBREAKABLE: A proven process for building unbreakable relationships with customers by Jason Ten-Pow   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Be sure to visit our sponsor, Saburr Tooth, and use discount code YMT to receive 10% off your entire purchase. www.saburrtooth.com  What are we working on?BobPaying it forwardMy Stamp CollectionRebeccaAbsolutely nothing in the shopLosing my sense of maker self Mike What are we watching / listening?BobDylan McCool, Junkyard Digs, Junker Up, FantomWorksRebeccaThe Mandalorian System of a DownCakeGorillaz  MikeBobby Duke Arts, Alex SteeleSocial Media InformationBob’s Social Media Outlets:Instagram @rjbwoodturnerYouTube RJBWoodTurnerYouTube WhatchaDoinBob Rebecca’s Social Media Outlets:Facebook Rebecca DeGrootYouTube Rebecca DeGroot & Rebecca’s Up to SomethingInstagram @rebecca_degrootWebsite www.rebeccadegroot.comEtsy RebeccaDeGrootStudio Mike’s Social Media OutletsFacebook:  Lost River PensInstagram @lostriverpensYoutube:  Lost River Penswww.lostriverpens.com Dad JokesBobDo you want to know where I store all my dad jokes?In a Dad-a-baseRebeccaBoth jokes from Tim WadleySon: What’s that fancy beer mug on the mantel?Me: Well, that’s your uncle Frank. That’s where he wanted his remains. It was his favorite beer stein. He always said it would be funny. Never got why. Son: Maybe it’s so he could be Frank in Stein?Me: THAT SON OF A BITCH!What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin PiMikeHow does a penguin build it's house?Igloos it together

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been chatting about Trevor Moawad’s wisdom on what he calls “neutral thinking.”   We started by hanging out with Russell Wilson en route to winning a Super Bowl. Then we visited the Johnson Ranch to discuss my relationship with our new chickens and their poop.   (Yes, I can’t get enough of those emojis…)   So…   The morning after that chat I had with Emerson about how to approach the chicken situation either negatively, positively, or neutrally, we were doing our family workout—which currently features me chasing the kids on their bikes as we have fun going around the 1/2-mile Trail-loop we created around our property.    Only…   This morning, Emerson’s bike had a flat tire.    He immediately started crying—super bummed he wouldn’t be able to ride his epic lime green (lol) bike around the Trail as planned.   So…   I cruised over and said, “Buddy! Your tire’s flat. That’s a bummer. I get it. And.. Remember that chat we had last night about neutral thinking?”    Emerson: “Yah.”   Me: “Well…. Let’s get neutral! WHAT DO YOU WANT?”   He said, “To ride my bike.”    I said, “Exactly. So what can we do to make that happen?”    He said, “Get the bike pump and fill up the tire.”    I said, “Exactly.”    We cruised into the barn, found it. Pumped up the tire. The air surprisingly held.   

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been chatting about Trevor Moawad’s wisdom on what he calls “neutral thinking.”   We started by hanging out with Russell Wilson en route to winning a Super Bowl. Then we visited the Johnson Ranch to discuss my relationship with our new chickens and their poop.   (Yes, I can’t get enough of those emojis…)   So…   The morning after that chat I had with Emerson about how to approach the chicken situation either negatively, positively, or neutrally, we were doing our family workout—which currently features me chasing the kids on their bikes as we have fun going around the 1/2-mile Trail-loop we created around our property.    Only…   This morning, Emerson’s bike had a flat tire.    He immediately started crying—super bummed he wouldn’t be able to ride his epic lime green (lol) bike around the Trail as planned.   So…   I cruised over and said, “Buddy! Your tire’s flat. That’s a bummer. I get it. And.. Remember that chat we had last night about neutral thinking?”    Emerson: “Yah.”   Me: “Well…. Let’s get neutral! WHAT DO YOU WANT?”   He said, “To ride my bike.”    I said, “Exactly. So what can we do to make that happen?”    He said, “Get the bike pump and fill up the tire.”    I said, “Exactly.”    We cruised into the barn, found it. Pumped up the tire. The air surprisingly held.   

“Small talk, great lessons”- @jonkatz97 @benleavitt_ @howcanipodcast “I'm pleased to bring you all a conversation I had the pleasure of having with Ben Leavitt and Ruslan Chlek. Ben is a social media and youtube master and Ruslan is a big podcaster. Me? Well, I'm just a simple entrepreneur who created BLENDi. Tune in to hear us talk about opportunity cost, how we handled the recent pandemic, and some personal finance tips as well. There were some great tips and points that anyone can use or sympathize with. These are of course opinions of ours and these types of conversations are what I encourage you all to do with your own friends as they are essential for growth and life.” -Jon katz Our Social Media and YouTube Links: Instagram - https://bit.ly/2UtZM7v YouTube - https://bit.ly/3dNkbMn Equipment used to record this podcast: Microphone (newer version) :https://amzn.to/2zM2myF ============================= Affiliate Links: ============================= Some of the links in our video descriptions are affiliate links, which means at no extra cost to you, we will make a small commission if you click them and make a qualifying purchase.

I'm fired up today! Here are two very common conversations in my day that drive me bananas:1. Them: MLS and wholesale deals sell too fast, Debbie! My market is saturated with investors, Debbie!Me: Tell me about it, sis; I'm in friggin' Austin, TX, for crying out loud.=> Do you see that the problem isn't that there aren't deals, it's that you're not making buying decisions fast enough? And you may be taking too long so that you don't actually have to do the thing and you can just keep sitting on the sideline... *That's a whole 'nother conversation2. Me: Okay, so go direct to owner and cut out much of the competition.Them: I don't want to spend time driving around or money marketing for deals. What if it doesn't work?Me: Well, keep not doing it and you know for sure that it will keep NOT working for you.Only you can actually choose to show up.GOODIES1. Click here for a rare open offer to join The #1 House Flipping Coaching Program for Women2. Follow That Flip! Follow this 8-part video series as we flip a house! 3. Our goal is to inspire 1,000 new women each month! If you are getting value out of this podcast will you kindly leave us a rating and review? Help us spread our message!4. Ask The Flipstress a question! Want Debbie to answer your question or do you have a topic you want her to cover? Click here to send her a note with your question/request.5 Continue the house flipping conversation in our free Women Flipping Houses Facebook group

content: Mar 23, 2020 · podcast: Mar 28, 2020 Audio (MP3): 20200323 - Coronavirus overtakes the airwaves Me: Alexa, play WBEZ. WBEZ: Coronavirus cases in Illinois have surpassed 1,000 and now includes an infant. Me: Ugh. Alexa, play WNYC. WNYC: Mayor Blasio said that the city's 11 public hospitals have a week before they run out of life-saving equipment and medical supplies to treat patients with COVID-19. Me: Well good. Alexa, play WFPL. WFPL: There are 103 people with positive coronavirus tests in Kentucky as of Sunday evening. Three people have died as a result of the coronavirus. Me: No. No corona. Alexa, play StarTalk Radio. StarTalk Radio: On this episode of StarTalk Radio, we sit down with Dr. Irwin Redlener, Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, to discuss everything we need to know about the Coronavirus… Me: What the holy fuck? Alexa, play Science Friday. Science Friday: Experiencing COVID-19 information overload? Two experts offer clarity on the studies taking over news headlines this week… Me: Dude, you’re part of the fucking problem. All of you. You’re killing me here with this, the endless corona train of viral lunacy. I just want normal talk radio for like five fucking minutes. 🚂🦠🦠🦠 #coronavirus #talkradio #allislost #diariespodcast fiatlux423 · Mar 23, 2020 at 2:46 pm Listen to KEXP my friend. Cheryl Waters will make everything better. $m.wand.ajax_click=true;$m.wand.lightswitch=true; tcr! · Mar 23, 2020 at 4:56 pm I can’t the kxep.org website to load anymore $m.wand.ajax_click=true;$m.wand.lightswitch=true; fiatlux423 · Mar 23, 2020 at 5:09 pm What? I’m listening to Troy Nelson right now $m.wand.ajax_click=true;$m.wand.lightswitch=true; marney0160 · Mar 24, 2020 at 11:23 am I’m listening to the birds outside 💖 $m.wand.ajax_click=true;$m.wand.lightswitch=true; Add a comment! Got 30 seconds? Take the super duper, quick and easy podcast survey! Please. 😊 Love the show? Make a donation! Because you're the best. 💖 tcrbang.com · Instagram · Facebook · YouTube View original

Episode Notes Learn English with Two Old Men. The Two Old Men are back! This is a two-part episode. An episode of mystery and a very long story by Geoffrey! Support us Support us on Patreon to help us create more funny and interesting material:https://www.patreon.com/chuckleEnglishHow to use See the website (www.chucklenglish.com) on how to learn with the podcast.Transcript Alfred: Welcome to Two Old Men in a Shed. I’m still waiting for Geoffrey. He’s late again. At least, I haven’t got one of his strange friends knocking on the door this time. Alfred: Oh dear, I hope it’s not Doris again! Come in! Geoffrey: Yes, Yes, Hello Alfred! It’s me Geoffrey. Alfred: Thank god for that. Geoffrey: Thank god for what? Alfred: That it’s you! Geoffrey: Yes. Of course it’s me! Who else would it be? Alfred: Well, do you remember last week? You arrived quite late. Also, your friend was here and I had to listen to her. Geoffrey: My friend was here? What friend are you talking about? Alfred: Oh dear! Doris, she was here with me alone and we recorded a podcast while we were waiting for you. Geoffrey: Doris was here? Yes, yes. I seem to recall finding her here. You need to be careful with Doris. She might be 85, but she is like a Burmese tiger! Alfred: Like a Burmese tiger? Whatever do you mean? Geoffrey: She’s a naughty girl. Leave her alone with someone and she’ll soon be jumping on top of them! Alfred: Thank god that didn’t happen! Geoffrey: Yes, yes. She didn’t try to kiss you? She’s done it to all the old men at the retirement home! How strange! She must only like older men! Alfred: Older men? Geoffrey: Yes, that must be it. I remember on the way home, on the bus, she literally jumped on top of me. She stuck her tongue down my throat. Alfred: Please! No more details! Geoffrey: Of course, she had to remove her false teeth first; she usually puts them in her pocket where she keeps her sweets and tissues. Alfred: I’m going to vomit. Please, don’t tell me anything else happened! Geoffrey: Remember, I’m a married man. Of course I didn’t do anything else. Alfred: You saying that you are a married man is a sentence that I will never get used to. Geoffrey: Thank you! Anyway, when I managed to get her off me, she couldn’t find her false teeth! Alfred: I imagine they were probably in your pockets! You’ve got allsorts in there. Geoffrey: Yes, yes. Well everything except biscuits these days! My wife still hides them! Alfred: I hope you wife didn’t find the false teeth. That would be hell of an explanation, to explain why you have another woman’s false teeth in there. Geoffrey: They weren’t in my pocket! Alfred: Ah! Did you find them? Geoffrey: Well, we started looking everywhere. In my pockets, in her handbag, she even started to look down my trousers for a long time, but we couldn’t find them! Alfred: Is that the story? Geoffrey: No! Let me finish! Alfred: I thought you had stopped! Geoffrey: I was trying to pause to give dramatic effect. Alfred: Wow! I’m not used to it. Usually, you just talk and talk and never stop! You’re really starting to get into this podcast aren’t you? Geoffrey: This pod...what? Alfred: Oh dear! Anyway, where did you find the false teeth? Geoffrey: Well, that is the funny thing. Alfred: I expect that it is. Geoffrey: We had all of the passengers looking for the teeth. Even the bus driver was on his knees looking around. Alfred: Did you find them? Geoffrey: Do you know what? Alfred: Can you just finish the story. Geoffrey: Yes, yes. The story, of course I’ll finish it. But do you know what? Alfred: Dear me! What Geoffrey? Geoffrey: I thought that before I met my wife... Alfred: Is that the wife that we haven’t mentioned in a long time? Geoffrey: Yes, yes, her! Alfred: Ok, Go on... Geoffrey: Before I met my wife, I thought I was a very clean gentleman! Alfred: I don’t know what to laugh about more there, the fact you still have a wife, that you thought you were clean or that you consider yourself to be a gentleman! Geoffrey: There’s no need to be rude. Alfred: I’m sorry Alfred. Geoffrey: Good! Well, when my wife showed me that I had a cupboard under the sink, I couldn’t believe it! The cupboard was full of old cleaning products! It was astonishing! Alfred: Why? Geoffrey: Well, I’ve never bought cleaning products in my life! How did they get there under my sink? Alfred: You probably bought them by accident. Geoffrey: By accident?! Me? Well, probably! Although to be honest, whenever I’ve needed to give something a quick clean, I’ve always used a bit of whisky, water and my toothbrush. Alfred: Your toothbrush and whisky? That does explain a lot. Geoffrey: Yes, yes... like what? Alfred: Well, your house always smells like whiskey even the garden. Also, I would describe the colour of your teeth as a mixture of whisky and dirt. Geoffrey: But the important thing is that they are my own teeth! Well all except the front one...or two...or three. But most are my own teeth! Alfred: Ok. I have no idea where we are in this story. Geoffrey: Yes! Well, after my wife cleaned my kitchen, I couldn’t believe the difference! I thought my kitchen walls were brown! I thought it was a style to match the wooden cupboards. After my wife... Alfred: whose name is...? Geoffrey: I said her name on the other podcast. After my wife cleaned them I nearly had to wear those dark glasses in the morning to protect them against the shiny white walls. Alfred: Dark glasses? You mean sunglasses, don’t you? Geoffrey: Yes, those. Alfred: By the way, how is your wife? Did you ever find out whether she was cheating or not? Geoffrey: My wife, I don’t really want to speak about her right now. Alfred: I’m sorry Geoffrey. Anyway, back to the story. Geoffrey: Yes! The story! Yes, yes, yes! What story? Alfred: Wow. At least he is not Doris! The story about the false teeth on the bus. Geoffrey: Yes. Well if you stop distracting me, I’ll finish the story. Alfred: Distracting you? Geoffrey: Yes, you are always interrupting! Alfred: Me? Interrupting? Geoffrey: Yes! Right, we were all on the floor of the bus looking for the false teeth. What I wanted to say is that I couldn’t believe how dirty it was down there! We found everything; so much chewing gum, hair clips and even a false leg! Alfred: A false leg? Geoffrey: Yes! Now who would leave a false leg on a bus? Wouldn’t they realise that they got on the bus with two legs and left with only one? It’s not the type of thing you can miss easily! Alfred: You’d be surprised! All it takes is a couple of glasses of wine, and the next moment you’ve got a false leg missing! Geoffrey: Don’t be silly. To be continued....Support Chuckle English by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/chuckle-english

Welcome!   This has been a busy week in the world of technology.  We are going to hit several topics today. From Employer device privacy, dangers of huge facial recognition databases, Marriott enters the home rental market, overblown results on dangers of screen technology, big tech stomping on small tech, smart home alarms, and cable companies, Apple stands ground on iPhone encryption, and Microsoft ends support of Windows 7. It is going to be a busy show -- so stay tuned. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com I've got some free online privacy training coming up. I have been teaching courses on security for the FBI InfraGard's program. And now I'll share some of the step-by-step tips and tricks that we all can use to keep ourselves and our information safe online. And it won't cost you a dime. --- Related Articles: What Does Your Employer Know About Your Daily Activities Privacy Gone: Tech Start-up Has Huge Facial Recognition Database If You Can’t Beat ‘Em - Join ‘Em says Marriott Screen Time Causing Mental Health Issues Are Overblown Big Tech Stomps All Over Small Businesses Home Security and Alarm Systems Useless After Charter Cable  Pulls Plug Security First, Apple Stands Ground on iPhone Encryption No Security for Windows 7 After Today --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Hey, it's my intro music. Hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Welcome, welcome. Hopefully, you've been able to join me before. We talk a lot about technology and of course a lot about privacy and security. Technology today is all about privacy and security. Isn't it? It just seems like every time we turn around, and there's some other business out there just trying to get our information or even worse, some hacker who's trying to get it from us. So I try and help everybody understand what is going on what is privacy? What's it all about? I give a lot of tips and tricks on things and recommendations. I do a whole lot of different pieces of training, free training, pop up stuff, Facebook, and YouTube lives. I'm trying to get the word out. So I appreciate everybody that shares this. We've had an increase every week, with people subscribing to the podcast, which is excellent! You're listening to me here on the radio, and who are spreading the word. You know, there again, there's so much information out there, it's hard to know what you should believe. There are all kinds of motivations behind it. So hey, what's my motivation? Well, I'm trying to get the word out, I know that probably 90% of you wouldn't ever be a client of mine. And that's just fine. Because hopefully, the 5% that would be a client of mine will become a client, and we can help them out. But I want to get this information out. Sorry, I don't hold anything back. You've probably noticed it if you're one of those people who learned about the show or the podcast so that you now know about it, and you heard it from a friend, and the friend said, Yeah, you have to listen to Craig. You probably had an earful from somebody telling you about how I am just giving away the store. And that's my Go, hey, if I'm not giving you the store, let me know if you have any questions, let me know. It is just "me" at Craig Peterson dot com. Now, many of you may have noticed if you're on my mailing list, that we changed the format of the newsletter starting this last week. Right? It was one of those January 1 promises that we had hoped to get it up by the first of the year, and it took us a couple of extra weeks is not always the case. But then here's the new format for the weekly newsletter, if there is any real critical security stuff, updates patches that you need to apply in your business or your home. Those are now going right at the top of the newsletter. This last week, I think we had about ten a dozen or so of these very high priority security patches that required immediate patching. And we went so far as to give you links right there in my newsletter, so you can click on the links to those CVEs we're giving you a link so that you know what the critical vulnerabilities are. It tells you even what to do what software it is everything right, step by step. That's the name of my game. You can use all of that now to stay one step ahead of the bad guys one step ahead of the crackers. That's the whole idea, right? The bad guys out there trying to crack into your computers. Now, we also had two other sections. I'm not going to be able to this week, I, you know, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. But one of the sections was my weekly podcasts broadcast in the video. So I gave you links in the newsletter last week to the YouTube videos. So you can see articles that I'm talking about it has captions so you can read along if you wanted to watch it there. And I also posted them up on Facebook. The last one for last week's show would have gone out on Friday. So Yesterday, you should have gotten that one if you're a Facebook follower. So please do follow please do subscribe. I'm, I'm I don't know that I'll be able to get much help this week because we've got something huge happening. I am trying to help people here with some of the privacy stuff. So I am going to be we're putting together right now. And I'm going to be giving away a step by step guide for you to be able to protect your privacy online through tracking. Now you know about ads online, right. And ad revenue, I think, is essential for businesses. You need to be able to show ads to get attention, right? There are so many competitors out there and so many different spaces. So how can you get your message out if you can't advertise? So there was a trend for a while to have ad blockers. Ad-blockers are more than a bit of a problem now, because how does the publisher generate any revenue when they can't sell ads. And I saw a fascinating statistic that got me going this week. Have you seen where ads directed at users of iOS, which is Apple's mobile operating system that users of Apple's iOS are using Safari, advertising to them is worth less than it is to Android? Now think about that for a minute. Why is it cost more now to send to Android users than Apple users? Well, Apple integrated some new anti-tracking technology into Safari. That is a very, very big deal, because now with that anti-tracking, technology, and Safari, the advertisers Cannot track you and other sites that you're online. So the fact that can't track you means they don't know as much about you, which means you're not worth as much from an advertiser standpoint. Now, you could argue either way, right? In my business, we do some advertising. However, mostly it is word of mouth, and that's what we've done for decades now. And word of mouth works, right? Because people know me that I helped out their business and kind of, I'm, we need some help. We need some security stuff. We need a cyber assessment, you know, how good is this? Am I covering everything? Right? So that's how I usually do it. But most businesses are having to do it via advertising. I'm thinking about doing some advertising in the future for some of the products I've put together. Apple is stopping them from tracking you when you go to multiple sites. What would it be like, if I told you how to go about blocking advertisers from tracking you going to multiple sites on your computer as well. So that's what I'm putting together. Right now we're putting together a step by step guide that we're going to be giving away. It's part of a training webinar we're going to be doing as well, that is going to teach you a lot about some of the privacy stuff that you can do. And that's coming up here in a couple of weeks. So make sure you're on my email list at, Of course, Craig Peterson, calm slash subscribe, because you'll be able to get all of that and it's free. Again, I don't hold anything back to people. I'm not some guy who doesn't know what he's talking about and just has to market sell, sell, sell. I am trying to help out here. Okay, so make sure you are on that email list. Just go ahead and go to Craig Peterson, calm slash subscribe, and all it asks for is your name and email address. And then you're going to get this new newsletter I'm doing. So the second portion of the newsletter is the top four videos that I did that week. So these are the ones that people watch the most. And I know a lot of you don't watch the video. All of the articles I discuss are in the newsletter in the third section. So that's what we're doing now. And that's based on feedback that we've had from all you guys, and I appreciate it. We got some super fans out there that email me and pretty much every week. Some people send me Facebook stuff and LinkedIn stuff, which is cool as well to see some of that. I have to warn you I will answer or someone, not me, will answer as a member of my team. And it might take a little while okay because I get thousands of emails a day, and I have some very heavy mail filtration in place. Now the excellent news is that mail filter tends to work extremely well and tends not to block legitimate emails. But the operative word there is, usually. At any rate, I still get hundreds to have to go through every day of legitimate ones, and I try and respond so if you do send an email to me that's just me at Craig Peterson calm, make sure the chat a little bit of patience and we'll we will get back to you. If it's urgent, you can always try and text me as well because, you know, I had this contact from a law firm, and they had to get some briefs filed with the court by 4 pm. And it was like 1:30 in the afternoon, and they reached out to me, a Windows machine decided to die, and we can't get him to come back. So you know, I do get those types of emergency things, but email is probably not the best way to do that. The best way to do that is probably via texting Me? Well, that's the new newsletter. We also use the newsletter to announce special pieces of training. Karen, my wife, and I have been working on a special webinar for about a week or two. And we've got another week or so hours worth of work in it. So you know how this goes, right? I said I would have just said to myself, I didn't promise you, but I would have a new newsletter out the first of the year, and it took until the middle of a month. So I guess that's not too bad, right, two weeks-ish to get that out. So you know, we'll see what happens with this webinar. But it should be on time. But if you're on the mailing list, you'll know about it. Just Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. Something else important. I don't want people to use my mailing lists to spam other people. So what I do is I do something so that when you subscribe, it's going to send you an email, and I noticed there had been 100 people who subscribed, and I sent them an email. They have to click on the link. That's to confirm that this is their email that it's not somebody else who's messing around. That's trying to send them spam from the right. So I'm going to have to reach out to those hundred people individually. But if you subscribe, make sure you check your email box, he's I'll send it from my email address for me at Craig peterson.com. Look for that link, click on that link. Then you'll be able to get that that the weekly emails from me and notices about what's coming up. I typically remind you in advance about one of these pieces of training, and I'll remind you like a couple of days before, I just don't want you to miss them, but I don't get kind of asked him like some other people do no question. And we don't do these very often. My big courses and training are only really once a year. Hey, you're listening to Craig Peters on WGAN stick around because we're going to get right into it when we get back Hi, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Welcome back, WGAN and online, of course, over at Craig Peterson dot com. Hey, did you know that your employer monitors you? Well, you may have known that. We're going to get into a little about what some employers are doing and also why some businesses are tracking. And when it comes to employers, of course, and some of the trackings, we're talking about still legal stuff. And when it comes to some of the big box retailers, it's still legal as well. So I guess the big question is, should it be, and what are they looking into? What are they gleaning from it, and why would they be doing it? Let's get down to that, and I'll give you a couple of tips to help you protect yourself. The Wall Street Journal this week, had a great article That was talking about, well, it was illustrating that was a kind of a cool way they did this thing. But it was talking about this guy who they named Chet. And, you know, Chet, kind of an old name, which is kind of funny, because we're always talking about it this week on the radio. When was the last time you met somebody named Chet? And for me, it's probably been 30 years, maybe, maybe a little bit longer. And perhaps that's why they use the name chat, right? Just not that common a name. But this is a paywall Wall Street Journal article, and you get like one or two or three a month or whatever it is for free. And then other than that, they want you to pay for it. So you may or may not be able to see it, but what they're doing, I think, is fascinating, because this article is walking through the day. In the life of this fictional workers, names chat. And it starts by noting that the employer logs his time and his location when he first wakes up to check his email in the morning. So there's stage one. Most of us, according to statistics, check our email first thing in the day and the last thing at night. Now I am not like that. But most of us are. So if you are, hey, I get it. But you check your email, so your employer knows that and then from there, this guy chat, he goes on to the Guest Wi-Fi. Now, here's where it's a little bit interesting. And it's something that a lot of people might not be thinking of. But when you connect to a guest Wi-Fi somewhere that provides a method for someone else, to be able to monitor you and where you are and who you are. So, for instance, if you go to your local Walmart store, Target store, you name it, store, they have Wi-Fi provided for you and that Wi-Fi can then be used to identify you and track you through the store. Some of this technology set up in such a way that it's just so accurate. It knows that you're standing in front of a specific item within the store for a minute or 30 seconds, whatever it might be. And then they can use that data now to figure out more stuff, right, big data is what it's all about. So far, poor old chap, he logged Into the guest Wi-Fi connection at the coffee shop in the morning. And then he went over to the gym. And of course, at the gym, there's a guest Wi-Fi, and you're attracted the gym, your locations tracked, and if you're like most people, you've got your Email Setup, so that it is checking every one every five minutes, 15 minutes or automatically your emails push to you. Right? Isn't that how that works? So now your employer knows where you were, and probably knows you're at the gym and even which Coffee Shop you're at. It depends on whether or not the employer has tracking software on your phone. They may know the exact location of all of those things. Now, if you're connecting to the office, and let's say you get through the email system at the office and using a VPN, that is when a lot of stuff changes and they know even more. So now, Chet arrives at his building where he works. And I don't know if you've seen these and we talked about some significant security problems with this. I'll bring it up again here right now. But when you walk in and you have your phone, and you use your phone as your badge, you know, kind of like used to swipe a badge, or maybe you tapped a badge. Now it'll use Bluetooth on your phone to identify you. Some of the newer systems are even using your face, and some are using facial recognition. Now I have a massive problem with the facial recognition stuff because Now they've got a picture of you. That's on the computer. Right? They have to take that to have the initial validation to say, yeah, this is chat. He's allowed to come in after 6 am and leave after 6 pm or whatever it is, and how secure is their database? I think that's the big question. Do you know if they're keeping your biometric safe? See, it's one thing to have your card lost or stolen, that you might swipe, are easily replaced, it can be disabled. It's one thing to forget your password or have your password stolen? Because you can always change your password. But how about your face? Your face isn't something you can easily change unless you're what was it John Travolta and Nick Nolte's Face Off, the name of that movie. I can hear you all yelling at the radio right now. Anyways, that is not going to change now. The same thing is true of your fingerprint. The same things true of Iris scans are so many types of biometrics now that people are just giving up for free. I heard something great on Stuart Varney's show on TV here this week. And Stewart was talking about yet another breach. And in this particular case, it was the Saudi Prince who had broken into Jeff Bezos iPhone using some software from a company over in Israel. And what's changed? Well, it isn't that there was a hack or that it waJeff Bezos was hacked. You know, we've had so many celebrities hacked before, what he noted, and what I want to bring up here now is we don't seem to care anymore. There was a time when that would be a big deal. What do you mean, the Crown Prince hacked the Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world smartphone and stole all of his pictures. We just don't seem to care anymore. So when we're going into the office in the morning, and it's doing a facial scan, we don't think twice about giving our face information to them. Now the government forces us to if you want a passport, or if you want a driver's license, or if you're going to get on an airplane, you know, it's one thing to have it at the point of a gun. It's quite another just to give it up voluntarily if you ask me. So now, when chats walking around the office, that Bluetooth in his phone is trackable for Near Fields communications. Some of us use our phones to unlock our computers when we're in front of them, just using that Bluetooth. And then on the other side, we have the issue of well, you know, we got Wi-Fi, and we're using the company Wi-Fi, and they want us to use the company Wi-Fi. Tracking as you move around is supposedly utilizing a lot of this data is to see which teams are frequently collaborating make sure employees aren't accessing areas they're not authorized to be in, etc. So once chat set said, this desk is browsers tracked along with his email, there's new software now that are looking at the email, it's looking at things like slack or teams, whatever you might be using to collaborate. It's figuring out whether or not the workers that you're interacting with are responding quickly. See which employees are most productive. Some of the software in the company computers, even snap screenshots every 30 seconds to evaluate the productivity in the hour's work. Now, of course, that's not typically done for people who are who knowledge workers are. That's usually more for people who are, you know, taking dictation or doing some form of a repetitive task but, you know, Hawthorne effect, right? We've been doing this forever. I remember teaching that at Pepperdine as a professor there, ai artificial intelligence keyword scanning also been used and all of this, even chats, phone conversations on his work desk, phone and work cell phone can be recorded, transcribed and monitored. And they're using this to measure productivity, etc. So bottom line, your life is not yours. You are just not secure in almost anything. But I don't want you to give up. I want you to keep trying. I want you to make sure that you're using your iPhone, use Safari because it blocks some of this tracking. And I'm going to have some excellent information for your next couple of weeks. We're working on it now to help you stop the tracking. But check it out. It's on the Wall Street Journal site. You're listening to Craig Peterson right here on WGAN and online at Craig Peterson dot com. Hey everybody, Welcome back. Craig Peterson here on WGAN online and of course at Craig Peterson dot com. That's Peterson with an "O." Hey, are you panicking about your kids or your grandkids and the use of the smartphones? Do you remember what they were saying about TV years ago? And how it rots the brains and you know, we use it as a babysitter. Kind of still do, don't we? And what effect does this have on their brains? We're starting to see the results of these devices on the younger generations because we've had the iPhone for over ten years. We've had the internet now for Well, just been about almost 20 years since it's been legal to do business online now actually is longer than that because it was 91. Wow, okay, thirty, it's been around for quite a while, and we're starting to see some of the results. We're seeing kids that have a little less patient, and they won't sit and read, like we used to read right, though, won't even sit and watch most movies, their ideal clip on these online sites where they're watching video is 15 to 30 seconds. They now have an attention span less than a goldfish, which is eight seconds a goldfish is attention span. Now, that's a bad thing. Okay. And now that they're into the workplace, some of these kids, here's what's happening now. They'll sit in a meeting, and we're as millennial usually, whereas baby boomers would sit there until give us plan our strategy, what are we going to do? So one of our options, we want to No. Okay, so we're going to do some research. So you look up this, you look up that you talk to these people, and then let's get together in a couple of days. And let's review what we've learned. And then let's make a decision, and you'll try and make a decision in unison. Now, when we're talking about the younger generation, the millennial generation, and of course, we've got Generation Z in the workplace too. Still, when we're talking about millennials, they will tend to try and get the answer right away. They'll sit on their phone, they'll b, and Google will reach out to their friends on social media and ask for their opinion. The friends might not know anything about what it is that you need to have researched. They may not know hardly anything about the whole topic that you're trying to get research, but they will reach out to these friends and get their opinions. And they are opinions are not necessarily worth anything, right? Then they will typically decide. Hey, listen, we're going to decide before we leave today. Whereas it might take the baby boomers a couple of weeks to make a decision, the younger generations millennials and Z's, will both try and make a decision right away. Now, what's the reason for this? And, you know, I, pretty much every psychologist and psychiatrist that I've spoken to, in fact, I think every one of them has said, Listen, this is 100% because of social media. It's 100%. Because of their ability to go online, these kids live online, and they always have. So how about younger kids, let's say you have grandkids or kids that are in their teens are approaching their teens. Now. Even maybe Five years old. I know some people that are getting smartphones and smart devices for their young kids, your five-year-olds. What's going on? Well, there was the research that came out a week ago by two psychology professors. They looked at the data that produced in 40 different studies. And this article in The New York Times goes on to say that they looked at the links between social media use, and they see if there are any ties with depression and anxiety, and they were looking at teenagers. And we've got the lead person here, lead investigator of this study, principal authors Candice Rodgers, a professor, University of California, Irvine, published in the Journal of child psychology and psychiatry. And the quotes here from the New York Times, there doesn't seem to be an evidence base that would explain the level of panic and consternation around these issues. And these are significant issues right with this has been a big debate for a long time as parents as grandparents, we don't want to harm our children. And we know that staring in the phones has affected us, you know, look, look at the relationship between couples and families. Did you see that Robin William's movie from years ago called RV, where the whole family was sitting around in the same room, and they were texting each other? You know, that's kind of the real world. You see people up for meals, and they're on their phones, reading articles, texting, whatever it is they're doing. There is a significant risk to our mental health from these machines in particular, and Congress has looked at some of the legislation they might pass. There have been other things to write but Is it the phone, that's the real problem when it comes to these mental issues, and that's what they were looking at the social media aspects of it. The World Health Organization said last year that infants under a year old should not have exposure to electronic screens. And the children between the ages of two and four should not have more than an hour of sedentary screen time each day. Some of the big execs over in Silicon Valley don't allow their kids to use some of the hardware-software they create. This is a problem from several directions still, right, even though there's no direct correlation between, well, let's call it depression here, and the use of social media by kids. However, I certainly have seen studies that would indicate otherwise, but there Saying that in most cases, the phone is just a mirror that reveals the problems a child would have, even without the phone. So they're saying that focusing on keeping children away from screens and making it hard to have more productive conversations about topics like how to make phones more useful for low-income people, blah, blah, blah, right? So I guess really, what they're saying is that if you compare the effects of your phone, to the impact of maybe eating correctly, or getting enough sleep, or playing games, outdoors smoking, the phone is just a very, very minor. So there was a little bit of a correlation but not a huge one. Mr. Hancock, who is one of the authors here, he's the founder of the Stanford Social Media Lab. He reads similar conclusions. He says he looked at about 226 steps. On the well being of phone users conducted, that he said that when you look at all these different kinds of well being, the net effect size is virtually zero. So there you go. Now, you know, in 2011, doctors were worried about something called Facebook depression. But by 2016 is more research came out, and they looked at that statement, they deleted any mention of Facebook depression, and emphasize that conflicting evidence and the potential positive benefits of using social media because of course, there is another side to all of that. So there you go. There's your answer if you have grandkids or kids, and you've been anxious about your kids, using these devices getting depressed because of social media, you know, okay, it's not a big problem. But here's one thing that I didn't hear dressed in any of these reports. And that is these negative self-images that tend to develop from being on social media. You look at these Instagram posts, and you look at the Kylie Jenners' of the world. I think that many girls and many boys are getting the wrong idea about what a woman's body should or could look like, and also getting a false value about it right. How much does that matter? Does that is that your relationship? I think they're getting a warped view of things, which is why I mentioned at the beginning this program that I think we see now in business, and I've talked with many people about it is very, very real. No question about it. All right. Well, when we come back, we're going to talk a little more about privacy. And this new secret of company that might end privacy as we know, in fact, they kind of already have me listening to Craig Peterson on WGAN and online, Craig Peterson dot com. Hello, everybody, Welcome back, Craig Peterson here, WGAN online and of course, Craig Peterson.com. Hey, we're talking a lot about privacy this week and next week, and that's mainly because well, it's in the news. And my wife and I have been working hard on some materials that we're going to be providing you guys. The only way you're going to get them is if you're on my mailing list because otherwise, you're never going to find out about them. But step by step guides know the sort of things I usually do this kind of going a step beyond the special reports, and then we're going to have a little webinar on it as well. We're just we're doing a whole bunch because privacy is something that I think we're starting to take for granted. Privacy is what we're beginning to expect. And I think that's a real problem. So when I saw this article this week in the New York Times by Kashmir Hill, I knew I had to share this with you. This is a brand new article. And it is very, very concerning to me for a number of reasons. It's about this guy. His name is Juan tomcat. He is from Australia, and moved up to Silicon Valley, and had been trying to do some sort of social type of an application, something that would, you know, compete out there in the world, make him a few bucks and have some fun doing it. And so he released a couple of different social apps. He had one that put Donald Trump's yellow hair on your own photo. He had a couple of others that were kind of a photo-sharing thing and nothing was all that successful. So we decided to need to be there to do a little bit more research and So he did. And he figured, you know, maybe what we need here is something a little more. That's going to help people recognize other people. So you meet someone, you have their picture, can I find that person just as an example. And in fact, he struggled for quite a while trying to figure out that this software that he had written, figuring out how the heck they were going to market it and, you know, they went to a bunch of different people and tried to figure it out and, and get it all to work. So what he ended up doing was kind of like what Mark Zuckerberg does start Facebook. He illegally crawled Facebook, YouTube Venmo millions of other websites and grabbed photographs from them and recorded the URLs for those photographs. So it's too late for you. If you have any photos anywhere online, basically That he might have found, because we're talking about 3 billion images that are in his database. That is incredible. So we had one programmer, right, this scraper that went in and stole all of these pictures. By the way, it is clearly against the terms of usage for Facebook, as well as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram Venmo. To use these to scrape the sites and to use these pictures for facial recognition. Twitter explicitly banned it, but you know, who cares, right? Like Zuckerberg, when he started Facebook, those allegations of how he stole the Harvard year yearbook and grabbed all of these pictures and then had people rating each other make mostly guys writing girls kind of a dating app sort of thing is kind of how it started. So in Now, he has found some investments. And that includes some serious money guys behind this whole thing. And it is. One of those people is Peter teal, who is one of the people who sit on the board of directors of Facebook. So Facebook says, well, we're looking into him grabbing the photos off of Facebook. I kind of wonder if anything's going to happen with Peter Thiel being on the board of directors as well. Here's how the software works. I don't know if you've seen facial recognition software before, but it basically looks at the difference. The distance between your eyes, your nose, your cheeks, you know, different points on your face that are defined, typically by bones, right. The nose is mostly the cartilage that's given its shape and its position. But it takes all of that and draws a line. I'm sure you've seen this sort of thing before. So what he's done now is he's taken those more than 3 billion images. And he's categorized them all by coming up with the vectors and mathematical formulas describing every last one of those 3 billion faces. So he's trying to figure out what I can now do with this database that I have? And he got some guys to help with some of the marketing. And he got some people to go after a few different categories industries. And he found that law enforcement was very interested in this. So let's talk about law enforcement for a minute and facial recognition technology because law enforcement has legally been using facial recognition technology for 20 years. You watch one of these TV shows like the CSI is on TV, which I don't like those shows because there are too many technical errors, and it drives me crazy. You can't do that doesn't exist, that technology doesn't exist. But so that's why I don't watch a lot of people do. The government has their National Crime information computer centers. They've got databases of faces of arrested people, people who are in prison, etc. The police can run your face through this database of people that they've had contact with before. Now it's expanded. This has been for good 20 years, but it's expanded more recently to include the databases of our DMV is our motor vehicle. In other words, our driver's licenses on the state level, and they pulled all of those in as well. Now those photos have to be shot pretty much straight on, and when they are shot straight on, then the recognition software that the law enforcement personnel are using can kind of recognize that person and do matches and everything else. So it's been an excellent tool for a lot of years. And one of the things law enforcement cannot do is collect data on everybody. So these databases that law enforcement has been using are somewhat limited. Now, I talked about this whole problem, man, it's probably been ten years ago when I first talked about it here on the radio. But the big problem I saw back then was that law enforcement was starting to use these public data aggregators. And I've had a few on the phone here before. I've done interviews with some of their CEOs and their technical people. But what these data aggregators do is take what's called open-source information, as well as paid information. Open-source information might be something they scrape a website, that is, all of the property owners in a town, or they scrape a site that has either information, right, almost everything. They might get feeds from companies like Equifax that are telling them about your credit rating, and you did this, and you bought that. They'll scrape UCC one filing to Secretary of State's office that will say, Yeah, he owns a brand new Ford Explorer, this model number, even license plate numbers they can get. So they'll pull all of this data together, they can get their hands on, and then they sell it. And you've seen ads, and I'm sure online, you know, check yourself online, see what we know about you. These are data aggregators that are selling this data, and it gets used by skip tracers, bounty hunters, law enforcement, all kinds of businesses to determine creditworthiness. They're even used to see 30 news to see if maybe you should or should not get a job. So it's kind of scary data. When you look at it, and I've looked at mine before, when I did these interviews, and I found that about a third to two-thirds of it was correct. Most of it was incorrect. We just had something similar happen when I was out at a wedding out west, and we were at this house. There was a card when we got back from an insurance company and stuck in the door handle. It had the name of a deceased relative on it. Well, you know, she's dead, so they're probably trying to sell insurance. I'm not going to do anything with this card. The next day is when we had the knock at the door, and it was the insurance investigator. She said that this relative had been in a fatal accident with car x. And they were trying to track her down. Well, guess what? She had been deceased for at least six months before the fatal accident occurred. Some third-party had used her identity, and she had to try to figure it out, Someone was hiding who they were. Now this insurance investigator was trying to figure out what's going on. The insurance investigator had her suspicions as to what might be going on. She showed us all of the information she had gathered from these public information sources, these data brokers, and they put it all together. She showed it to my wife, saying you're honest with me, and obviously, you got the death certificate, etc. Sure enough, what did they find? Well, yeah, she'd been dead for a while when the accident happened. But when, when we looked at the details of the information that they had about the deceased relative It was dramatically incorrect. It did show some associations. But it showed people on there we'd never heard of before as relatives. They had relationships wrong. But you know, it was the right place for that insurance investigator to start with and worked well. The police started using these types of databases and the federal investigators as well, because they are not regulated, like the law enforcement agencies are. Now we're starting to see law enforcement agencies, and according to this article in The New York Times, some 600 law enforcement agencies are now using this technology from a company called Clearview. They have been able to solve some bizarre, unbelievable crimes, things that happened. They found a good Samaritan. They found shoplifters they found burglars, thieves, all kinds of things that they couldn't see before because these people had never been involved with law enforcement previously. So I don't know, what do you think there are no limits on the type of data collection. I think maybe we're all going to be in trouble here. Because what happens when someone runs a picture or when they upload pictures into it. It becomes problematic here because these pictures are uploaded, and the company keeps them. Now you've got a blacklist of people that have had contact with law enforcement. What's going to happen when your employer sees that, because this database is not showing perfect matches by their admission at best 70% of the time, they come up with possible matches. Stick around, and we'll be right back. Hey everybody, Welcome back. Craig Peterson here on WGAN and, of course, online at Craig peterson.com. Hopefully, we were able to catch the first hour of today's show. We covered something in this last segment that I want to go more in-depth into, which is this secret company that has kind of come out of left-wing that is going to end privacy as we know it. And, of course, they're breaking the rules and laws all ready to put the silly thing together. And it bothers me, frankly, but above that, right, we're really from above looking at all of this. What's bothering me is honestly, I don't know we call it an apathy where we just don't seem to care that much anymore. We care when we hear about a data breach, and we care when we find out that they stole our personal information. Part of what I'm going to be teaching you in a couple of weeks in this course is how you can tell what information was stolen. So I'm going to give you some dark web tools, the dark internet so that you know where to find out if your information has been stolen. And I think that's important. So we're going to include that in the upcoming webinar, we might put that in as a bonus for attending the webinar coming up in a couple of weeks. But it is disturbing that we can hear about something like what I just talked about the last segment, which you'll find online at my website. That, to me, is very bothersome, but it's also disturbing that we're no longer getting our up and trying to get Congress or somebody to do something about it. Not that I think Congress is the answer well to anything pretty much, right? Anything they touch, they're going to mess up. We're becoming apathetic as business owners, as well as business people. As the person who all of a sudden now is responsible for it within the organization, right, the office managers, those of us who liked computers, and we kind of got stuck with the role, and that's kind of what ended up happening to me to those years ago. Right. I think I'm a lot like you in that respect that, you know, it's challenging to be an expert in everything. I've got to kind of run the office, and I got to make sure. How am I going to learn about all of this security stuff? And then on top of it, the boss is breathing down our necks, trying to get this security stuff done, right. And if you're a business owner, you're worried about it too. But what are you doing about it? And to grease the wheel, I am probably like most people out there, and you really haven't done. You've probably got antivirus software, which, as of now, is utterly useless against the newest attacks. I mean, 100% useless. Why do you think they're giving Norton away now when you buy a subscription to LifeLock? You know, it doesn't do any good anymore, that's excellent technology 20 years ago, but today, it just doesn't work. Collectively as office managers, as business owners, even as C-levels on boards in fair-sized little companies. It's like burying our head in the sand. And we're, we're hoping nothing's going to happen. Right? I'm going into companies frequently, that is, you know, re governed by various rules and regulations, and very aren't doing what the laws and regulations require and they just sitting there saying well We'll just wait for an audit. When an audit happens, if an audit happens, we'll deal with them, then, right? But what happens when your data gets stolen? There are some very crazy things going on right now. We have a client that we picked up last year. It's just incredible. They have a completely new network system, we've fixed up a lot of things for them. I think things are going to be much better for them. We got an alert from our systems that they were getting 4000 hack attempts and our coming from Iran, coming from India, Iran. It is the first time I've got to say, the very first time in all of the years now, but I've been responsible for cybersecurity for all these businesses. It is the first time that I have ever actually seen an Iranian IP address in an attack. They're trying to log into this guy's email account. So one of the employees, and I'm not going to go into more detail than that. But this is real. You hear about breaches every week, and there are more breaches every weekend. It's small businesses, large businesses, home users, just because there are breaches every week, I want everybody to be aware that that doesn't mean that it's acceptable. It may be a kind of standard. Hopefully, it's the old normal, and probably, you're going to be able to find somebody that's going to be able to help you out, right? You go to a company like mine, and you say, Hey, listen, just take care of this for me, or you attend some of my courses so that you can learn some of this stuff that you need to do at least the bare minimum. Hopefully, you're doing that and not just getting passive after hearing about it so much. What's the what's that saying "the first year, you're shocked and horrified by something, and then you become accustomed to it, and then you embrace it." Not that I'm saying you guys are going to embrace hacking and become hackers. I don't think that'll ever happen. But you just get used to that idea until you do get hacked. And then it's all done and over with. Enough of that right now, make sure you're on my email list. So you get my weekly alerts, you get my monthly summaries of the absolute must-do patches for that month. You will also find out about my pop-up training. I haven't been sending out direct notices about the Facebook Lives and things I probably should. Still, you can get all of that just by going to Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe because we've got some great stuff coming up here in a couple of weeks going to do some of the training and webinars to go along with it. I want to move on now to another article that was over on the CNN website. And it's talking about a significant change in a major US Corporation. I was on the phone with them earlier today. We've got VRBO, and you might have heard of them. That's Vacation Rentals by owner. They've been around since 95. You may not have heard of them, but they've been around a long time. Airbnb, you probably heard about them. And you've probably heard about Marriott. They've been busy buying up hotel chains, including one chain, in particular, was hacked previously, and Marriott just really inherited all of their problems by buying that company, keep in mind if you're looking to grow and make any acquisitions. What's interesting is how do you deal with a company like Marriott, which is bricks and mortar? How do you deal with the online startups like the VRBO and Airbnb is, it is completely changing the way the hospitality business works. I kind of put "hospitality" in air quotes here. You probably didn't see me. But is it hospitality when all you have is a home that you're going into an apartment you're going into versus a fully functional hotel? Right? That's the big question. So this is cool, I think, because Marriott has decided not to try and beat Airbnb at its own game. It's going to join them. April last year, Marriott came out with its homes and villas program. And it has 5000 rentable premium and luxury homes in almost 200 locations around the world. It is amazing. It's a significant departure for Marriott. They've been offering hotel rooms for nearly 100 years. But in this case, Marriott is going to do what Airbnb and VRBO have been doing and offering homes and villas up for rent. And this is a part of the whole sharing economy, bike scooters, and homes. That's a code from Stephanie Lennart. She's Marriott's global chief Commercial Officer, when she told CNN, home rentals and being B's have been around for decades, so the core idea itself isn't that new. The new part is technology platforms, bringing it to consumers at scale so that it's democratized and affordable. So Marriott's already had success, obviously through hotel business, and as I said, I was on the phone with him this morning. I'm going to be staying in one of their hotels again. But the company is being led here by Stephanie outside of the brand comfort zone, that you know brick and mortar. It's great. They've been around for almost 100 years. But everything is changing out there. And are you changing in your business? Are you making it easy for your customers to do business with you? And that's what they were asking themselves. They've been kind of tracking and watching the home rental market. She had a pilot program going over in Europe and 2018. That became ultimately the homes and villas program that they had. They found that their most loyal customers at Marriott 30% of them had used a home rental in the prior year. I've used Airbnb. I've used VR Bo, and you know, frankly, I've had mixed results from the two of those different things. And they found out nine times out of 10 this person was renting a home for a whole different purpose and they were getting that from someone else and Marriott thinks that this is a complimentary business and adds to their core business. So isn't that kind of interesting? people stay more than triple the average one and a half night stays at the hotels in these different types of bookings. And they think that they are going to be able to do a whole lot more. They're focusing on some of these millennial trends. And frankly, you know, I'm an old G. But I have to tell you, boomers, age 23% of travelers are age 55 to 64, booked a homestay from 21% in 2017. So it's happening. We're all doing it out there, and congratulations to married for sticking their neck out. And frankly, you might need to two so keep an eye out for what other people are doing in competing industries and maybe borrow their ideas. Listen to Craig Peterson and WGAN. We'll be right back. We're going to talk a little bit about lawmakers and what small businesses are telling them right now. Welcome back. Welcome, welcome. Craig Peterson here online and on WGAN and many other radio stations during the week. Thanks for joining me. Lawmakers have long been accused of being corrupt. I'm not going to defend them, that's for sure. Here is a different type of corruption and one that a lot of people haven't thought a lot about. You know, there's been a lot in the news about Joe Biden's son. Hunter, getting money from Ukraine. Joe Biden's brother getting what is it $1.5 billion from Iraq is the latest story that I saw out there. Nancy Pelosi's son-in-law, getting money from Ukraine, John Kerry's relative getting money from Ukraine, right. You do hear a lot about alleged corruption, and you have to wonder, frankly, how do these Congress critters go down to Washington, DC, nary a penny in their pocket and end up multimillionaires. It's nuts, isn't it? And of course, they exempt themselves from certain laws that we have to live by, for instance, insider training trading rules. If you're a congressman hearing bills, it is regulations will likely be added here or there, or you're going to mandate some action by businesses. It is perfectly legal for you to go out and invest in companies that are going to take care of this problem and charge businesses a lot of money, right. All of a sudden, you're a likely multi-millionaire. If you or I were to have done that, we would be nailed for insider trading. It's long been a double standard. But here's another side of that double standard that's bothered me for a very long time. This isn't business. It includes unions. And this is where a business or union wants to get rid of the competition. And what they'll do is they'll get a congress critter to sponsor a bill that let's say it requires a licensing for something like most states have licensing for barbers. Are you kidding me? What does a barber need to know? Well, you don't know how to haircut. But you know what? A state-sponsored haircut. What does that look like something under the Soviet Union? Well, they have to know how to clean the instruments and clean them properly. They don't use autoclaves. But they do use alcohol and various other things to clean them. So what does that take a five-minute quiz on it? If you want to keep barbers out, you can put together a nice little Barbers association that goes to the state capitol. They say I think for the health and safety of our citizens in the state, we've got to have rules and regulations surrounding barbers. It gets passed. And now all of a sudden, you get to control how many barbers are. And in some states, they have several people who are allowed to have licenses look at taxi medallions in the big cities like New York City as an example. And in New York City, there's only so many of them. And they were valued at like a million and a half bucks apiece, just crazy money, and people suck their life savings into them. And then, of course, the bottom fell out of the whole medallion taxi market when Uber show showed up, and, of course, some of these other wild ride-hailing services. So we've known for a long time that both unions and businesses use the federal government to squeeze out the competition and I don't think there's any The real debate about that it happened. It happens all of the time. The left does it the right does it. They all do it to us. Well, there this last Friday, there was a hearing, and there were executives from four different businesses that pleaded with federal lawmakers to rein in Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. It is a New York Times article. And this was a congressional hearing that was in Boulder, Colorado. They had some smaller companies. Now, these companies are pretty big in their market segments, but much, much smaller than Google, Facebook, Apple, or Amazon. We're talking about such a nose, pop sockets, Basecamp, and tile. Now I have used equipment. I've had people from all of those companies on my radio show before, and those top executives testified that the biggest technology company Companies blocked their businesses. They stopped them from growing. And according to the New York Times, their stories vary. But they shared a theme that tech giants have used their powerful positions in search eCommerce, online ads, and smartphones to squeeze them out, as well as other rivals. Now, when we get down to this, I think it also boils down to the antitrust laws that we have. Right through, the whole idea was, well, we're not going to let companies get too big. We're not going to let them get two horizontal we're going to help make sure they stay in the industry, make sure there's competition. But we say that on the one hand, the federal government does right, but then, on the other hand, they don't do it at all. So let's take a great example of General Motors and what happened to GM. When a company gets to a certain size, the government This side that it is too big to fail. So our lawmakers look at it and say, Oh my gosh, how many voters work at that company. So instead of letting the market take care of the problem, and these, By the way, most of these people probably ultimately would have had jobs, probably better jobs, probably higher-paying jobs. But instead of letting the market take care of it, and split up GM, keep the profitable divisions alive, maybe let GM continue to operate them and sell off the unprofitable divisions or let them die off. Which is the way the markets work, right? It's the fittest survival of the fittest if you will, and that does well for everybody because now you have a stronger company that's doing better. While we're in the car industry. Look at what happened with Chrysler twice now twice. They've been bailed out by the tax. payers. So why didn't the antitrust laws work in those cases? Right? They didn't work. We've got examples here in New England, look at Seabrook and what's happened there and with the Old Man, and the costs that have been incurred by the ratepayers. Then we have this whole about hubbub about tobacco, so what's happening now is these big guys like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, are capitalizing on the strength that they have because of their size. The government regulations, and using it as a weapon against the smaller startups. And this happens every time, as I said, this is a left issue. It's the right issue. It's unions, and it's big business. These are the guys we're talking about right now. It sort of happened just this week in a federal hearing. So you now have these big companies that we don't let the market deal with anymore. Do you think that the government would allow Google to go under? Now none of these companies, to the best of my knowledge, are having cashflow issues right now Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. They're probably not likely to go under. But these smaller guys, you know, Pop Sockets and Basecamp have had issues. They've had products that they've had to let go because they weren't profitable enough, right. That sounds like what GM should have done. Tile? Who knows these guys, right? There is not the competition there needs to be out there. How do you compete with Google? Now there are some out there. I use DuckDuckGo instead of Google because DuckDuckGo does not track me. It does not sell my information. It is a pretty darn, safe place to go. Apple I use because they do not make money off of selling my data. They make money off of selling Hardware and Software and Services right. So Apple, according to Tile, is put up hurdles for their smartphone app that didn't apply to Apple's competing product. The high-end audio company said Google copied its patent speaker technology and use its dominance and search to enter new markets. Pop sockets were to make smartphone grip said that Amazon bullied it into sales agreements and ignored complaints about counterfeits on the Amazon retail platform. It goes on and on, you know, intimidating with a smile. And frankly, as I think I pointed out pretty clearly, I think Congress is part of this problem, not necessarily part of this solution. So what are you going to do about it? Let me know what you think me at Craig Peterson calm. Just drop me an email me at Craig Peterson dot com, and you're listening to me on WGAN. Hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here back on WGAN. It's our last half hour together today but fear not. We have more coming up this week. Make sure you subscribe to your favorite podcast platform, whether that's tune in Apple podcasts. I'm all over the place on any major podcasting platform. You can just search for me, and you'll find me Well, you know, if you search for me, you're not going to find me but search for Craig Peterson, and hopefully, you'll find me. I hope you saw this morning's email because we have covered several features there. We also have links to this week's podcast so that you can watch those, so hopefully, you've got that. And then we're keeping you up to date on the latest security news that you need. The patches you have to apply at your home and your company. The Big ones. And we define big and vital based on how easy it is for a bad guy to use it and whether or not we know bad guys are using it out there. We contacted the FBI this week, because of something we've been seeing going on. The FBI puts all this together and shares it. I want to put a plug out there for Infragard. There are chapters in all 50 states now. I think you will enjoy it if you are the person who's responsible for the security of your organization. Now, this includes health care and financial but even lawyers and doctors and everybody that might be considered part of the critical infrastructure is invited. I find it useful because I do get some excellent insight information, sometimes directly from the FBI through the FBI Infragard program. Now you can have to apply, and they have to do this basic background check on you. And then you can become a member and, and they share some stuff with you. They don't share with everybody else. Sometimes I think that it's, you know, they share with us maybe a little less than they should. I believe they should share with us a little bit more, but it's well worth it if you are someone involved in security. So I, you know, you've got my feeling here already right on IoT, the Internet of Things and smart homes. I have some smart home equipment in our home. There's an apple speaker, what do they call that Apple home, something like that I can't even remember now. And I've got some of the Amazon Echo stuff. I've got a little echo hockey pocket. So there's two or three them in the house, and we've got one of the apps Amazon Fire tablets. And we also have an Amazon Echo two, which is one with the screen. Then we use that for talking to grandkids and stuff, but also asking questions playing music and things. It is so handy. And then we've used Apple home also to hook up some lights and other devices. Now the apple home, by far, has the best security design of all of the rest, it tends to be a little bit more expensive. And there are not as many vendors using it because it's a bit more expensive. And Apple frankly was a little bit late to that game, but we are using it to control lights in the home, which is kind of cool. So if you invest in a lot of this IoT stuff, maybe you've made the mistake of getting Google Home. Perhaps you're using the Amazon Echo stuff, and maybe you are using the Apple stuff there. You know those are the two better ones that are out there right now. Neither Apple nor Amazon are known to sell your information or have big hacks against their devices. I chuckled when I mentioned the Google Home known to share and sell your data, and be hackable. And they found some apps people were using that were recording everything they were saying and uploading it to the internet. So stay away from that. But there are a lot more companies and just those that are in the IoT space. For instance, Verizon now has Home Security stuff where they have cameras will install, and they have alarm systems, spectrum charter also has that type of thing. So you invest a lot of money in that, and you've heard ads on the station here for some of these different you know, home security devices, wired yourself. You don't have to. Why is it just everything in between, right? Well, what happens when one of those companies decides that they don't want to be in that business anymore? That is what's happening right now with Charter Cable is killing its Home Security Service. It's been telling customers that the security devices that they've purchased, they weren't on a month to month. It wasn't a lease, and it wasn't a rental. But they're saying that their devices, the devices they purchased, will stop working on February 5. Amazing, right? So this is Charter Cable, you might know it as Spectrum that's another brand name that they've been using. And over the years, some customers to spend a lot of money on these products that will no longer work. Now I mentioned in the last segment so knows and when I was talking about the big con companies and unions left and right both working with the government to keep competition away. Well, Sonos has done something kind of similar to this charter thing. If you have an older Sonos speaker, they will give you a discount on a new Sonos speaker, because they're not going to support the old ones anymore. And they will then brick your former Sonos speaker. So the speaker that you bought and paid money for a bricking means it will no longer work. There is no way to recover it. There's no way to make it work ever again. That is a very, very big deal until a lot of people upset with Sonos. But you know, as we go forward, this is going to happen more and more and more. You're going to have internet cameras, and you're going to have sensors, they're going to be useless in a couple of weeks. Now, that's bad when you consider some people. It is according to the DSL report. Some people spend 1200 bucks on their systems. So here's a massive problem for you if you are a Charter customer Spectrum customer, and you have their security devices, and this is something that you have to watch out for, right? It's, it's the old question going with a smaller guy a bigger guy, what do you want to do? Companies come to come to me to help them with security because they know I care. They know it's a family business, that we have the whole family involved in, you know, obviously, as well as other people that work for us, versus going to an Ernst and Young, that's going to charge them an arm and a leg. They're not going to get any kind of attention from, but when we're talking about this type of equipment, this is where I think you get a real win. By going with Amazon, they are going to be a runaround. They can afford to upgrade your equipment with you, and I'm not worried about getting abandoned. Buy them a charter partner now with Amazon's ring and boat to give customers a free equipment bundle if they buy a year's worth of monitoring. Well, isn't that wonderful? So if you're an existing customer, you can throw away all of your stuff and get getting new hardware for free if you sign up for a year, and if you don't own any of their existing equipment, you can still get a hardware bundle and a year of service. So the big question is why there's no way for charter customers to keep using devices. They're using the ZigBee specification, which I've had the ZigBee people on my show before. It allows multi-vendor interoperability for smart home products. Why can't they just switch on over to another ZigBee based system? Well turns out that years ago, spectrum devices were firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and unusable within their Normal University. ZigBee devices. So this is a problem we're going to have going forward. It goes back to also data portability that we wanted for so long. Remember Hippo is supposed to give us medical record portability, we go to any doctor, they'd all have our medical records the hospital to be able to read them. And that was more than 25 years ago, and it still hasn't happened. So I'm not going to hold my breath. These alarm systems are going to be able to keep our, you know, keep it useful for the next five or ten years, more than going to be going away. All right, when we get back, we're going to talk about a significant event that occurred last week with Microsoft. And another big event. We're going to talk about what the FBI has been saying about Apple lately. So stick around, and we'll be right back. You're listening to Craig Peterson. On WGAN and online. Craig Peterson.com. Hey everybody, welcome back. Craig Peterson here, WGAN and online at Craig pet

Tocco Divino Salon, 2626 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, CA 95204 Me: Well, good morning everyone. Today, I am in front of Tocco Divino and I'm going to get my hair cut. And we're going to talk with Melissa Sherwood. Right in here right now. Me: And as you can see Melissa took good care of me over in the chair. Me: This is kind of her grand opening, almost? We're getting closer. Melissa: The grand opening will be January, February. Me: January, February. Melissa: Yeah, so it’ll be a while before we’ll have that. We had to get the little details taken care of before we do that. Me: Well, there have been a lot of details as we've kind of moved through this process. That's for sure. This used to be an office building. And it took a little bit at the city. As well as here to make it the beautiful place it is now. Melissa: Oh, yes, it took from the time of signing four months of hard construction. Yeah. Yeah, it was quite a transformation. Me: Have you got any pictures of the before and after? Melissa: I do have. I do have a video it's on Facebook. Of the before and after the full transformation from getting the keys to opening day. Me: Oh, very cool, very, very cool. So, that's on Tocco Divino. Melissa: Tocco Divino Salon Facebook page. It's also on my personal page if you happen to be a friend of mine. Yeah, I'm trying to find some other avenues to get it out there. So people can take a peek. Me: Very cool. Very cool. YouTube? Melissa: I tried to put it on YouTube. I haven't figured it out yet. Me: Very good. Very good. So tell everybody about what makes this different from any other salon. You are the new salon in town. Melissa: We are the newest salon in town. We really pride in making it a place that when you walk in that you just feel at home. That it's beautiful and you feel pampered just walking in. But, you also feel very comfortable. What also makes us different is that we believe that everybody that works here that we're family. And so you feel the difference just in the environment and atmosphere as far as a sense of community, a sense of family. And I think that makes us very different from any other salon. Because there's a lot of talent out there and we do have a lot of talent here as well. But the atmosphere, the environment makes us very different. Me: Very nice. Very nice. I know it does feel very, very homey in here. I enjoyed coming in. It’s my second trip and I was the first one I got to be a chair for. Melissa: Yes. Very true. I don't know if that was good. I was half-asleep. Me: You were a little tired that day. You were a little tired. That was what? Three hours of sleep you got. Melissa: One hour. Me: One hour, oh man. I was a brave man. Melissa: You were a brave man. Yes. Me: Well, everybody, make sure and stop by and see Tocco Divino. And Melissa Sherwood “The Cosmetologist For Everyone Who Sure Would Like To Look Good!” Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you all again later. Thanks. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/yourperfecthome/message

Wanna know about Me? Well, Episode 1 is Up Now! Thank Me Later

YOU: Why the hell is CHUCK KLOSTERMAN on this show? ME: Well, I will forever consider him part of the sports media expanded universe, for his contributions to sportswriting, Grantland, Simmons' pod - all that. So when Chuck has a book of short fiction, he gets to come on and talk short fiction. We debate unreliable narrators, unrealistic reader expectations, a football coach with only one play and whether Shaq has a case for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

Dream Bigger and Build the Life You Want   1:24 Why We Stop Dreaming and Three Steps to Dreaming Bigger 21:17 Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams With Bob Goff 48:47 Encouragement to Remember that God is a Personal God Resources Business Boutique Conference The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24–26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don’t want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT. 2020 Business Boutique Goal Planner  The NEW Business Boutique Goal Planner is almost here! join the waitlist today by texting BBPLANNER to 33444. If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com. New podcast episodes are available every other week. Growing up, I had this aunt named Gloria who I thought was the coolest person around. She was beautiful, independent, drove an amazing car, and had a Rottweiler who went everywhere with her. But the coolest thing about her was that she lived on a farm by herself. She had horses, chickens, pigs, goats and everything that went along with the ideal farm life I fantasized about. To me, her life looked like the greatest life ever. I would often look at her and think, That’s who I want to be. That’s the kind of life I want to have. Well, fast-forward a few years to my early 20s when I was working 80 hours a week at a nonprofit. I was looking to downsize from a three-bedroom apartment with roommates to a one-bedroom apartment where I could live on my own. During my search, I came across an ad in the newspaper for a 40-acre farm for rent just two miles from my job—not exactly downsizing, but gasp! I immediately picked up the phone and called the number on the ad. It was perfect for me. Okay, so I couldn’t afford the rent they were asking for, I had no idea how to run a farm, and I was working insane hours at my day job. So, if we’re being completely honest, it didn’t make any sense at all—everything about it was impractical. But, y’all! It was my dream to live on a farm, so you better believe I wasn’t going to let “practical” stop me from pursuing it. Related: Ep 60: How to Face Your Fears and Do It Scared The next day, I went to visit the farm in person. Once I left, I scrounged up enough money for the deposit and moved in a few days later. At 23, I was living my farm dream. Sure, I had to start a side business boarding horses in the empty stalls so I could afford the rent, but I couldn’t have been happier. Looking back on that experience, I could’ve easily missed out on living out that dream. Because the dream wasn’t happening on the time line I thought it would happen on (like in my 50s when I’d have more money, a spouse and kids), it would’ve been easy to convince myself that it wasn’t the right time. But you know what? More often than not, dreams aren’t practical, and they certainly don’t always come to life in practical ways. Thinking practically is just one of the many reasons our dreams get smaller and smaller as we get older. Why We Stop Dreaming It’s so easy to dream when you’re little, isn’t it? You believe you can do anything, be anyone, and accomplish all the big dreams in your heart. But at some point, life—and other people—gets to you. You get bogged down by people telling you to do more practical things that have a guaranteed path to success. So your dreams slowly start to fade into the background. Related: Ep 74: Find Your True Self and Get Back to You And if you do dream, you play it safe. You keep your dreams small and doable so you can control and contain them. You also convince yourself that dreaming any bigger is selfish when so many people (your kids, your husband, your church, etc.) are counting on you. Does that “logic” sound familiar? So often, we women believe our heart’s desires are selfish. When the reality is, God is the one who placed that dream in you to begin with. He never called you to live a small life, and He certainly never called you to stop dreaming. I know that dreaming is hard. You feel vulnerable (because what if it doesn’t work?), silly (because what will other people think?) and even a little scared (because what kind of changes will this dream bring?). But I want you to do it anyway. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve stopped dreaming—it’s never too late to start dreaming again. I want you to dream so big that if God’s not in it, you’ll fail. Dream so big that you can’t see the path forward—so big that you need God to show up and perform a miracle to make it happen. Friend, this is possible. Dreaming again will feel weird at first, but I believe it’s a practice—not a onetime thing. If you need to get back to dreaming big for your life, I’ve got three steps to help. When you practice these three steps, little by little you’ll see your dreams—and the real you—come back to life. Three Steps to Dreaming Bigger Step 1: Own it. Dreaming again starts with owning what you want out of life. Honestly ask yourself, What do I want for my: life future children marriage business finances faith journey What do you want? Your answers to these questions are your hopes and dreams. And when you acknowledge your dreams, you give yourself permission to desire those things. Because, friend, you are allowed to want more! Related: Ep 78: How to Be Successful at Anything by Starting Small So many of us spend our lives trying to convince ourselves and others that we’re fine with how things currently are—that we don’t want more for our lives. But I’m here to tell you that life is about more than Legos and laundry. It’s okay to desire something more! God wants you to live an abundant life, and He’s prepared to “give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NIV). Your dreams matter. Acknowledge and own what you want, and then trust God to provide it. Step 2: Say it out loud. I know. This is scary! But do you know why saying your dream out loud to someone is scary? Because it makes the dream real. When you say your dream out loud, you take the dream out of the battlefield of your mind, where the voices of fear and doubt attack. Only then, do you bring your dream into the real world, where it can take on a life of its own. On top of that, when you tell people you love and trust about a new dream, you have accountability to work toward it, and your loved ones will rally around you to help make it happen. Related: Say It Out Loud This Year You’ll hear things from them like: “I have several friends in a running group. You could meet up with them to train for your first 5K!” “A guy at my church does graphic design. I’m sure he’d help you with your logo and website!” “Oh, my cousin works in real estate. He can help you get your house on the market!” As silly as it sounds and as vulnerable as it feels, a dream takes on so much power when you say it out loud. Step 3: Write it down. Writing down your dreams is another level of accountability to yourself. The action turns your dreams into goals and your goals into a plan. You go from being a dreamer to being a doer. No longer is your dream just a conversation you had with a friend that you might forget about. Instead, you’ve now painted a clear picture for yourself of what you need to do to make that dream a reality. Your heart’s desires are not bad things or selfish things—they are God things. That’s why I want you to own your dreams, say them out loud, and write them down on paper. And I also want you to get your hopes up, sister, because our God is the God of hope. He will make a way for you and all those big dreams in your heart. Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams With Bob Goff I’m so excited about my guest today! Bob Goff is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker and the host of the Dream Big podcast. If you’ve read his book Love Does, then you know about his crazy determination to not only dream big, but also find ways to bring those dreams to life. On today’s episode, Bob and I talk about: Tapping into our inner child and dreaming like we used to Living an engaged life Getting over the obsession of caring what others think about you Dreaming big for your life again Encouragement: A Personal God One of the things I’ve noticed in my walk as a believer is that so often we want formulas for our faith. We want a road map that we can reference for how God is going to help us through whatever situation we’re going through. But God doesn’t always do things that way. God does not work in formulas. He’s not going to treat you and your situation the same way He would treat it for your friend, neighbor or coworker. Even if you’re both going through a similar situation, you likely won’t experience the same journey or results. Why is that? Does God take someone a different route because He sees something they don’t—or because He likes them more than He likes you? Years ago, I asked my mentor Eve why she thinks there are so many denominations within Christianity. My question was: How could we all love the same God but have different ideas around how to love Him? Our conversation went a little something like this: Eve: “Christy, look at Scripture. When Jesus healed the blind, how did He do it? Me: “Well, a lot of different ways. One time he used water, another time He used mud, and another time He just spoke it.” Eve: “Exactly. He had a lot of different methods to get to the same result.” When we have a certain experience with God, we tend to get together with other people who have had that same experience, and collectively we think our way is the right way. So those who were healed by mud got together with others who were healed by mud, and they believed God always heals with mud. And those who were healed by spit got together with others who were healed by spit, and they believed God always heals with spit, and so on. Don’t we also do that in life? We see our way of doing things and think it’s the only way or the right way. We think, If God did something in my life, then that must be the way He will always work. So our way becomes the rule for everyone else. We think, This must be the way you worship. This is the way you hear from God. This is how you practice obedience. But you know what? God is not only bigger than the box we try to put Him in—He’s also much more personal than that. God will take people down different paths that lead to the same destination: restoration. It’s easy for us to pass judgement on someone who is going in a different direction than the way we went. But what we don’t realize is, God is taking them that way on purpose. Your relationship with Him is personal, so your path with Him will be personal. So, if you’re seeing a friend, coworker or neighbor going down a different path or handling a situation differently than you would, don’t be discouraged. It doesn’t mean God has forgotten about you. It doesn’t mean He doesn’t have good plans for you. And it certainly doesn’t mean your friend is “doing it wrong.” It might just mean that God is using a personal approach with them, and He’ll do the same for you.  

Peggy Noe Stevens is an encyclopedia of great information about many bourbon brands. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences while on the bourbon trail and outside of the state too. Peggy is a pioneer in driving diversity with her leadership behind the Bourbon Women organization and involvement with women-led panels. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them at bourbon tastings and crafting one of kind experiences behind the scenes. Show Partners: At Barrell Craft Spirits, every release is intentionally unique, and can’t be duplicated. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order with code "Pursuit" at RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Use code "BOB2019" for discounted tickets to Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. (Offer good through 6/30.) Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about Wikipedia. What is an experiential expert? Who have you consulted for these experiences? What value do you bring to these experiences? What was it like working at Woodford Reserve? How do you elevate the experience? How do balance the history with modern day innovation? Explain the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the bourbon industry vs. someone just taking it. What was it like when you were named the first female master taster? Do you feel like the media is better today that back then? What about diversity in the whiskey industry? Was Lincoln Henderson your Mr. Miyagi? What are you doing today with this master taster role? Let's discuss Bourbon Women. What was your inspiration for Bourbon Women? Tell us about the growth of Bourbon Women. How do you market the organization? What type of members do you have? What are visitors looking for in a distillery experience? How do you deal with a difficult person in the hospitality industry? How did you help pioneer the Bourbon Trail? 0:00 Did you actually consult him and say you should wear an ascot? 0:03 No, no, he he came. I want to make clear to all the audience that the Ascot was his idea. Are you suggesting I shouldn't 0:15 move forward with it? 0:27 This is Episode 204. of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny Coleman and per usual we have to go through a little bit of news on June 22. peerless distilling is releasing their four year bourbon. If you caught the Live podcast with Corky Taylor then you may have heard about it, if not no worries as it will be released at a later date. We are very excited for Corky Caleb and the entire peerless team for having the will to hold back sales until this product reached four years old. When we get a chance to try it. We're going to let you know what we think to Buffalo Trace to Hillary is now releasing their next installment in the old charter oak series called French oak. The old charter oak collection is designed to explore honor and celebrate the role of oak in making great whiskey. The oak tree is used in this brand vary from country of origin species, US date and even age there's century barrels that are being used from Oak trees that are 100 203 hundred years old. For this newest release Buffalo Trace contained a small number of barrels from France in 2007 and filled them with Nashville number one. This is the same Nashville used for standard Buffalo Trace Eagle were amongst a few others. The old charter oak is now been bottled and will be available for retail in late June. Last week, we ventured out to Barton for another 1792 foolproof selection, that they started out a little bit different than most because it was raining and there were storms in the area. That meant we had to do our barrel selection inside at the tasting bar at the gift shop instead of the red house because they don't allow people there during the chances of lightning. We made the best of it. And we had six barrels to choose from we narrowed it down to three. And that's I guess fortunate that we ran out of samples there with inside the gift shop. But wouldn't you know the skies parted and we got the sample our barrels inside the house to come away with a winner. After selecting it, we found out that it was barreled on to 29 which of course was a leap year. We were also joined by Father Matt, a fellow Patreon supporter and Catholic priests from northern Ohio, who blessed our bourbon for us to mean how often Can you say something like that happens, it was truly a memorable experience. If you want to join us on barrel pics, go ahead and sign up and be a part of our Patreon community@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. If you follow us on social media, you would have seen Ryan and I at will at this past Saturday. We've got big news to share. So you're gonna have to wait to hear more about that one. Let's just say we through 11 barrels and came away with two. That's enough for the teasers for now. For today's show, we have to just talk about Peggy because we love Peggy Noe Stevens, she's an encyclopedia of great information about mini bourbon brands. She was featured back on episode 198 talking about would influence along with bourbon and food pairings with the state as the rave. But this time we get to hear her complete story. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences that you get to see on the bourbon trail as well as outside of the state to Peggy is a major player when it comes to diversity in the bourbon world. She's a pioneer because she played a big role behind the bourbon women organization that we've also featured on the show previously. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them bourbon tastings to crafting those one of a kind experiences behind the scenes. Now with that, let's hear from our good friend Joe over a barrel burger. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 4:04 Hi, this is Joe Beatrice from Bell craft spirits. Every release is intentionally unique and can't be duplicated. Once it's gone. It's gone. Find out more at barrel bourbon calm. 4:16 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. When I was a little boy. One day, a man came to our house. He wore a suit, nice leather shoes, had a suitcase. He took my father to the table and pulled out a suitcase and dropped five nice leather bound books. He flipped him open. The pages were silky smooth to the touch. And he pointed at me. And he said, Sir, your son can learn the world through Britannica encyclopedia is my father very interested in my education. But the encyclopedias I just sat there for pretty much my entire life. I don't think I ever really looked Adam. Well, I might have pulled him out for a report here and there. But the encyclopedia man always struck me as like one of the greatest salesman in the world. And today, the encyclopedia is gone. So where do we go for information these days? Well, obviously, it's the internet. But there's one source in particular that seems to drive the conversation with most people. And that's Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a site that I'm actually particularly fond of, because it crowd sources information. And a lot of the information is wrong to include people winning awards, you see a lot of political efforts there to kind of try to change people's Wikipedia pages. I have a Wikipedia page and you know, people go in there and tinker with that all the time. That's great. That is what it is. So side note, I was the most important Ascot where once upon a time someone else took that spot. But the fact is, is Wikipedia is where we go for information today as a society. Now go on there and look for Jimmy Russell, Jim Rutledge, Elmer T. Lee, Jeff Barnett, you name them any kind of prominent person and the American whiskey scene, and you won't find him. I don't know if it's the brand's fault for not trying to make sure that their iconic people are on Wikipedia pages. Or if it's simply that American whiskey hasn't really crossed over into the pop culture of the internet yet. But I think we really should change that. So if you have the abilities, get on Wikipedia today and add a master distiller go add somebody who's important to American whiskey. Because for a lot of people, if you're not on Wikipedia, you don't exist. And that's this week's above the char, hey, this idea came to me from a follower on Twitter, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram. That's at Fred Minnick again. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 7:05 Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon, Kinney and Fred recording on site at one of our guests place. So we're actually honored to be on site again together doing this. But today that I had the opportunity of meeting Peggy few times, probably probably probably a few years ago was the first time and then the last time which I don't know if that's going to go out and recording depending on how this release counter is going to go but had the opportunity to record her at the higher proof Expo doing some stuff with bourbon and food and chocolate pairings and tasting and stuff like that. And so that was kind of like my really first time really meeting her and kind of knowing some of the the depth of knowledge that that she really had to offer. But, Fred, you've got even a more personal connection to our guest today. 7:54 Yeah. So Peggy, and I go way back and if it wasn't for her, hi would never have written the book whiskey women. And we've become friends. I would say, you know, I don't have a sister. She's the closest thing to a sister I have. And she's the godmother to my son Julian. So, so we are very close. And you know, when we talk about when we talk about bourbon coming back, you know, this woman has done as much for bourbon as anybody. She basically was a founder of the Kentucky bourbon trail. I mean, it was essentially her idea. She It was her idea to create the launch pad of the Kentucky bourbon trail at the Frazier museum. And she founded a little organization called bourbon women. And oh, by the way, she was the first female master taster. worked with a lot of iconic brands and like Woodford Reserve so she's very influential in this world of bourbon. And to me personally, just one of my best friends. Well, I think 8:56 I think we put up on a pedestal and padded that ego enough, we should probably go go ahead and introduce her. So today on the show, we have Peggy know Stevens, Peggy is the master taster and also an experiential expert. So Peggy, welcome to the show. 9:09 Thank you. I was thrilled to be on this, especially with you two guests 9:13 are you know, you you made it? All right, we're 100 and whatever episodes and we finally got you, and you 9:17 waited this long for me know if that's a compliment. I don't know why. 9:22 There was all these rejections because you know, Kenny and Ryan were just, they weren't, they weren't ready for you know, right 9:28 away. Yeah, we had to me to build our build our confidence is kind 9:32 of how it works. Actually, it's very true. They're, they're very sensitive to our various 9:38 crush your ego pretty quickly, there you 9:40 go. They'll look at the text messages. And you'll know exactly like how bad we can, we can really like hate ourselves. But anyway, I want you to first talk about what is an experiential expert, I have something I'm just going to guess that it has to do something with these these tasting pairing things that you do as well as a little bit. 9:57 I mean, that's part of it. Experience ensure, and a lot of people don't understand that word fully. But it's about the experience, someone has been interactive, hands on, you know, engaging a consumer touching them emotionally. It's all of those things. So for years and years in the beverage industry and managed visitor centers, and distillery operations for the consumer. And so through all of that, I learned how to really engage the consumer, whether it be on a tour or teaching or educating or food pairing. And so when I started my company 11 years ago, I decided that that's where I would put a big part of my focus. So I work with kind of the big boy brands and I work with craft distilleries all over creating experiences for consumers on a tour path. 10:47 And so give us an idea of who you've you've actually consulted for so when somebody goes in here, they're going to be like, Oh, I know that Peggy's had something to do with this place. Right? 10:56 Well, recent, most recent, I guess is the Luxe row distillery in Bardstown if you visited there worked with the Luxe family. And the Gosh, I guess that project was almost a two year project very enjoyable. And then the American steel house for Jim Beam. That was my very first project actually, when I started my company, and then that led to the urban still house, which we helped design, and also their Global Innovation Center, which we helped design the interior and what a distributor or retail would experience, you know if they went on tour there, so that was one of them. peerless distillery comes to mind which I have a little peerless today for you. after this is over, or during whatever you want. 11:40 A quarter we'll see what happens 11:42 a little bit on the victors project. And then of course, I go beyond the borders of Kentucky. So a couple Tennessee distilleries like old forge distillery, Thunderbird distillery, and have one up and coming, then it's going to be announced, I think very shortly, 11:58 will awesome. So I guess, one of those things that if somebody is trying to open up a visitor experience, you know, it kind of seems that there's, there's almost like a formula nowadays, you know, you have a little bit of history, get a little bit of retail, but what do you kind of bring to this table that they couldn't just go and say, well, I'll just go visit four or five places write down what I can find, and then we'll go build it ourselves, we need you to justify your job. 12:26 Well, I mean, technically, it is a process because I think that you have to design a visitor center and distilleries in phases, you know, from what is your story? You know, that's where I try to keep people grounded. Where's your authenticity? What do you want the consumer to care about? I call that the takeaway. You know, if you've ever gone on vacation, and you've had a great time, and you get back in your car, your airplane and you're headed home, you say, Wow, that was just a great experience, because you always have a takeaway. And that's what I try to get all of the visitor centers that I work with, to put their anchor in the ground and say, This is what we stand for. This Is Our Story, whether it be history related, or innovation related, or family related, you know, it just has to be true to them. You know, from that, we start to what I call three dimensional eyes it how do you bring that story to life, whether it be through exhibits, whether it be through the production process, or the engagement of the tour guide. And then once we design the exhibits, we work with architects and construction companies to help fabricate it. And after that point, you know, usually we're writing the script. So we'll help with script writing the product profile how we deliver a tasting 13:40 now, when you say script writing, this is like what when you say exactly like your word as much as I can. 13:46 That's right. We we are pretty granular in our business that we even teach the tour guides, how to tell a story, how to train and customer service, how to deal with difficult people on a tour. So 13:58 how to deal with Kenny, you're saying, Yeah, he one 14:00 that actually we teach how to throw out loud now? Yeah, but it's really no more. It's really soup to nuts. And that's what makes a great experience when you thread all of the things together that I just mentioned, because that's when you can say I had a surround sound experience. And so that's what we try to capture with consumer 14:19 DNA. When you had said like, you know, anybody can just open like a visitor center. To me, that's a little bit like, I've had a lot of people come to me and say, Oh, I can write a book on write a book. You know, that sort of thing. A lot of people think they can write a book. But then when they get down to writing a book, you know, they realize they can't do it at visitor centers are actually very complicated AR and and the United Kingdom, go around to the scotch whiskey whiskey distilleries, and you'll see how, how far ahead American whiskey visitor centers are from from those facilities. And actually, you kind of cut your teeth on probably what is considered one of the hallmarks of the bourbon trail and Woodford Reserve What was I did, what were those days like? 15:03 Well, I'll tell you I look back at my Woodford days is probably one of the best times of my life. 15:09 We're talking mid 90s. 15:10 Yeah, mid 90s and 1994 to be exact, and it was a two year renovation, give or take a few months. It was the brainchild truly allows Lee Brown, who I think was probably one of the most intelligent men that I've ever worked for, and worked with. And it was when the bourbon industry was having its resurgence that you know, we were seeing a difference in how we market and the consumer going back to kind of some of the retro cocktails. So it was perfect timing to create this vision for the distillery and so the beauty of it is the team that I worked with people like Kevin Curtis, Dave Sherrick, you probably heard those names. They were right alongside with me on the production level. And we were almost like a small entrepreneurial spirit ticket that Woodford Reserve to where it is the first year we opened. We were so thrilled we had 9000 people and we thought tremendous. And now it's well over probably 150,000 16:10 like in probably two weeks now. 16:12 That's right. But I was really fortunate. Because brown Forman gave me a really great pedigree. I was able to travel around with Woodford Reserve and see other experiences you just meant mentioned the scotch whiskey trail. I went to Ireland, Mexico, one of my fondest memories and one of the best still today for me, as far as an experience goes as a visitor centers choir vo literally we literally went out in the field with a machete and they taught you how to hack with the machete the A gob a plant in your in the dirt and it's hot and sweaty and gritty. That's an experience. You know. So those are some of the the small things that we learned, you know, to try to create Woodford and then I went on eventually to manage the jack daniels visitor experience and all the brand destinations, 17:03 I got an idea for you. So tell me you can bring it to bourbon now. Now you can say okay, we got to go out to the cornfield, you got to go get six Huff's of corn and you got to come back and you've got to get all the kernels off, and I'm going to give you a pest immortal and you gotta get what happened. Yeah, you gotta chop all these up, we're going to make your bourbon in one day. And that's 17:19 experience. That's it. I mean, that's experiential. Because see, I think the consumer these days are so well educated. They want to be entertained, they're dying to be entertained. And so all they want to do is participate with you. And I think that when the industry realizes that and they allow them to play a little bit at the distillery, it's much more memorable, 17:41 too much free labor to its its tracks, 17:43 it will put all the consumers on the bottling line. 17:46 Oddly enough, they'd be like, I'd love to exactly. But another question that kind of goes, I do want to ask you one more while we're on this topic, because you had talked about scripts earlier? Do you still? Are you trying to find people that are like, let's get away from the whole? bourbon 51% corn? Like, is this the same thing? You kind of hear repetitive over and over again? Now? Do you come through and say like, it's just part of like what it is you have to cater to the everyday person that might not know this? Or do you say like, well, maybe we can create an elevated experience that we can slide that in there. But let's not focus on like the basics for a lot of these people? 18:19 Well, actually, it's a little of all of that, I believe in tears of tours. And in other words, there's something for everyone. There's kind of your bourbon one on one tour, where you do learn some of the production methods, but then give the tourists an opportunity to go to that next level, maybe more of an intermediate tour where they dig a little deeper in the production process and the history and heritage. And then for the advanced lover, and true bourbon enthusiasts, you might have private classes or cocktail classes or so I really believe in those tears. It's just a matter of convincing, you know, the distillery that one size doesn't fit all, you know, that you really have to offer because our consumers today, I think it's more demanding than ever, don't you, Fred? I 19:03 do. And they also like to call things out more so than ever, and I certainly more avenues for them to do that. And you got Yelp, you know, you've got Google reviews, and then you certainly have the podcasts and the bloggers and that's right. And one of the things that typically comes up from these, some of these smaller groups that come out, they kind of create, they create a story, and then they talk about it on on their tour. Let's take Boone County, for example. They They told 19:30 us one of my clients actually, 19:31 yeah, that's right. I knew that and they use that heritage. And you know, some people, they're just like, just talk about the whiskey, we don't care about the heritage, we don't feel like it's, you know, genuine to buy this brand or anything. So do you do you ever? How do you balance that, that effort to, you know, to bring out like a cool story. And, you know, staying with, you know, the contemporary desire to not create false back stories. 20:01 I agree. And and I think it's what we all do or try to do is we have to respect our history, because even though it might not have been history of the whiskey, it was history of their culture, and their surrounding area. And that's what Boone was, you know, they talk about their culture of their backyard. And then they tied in, you know, to the whiskey, and so, respecting the history, but then also have any appreciation for the modern day and innovation. You know, where are we going today? So I think it's what I call a balance, kind of a juxtaposition between between past and present. And that's what you have to bring together. 20:37 Okay, we see a lot of these brands that, you know, talk about, like my grand Pappy carried the yeast back on this toes from the Atlantic. And that's not balanced. You know, that's, that's, that's too far. And so like, if you're, if you're in the boardrooms, and you're saying, guys, you can't do that, then God bless you. That's right. You know, because we, we've gotten tired of that over the years, and we still see it, but it's not as prevalent as it was, I'd say 10 years ago. 21:04 And I think because of all the craft distilleries, you know that I work with and for, I try so hard to say it's okay, if you're sourcing whiskey, just say so, you know, tell them where you're getting it, why you chose the barrel stock that you did, how long it's going to be before your product comes out. Because I think authenticity is really important. And that's another reason why I think the tourists don't want to go to distillery after distillery and say, 51% corn, because everybody's going to say the same thing. And it's just dinner in a movie. 21:37 Let's jump on that authenticity thing for sure. Get some of that. Some just hit me, Kenny. You know, we're in this. We're in this day and age where anybody can come in and say they're an expert, a bourbon. You actually became a master taster at Brown Forman. Explain to us what the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the industry and earning that title and and then someone just taking it? 22:07 Sure. Well, I think that in our industry, what so many people don't understand is that we didn't have a formal definition of for example, if you wanted to be a CMO, yea, then you do all the credentials associated with that you take all the tests and you become a summer. Yeah. You know, in our industry, it's kind of truly up to each and every distillery to decide titles of vocabulary credentials, and master distiller is very different than master taster. Master taster is very different than master blender. But each distillery is going to set the guidelines and training, you know, to advance an employee to become in that position. So again, I think I was in the right place at the right time. Lincoln Henderson was the master distiller at Woodford at the time. And I believe it was about 2001, where the general manager of Woodford Lincoln, they thought I had a really good palate, I kind of have a bit of a culinary background. So I think in food terms, and I think that helps so much and identifying and descriptive whiskey. So I had written the tour understood production, I have a bit of a science mind. So they asked me if I would formally trained with him to become a master taster at the time and my naivete. I think I didn't realize that there were no women master tasters in the industry, if you can believe it. So of course I was eager, you know, to learn love doing tastings really respected Lincoln, in his knowledge and years of experience. So we would do you know, sensory training, we would you know, drill barrels and, you know, pulled from it, and he would teach me the different aspects of that, I had to do quite a quite a few things in the production area. And it's kind of like the whiskey, you know, you're not ready till the master distiller says you're ready. And after a certain period of time, that's when they gave me my certificate. You know, it was putting the newspaper and that's when I first found out when it hit the newspaper, it hit the AP. Oh, wow. And went across. And it is big news, that a woman has become a master taster. In a male predominant, you know, predominant world. And the that's when it hit me that this was really something more special than I ever dreamed than ever thought. And I'm happy to say now there's many master tasters, Master distillers master blenders that are female, I just happened to be, I think, in the right place at the right time that that happened. 24:37 Share with us the 24:40 when that news broke the DJ who called you? 24:45 Well, when I mentioned AP, right, hit the AP, so 120 newspapers it hit. And of course, there was so much interest from radio stations, TV stations. And it was something I wasn't, I don't think I was quite mentally ready for in the fact that there was a particular radio station kind of a shock jock that wanted me to come and do a series or not a series but an interview rather. And they were kind of getting a kick out of the whole piece of the newspaper article that said, she doesn't swallow. You know, she swirls and spits. And they kind of wanted to play on that a little bit. And I remember that, that's when it hit me that I was going to be different. I was not going to go along, just get go along to get along. And I said no to the interview. Because I didn't think that that was going to ever be my persona. And that's not what I wanted to be known for. I wasn't going to joke along with it. I wanted women to be taken seriously. And in a way like men would be, you know, and I don't think there'd be too many radio stations that would ask a man to do that. So I said no to the interview. And, you know, it wasn't very favorably received. But so Obama stood by my values on that. 26:06 Do you think we're better today than we were? From a media perspective? 26:12 I think not really, from a media perspective you ask? So I don't think so. But I guess I want to expand that not just to whiskey. I think on a media level, there are plenty of reality TV shows that, you know, try to get the worst of you the angle to make you not look great. I think there are plenty, you know, of Facebook video, you know, you see this all the time in social media that someone's captured at a certain moment, YouTube video, all of those things. And so No, I don't think media is better about it. But it goes beyond whiskey. 26:54 Yeah. What about the whiskey industry? Is it obviously we've seen growth of diversity. But you still, I still get the sense from from from women, that it's not where they want it to be. In terms of the diversity, 27:12 right, I think we are on a great trajectory right now, I think there's never been a better time for women to be in our industry. The amount of executives and vice presidents CMOS presidents of the different distillery or spirits companies, it's really enlightening, and I'm so glad to see it. So there I think putting women in better positions has certainly improved. Look at the production side of things, we have more master distillers that are women. All of that's wonderful. My question, I think, to the industry is really, once you're out in the field, and when I say out in the field, as far as sales representatives go that are female, you know, marketing representatives who do kind of the day to day job of beating the streets and going to bars and restaurants and it's more of how are they treated these days? You know, that's that's the question mark for me. But I know, you know, internally, it has definitely improved as far as positions go. 28:15 Yeah, I can kind of see that. I can kind of see what you're saying. Because you're still going in to even probably the more male dominated culture of liquor store owners and retailers and bars and stuff that yeah, these people have to go and they have to sell their product. I have to probably put up with some shit every once in a while to I'm sure that's probably not far from the case of what you're what you're what you're hinting at here. You know, one thing I kind of rewind a little bit about that you had talked about going up and becoming the master taster with inside of just Woodford or brown Forman in general what was 28:48 Woodford Reserve decision with Woodford Reserve specifically, 28:51 kind of talk about what those that individual process means are like how was how was Wes? Like, your your Miyagi, if you will? How does he mean like in Lincoln? You mean like it? Oh, sorry. Sorry. How was Lincoln? I'm sorry, I apologize. How was Lincoln kind of like your Miyagi here and your Daniel son, if you will. So the wax on wax off sort of scenario, 29:10 he got so caught up on that scenario, that Miyagi? I know, I forgot. 29:16 It was like, it's like from The Karate Kid, you know, you gotta have you know, and you're maybe maybe a Yoda, if you will. Yeah. 29:24 Well, again, Lincoln to me was was so refreshing every time he came to Woodford Reserve because he wanted to be as much a part of it as anybody who worked there. And he was the master distiller, of course, but you know, had to go back and forth to Louisville, he traveled around the world, you know, worked a lot in Japan, etc. And every time he came in, we would have great conversation, he was a foodie. So we always had that culinary tag that we appreciate a good food, good whiskey. And I have to say he was so well liked by the tour guides, and in the management, because he always had just as calm demeanor. And the reason why I tell you all that is because I think that really helped me when I was learning because he took the time to explain things, the very first time that we met formally to train, this was my first lesson, he had a box of toothpicks, and a glass of water. And then he had all these empty glasses, and I thought, oh, we're just going to taste a lot. And he, as he was talking, he was breaking up the toothpicks and putting them in water. And it's the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. And I just didn't understand it. And he goes, he goes, I'm gonna let this sit for a minute, okay. And I said, Sure, you know, go ahead, no problem. And then he came back to it about, you know, 10 minutes later, and he goes, smell this playing glass of water. I noticed it. And then he goes, nose, nose, the one with the the toothpicks in it, and I noticed and he goes, do you see the difference would can make? And it was just this? Was he trying to mess with 30:51 me as he means? Well, 30:52 I mean, it was just, it was just his way of teaching and Little things like holding a Glencairn glass, you know, in the small disk that goes on top to keep the aroma, and he would teach me how to move it back and forth, so that I could look, you know, like an expert, you know, tasting it and turn it off. And then putting it back on very quickly 31:14 reminds me of like somebody at the poker table, they're just roll the chip in their in their hands or something. But 31:18 but exactly, that's exactly where the basic so I guess what I'm saying is, I really honored the fact that he brought me to the basics. And then little by little, you know, we advanced her way into the distillery where I was drilling barrels and pulling samples and tasting. And so it was it was really a progression, I guess, is the best way to answer that question. And, again, it wasn't ready till he said, she's ready to conduct the tastings and send around and do tastings. 31:46 What are you still doing today? In regards of a master taster role? Are you actually helping with other distilleries in this sort of thing like trying to dial it in of what they should be releasing or what their barrel should be at? 31:57 I absolutely do several different levels for some spirits judge for the American distilling Institute. So every year, I go and taste product, you know, from craft distillers and rate it and sometimes identify if it's, you know, has been in the barrel too long or still was dirty, or the grains were mold, you know, so we have to give a lot of feedback. And that's kind of tricky. 32:20 That is, that is tricky. I gotta say that that job is that particular competition and that style of competition. God bless you don't do that running. 32:32 But I also think before we get too far from there, I also want you to kind of explain when you just said, How can you tell if something if the if there's something moldy in the still like, how can you How can you get that from the distillate, or I think everybody knows that it hasn't been in the barrel long enough, 32:48 it's a taste. For example, if this still isn't clean, you know, really clean, I can taste kind of wet corn husk that tastes kind of moldy. To me, there's a rubbery taste, you know, and that's, that means something else. So it's all in what you have memorized in your sensory, you know, as a good or not so great taste. And that helps guide me, any anybody who is interested in knowing how to taste, I try to break it down and say it's really pretty easy. It's about food memory, if you know food flavors, you know, like what burnt tastes like? Or what real great savory, juicy steak tastes like, you know, you can equate food flavors to whiskey tasting. And so the American distilling Institute, which we have tons of fun, you know, we have about 70 judges, I think now that come. So that's one area and then for my clients, I do tasting profile. So if it's a new product, I will actually dissect the flavors and come up with the vocabulary to describe it. And then teach the tour guides, you know how to deliver tasting. So that's a job that I do. And then of course, doing food programs, food and bourbon programs, food and spirits programs. food pairings are kind of my specialty. And that's probably what I enjoy the most. When I'm doing tastings. 34:15 Well, there's one other thing that she applies for tastings. Joe went out, tell me she writes for bourbon plus, yeah, well, 34:21 how can I possibly get 34:23 she does tasting notes for the magazine? Yes, 34:26 I do tasting notes for the magazine and do ratings at times when I'm asked but I really have enjoyed that. Fred's taken a very different way of approaching descriptions of food pairings and bourbon pairings. And so I've, I have really latched on to that, because that's, that's my joy. That's what I really enjoy is describing flavors and whiskey. 34:49 So talk about a typical thing that when you are trying to do a food and a whiskey pairing, or food and bourbon pairing, I mean, is it like, okay, on your left, we've got shrimp and grits next goes well with bullet or we've got this and that, but kind of kind of just walk through what's around on a plate here and how you would share? 35:06 Well, the first thing that I tried to have people do is just dissect the whiskey flavors in general. Because if you don't know what you're dealing with, there's no way you could possibly decide on what food that it's going to go with. And then I created something a long time ago called balance, counterbalance, and explosion. And the balance side is simply when you take the whiskey and you taste a particular flavor of the whiskey that's, you know, pretty predominant. And then you match that flavor. Let's say it's Apple, you match that flavor to the food and so it let's say it's Apple, you know, so a slice of Apple, you taste apple in the bourbon. So it's a balance nothing's overshadowing anything. Then counterbalance is when you take a food flavor or descriptor from the whiskey and you try to do something completely opposite. Very similar to if you were drinking a Riesling wine and eating occasion pecan. You know the reasoning is so sugary sweet that it takes over the spice of the Cajun pecan kind of dousing it. You can do the same with bourbon, with really heavy caramel notes and vanilla notes. I could take an Asian dish and have my bourbon with Asian food because it's actually going to that caramels going to wrap around that spice and it's lovely. And then a explosion is when I want to really do surround sound tasting and I might take a great for example, you know I've got a bottle of peerless here I'm I take a great chocolate note out of peerless rye, and then I'll have a really chocolatey, you know, truffle or majestic to go with it because it's almost like too much of a good thing. You know, you're trying to create a flavor that you can't even believe it's taken over your mouth. And that's explosion. 36:54 Fred, did you know that you can pair bourbon with egg rolls? Because apparently you can. 36:59 The only thing I have now I've been able to successfully pair bourbon with has been like fishier styles of sushi. Like I compare bourbon really well with salmon but like, like, let's say a spicy tuna roll. I've not been successful and fine. I've been able to pair a scotch with that, but not a spicy 37:19 scotch is so easy with seafood because it 37:21 really is. Yeah, but there's not. When it when it comes to some of those more flashy or tunas. When you hear those spices, they're hard to pair to. 37:33 I mean, most of our listeners, they would say well of course you want to go at Jefferson's ocean and because apparently it's supposed to bring in this briny, salty taste to it what would what would be your response to that? 37:43 Me? Well, I or or Yeah, I think Jefferson's ocean is 37:50 sometimes it has brightness to it. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't always get it. 37:54 Well, I remember I was very skeptical. The first time I heard you know valve and putting it on the sea, all of this and I thought you know what, I'm going to taste this thing. And surprisingly, salt is not a descriptor that I use ever when I'm doing whiskey profiles. And I will tell you, I really do get a little bit of that sea salt taste 38:16 as I did in the later batches, I it's been inconsistent for me. 38:20 So what I try to do if I'm if I'm pairing with Jefferson's is not to overdo the salt. You know not to have a real savory dish to pair it with because I think it can overtake 38:34 so go ahead. I you know, we're I don't want to get too caught up in all the tasting side of things because we really want to talk about you know, bourbon women. 38:49 Do you love bourbon? How about festivals? Of course you do. So join bourbon pursuit in Frankfort, Kentucky on August 24. For bourbon on the banks. It's the country wells premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. You will get to taste from over 60 different bourbon spirits, wine and beer vendors plus 20 food vendors all happening with live music. Learn more about bourbon from the master distillers themselves that you've heard on the show and enjoy food from award winning chefs. 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And, you know, your company was a consulting company you've you've been a you know, personal consultant. Yes. image consultant. By the way, She's the reason why I have a beard. 41:14 I told you I've been trying I've been trying with 41:16 Fred This is this when he was baby face when he had the goatee and you're like, you gotta you gotta grow it out some more. Or is it actually 41:21 it was it started with the goatee was the other It started with a goatee. And I said fill it in and fill it in. But yeah, that's one of I am an Image and Etiquette expert. And, and believe it or not, that's come in very handy because I work in the hospitality industry. And so it's about the look and feel of your employees and professionals. So Fred's 41:43 con wrote a book on it. 41:45 I wrote a book called professional presence. And I teach on that still, you know, too many organizations and corporations, but 41:53 when she's with bourbon groups, she just throws it all out the window. 41:56 Do I Do I dress down? No, I'm just so last thing is I 42:03 usually wear a coat and tie to see me today. 42:05 I did not Yeah, but I also usually wouldn't know which one of the nine spoons I'm supposed to use that are in front of me sometimes at a nice dinner as well. 42:12 Well, and you know, it's funny that you say that because that's where the bourbon industry is just been great because it's so approachable. And even though I'm an etiquette expert, and I had a woman at bourbon and beyond from California came up and she goes, Peggy, you're the Emily post of bourbon. And I kind of got a kick out of that, because I wasn't trying to take that she was no, you're really teaching us. You know how to do things and use things. But one thing lesson I've learned from all these master distillers who I really admire is to make it approachable, you know, teaching people what they can do and how to enjoy it, but not making it intimidating for them to enjoy it. Because we don't want to make it untouchable. 42:51 Scott's dictating 42:54 to listen, and he says his way or the highway. 42:57 So the inspiration for bourbon women? Yes. What was that? 43:01 Well, I think bourbon women, for me personally, my inspiration was when I was still working for Woodford, because I would travel around the world. And when I would conduct tastings, nine times out of 10 predominantly male, which was fine that there'd always be like a little trickle of women in the back. And they would only come up to me, after the tasting was over to ask questions, you know, or ask what I do for a living or, or expand a little bit more on my career. And I always found that very odd that they wouldn't raise their hand when a lot of the men would be flooding me with questions, you know, during the seminar. And then I attended a women's weekend and Kiawah Island. And again, this is back in the 90s, early 2000s. And it was a women's weekend not about whiskey. It was just a women's weekend where the hotel was doing different things, excursions etc, shopping, the normal thing, and they asked me to come in and do a bourbon tasting. And when I got there said how many women It was probably 100 women in this room. How many women enjoy bourbon? No one raised their hand. Nobody, no. Time is over. But then I said, Well, how many of you drink margaritas? They all raise their hand? Oh, yeah. Now we're talking Now we're talking. And I said, I'm going to teach you something now that I think you'll appreciate. You know, when you have a shot of tequila in front of you, you're probably less likely to drink that than you are to have a margarita. I said so we're going to start slow and I'm gonna teach you how to taste bourbon, and what cocktails you can put in bourbon. And then maybe you'll decide, you know, the Bourbons okay for you. And by the end of the night we were singing New York, New York and doing the cancan. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was wildly successful. The women had son, they loved it. And so I think that was part of my inspiration. Also, another event that I did, when I was at Woodford, I have a picture of it actually with Lincoln. We did a women's group, cigar and shopping night. And women came from all over Kentucky to attended Lincoln gave the tasting. We had a cigar aficionado there, you know, showing you how to smoke a cigar and then we shopped and it was wildly successful. So in marketing, because I was in marketing for so long, we'd be waving the flag saying there are all kinds of women out there that want to be part of our franchise, but marketing dollars or marketing dollars, and the demographic skewed always to the mail. And it was just really never took off. So when I started my own company, and there's a long way of explaining it, but when I started my own company, I said I'm gonna start my own damn thing. And so with bourbon women, I did focus groups across Kentucky, and I grabbed some really great friends and then in over Manhattan's, we said, you know, let's, let's test the market. Let's test these women. Let's see if they'd be enthusiastic about creating a platform a conversation. So we did the focus groups, I got all my research together, and I went to go see the one man in this industry who would tell me the truth. And that was Bill Samuels, and I sat down with Bill Samuels, and I said, Bill, I have an idea. And he was always great about listening to me, he truly was, even though I worked for Woodford for years, I was in my own company. He didn't have time, you know, to talk to people like me. But I sat and I showed him all the things that we did with focus groups, and he was like, You know what, I think you've got something here. He was the one I used the word earlier conversation. He was the one that said, Peggy, you're starting a conversation. That's what you gotta do, you're gonna start a conversation with these women. So that gave me all the power I needed to know that it must be something there. So we did an inaugural event at the governor's mansion. Fred was in attendance and you should tell that story actually. 46:53 Speech 46:53 Well, when when we gave the speech and in the catalysts for wisdom women. Okay, so 47:00 yeah. So when she, when she had came up with this, this idea to do bourbon women, she one of the things that she would talk about was like women were some of the early distillers and they were always a part of the industry. And kinda you know, how it is when, you know, kind of my calling card, especially at that time, was to find, you know, kind of call people out a little bit. And I was looking into that. It's like, when I saw that when she told me that all right, I'd saw it. I said, That's not true. You know that, you know, no one's ever written about this. There's never been any, any ads. Like I was like, surely if there's this is true, then brands would be all over you, we'd have all kinds of brands named after women. And I started looking at she was right. And not only was he right, I found women that the brands didn't even know about. And so I said, not only is this awesome, I have a book here. And so that was kind of the catalyst for what became whiskey women. And really at that book more than anything propelled my career to where I am now. But it all We joking, I 48:06 just want to say I haven't made a dime off that book. I don't have commission I don't have I don't have title. I don't have anything. movie rights. I don't have anything maybe 48:16 maybe Oscar Oh, like playing the NBA or something. 48:20 Oscars Fred son, by the way, it's my godmother. It's probably gonna be five, six. 48:24 Yeah. Likely, let's see can dribble Really? 48:26 Yeah. Well, the anomaly. 48:29 Beauty of that whole story, though, is that Fred was unlocking something that he couldn't believe no one had. And so I was unlocking something that I knew needed to be unlocked. Yeah. 48:40 And no, that was in that moment, that that's like, you know, you look back on life. And you know, there's probably a dozen moments where you're like, that will always stand out. And that was one of them. And to be honest with you, if you did not run with that, you know, I because now what Berber women was the first but now they're probably we 30 women centric whiskey groups. Sure. 49:03 National. Absolutely. 49:05 And it started with you. 49:07 Thank you. I appreciate that. We're really proud of the fact we were the first female consumer group to talk to the industry. And now we're in six cities formally. We have thousands of women across the United States that attend we've done over 200 events, if you can believe. And then we have our annual what we call sip podium, si p symposium 200. Women came in from 23 states this year to Kentucky to go on excursions, learn about whiskey, bourbon, the culture and heritage that surrounds our great state. And it's been I don't know how else to say it. It's more than networking. It's more than educating, which is what we stand about. But it's empowering. And these women come together from all over they've never met each other and the camaraderie and that's why I always say, bourbon brings us together. Yeah, it's a universal welcome. And bourbon women's not a demographic. We're a psychographic. You know, it's these women are love soft adventure. They're curious. They have bravado, confidence, a lot of them are really just professional women who want to have a little bit of an escape, you know, from the normal business life. It's been probably I would say one of the best things I've ever done in my career. 50:26 One of the things to Kenny that she's that they're doing is that they are getting data from their, from their members and what they released some data recently about where they like to go well, on the bourbon trail, right. And that was stunning to me. He was like, 50:43 Yeah, what do you think about that? I was 50:45 shocked. It was it will. So it was Maker's Mark and Buffalo Trace, they were kind of neck and neck. Those are the two that I always recommend. But then after that was like, who wasn't on there that shocked me like we didn't see us. That's a Weller. You know, we do didn't really see any of the craft brands. Woodford had a small pie, small piece of the pie. It was it was very stunning to me, like what was appealing to bourbon women. From a tourist perspective? Well, 51:12 I'm glad you brought that up. Because one of the things we do do is pride ourselves on some of our research. And what we're trying to do is kind of debunk the myth to the industry. This is part of our mission that you have to pink, a whiskey for a woman to like it. And so what we found universally, whenever we do tastings with the women, or whenever we're at an event, and we're doing surveys or blind tastings, they undoubtedly choose the spicier, more robust, and higher proof bourbon is a 51:45 memory serves. Booker's almost always wins these things. Yes, 51:49 yes. And also, heaven Hill did one more the Elijah Craig, barrel strength, oneness. So that's part that's really that's information that helps the industry because again, you don't have to dumb it down for women. They like it like you like it. 52:05 So as long as Jim Beam and Heaven, Hell are listening, you figured out a new target for these brands, you know, 52:09 our cohorts coming 52:11 along? We're seeing more, 52:14 or any our co host Ryan, you know, he like he's not here, but he he secretly likes flavored whiskey. So I don't think he would want the brands to listen to that part. 52:25 The other question I kind of wanted to roll with this as well is, you know, we've talked to groups about how they start. bourbon societies and stuff like that talk about what the the growth was here. And was it? Was it small growth at first, did you plateau? In the past six months? Have you seen a hockey stick? Kind of what did this look for 52:47 bourbon women? Yes, I would say we shot off like a rocket when we first began. And then just like when you're selling whiskey, it's easy to get into distribution. But then you need pull through or retention, you know, you need that second order. And because we were in Kentucky, I mean, it shot up. But until we went outside the borders of Kentucky we plateaued a little bit. And then once Indianapolis came on, you know, Tennessee, DC, Chicago, in these other cities wanted to be part of this. And that was the unexpected. I never designed bourbon women to be something that we make $1 off of. I never designed bourbon women to really be a national organization. It was it really wasn't there for me at that time. The women spoke to us, the women demanded it. And we listened. And we we stepped up and we said, okay, we're going beyond the borders of Kentucky. And that's when we really took off. 53:48 How are you marketing it nowadays? 53:51 Well, nowadays, of course, largely through the internet, largely through our website, invitations. We have branch ambassadors in each of those cities that I mentioned that are creating events for women and excursions that they can go on. So that's a big piece of it 54:06 are using like meetup com or something. 54:08 We we do event bright we do. You know, it might be what we call meet needs, which are just real simple meet at a bar and have some cocktails together just to enjoy camaraderie. Or it might be a really formal event. You know, 54:21 you said camaraderie, they're looking to make new friends in a new city. So So kind of what is that? What is that profile nationality is 54:28 the the freshest information I have is just us coming off a symposium in August. And it really took me back because the women I were meeting, they'd been to the last five symposiums and they keep coming back and coming back. But this time, for example, we had a woman that brought her five nieces, you know, all female nieces that were 21. And over. And they made an excursion of it. You know, there was an aunt, or I'm sorry, a mother, who brought her her mother and grandmother to this event. We have a mother that it brings the daughter who just turned 21 we have women's weekends, where a bunch of girlfriends are getting together, and they want to go away. And we're the tickets. So we're seeing all kinds single married, Grandma, you know, young 21, who just got her her, you know, driver's licenses says she can drink now. So all of those things, all of those things, it's a combination. 55:24 So it was there. Is there one that kind of fits more the bill than the other? Or is it just 55:29 say that, but we're all across the board. We are all across the board in age, we're all across the board. geographically. We're all across the board from mother, grandmother daughter. And, and I love it. I think that's that to me, said, this is how women come together. 55:48 Are you trying to do something that's that's unique as well just for just for an all female audience versus something that would just be for a general bourbon meetup? 55:56 Well, what's so interesting to me is more and more we're seeing and more men come to our events, because they think we do very buttoned up events and a very deep in the education, which is part of what we do, and we're proud of. So we're seeing more and more men, so men can come to it. But as far as the camaraderie of the women who are coming, it's the it's what they want it they get as much as they want, how they want it. 56:24 So I kind of want also rewind a little bit to some of the had some questions that were lined up from some of our listeners about distillery experiences and stuff like that some things that that they kind of wanted to know. Sure. And in one of them was kind of thinking about, what do you really feel that visitors are looking to get away from an experience there? Like you mentioned earlier, that they want to come away with some some vivid memory? Like, what, what else? Is there something that is? Maybe it's physical, maybe it is intangible? What else do you think is missing there? 56:57 Well, I you know, I've been in hospitality for 30 years. And when you really boil down hospitality, it all goes back to human needs. You know, everyone wants to be heard or listen to or feel appreciated or feel special. Those are human needs. And so to your question, you know, I think aside from saying I had a great experience, when they meet a tour guide that treated them a little bit differently. That's a great memory, 57:25 or they Eddie Johnson's the best ready 57:26 Johnson is magic. I mean, he's magic. That's what he does. So well, I don't care what level of person he meets, where they're from, what they look like Freddy Johnson's gonna make you feel like you're the only person in the world? 57:41 Do you think he could probably just go out and start consulting? 57:44 I don't think you can. I don't think he can teach what he has. 57:48 It's really an art. Yeah, it really is as much as we do customer service training at different distilleries, and it's an art. And I can almost tell the people who have it or don't after doing it this long, but to me, it's about human need, and making you feel like you're the only person in the room. And that's really what so many of our master distillers have done over there like Jim or Jimmy Russell, to me, I call him the gentleman distiller. He was always in Fred and I just did bourbon and beyond, you're on stage with us for the Jimmy Russell tribute. And that's what I quoted was, he had that magic about him, that there'd be 1000 people in the room. But he was only about you at that moment. So when you ask that question, what's the consumer looking for? What's the tourists looking for? They're looking for a special moment where they were recognized, or they had fun with you and being part of somebody's memory, their entire memory of all the vacations they've gone on? You know, that's a real honor. So that's my philosophy of hospitality is to never forget your part as you're part of a family's memory for the rest of their life. 58:55 I think that's accurate for probably 99.9% of them. But then there's the crowd the old bourbon geeks, 59:03 yeah, 59:04 there are. They're out there. What are you? How do you? How do you prepare your staffs for, for the guy who knows everything and won't hear it otherwise? 59:14 Well, the only way that you can deal with what I call a difficult person, and I see the sometimes in the tastings, I do, I'm sure you do. And you do. There's always one in the crowd. 59:26 There, they're always old ladies, for me, like I always have an old lady, lady bourbon has to be from Kentucky. 59:37 Well, first of all, my advice always to defuse the situation. Because usually when you have a difficult person, they love being in the spotlight. And they want to draw attention to themselves. So you have to kind of diffuse that person, like pull them aside and say, oh, let's have this conversation over here and get them away from the crowd. You know, or Oh, great question. Do you mind if when we're on break, you know, we we asked, we all answer that in just a little bit. Because when you defuse it and pull it away and kind of steal the thunder, it definitely helps. definitely helps. 1:00:09 One thing I don't think we did touch on that we need to before we wrap it up is about the the kind of how you pioneered the the bourbon trail as well. Oh, okay. Right. Yes, we definitely need to kind of talk about that be what the original process was the idea? Who did you say something to I heard it first, it was just a brochure like, 1:00:29 Oh, it was definitely just a brochure. But what's really a funny story, and it was more out of I think, trying to do our job, then it was great marketing, creative minds. There were two women in the industry. That one worked at Maker's Mark door, our, let's see, Don anally. And then Doris Calhoun worked at Jim Beam. And we were all visitors, center directors, I was at Woodford, and we were friends because and that's a great thing about our industry to even though we were competitors, we were also friends, we really enjoyed each other's company, we would travel to tourism shows, and we would drink each other's bourbon, you know, and taste each other's bourbon, and we just had fun together. But we were all in the same boat, we had to bring people to the visitor center. And so we start talking about it. And we said, you know, people are going to see you and they're going to see you and they're going to see me wonder if we did some kind of, you know, cross marketing, that these visitors could come to all of our facility and we mark it all together, you know, in a way that it's kind of a road trip. So that being said, So Daniel, who I don't know if you know that name or not Katie, he was the Eric Gregory of Katie a at the time. And we took it to him and said, Hey, why don't we bring all the distilleries together and put it in a brochure and market it so that, you know people have a choice to go everywhere. And maybe we'd save some money on marketing, and maybe we would get more traffic. And so over a million stops later, as reported, this past year, a million over a million stops on the on the bourbon trail. And I'm very, very proud of that. And Eric Gregory, in my opinion, when he came on board really brought the bourbon trail to life, and put it in a marketing, highlight and importance and priority. So that our infrastructure that all of our distilleries are investing in would pay off. And it's worked. And it's worked. So yeah, so I can't take credit, there was me that it was a small team of women. 1:02:33 How cool is that to say like, you were part of the team that spearheaded the bourbon trail, what is now probably the the most successful tourist 1:02:42 strategy in Kentucky. 1:02:44 Oh, easily. I mean, it's it goes hand in hand with with wine country. Yeah. 1:02:49 And again, I will say, I have not gotten a commission, or anything. we debated back to something's happening here. We'll get you a plaque. Oh, no, thanks, Kevin. I'm 1:03:00 getting something out of these visitor experiences. 1:03:04 People should have taken a penny from every transaction at every distillery and then you would be retired forever. It was, you know, 1:03:09 really, at the end of the day, when I think of the industry and how great it's been to me and the legacy that I want to leave. You know, these are the types of stories that I hope people will say, you know, and I hope I'm not finished. I think there's more to come. I got more 1:03:25 in me where we're starting to see the next wave of Peggy know, Stevens, and that's the writer. She's she wrote me some time ago and said, I'm going to be your best rider before it's all over. And competitive. I said, I said, All right. And her stories have been fantastic. Well, fantastic. 1:03:47 I appreciate that. I do have one more question about this bourbon trail map. How many were there on there when the first one was released? I believe seven. 1:03:54 And what do we have now? 23. Plus, 1:03:57 was Buffalo Trace on 1:03:59 he was called ancient age. Also agent at Buffalo Trace was on there. They were called ancient age 1:

This episode we focus on the utopian side of artificial intelligence. It’s not a subject you hear much about these days, and this program is no exception. Our guests have had a lot to say about  AI’s possible horrifying applications. But like most things, there’s another side. In this episode we turn to AI’s better angels—and see if we can believe in them. My guest is Anurag Banerjee, Founder and CEO of QUILT.AI, an early-stage tech and consulting firm that merges machine learning with human and cultural intelligence to create insight for good and for profit. It’s a fascinating conversation. I find myself wanting desperately to believe that AI can cure our most complex social and cultural challenge, and to worship at the altar of AI Altruism. And certainly there’s a great deal that might be possible. But it won’t come for free. We must sacrifice privacy in return for insights that could change our world. And it might be worth it. Anurag Banerjee believes that technology – powered by AI - can connect us and solve society’s biggest problems. Our machines know us. They know what we want before we do. That’s a boon for any organization with something to sell. But what about the ability to save someone’s life? Intervene in a crisis? Prevent a terrorist attack? Or slow the rate of suicides? Will large corporations with profit-hungry shareholders go toe-to-toe with tiny start-ups wielding AI sling-shots? That depends on your mind-set and whether you see the future as utopian or dystopian. Me? Well, I’m on the fence. How bout you? This is not an episode to miss. Thanks for listening.

One thing I love about us human beings is our ability to sympathize and empathize.  Here’s a refresher for those who may have forgotten the difference: sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone, and empathy is when you are able to put yourself in the person’s shoes (often because you have been in a similar situation).  Sympathy says “I am sorry you’re in pain”.  Empathy says “I feel our pain”.  You don’t have to have experienced the same thing as a person to feel their pain, but having similar experiences often makes it easier to empathize with a person.  Got it?  Let’s continue. I know you’ve experienced this.  Someone posts on social media about how they’re feeling and underneath that post is a flood of “me too”, “I went through that too”, “Yeah I’m going through it too”, etc.  The person could say they lost $50 and someone will comment and say “Well I lost $500 the other day.”  Let me just break this down for a moment. Although we should show empathy and let people know that we feel where they are coming from, it is not always appropriate to make someone else’s time of venting, grieving etc. about you.  In essence, when you post your “me too”, that’s what you’re doing.  You may not MEAN to do that, but that’s what you’re doing. As you may know, I am a suicide prevention specialist.  Imagine this.  Imagine this being the conversation between me and a suicidal person: Them: I feel so horrible today. Me: Me too! Them: I really feel like killing myself today. Me: I understand.  I felt that way yesterday. Them: Yeah, my mom is in the hospital. Me: Sorry to hear that.  Last month, my mom was in the hospital. Them: It’s just so hard trying to go see her and go to work. Me: When my mom and dad were in the hospital, I had to work and go to school too, so I know how you feel. Do you get the point?  What value did I add to that conversation?  How would I have helped the individual if all I did was fire back a “me too” to everything they said?  To some people, not only is this frustrating, but it could also be very offensive.  The person didn’t call me to hear about my problems.  They called to get help for theirs. Now let’s spin this conversation a different way. Them: I feel so horrible today. Me: I’m so sorry to hear that.  What’s got you feeling so bad? Them: Well my mom is in the hospital. Me: That’s gotta be tough.  I’m definitely gonna keep your mom in my thoughts and prayers.  How are you taking care of yourself while going through this situation with your mom?  (Notice that I have not yet used a “me too” statement.) Them: Well it’s hard because I have to work and try to see her too.  It’s a lot. Me: Well, I can understand how hard that must be.  I have been in a similar situation so I can relate.  I think I have some advice that may help you.  Would you like to hear it? Do you see how I structured my “me too” statement?  It wasn’t appropriate to just fire it off at the beginning of the conversation.  It also isn’t appropriate to give unsolicited advice.  Let’s continue. Them: Sure. Me: So, last month, my mom AND my dad were in the hospital.  It was a lot on me.  I had to visit with both of them AND work AND go to school.  I didn’t know how I was gonna get it all done, so this is what I did… See how that works?  Sometimes it’s not about what you say.  It’s about how you say it and WHEN you say it. Don’t be so quick to interject your “me too”.  Be sure to give the other person time to express how they feel before you shift the conversation to yourself.  And honestly, sometimes a “me too” is not appropriate at any point in the conversation.  Sometimes it’s just best to let the other person vent and express how they feel.   I hope this helps.  And if you ever find yourself on the receiving end of an inappropriate “me too”, feel free to share this podcast!  I don’t mind at all.   Have an amazing day today.  Show love to yourself AND others.   Be GREAT!

How Nikki Harman went on a journey from being homeless to practicing mindfulness. Plus the best food for mental clarity.Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:From Homelessness To MindfulnessIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food for mental clarity and focus. This food literally raises our brain function to its maximum and it's really easy to find.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Nikki Harman, who has an amazing story to tell. Not only has she been through quite a lot in her life, but what she does now is super exciting as well. So I really can't wait to dive into it, and so let's do it!Nikki welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast!Nikki: Hello! Thank you for having me.Me: You're very welcome!Nikki's storySo you've got quite an incredible story and I'm actually quite honored that you're happy to share it with us and everything. I know that your story, I believe your story begins when your parents split up, is that right? And you were about eleven, is that right?Nikki: Yes, so when I was eleven my parents split up. And at the time just before they split up I was living in a really lovely six-bedroom Victorian house in a nice seaside town. My parents had good jobs and all was going fairly well, but they split up. And because the house we were living in came with the job that my dad had, we lost the house.Me: Oh!Losing everythingNikki: So we lost everything basically. My dad moved to London to go and find work, and my brother, myself and my mom moved into this temporary accommodation, a bed and breakfast.Me: How old was your brother?Nikki: My brother was eight.Me: Sorry?Nikki: I was eleven and he was seven. So it was from the age of eleven to twelve that we were in this temporary accommodation. For a year before we were rehomed into a council flat, so my brother was seven and eight.Me: Wow yeah. What did your father do during this time? Did he just like go to London and not look back, or...?Nikki: He came down when he could. Although he was working most of that time. And I remember only really seeing him every few weeks. Probably every four to six weeks, an occasional day trip down, a Saturday. Most of the time it was just me and my mom and my brother.Me: And so your mom, she wasn't at the time of the split...She was looking after you? Did she have any other work or a job?Nikki: No, she didn't work. It kind of broke her, this whole situation. She wound up having quite a significant mental breakdown over it. She became quite distant and disengaged with us. It was just really quite difficult because I remember what it was like just before we moved out saying goodbye.Packing your life awayWe had two beautiful cats and a couple of cockatiels and we had to rehome them. Just packing all of our belongings, packing everything away. Everything in my room, all my toys, my books, my stereo, my tapes, cassette tapes. All my music, all that kind of stuff, it all had to be put away. And I felt like I was packing away a part of me, really.That was my room, that was just me. So what it must have been like for my mom to pack everything in the house away and not know when next we might see it all.We were told initially that the law is that temporary accommodation means four to six weeks before you are rehomed. Clearly that doesn't happen now and it didn't happen then. And so we didn't really know how long it would be. It was kind of assumed at the time that it would be a short-term thing. But it became clear very quickly that that wasn't going to be the case. So by the time we moved into this room that had just a bed and two bunk beds in...Me: That was the B&B?Nikki: Yes that was in the B&B where we were living, that was where we lived, that was our home. And we were able to use the dining room for breakfast with the other guests, we'd get an evening meal.Life in a B&BBut the B&B itself was quite run down and the people there I think had sort of a prejudiced attitude towards us, because we were council tenants. We weren't normal paying B&B guests, so they treated us quite differently.When there were other guests staying, we got better quality food. But if it was just us, it was very much sugar puffs in the morning, a piece of toast. And then in the evening it was often like a tinned stew or tinned something. It wasn't proper cooked, home-cooked food. Tinned potatoes...They would be as cheap as much as they could. We didn't really have much in the way of quality food.But I was grateful really for having had anything to eat at all, because it was quite the case that we didn't get lunch during the weekends and school holidays because the B&B didn't provide that for us. And my mom didn't have a job, she didn't have money, she didn't have the inclination really to be wanting to do very much in the way of supporting me and my brother. So we'd go quite hungry throughout the days when we were not at school.Me: So how could...I mean, what I don't understand is how could the owner of a B&B have, you know, children in their home who don't have food. You know? Like when you're on school holidays, you're still in the B&B. They still see you every day, they know you haven't eaten anything. And yet they just don't feed you. I don't understand that.Nikki: No, I mean occasionally we'd get a jam sandwich.Me: Yeah. Oh boy.Being kept out of the wayNikki: Something like that. But they weren't like that, they weren't those kind of people. They had their own children anyway. So they were sort of preoccupied with them. They didn't really pay too much attention to us. And actually they didn't want us there. During the day we were kind of kept out of the way. Sometimes we'd be allowed to go and play in the garden with their children.Me: That's what I was going to ask, yeah, if you ever played with their children.Nikki: Yeah, we did, but not very much.Me: Did you have to like stay in the room or something?Nikki: Yeah, we stayed in the room a lot. Me: Wow.Nikki: So it just wasn't a very pleasant experience. And given that we were living in a seaside town....My mom, because of the way she was, didn't want us to go onto the beach. To get to this bed and breakfast we had to walk past the beach. And we were never allowed to go and play on the beach in the summer holidays.Me: Oh that's awful!So close yet so far from the beachNikki: We saw people playing with their sand castles and eating ice cream, and the smell of fish and chips everywhere you went. All these lovely things, and on a hot day just not being able to go on the beach because my mom didn't want us to do that. We would invariably be...we didn't go into town very much because mom didn't want to. But it would be to go into the lauderette to wash our clothes. So we'd sit there and then head back home.I'll never forget that, just not being able to play on the beach. And then having to go and sit in this room on lovely sunny days, and hear about all the real guests in the B&B going off and doing fun stuff. Where they'd been and what they'd been doing. It was all quite difficult.Me: I'll bet. And your mom, I think you said, was she like smoking? What did she do? You said she was like smoking all day or something?Nikki: Yeah, she was a smoker.Me: So you were in one room with a mom smoking all day. Ewww.Nikki: Yeah, not nice.Me: Oh my goodness. And so that lasted a year, yeah?Nikki: Yeah, so what happened...It was a year long in temporary accommodation.A cottage for the winterThe council put us in a what was called a winter let from about November to February time. February March time. So we were moved out of the bed and breakfast and into this tiny, tiny dilapidated, rundown cottage which... It just had frost on the inside of the windows. The only sort of heating was a tiny little fire in the lounge.My brother shared a bed with my mom and then I was in another room. So I was grateful to have my own space. But the sheets were wet from the cold in the house and the condensation.Me: So did you have to like sleep in your coats or something?Nikki: Yeah, it was along those lines. Clothes to put on. But my brother got whooping cough that winter as well, which just made it awful for him.Me: I'll bet.Nikki: The freezing cold and coughing. We could hear him coughing all night and wheezing, it was terrible.Life at schoolMe: And what about...Did you have...I mean, you were presumably going to school, right? How was it with the other kids at school? Did you make friends with anybody?Nikki: No, I became quite withdrawn at school because I didn't know how to begin to explain what was happening. A lot of what was going on at the time my mom didn't want us to talk about because she was ashamed. She'd lost everything. As I say, a single mom in a room, we were in this horrible winter let, no money, no home, her mental health was declining. She just didn't want to engage with anyone. And she's always been like that anyway but that compounded it, that exacerbated it at the time.One of the things she would always tell us was to not talk to other people about what was going on at home. So it was very difficult for me to express how I was feeling. I became very anxious, I was incredibly anxious. Because I just didn't know what to do for the best, and how to make the situation better. I wanted to make things better.Me: And you said you took on a parental role with your younger brother, is that right?Nikki: Yeah, very much so. It was all kind of, yeah, just wanting to make sure he was OK and that mom was alright. I'd be kind of quite hyper vigilant about my mom because I'd be worried that she was OK. So at school I'd just have this worry, and because of that, because of my behavior, my friends became quite distant. They didn't understand and I'd try and explain what was going on and how difficult things were.Homeless even with a roof over your headAnd there was that song, you know, The Streets of London? The song about homelessness. One of my friends at the time, who I'm sure didn't really understand how terrible things were for me at home. But she made a very snide remark about that song that we sang one day in our music class. She said, “Well you think you've got it hard. You should see what it's really like for the proper homeless people on the streets. You're not on the streets so you're not homeless”. It was that kind of attitude that they had.And it made me then think 'well no-one believes me. Maybe I am just making all this up. Maybe it isn't as bad as I think it is'. But actually I knew that things were terrible.I was declining at school, my grades were dropping, my concentration was terrible. As I said, I was always very anxious and worried that something terrible was going to happen.No dad and no moneyMe: And where was your dad during all this time. Because presumably he was working in London so he must have had some money, right?Nikki: Yeah, he had some money, some of it was going to Mum. But obviously he was paying rent on wherever he was living at the time and doing whatever. And my mom, I think because she smoked and she drank... The thing is that she would deny this vehemently now if she were sat here next to me. And I've confronted her about it in the past but she seems to remember that she didn't drink because we had no money. But I can remember her, I can specifically remember her drinking a lot and smoking a lot. So where that money was going I don't know. I had no contact with him really because, you know, mobile phones hadn't been invented, we didn't have a phone. We had the phone at the B&B when we were staying there. And in the winter let there was a phone box down the road that we went to on a Wednesday evening. He would phone us at seven o'clock, phone this phone box number and we would speak to him. But mostly it was my mom wanting to speak to him. So we got a little bit of time to chat then, but he didn't really know the main things that were going on at the time because I didn't want to worry him. I kind of just held it all in, really.Things start to get better at firstMe: And then how did it start to get better? Because I mean eventually I know that you got out of...you got into the council flat. And then after the winter let was that much better? Or how was that different?Nikki: Well after the winter let we moved back into the bed and breakfast again for about another four months.Me: A different one, yeah?Nikki: Back into the same one. Me: The same one? Oh!Nikki: The same place. Bar one week where they'd been booked so we stayed in the bed and breakfast next door which was lovely. The loveliest people there who cared for us and they were genuinely interested in what we were doing. And it was so sad to then have to go back next door after that. But yeah we were there until June eighty-seven.And then we moved to this beautiful, lovely, I say council flat. But it was like a Victorian building with beautiful views over the sea and large rooms everywhere. A very spacious flat. It was like the best sort of place you can imagine after being stuck in a B&B and a winter let to be able to have our own bedroom and our own space and all that kind of stuff.Me: Did the food situation get better at that point?Nikki: Not initially because Mum still didn't work. She was pleased that we were out of the bed and breakfast, but at that point the divorce started to come through. And so she was still going through her issues and she took quite a decline in her depression and her depressed state. I became increasingly worried about her.A harrowing trip home from schoolMe: Were you afraid that she might, you know, take her own life or something?Nikki: Well she did try once when she picked us up from school in her car.Me: With you in the car?Nikki: With us in the car, yeah. She would often be smelling of alcohol when she picked us up and sometimes she would be taking temazepan. So sometimes she would be quite drowsy at the wheel. I can remember having to kind of steer the car back on the road because she was kind of swerving a bit in and out.Me; That must have been scary.Nikki: It was very scary. But one particular day she was very agitated and upset about something. And when we drove back she took us on a different route to the way back home. We were going up some country roads and there was a coach in front of us. And she started putting her foot down and speeding up trying to get closer to this coach. She then just announced, “How would you like to go to heaven, kids?”Me: Oh wow.Nikki: And we both started screaming. I sat in the front and my brother was in the back.Me: How old were you then?Nikki: I was twelve at that point and my brother was eight. And I was turning to face my mom and holding my brother's hand in the back seat to try and reassure him. Putting my hand on my mom's arm to try and stop her, and shouting at her to stop and slow down. Just asking her to kind of know that we loved her, we didn't want to die, we wanted to help her and other people wanted to help her.Trying to think like an adultI can distinctly remember trying to think, 'What would an adult say if they were in this car now? What would an adult do to fix this problem?' That's what I remember thinking at the time, what would they do. So I was trying to knock the car out of gear to see if I couldn't do that... I was just pulling at her frantically, and something made her slow down.Me: Wow.Nikki: We headed back home, back into town. But she blamed us, that at that point it was all our fault that she was still alive because she wanted to die. Saying she'd never forgive us and all this kind of stuff that was just pointless.Me: Well and it made it doubly hard for you, right?Nikki: It did, but I just felt so worried for my mom. And when we got back, she then said, “Don't tell anybody that this happened. If you tell anybody, then you'll get taken away from me”.Me: Well you would, yeah.Nikki: I didn't, I didn't say anything.Back on solid groundBut I do remember getting out of the car and touching the ground with my hands. I had to have the front and the back of my hands on the ground because I felt like I'd gone to jelly at that point. The adrenalin had worn off and I was in shock. I just needed contact with the ground to know that I was safe. And then we went off into the garden and she went upstairs and it was never mentioned again. And, you know, again, trying to get my head round all of that with her...Me: Wow.Nikki: She denies that it ever happened, she doesn't remember it. Well she does, I'm sure she must have some recollection of that time in her life. But so she was very depressed.And then going into that flat, although it was great because we had our own space, it just increased our isolation. Because what happened was that she just locked herself away. And because it was coming up to the summer holidays again in eighty-seven, she just hid herself away and me and my brother were in the same situation. Looking after ourselves, and no food in the cupboards. Only what was packed from when we were living in our house, so we were basically helping ourselves.Foraging for foodThis might sound really disgusting, but we'd be really, really hungry and be raiding the cupboards and finding chocolate powder. We'd just eat spoonfuls of dried cocoa powder, chocolate powder. And golden syrup, mixing it with golden syrup to make like a yucky paste just to get something into us. We'd have cereal in the mornings and in the evenings a very basic meal that Mum might come out and make. But she often kind of forgot about us because she was in her own world of depression.Things were very difficult for a long, long time and slowly things improved. Slowly things got better for her and subsequently got better for us. She got herself a job...Me: And how do you think things got better? Like was there any specific thing that started to happen? Or was it just like time healing things?Nikki: I think possibly the fact that there were people...she was on someone's radar. I think one of the local church groups had found her and were trying to connect with her and make contact with her and just try to help her through her darkest days. And I do remember them coming round to see her and she wasn't that bothered by them particularly. But there was somebody there for her to talk to and that was the most important thing that she needed at that time, was an adult.Me: An adult, yeah.Nikki: And it was the most important thing for me and my brother because that meant that someone else was there to share our burden.Me: Oh yeah definitely, you didn't have to be the adult anymore, yeah. Wow.A slow recovery with people to talk toNikki: So it was just a very slow, gradual process. And then she met somebody and things got better from that perspective. You know, her self-esteem improved and she came out of her depression and got on an even footing. But it was over a very long period of time, it took a good...I'd say it took a good twelve to eighteen months for her to get herself on an even keel.Me: Well still though compared to some people that...I mean I know it wouldn't...it didn't feel quick to you, but if I hear twelve to eighteen months, like there are a lot of people that stay in the situation she was in for years and years. So it's a blessing that at least, you know, as horrible as it was, at least she did get out of it eventually, right?Nikki: She did. My mom's a very complex character and I'm not in contact with her anymore because of just the way she's behaved and treated me. And it's a very complex relationship that I have with her, but she never really wanted me. That was the basic...I kind of grew up with that knowledge that she wished I'd never been born. She would often say that to me. And she would often say, “I can't wait till you're eighteen so you can leave home” or “I wish you'd never been born”. You know, those kind of things would come up quite a lot.Trying to do the right thingBut I've always tried to do the right thing. I've always tried to be there and to be the model child that she wanted me to be. I was never good enough for her in her eyes, things like that. It was never going to work. My mom has taught me to be a good parent but by knowing the right way to do stuff rather than the wrong way to care for your children.Me: Yeah. For sure.Starting a businessWhat prompted you to start your business? Was it one incident in particular?Nikki: Well I'd started meditating twenty years ago after I qualified as a nurse. And I found that meditation worked really well for stress and for coping with everything that was going on. As a nurse in a busy hospital you see all sorts of things that affected me. I was quite affected by some of the things and I found that meditation was a really good tool. And when I was going through the difficult period with my husband before the divorce, before I made the decision to end the marriage I was trying to save it. Using meditation as a method of trying to keep my sanity and work through things.And I decided one of the outlets of doing that was writing a course to teach adults how to meditate. That's when I began. I started having groups of people round to teach my four-week course as an introduction into mindfulness and meditation and then it developed from there.My motivator for me when the marriage ended in 2014 was to put my energies into the business and into helping others go through difficult periods in their life by using meditation and mindfulness as a tool.Getting out of your comfort zoneSo I wrote a book called The Gem In The Dust which is about just sort of finding your light within you through whatever difficult period you're having to be able to... Imagine you're sitting in a ragged old sofa and you've got comfortable. You've found your groove in the sofa. And you have to make that choice one day. Whether or not to stay in that groove or to stand up and be uncomfortable for a while and push yourself out of your comfort zone to find out what's really going to work for you. Because you can sit and pretend all you like that your life is good, that your life is happy. But you know that somewhere inside you there's something not quite right. Or eating away at you slowly. Or making you depressed, or anxious or worried or fearful of change. Ultimately you can't ignore that.So The Gem In The Dust is about just being able to find that within you. That power within you to make changes in your life for the positive, for the good. And so I wrote the book and wrote a six-week course to go with it and now teach people that as well.Me: So is the book and the course...those are available from your website, right?Nikki: The book hasn't been published yet, I'm still looking for an author. I can teach the course and I've got my manuscript and I've kind of put it on a back burner for a little while. But I do need to get going with pushing it again and either self publishing or go down a publisher route. Because I want it to work, I want to get it published and I want to reach out to these people.Giving herself therapy by helping othersSo that was enabling me and kind of giving myself therapy throughout the whole sorry tale really of going through that period in my life. That's how the business started.Me: And then now you said that you're doing really amazing things with children, can you say a little bit about that?Nikki: Yeah, I love working with children. I became a Connected Kids tutor and trainer. Connected Kids is founded by this amazing woman called Lorraine Murray who started teaching the courses about twelve years ago. There are three levels and I did the first level which was just a one-day introduction into teaching kids meditation and loved it.I realized that my true passion was working with kids to teach them how to connect with themselves, how to regulate their emotions, how to understand their own world within them and make sense of the world around them and make empathic connections with others. And Lorraine Murray calls us the Peace Pioneers, you know, the people trying to generate peace and harmony and balance into our own world with kids as well. I then went off and became a tutor and then did the trainer module so I now teach adults how to teach children meditation through the Connected Kids courses.Nursing and mindfulnessAnd through my work as a nurse I'm incredibly passionate again about making mindfulness part of the clinical toolkit that we as healthcare professionals can use with children in hospitals and hospices and wherever. I did the introduction course, the Connected Kids introductory course specifically for healthcare workers who work with children in the clinical setting. So I'm hoping to get that running, get that off the ground quite soon. I'm just waiting for someone to take me up on it so that I can start teaching it. Because it does work, I've seen amazing results from teaching kids how to meditate and how to use mindfulness in their lives.Me: Yeah, I mean I think...one of the things that...another thing that really struck me with your story was some of the reasons why you wanted to share this story. And I would love if you would share those because I think it's really important.Nikki: My passion is about helping kids to develop resilience. To learn to be more emotionally connected to themselves and those around them. And to teach adults how to make that connection with their kids or the children that they work with.Being open about mental health issuesMe: But I mean you've also got reasons for sharing your personal story, right? I think you said something about breaking down barriers and addressing the sense of shame that comes... Do you want to say anything around that?Nikki: Yeah, I'm quite open about discussing these things. Because the more it's buried, the more mental ill health is hidden away, the more difficult it becomes to deal with it. And the more difficult it becomes to address it. I want to break down those barriers to reduce that stigma of mental illness. And to accept that it's OK to have a mental health problem. It's not something to be ashamed of. And the more you reach out and access help, the better your chances of recovering and getting treatment are for the problems that you've got. So the worst thing that anybody can do is to pull the shutters down and hide away and pretend that there's nothing wrong.Me: For sure.Where to find NikkiAnd so where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing? I mean I'll put the links below obviously but it would be good if you could mention where they can find you.Nikki: Sure, well my website is inner space project dot com. And I'm also on Facebook, so it's Facebook dot com forward slash inner space project. I'm on Twitter as at the mindful nurse. So they've got those places they can find me and my website will have all the information about the courses I'm doing. I've got my blog as well which I write on which is inner orange dot blogspot dot com. That has a lot of my personal story on there and how it relates to meditation and mindfulness and wellbeing. But there's also a lot of information about meditation and mindfulness as well. And videos that I put up on there from time to time that you can watch too. So yeah, those are places you can find me.Me: Super! OK.Nikki's Food For Thought campaignOh and there's one last thing that we didn't actually mention, which was you're involved with something called food for thought?Nikki: Yes, Food For Thought is a campaign that I've started in the run up to the summer holidays. Based on again my own personal experience of homelessness where we just sort of... Just seeing the rise in the number of families that are accessing food banks and the 3-day emergency food parcels. They're really in food crisis... This goes up over the summer holidays because kids aren't getting their free school meals. And they're often missing meals as a result. Or families are working extra hard because they've got to pay childcare costs. So things like that. They're turning more to food banks than ever before.So the Food For Thought campaign is about raising that awareness and asking people just to donate something to put into their local food bank the next time they go shopping. Or to find their local churches who will be... most around the country do some sort of food collection for food banks.Finding a Food Bank near youMe: And so what's the best link? I'll link to Food Bank in the notes, but what would the url be for that?Nikki: Well there's the Trussell Trust which is a charity that do food banks. They've got four hundred and twenty food banks around the country. So that's one of them.Me: OK so people could just Google 'food banks', right? With their locality and then they would find the nearest food bank.Nikki: Food banks. That's right.Me: OK so that's probably the easiest way. Super! Well thank you so much for being here to share your story Nikki, I really appreciate it.Nikki: Thank you for listening.Me: You're very welcome. I mean I think what you're doing now is very amazing. I think it's so important to help kids be more resilient and self-confident and, you know, it's good for everybody really. But it's particularly nice for children.Thank you thank you! Bye for now!Nikki: You're welcome.The best food for mental claritySo, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you the best food for mental clarity. And that food is dark, leafy greens!The reason I mention dark, leafy greens is because they contain a lot of a particular element that is really important in many a food for mental clarity. That element is chlorophyll.Chlorophyll is said by some to be the 'blood' of plants. Because it's the green power that plants get by basically absorbing sunlight. So by taking in chlorophyll, you're literally taking in the energy of the sun.You can find chlorophyll not only in dark leafy greens, but also in superfoods like blue-green algae, spirulina, chlorella and wheatgrass, all of which have a very concentrated level of nutrients that really ramp up the oxygen levels in the body. They therefore are excellent foods to keep our minds sharp, focused and clear, so if you're faced with difficult decisions for example, these foods can literally help you focus.Many other benefits of chlorophyllNow I think you won't be surprised when I tell you that chlorophyll is good for so many things, it's ridiculous. I mean, if you've ever Googled 'help with' followed by any kind of health ailment or condition, chances are you've seen dark leafy greens listed as one of the foods to eat, because of their levels of chlorophyll. They're good for just about everything from arthritis, toxicity, cancer, digestive issues, oral health and more. I'll link to an article in the show notes that goes into more detail if you'd like to read more.How you eat leafy greens for more chlorophyllAs to how you eat these lovely green leaves, well salad is the obvious answer...but of course you can also blend a handful of spinach, kale, chard or other mild greens with some fruit to make a green smoothie. It doesn't have to taste green, and this is a great way to get greens into people who otherwise wouldn't eat them.I've got lots of recipes that use greens in my 5-Minute recipe ebooks, which I'll link to in the show notes as well.Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story. I hope you enjoyed it!And of course if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your particular situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESMore about chlorophyll here: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/other/health-benefits-of-chlorophyll.html5-Minute Mains and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/To find your local Food Bank (in the UK): https://www.trusselltrust.org/get-help/find-a-foodbank/About Nikki HarmanNikki Harman is a mindfulness coach, Connected Kids™ children's mindfulness tutor and trainer, and registered general nurse (RGN) working part time in the NHS. Specialising in working with children, Nikki has worked successfully with her clients. She also teaches adults to explore how to move out of their comfort zone to achieve a goal or dream. Her blog is based on professional information, mixed with personal experience. Nikki has written a course for healthcare professionals who work with children in the clinical environment to teach mindfulness techniques as part of their toolkit.www.innerspaceproject.comwww.innerorange.blogspot.comTwitter https://twitter.com/themindfulnurse Facebook https://www.facebook.com/innerspaceproject/

How Fiona Robertson travelled the world on a shoestring, discovering her life path as she went. Plus the best travel food ever!Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:Adventure was my missing nutrientIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best travel food I know. It's not only packed with nutrients and easy to carry everywhere, but it's also the best food to help eliminate parasites from the body.OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.I am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Fiona Robertson, the Body Whisperer, who helps people understand who they want to be. Fiona has travelled all over the world and has some amazing adventures to share with us which I think you will find very inspirational.So Fiona, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast!Fiona: Yeah, thank you very much for having me. Thanks for inviting me. Nice to meet you here finally, face to face.Me: Yes, exactly! Cause we've known each other for a while, right? But it's been like an internet based...Fiona: An internet-based friendship, yeah, I know (laughs).Fiona's storyMe: Super! So I know that you've got, you've had quite a lot of adventures, but I think you mentioned that your taste for adventure perhaps came from your childhood. Is that right? You said you felt quite different as a child, can you maybe explain why?Fiona: Yeah, 4 years old we went to South Africa to live as a family. We kind of grew up with no shoes. So basically just kind of playing with lizards and centipedes and understanding all about nature and just wanting to be outside climbing trees, being a tomboy.A different way to grow upIt was just a different way for me to grow up. And when we moved back to the UK, I realized I was just different. I wanted to be outside playing in different ways and not playing giggly, schoolgirl games.Me: So how old were you when you moved back to the UK?Fiona: I was nine. Yeah, nine, nine and a half, something like that. Just kind of old enough, over the formative years, you know, that I'd really got a different country and kind of life under my skin. You know, I'd learnt Afrikans, I'd learned there was another language, I'd learnt there were different things going on. We were in South Africa at the time of apartheid as well, so you get a lot of different experiences, you know? We travelled there too on holiday of course.You see, I didn't think it was different, but it is, you're in a game park for a holiday and there's cheetas walking in the car park. It's exciting! And that's what my story's about, I didn't realize that adventure was so under my skin.Into the militaryMe: And so you said that you signed up to work with American Express in the military, is that right?Fiona: Yeah, one of my first jobs when I finished college and school and everything, I didn't want to go on to be an interior designer. That was my dream. But when they mentioned to me that it was four years foundational course and then I could specialize, I was like, “You've got to be kidding me! I can't sit still for that long! I've gotta be out there doing something!”I was interested in travel and so I got a job with American Express and it was on the American Air Force bases in the UK. So I started in High Wyckham and I was basically doing their travel tickets, their military travel tickets, then I ended up going and reliefing on the other different air force bases. So Greenham Common, Huntingdon, the ones in East Anglia, and just travelling around and doing that. Going and doing my travel, my specialist travel stuff for the American air force base.A different worldIt was cool because you walk into a different world. You go on the American an air force base and that land is owned by America. They have their happy hour, they have their bowling alleys, they have their shops, they have their own ways and cultures of doing things.Me: Wow. That just strikes me as really weird, you know? Like I've never, I mean even though I've lived in the UK for quite a while now. I've never been on any of the bases, and so part of me always just thinks, 'you're not contributing to the local economy', you know.Fiona: Oh they are, they don't all live on base, they live outside. But that was when I was nineteen, I started working on the American air force bases.The perfect job in travelLooking back now I just think what a perfect job for me. Working in travel and on an American air force base, you know?Me: So you organized travel for them, is that right?Fiona: I organized travel for them and basically with the old Prestel sets and the old ABC travel guide books we found air flights and all that kind of stuff. So I took all my exams for APTA travel. After that I went on to do incentive travel and after that I went on to sort of venue finding. Anything to do with people and traveling and moving. But incentive travel was very interesting, I liked that too.Me: What's incentive travel?Fiona: Imagine that you've got top salesmen and saleswomen and they're given an incentive. If they're the top team in the whole company in the whole of the country, then they get sent to some glorious destination and everything's paid for. So we used to organize all that, you know? With the ground agents and meals and restaurants. Down to exactly what kind of napkins would be on the table. It was like organizing a big wedding every few months, you know? Everything from the chauffeurs to the taxis to the kind of color-coordinating the flowers, everything.Import, export and video camerasMe: And then you went into a very different kind of business, right? With video cameras or something?Fiona: Yeah, I had another job in between time working for actually Ocean Pacific and I was on the export desk there. And I used to do all the certificates of export, and that was interesting for me. Because other people couldn't understand what these guys were saying, and I was just able to tune into what maybe the Greeks or the Spanish or the...You know, they were speaking pidgin English and wanting to be understood and then I was able to tune in somehow to what they were actually trying to tell me.And then I went on selling military cameras into industry, and again I worked with a lot of people from all over the world. So I listened to their languages and I listened to their accents and I understood about their culturesMe: So what happened when you wanted to go travelling? Because you said that at one point you had this business and then you sold it, is that right?Fiona: Yeah, from running the company I was working with I then set myself up for myself and found all my own clients and things and did that for two or three years. And I woke up one morning and thought 'God do I want to be doing this in five years' time? No! Two years? No!'Time to go travellingMe: So was there any specific incident that prompted this decision? Or was it literally from one day to the next waking up and going 'I don't want to do this'?Fiona: I thought that the company that I'd set up was my baby. I'd been with this other guy who was in the same industry though he ran a different company. So when we split up I think that was probably one of the kick up the backsides. I just said, “No, this is my baby, I want to hang onto this baby, this company” because Vision Source was my baby.But then when I woke up in the morning I just went, 'oh my God what am I doing? Do I really want to be doing this?' And when it was such a loud, resounding 'no', I couldn't not listen to that. I really had to think, 'no I'm just not going to be satisfied, it's going to kill me if I stay in this office and do this'. Even though it was doing really, really well.I managed to find somebody who was interested in selling, I sold the company to them. I rented my house out and I just took a rucksack and started travelling around the world.Me: So then how did you start? I think you said you bought an around the world ticket or something? I'm asking because, you know, if there's somebody listening who thinks 'oh I'd really like to travel around the world', I think some people wouldn't even know where to start, you know?A pink-haired rebel going round the worldFiona: Yeah, I was thirty-nine, I dyed my hair pink. Me: That's hilarious!Fiona: I was like wanting to be rebellious. Most people when they see the photographs kind of say, “Were you fifteen then?” and I say “No, thirty-nine, dyed my hair pink”. And I had my rucksack, a friend just said, you know, grab a rucksack. You buy a ticket that goes one direction around the world, and you can't go backwards so you always find a destination that forwards. And I think I didn't go that off the grid really. Thinking about it in retrospect it was fairly obvious.South Africa I started because that's where I've still got family living. Then, you know, Thailand, Singapore, Fiji, Cook, New Zealand, Australia and America. I really did not want that to end. That was just...no way.Me: But I think at the beginning I mean I imagine you would have had a decent amount of money to do that from the sale of your business, right? At some point did the money run out? I ask because you said that at one point you were just very trusting and that you thought, 'OK how can I just go to this new place with no money and nowhere to stay?'Fiona: I didn't...the business wasn't sold until I came back from my travels. They owed me the money. They were supposed to be selling my cameras and selling everything while I was away, and they just basically didn't. So I had to sort of deal with things until I came back. And my house that was rented only rented for a few months rather than for the whole year. So yes.Me: Wow.How travelling can be cheaper than staying at homeFiona: In fact it's cheaper to travel around the world than it is to live in a house and try and support yourself.Me: Whoa, you're kidding! Really?Fiona: No, I mean you stay in backpackers. You've got no material needs, you've got your shorts, your t-shirts, your toothbrush, you bring everything back to real, real basics. So you've got a book, you finish a book, you swap it for another book. It's just cheap. You stay in youth hostels, you meet fantastic people. Some of them obviously an awful lot younger than I was at the time. I was thirty-nine, they were all on their first out of university experience, they were travelling the world finding out who they were. And I didn't do that till later, but...Then you've also got different generations who decide to do it. But staying in youth hostels, they're pretty much...they're a good crowd of people. And when I really kind of left my rucksack in the first place, I locked it up, I tied it up, I did all the things that I thought I had to do. And then I walked out of the youth hostel and I went, 'no, damnit, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna unlock everything. We're all in the same boat, we're all from different countries, we're all in the same boat. I've been travelling on an open-sided bus in a tent, on ants' nests and all the rest of it. This is not gonna be a problem for me'.A successful mental mindsetSo mental mindset: “I' am not gonna have any problems with anybody touching any of my stuff. I got nothing they want to steal, we're all in the same boat, we've all got like...” We had our old CD players, we didn't have mobile phones and those kind of things then.Me: That's true, yeah.Fiona: And I carried my passport and my money and my tickets with me in a little bumbag as we had then. Everybody was in the same boat and if you're that open and trusting and you believe you're OK, this is very much the work that I do now too funnily enough, but if you have that vibration running through you, you'll be OK. If you have the vibration running through you like...People before I left wanted to say to me, “Oh my God! Really? You're going to this country? Well don't let anybody put anything in your bag” and “don't put your bag out of your sight” and really all their fears they were trying to put onto me before I left.But if you have this kind of like 'Do you know what? We're all in the same boat, we're all wanting to be experiencing travel and different places and different people and food and...Me: Yeah. So then...Wow! I'm still reeling actually from the previous thing you said about it being cheaper to, you know, travel the world and stay all over the place than to stay in one place, you know. I'm going to be thinking about that for a while!On to Reiki trainingBut I know that you said that at some point you started just like doing things for people to kind of pay your way, right?Fiona: Yeah, it wasn't so much to pay my way but it was just to experiment. During my travels I decided that I would finish off my Reiki. That was a funny story as well.So I'd been travelling, I ended up in Cape Town and I decided to go for Reiki because I enjoyed Reiki. And this guy gave me Reiki and I was completely knocked out. When I sort of came round, he said, “Oh something came to me when I was doing your Reiki. If you're interested in pursuing, maybe finishing off your masters or something like that to do with Reiki, I know a very good woman. She lives in Prince Albert.”And he told me where that was and I thought 'well that's kind of up from where my dad lives on the wilderness in South Africa, I could go and see Valentine and have some time with her'.So I thought about it for a while and I rang, and I rang, and I rang, and I remember writing in my journal, “Bloody hell! This woman is impossible to get hold of!”Changing your thought patternsI scrubbed that out and I put “This woman is easy to get hold of”. I did have a phone, beg your pardon, one of the first kind of Nokia phones. She rang me. So imagine – I'd been saying all this time, 'this woman is really hard to get hold of'.Me: Yeah, and of course she was then.Fiona: Just by scrubbing out that whole thought pattern and changing my thought pattern, I'd actually said 'this woman's gonna be...and she's really easy to get hold of'. My phone then rang and she rang me to say, “Great, I've had your messages. When can you come?”Me: Super! Wow!Travelling with the flowFiona: So I was on this roll when I was travelling of trying to be this very open, flowing person who wanted to experience how easy and safe the world was. Rocking up in an airport like in Australia, I hadn't got any Australian dollars, I hadn't got anywhere to stay. It was kind of one o'clock in the morning when we landed. I wanted to find out how easy it was just by allowing myself to feel easy.Me: And so what happened in that Australian airport at one in the morning?Fiona: Oh God it couldn't have been easier! They are so set up. Maybe in another country it would have been harder.So you arrive in the airport and most people had somewhere to stay and they were being picked up by people. I walked in and I thought, 'oh a cash machine, fine, pop my card in, get cash out, that's easy'. By the cash machine there's a desk there, a welcome desk, there's brochures everywhere for youth hostels and everything. And I thought, 'I wonder if I ring them now if anybody would be on the desk, or if I should have to sleep in the airport'. Which I had done before.And so I rang and somebody said, “Yeah, yeah, no problem, we can come and pick you up, we'll see if there's anybody else coming this way. We'll be there in about an hour”. And they were. Super polite, super easy. Picked up my bags, picked me up, took me to the youth hostel in Perth. Got me a room and that was it.Don't plan too much in advanceMe: Wow. So generally you found that that's the way it worked, right? With the trusting and that it would be easy and things just kind of like fell into place?Fiona: I was told before I left by a girlfriend of mine also called Fiona. She said to me, “Don't book too much up in advance because so many things are changing the whole time. Try not to plan too much because if you plan, you're planning out what the universe might have to deliver to you. Something more fun, something more exciting.”Me: Oh yeah, that makes total sense.Fiona: So don't plan too much. I kind of took it from the other point of view, that I'm a planner, I'm a scheduler, I'm a bulldozer. I'll make things happen. And I was really trying to be experiencing from a different perspective. This was my opportunity to really experience that to live in the flow.And that's really what I want to try and do in my everyday life as a mom now as well. Be more open and understanding and intuitive to...'OK so why did that happen then? Why are they ill?' So this is what brought me...OK raw food kind of came in there as well, but it really brought me to sort of try and interpret what I was being shown.And if you happen to get arrested...Me: Yeah. So did you have moments when you were travelling when the flow just stopped? And you started to feel fear or you were just like 'Oh this isn't working” or... If you did, how did you get back into flow?Fiona: Yeah, I'm trying to think about it. I got complacent, I was in Thailand and I stayed longer than I should so I was kind of arrested when I left.Me: Oh my God, you were arrested!Fiona: Yeah, because I'd overstayed my visa. You're only allowed to stay there a certain length of time so when I left, I just handed in my passport. And they pulled me off to this room and they really interrogated me and I'm just like, 'I was just kind of complacent and I didn't really think about it' and “Well I'm leaving now so just let me go!” (laughs)Me: And so what happened? Did they let you go?Fiona: They let me go, but they made me wait it out. I think I missed that flight so I had to get another one or something. Yeah, they wanted to really make a point there that you can't be complacent. So I thought OK... I wasn't really in charge of looking at my dates in that respect.When you have to push a littleAnother time was when I was in Australia. I was coming down the west coast of Australia and it became a bit of a rush. So I knew that my visa ended at a certain date, I had to be in Sydney so that I could get my flight to New Zealand. The people I was travelling with were under no speed whatsoever. So I realized then 'I have to do something, I have to move this forward faster'. Then I became out of the flow and I was very proactive into getting things moving. And I don't know what would have happened if I'd just bummed along, I don't know.Me: Well yeah but I mean, but then you...that was kind of necessary, right?Fiona: Yeah.A Thailand detox adventureMe: Sometimes you have to do that right? And then you said that at one point you said you kind of discovered raw food and detox and you started coaching girls on your travels?Fiona: I did, that was really fun.Me: How did that happen?Fiona: I was in Thailand and I'd done Thai massage, Thai cooking. And I'd said to the girl that I'd met when I was travelling...I said “God, you know we need to be doing something that we would never, ever dream about doing when we went home”. She said, “Yeah I agree, we need to do something that's kind of off the wall”. I said, “Exactly!”I walked into this bar just to order a water and there was a leaflet on the desk that said The Sanctuary. And it was for detoxing. So I took the flyer and I said, “This really, really hits me! Let's go and try this!” I spoke to the guy behind the bar and he said it's a really cool place in Koh Pang Yang.That's where we went and did detoxing, and they had a fantastic raw restaurant. I'd never experienced raw food before. So we did the detox and I learned what I could from Moon, who was the guy who ran the place and the time. I looked at these menus of these foods and of course your tastebuds change when you do a detox. This was a full detox, colon cleanse, doing enemas, coffee enemas and everything else. Met some fantastic people, had some great conversations, we slept a lot.Simple food for radiant resultsWe met all sorts of shamans, all sorts of stuff. And then I realized afterwards that myself and my friend, our bodies had completely changed, our body temperature had changed.In about three weeks after that, we went for two weeks to another island and we did absolutely nothing. We just ate very, very simply, just raw food. So tomatoes and everything. The restaurants there were very confused. We didn't want the Thai food, we just said, “Basic, plain plate of tomatoes, that's all we want”. So we learned how to say that and we were doing that. We radically shifted some weight and we radically...our bodies changed and our whole energy was completely different. I was like, 'geez I like this! I get this! I feel awesome, I feel radiant!' We were just having so much fun!The coaching beginsMe: So then you started coaching girls? To help them...Fiona: Yeah then in the next place I went to I met some young girls. And a couple of them had said, “We're on our last leg”. They were kind of going the other way around the world. And one of them had kind of said, “You know, I'm a nurse and I left that because I wanted to find myself, I wanted to find out what I really wanted to do. And here I am on the last leg of my journey and I don't think I've found myself at all!”Magical questionsI said, “Oh, OK”. So I just started asking her some questions, and I set her some tasks for the evening. I said, “What do you want to do?” And she said, “I've got no idea!” I set her some tasks for example, I think one of them was 'a hundred and one things that make you happy'. How easy. And setting out what her perfect day would include. They were two of the simplest tasks that I thought that she might actually do or might actually enjoy doing.And the next morning when we were kind of...She was leaving and I was just having breakfast. And she was like, “Oh my God!” She said, “I totally get what I wish I'd known before. I know what it is that I want, I know what makes me happy, I know this and I know that and I know the other” and I was like 'oh my God'. And then just other conversations, it just seemed to be natural for me that when I was speaking to somebody...Not telling them what they should do, but kind of like, 'have you ever thought about what it is you'd like to do? What it is...Who you'd like to be, what you'd like to wear? How you'd like to sound, speak? Do you enjoy singing? Dancing? What is it?' All the different things that make you who you want to be.Me: Wow.Fiona: It came from that, really. Just having conversations. Nothing structured, but just allowing people to find out for themselves what they liked about life, about being alive.Finding a travel partnerMe: And then at one point you met your Dutch partner, right? How did that happen?Fiona: Yes, we met in Australia and we just started travelling together. We were going the same route together. Very interesting conversations. He allowed me to be very profound and very deep. And I found something new about myself as well, which normally I would not have had those kind of conversations with people. In a very deep, delving, wondering, curious, inquisitive, wanting to know more. So that was kind of refreshing and probably why we stuck together for so long because we allowed each other to have those kind of conversations. And I found myself a different kind of person. That I didn't agree with everything that he said, or I had an opinion. I found my strength from having those kind of conversations too, I'd had a strong interior. And I found that I knew what I wanted, let's put it that way.Back home and pregnantMe: I know at some point your trip around the world ended. And then you were...you were back at home feeling sad, right? But then you were...you started travelling again when you were three months pregnant, is that right?Fiona: (laughs) Yeah, I got back to my house in Oxford. We stayed there for a while and I'm just like, 'God, I don't want to be here because I'm gonna end up doing what I used to do and I don't want to do that'. The world's a bigger place, you know?So I was three months pregnant, I was age 40, and I said “Right, that's it. We're gonna take a caravan, and we're gonna find somewhere that makes my heart melt. That really fills my heart, that makes me feel fulfilled”.Me: Wow, what did your partner say? Was he surprised? Or was he like 'yup'...Fiona: He was cool for that, he's now back in Holland, he's not here with me in France. He couldn't make it work for himself. But that's OK. So that was it. He said, 'yeah, great! Let's have an adventure'.An adventure to find your ideal homeWe took a caravan and basically I had a tick list of the things that we wanted. So what would you want if you had everything you could possibly imagine? You'd want the sea and you'd want the mountains. And you'd want the outdoor life because South Africa's under my skin. I'd have the plants in the garden, hibiscus plants and palm trees. It would be very green.So we started travelling, you know, down the coastal route of France, and kind of 'does this place? No. This place doesn't feel good. Does this place?' And “How will you know when you find it?” he used to keep saying. “I'll just know, I'll just know”.Me: And so how long were you travelling before you found it? Because most people wouldn't leave when they were three months pregnant, right? Cause they'd be thinking about 'oh my God'...No tests, no scansFiona: I didn't have any tests, I didn't have any scans, I didn't have anything. And I was huge, I had like a huge baseball, like a beach ball stuck out in front of me. My son ended up being five kilos, he was a big boy. But I was a very happy mom, and I was just really, really happy being pregnant and travelling.Me: And so where was he born? Was he born before...Fiona: He was born in Holland. So we stayed here, we found the place, we found Biarritz Saint Jean De Luz. And I imagined us living here what it would be like. We both had tears in our eyes and it just felt so homely, we had left and we'd come back. And when we came back it felt like we'd come home. So it was all feeling-based.Me: Yeah, I'm the same, I'm very feeling-based so I can totally relate to that.No French, no job, no baby knowledge...Fiona: And so then we found the house and then we went back to Holland. We had Micah in Holland, we lived in a holiday home for two months. Micah was my eldest who's now twelve. He was one month old when we moved back here. I knew nothing about babies, I knew zip! Nothing! Nada! I had his sister who helped me go shopping and all the rest of it. And I was breastfeeding and I thought, 'Well what else do I need to know?' I probably sound like such a hippy!Then we came here, we didn't speak French, we didn't have a job, we had a house, a big house. And we had a baby, and my big dog, he was with us as well, Milo. I sometimes wonder how I managed but I used to speak to my spirit animal and for some reason she used to guide me through and make me feel very comfortable and very safe. And that's how I did it.Me: Wow. And then...well, you speak French now, right?Fiona: I don't think I could ever call myself a good speaking French person. I do my best.Me: Well yeah but you make the effort, right? You do what you can, right?Fiona: Oh yeah, I make myself understood. And even funnily enough when we first moved here he would say to me, “What did they say?” I'd say, “I couldn't repeat it, I don't know what they said. But I know it's OK. And we need to do this, this and this”. It was just like an infusion.Me: Yeah, well like it was when you heard people speaking with different accents before, right? That's cool.Fiona: So I was here on an adventure.The world can come to youMe: Well and I know that you said that you kind of had the world come to you, right? Fiona: Correct, correct.Me: So what happened there?Fiona: What a great thing.Me: And how did you start that, actually?Fiona: My partner at the time was trying to work in Holland and travel. And I just said, “This isn't working, let me have a go”. I'd just had my second baby and he'd just stopped breastfeeding. And I opened up Retreat Biarritz, which is basically a detox retreat. I was running it from home, we had two studios that we'd built. People were staying in the studios and I was basically doing for them what I'd learnt to do when I was in the Sanctuary.So basically they're doing three day fast, colon cleanse, learning all about raw food. We did raw food kitchen. Then I used to take them hiking in the mountains, I used to take them to the beach, I took them to the hammam. We took them to the local markets. Just so that they could have a holiday experience while they were here.Me: That's fantastic, that's really great. Wow. So do you still...what do you do now? I know you do a lot of things, but do you still run the retreats now?Detox retreatsFiona: I still run the retreats for small groups of people. Sometimes individuals come, and again from all around the world. I mean I've had ladies from Greece, America, Australia, Russia. And they just find me, God knows how they find me. They come and they go, “I'd really like to come and work with you”. And I'm like, “OK do you just want a detox? I can just do a straight detox for you”.But at some point always the conversation comes up. They're in an old story or they're stuck, you know? 'I used to have a body like this' and 'I don't understand why my body does this'. And then the body whispering seems to sort of come in, and we have that intuitively guided conversation that helps them understand more about their body.Me: So then how does the body whispering work? Can you give us just sort of like a short, I don't know, a little brief idea?How body whispering worksFiona: Oooh, yeah, how does it work! Goodness me! Basically a lot of the ladies who come, they are stuck in a particular story. There's something that they haven't digested emotionally. It could be that they're feeling anger, but then I kind of go beyond that, what's under that. And if you're feeling anger or resentment and things, often what I'm feeling is that people are feeling very disconnected. They're not feeling any connection to other people, but they're not feeling safe.So one of the main things I do is I help them to feel what it feels like to feel safe. And most people, they have no idea what their safe place feels like. When they can discover what their safe place feels like, you've almost got something to back into when things don't feel comfortable for you. When the shit's hitting the fan or you're at a dinner table or there's a conversation going on that you're not feeling comfortable with, you can kind of go, 'hang on a second, where am I?'Tuning into your bodyZone in – some people might call it being centered or whatever, but you zone in and tune into yourself. You get out of your thinking, analyzing, bulldozing head and you get into your body. So you reconnect with your body and you go, 'wow, there I am'.And it's like 'OK so what's kicking off at the moment? Does it have anything to do with me?' And your body is able to kind of respond to you when you understand how your body works. Your body would kind of say to you, “It's got nothing to do with you”.But you can pick up who it is in the room that's really got the energy, the strongest energy in the room that's affecting you. And you can say, 'OK so if that's the person, has what they've got going on got anything to do with me? No. Back off'. You can back off, you can get back in your own energy.How most of us calm our nervesWhat I found was I used to overeat. When I was in the company of my ex particularly. He had a very chaotic mind unless he was focused, he was ultra, ultra focused, but otherwise he was chaotic. Very argumentative, a devil's advocate. But when he was kicking off, I would find that I would overeat because I wanted to shut that off. Me: Oh wow, OK.Fiona: And I calmed down my nerves... The best and the quickest way to calm down your nerves when you're stressed is for a lot of people to eat. When we don't feel safe, we eat. And our body is protecting us by having the chemical reaction that goes on, the hormones that are released in the body, they lay down fat. That's the body protecting itself. Basically the adrenaline and everything that's going on...There are toxins that run through our body, and I didn't realize how overvigilant I was because of my childhood. Certain things that happened there. I didn't realize how overvigilant I was and how aware I was of feeling empathically what was going on around me. So my only way to control that was food.Discovering how you really feelThat doesn't really tell you what body whispering is. Body whispering for me, when I'm on a call with somebody, if I'm talking to them, I'm tuning in to them. So I can teach them how they feel. Basically ninety-nine percent of anybody who's around doesn't have a clue how they feel. They think, 'oh God that doesn't feel nice' but they automatically go into the thing that makes them feel better which is eating. Or drinking, or smoking, or shopping or whatever it is. I concentrate purely with people to do with food.So basically I can connect in with them and I'm saying “OK how do you feel about that situation?” And they go into their heads and they start describing it in mental ways. I'm like “OK fine, now bring yourself into your body because you're mentally describing and giving me mental feedback. Bring it back from your body. What are you feeling in your body?” And often they'll pick something up but I'm able to help them hone in to what the feeling really is so that they can recognize it the next time.Me: Yeah, I get it, you're teaching people basically how to...Fiona: Read their bodies.Me: Read their bodies, yeah. That's very cool.Fiona: And also what's happening to me is that when I'm reading their body... Even over Skype, it doesn't have to be live, even over Skype. I can say, “OK so I'm picking up...So a thought came to me, I've just been asked to ask you this question. What does this got to do with that?” or “Would this resonate with you?” So I'm allowing myself to be open that I'm picking up something for them.A body scan offerMe: Wow. And so I know that you have something pretty cool going on at the moment which is a body scan offer I think. Do you want to say something about that?Fiona: Yeah, I offer people if they're interested to find out what the undercurrent is that's going on through their body. So basically I help people understand the undercurrent that's going on. There's nothing more responsive to your thoughts than your body.That being said, if you don't know what you're thinking, then how can you possibly change your thoughts? So often people are saying mantras or they're saying positive thoughts. But the undercurrent that goes on behind that is often very subconscious. I call it on a soul level, when you have total disbelief on that ever happening for you. It could be to do with money, but I talk to people about their bodies.How it worksSo what I ask people to do if they're really interested is they can come forward and they can have a body scan. I can have half an hour with them, I ask them some questions. They're very kind of open, big questions that allow me to see where they're coming from. And for example what makes them really happy or really sad, and then I can gauge what's going on. I can gauge their stress levels, and I can feed back to them what's going on and what's the most likely reason things are not working for them. Even if they've been dieting and detoxing and exercising for years. But there's something going on in their bodies that they haven't allowed themselves to let go of. They're still hanging onto something and it's hanging onto their body.Me: And so if people want to know more about that, where's the best place for them to find you and to look at that offer?Where to find FionaFiona: OK I have my website which is fionarobertson dot co. And I don't know how we can do that, but...Me: Well I'll link to things in the show notes anyway.Fiona: Yeah, I'll send you a link to the body scan so that people can come through and they can test out the body scan. Basically have a very happy-go-lucky conversation with me. And yeah, just find out a little bit more about who you are and what your body's asking for, funnily enough. What she needs, what she wants and what she's lacking the most. And it's not nutrients on a vitamin and mineral scale, it's nutrients of other descriptions.Me: Wow super, OK. And is that a free consultation, or...?Fiona: Yeah.Me: OK. I thought so, I just wanted to make sure I said it because some people, that's...they'll want to know that. And then, yeah, hopefully...Well I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people interested in that because I mean I just think that's fascinating!Well thank you so much Fiona for being here to share your story!Fiona: Oh, thanks!Shed your baggageMe: It's been quite a...it's certainly given me a lot to think about around... Well around world travel, really, because I love travelling and I have travelled quite a bit. But I'm gearing up to do some more in the future with not very much baggage at all, so that's...Fiona: Oh, so nice to get rid of your baggage! And what a nice analogy as well, get rid of all your baggage!Me: Yup, all kinds of baggage! (laughs)So thank you so much for that inspiration. It's been really great to talk to you!Fiona: Thank you so much for inviting me, thank you so much.Me: You're very welcome, thank you, have a super, super day!The best travel foodRight, so fantastic! I hope you enjoyed that story. And I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you the best travel food that I know. And that food is...dates!Dates are an amazing food. They're easily portable, you can just pop some into a bag and put them in your suitcase. You can even carry them on a plane with you – at least as of today you can still do that. Properties of datesNow in terms of properties of dates, the first thing about dates is that they are amazing for the digestive system. This is because they are one of the best foods for getting rid of parasites. They basically bind onto and then help sweep away all kinds of nasty stuff: parasites, heavy metals, bad bacteria, viruses, fungus and especially Candida. And if you've got a tendency to constipation, dates can help there too.In addition, contrary to what you might think as they're very sweet, they're excellent for helping to balance blood sugar. The fruit sugar that they contain also helps feed the muscles and refuel the brain – so they're a great brain food too. As well as a great food for sport.And if you often feel stressed, dates can help you there as well. They contain almost 70 bioactive minerals that support the adrenals as they work to help us face various life challenges. On top of that, they've got a huge amount of amino acids which elevates their levels of potassium which in turn helps stop formation of excess lactic acid. Another good reason why they're really good for sport, as well as anti-stress.They're also said to be abundant in anti-cancer properties, particularly for abdominal cancer.And because dates are so high in nutrition, they can help with weight control. For example, some Muslims eat dates with water to break a fast before they eat anything else and one benefit to that is that it helps avoid overeating at that first meal which I think is really cool.Why dates are the best travel foodAnother very cool thing about dates is that if like Fiona you want to go on a travelling adventure and you're not quite sure about how you'll find food, some people say that a wrapped up date in your pocket or in your bag can act like a good luck travel charm. It can ensure you'll always find something to eat. Of course yes you can always eat the date itself, but some say that this little fruit can help you find more than that.For those who want to know what exact nutrients dates contain, well there are a lot. But the ones I'll mention here in addition to potassium are calcium, iron, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium and zinc, as well as vitamin K, vitamin A, thiamin, niacin and riboflavin. It's got loads of stuff.How to eat datesAs to how to eat dates, well you just grab a handful, right? Be sure though to remove the pit inside first please, we don't want an impromptu trip to the dentist. And just 4 to 6 dates a day can give you excellent benefits.They're also one of the key ingredients in many recipes for things like energy balls. So for example you can blitz some dates in a food processor with some nuts and maybe a bit of dried coconut for an instant snack. And if you'd like more recipes where you can indulge in their sweetness, I'll post the link to my 5-Minute Desserts recipe ebook below the show notes for this episode. Which brings us to the end of this week's story! I hope you enjoyed it!And if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your particular situation), I'd love to hear from you! If you enjoy my stories and want to hear more, join us and subscribe! I share one crazy yet true story a week. And if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments! And if you're listening on iTunes, do give me a review, that would be awesome.I hope you have an amazing day, thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESLink to 5-Minute Desserts and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on dates including links to studies and other articles: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/health-benefits-of-dates.htmlFiona's website: www.fionarobertson.coFor your free Body Scan session, book a time with Fiona here: https://fionarobertson.acuityscheduling.com/Fiona's bioFiona Robertson, Author, Creator of the Home Detox Box, Retreat Biarritz, and a Body Whisperer intuitive holistic coach - supporting women as they release, reset and re connect with their bodies. I assist the body to consciously re constructing itself from the inside out, releasing the emotions and stress that cause the body to hold onto weight and create digestive and long lasting physical symptoms.

Summertime is officially upon us which means millions of Americans will be hitting the roads and taking to the skies to enjoy their summer vacations. Whether you want to hit the beach, blaze a trail off the beaten path or explore one of the major tourist destinations, there’s a smart way to do it.  That’s where Peter Greenberg, this week’s guest on Better Off, enters the picture. Peter, the Travel Editor for CBS News, is full of tips and suggestions to help you get the most bang for your buck as you plan and book your trip.   Where to go? Where not to go? Drive, train or fly? From South Africa to Chile to Tokyo and Thailand, as well as hidden gems here in the States, we circle the globe with Peter and provide you with useful tips to easily reach your destination, with a few bucks left in your pocket.   Give recent attacks in London, Paris and Istanbul, is there any reason to think twice before booking vacations to those cities? How should we think about places where the Zika virus remains prevalent? What’s on Peter’s “Do Not Visit List?” This one may be hard to believe, but despite all the travel related websites out there, Peter insists that even in 2017, the best thing to do is to pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with the airline or hotel.  But it’s not just a conversation for the sake of having one.  There’s a way to do it and certain questions to ask.  It’s a process.  So much so, that we did a little role playing to help guide you guys through it! If you’re a frequent traveler, Peter is definitely someone to follow on Twitter. Let us know where you’re vacationing this summer...send a picture to askjill@betteroffpodcast.com. Me? Well, I don’t have anything extravagant planned other than some weekends at the local beach. Mark on the other hand was just in Paris for the French Open and is now in London for Wimbledon.   Somehow this equation seems out of whack! “Better Off” is sponsored by Betterment. We love feedback so please leave us a rating or review in iTunes. "Better Off" theme music is by Joel Goodman, www.joelgoodman.com. For a recap of every episode, visit https://www.betterment.com/resources/topics/inside-betterment/better-off-podcast/ Connect with me at these places for all my content: http://www.jillonmoney.com/  https://twitter.com/jillonmoney  https://www.facebook.com/JillonMoney  https://www.instagram.com/jillonmoney/  https://www.youtube.com/c/JillSchlesinger  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillonmoney/  https://soundcloud.com/jill-schlesinger  http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jill-on-money  http://betteroffpodcast.com/  https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/better-off-jill-schlesinger/id431167790?mt=2

How Kate Fisher found herself at the brink of death, having to choose between this world and the next. Plus one of the best foods to feel grounded: for keeping a level head and making good decisions(!) Hi everybody, I'm Barbara Fernandez, the Rocking Raw Chef, here with my Clean Food, Dirty Stories: one to entertain, the other to inspire.I help people stamp out stress, depression and fatigue over at RockingRawChef.com, and today's title is:This world...Or AnotherIn addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you one of the best foods to feel grounded – in other words, to help us stay clear-headed and even make better decisions in our lives.OK enough hints from me, I'm sure you have no idea what that food is...or maybe you do, so let's get on with the story.Our guest, Kate FisherI am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Kate Fisher. Kate is a shamanic practitioner who specialises in helping others to connect with the power that is already within them. She is also an artist, and she works with drums, paint and clay to create shamanic tools, paintings and ceramics. And she works with people not only face to face, but also at a distance which I think is very cool. She has a pretty incredible story to share which I think you're going to love!So Kate, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast!Kate: Thanks Barbara.Me: Yeah, it's great to have you. I'm looking forward to sharing your story.Kate's storySo you work in Norfolk, you live in Kent, but do you have a lot of trees surrounding you now? Because I know that you spent a lot of your childhood in trees, is that what you told me? Is that where your story begins?Kate: Yeah, it kind of is, I was much more into sitting in trees and hanging out there and not really with the other kids. It just felt calming and I later found out that what was actually happening was that I was speaking with the tree deities and the tree spirits themselves. Me: So like when most kids had imaginary friends, like little playmates and stuff, then you just had your playmates that were like in the trees and nature spirits and everything.That's really cool, when I was little actually, I didn't play with the other kids either. I was with them but I was a tiger roaring and crawling on the floor. So there were no nature spirits for me, just a bunch of crawling around.On to herbalismAt one point you studied herbalism, is that right? How did you come to study that?Kate: Well, I began studying it. After doing my art degree, I actually got a job in Neal's Yard Remedies in Norwich. And so that just kind of brought me back to plants and their uses. The medicinal uses were the sort of thing I was drawn to. I was going to move to Australia to do the whole course of naturopathy. There was something still missing from that for me. So from that I actually found magical herbalism.Me: Okay.Kate: Yeah, so that's kind of like hedge witchcraft. It's understanding that everything has an energy and you can use that energy to help heal and help rebalance.Me: I know about wild plants, you know, and collecting wild plants and just eating them because they taste really good, and I know that nettles for example are really good for arthritis, just little things that you kind of pick up. But that's kind of all I know. So is it like making teas for people and poultices and things like that out of plants and stuff?Kate: No, no, it's purely energetic, so it's basically like spellcasting.Me: OK.Magic herbalism, then on to the PhilippinesKate: So you would use certain herbs and plants that have certain attributes and they often correspond with the medicinal uses as well. And you'd kind of enchant them and then you'd make them into little sachets to hand to people and once they'd got their use from it, they would bury it. It was always just for an energetic purpose.Me: Oh OK.Kate: It's like the old wives' tale of putting certain things above the door so things can't come in.Me: I get it. OK. So you were doing herbalism but then I think you stopped, is that right, and you moved to the Philippines? Is that right?Kate: Yeah, that's right. So magical herbalism still wasn't doing it for me and I still felt there was something more. And I came across a book and it was called Chance Spirit Shamanism, and this just sent me off! I knew that I had to do something with this because it would take me deeper into that plant realm. The way I actually got to the Philippines was through my ceramics, with a job as a teacher over there.Manila and the Saturn returnMe: How did you get that job? That's really cool.Kate: A Filipino lady, her family ran the college there and she approached me and asked if I would teach there.Me: Wow!Kate: Unfortunately it was in Manila and for me that was just too busy. It's a really built city with really rich and really poor areas. I found this place called Bahay Kalipay which means the House of Happiness. So I went there, I volunteered and from there I taught this process called The Inner Dance, and this was precisely when my Saturn return hit. I had just turned 28 and I decided to drop everything, I sold everything that I owned in England basically, and I decided to move to the Philippines.Kate's Saturn ReturnMe: Wow. So can you just...sorry, can you explain to people, some people that may not know, what is a Saturn return and why does it just – cause I've experienced one too – what is a Saturn return and why does it turn your life upside down?Kate: Yeah, well, OK. The Saturn return is...Saturn's in a certain place in the night sky and what happens is when that then comes around which obviously it takes 28 to 30 years to come round in your astrological chart, that changes everything. You're then kind of pushed or encouraged onto a path that you should have been taking that you may have been diverted from. Some people's is really turbulent, other people it can be quite free flowing depending on what their life path life has taken. And then this happens again normally in women's time, it's normally around the menopause.Me: Well it would be like 28 years later, right?Kate: Exactly, yeah, it's on that time scale. So it really can turn your life upside down because Saturn's known as the teacher. If you haven't learned your lessons, you're gonna learn them!Why the PhilippinesMe: Yup! I've experienced that so I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, so it can be quite big life changes and stuff, right? What made you decide to move to the Philippines?Kate: Well, in all honesty a man.Me: (laughs) As so often happens...Kate: And he worked at the retreat center that I went to. Yeah, I kind of knew that it wasn't gonna work out but I'm always this kind of romantic person, I'm just gonna follow my heart...I loved it there anyway because it was just so beautiful and I felt so held there, just on the land.Me: Yeah. So you moved to the Philippines, so if you moved because of him, did you stay with him and then, like, what happened?Releasing inner blocksKate: Well, I think I moved in with him to begin with, him and his family. And then I went back to work at the retreat center for meditation and the inner dance which is kind of meditative. It allows the flow of energy and any blockages to come out, it can be quite cathartic and transformative in itself. So I went back there and lived there, and I did that for 8 months. I was looking for land to buy as well.Me: So you were gonna buy land in the Philippines? That's very cool. You said at one point that you had a kind of like dark night of the soul, was that related to the guy? Or...Kate: It was all, you know, a whole lump of stuff rolled in together (laughs). That's what happens, isn't it?Me: All at the same time, of course, yeah.Crying in paradiseKate: All at the same time. So yeah, for me, I was in paradise but I was crying my eyes out every day.Me: Oh!Kate: Yeah, and it was just this kind of ultimate depression, but this was something different, it was a transformative kind of time. And I ended up not really seeing the point in life, so I went from, you know, being on a real high and feeling the connection between all things and all of this and then just fell apart and thought, “Well, if everything is nothing and nothing is everything, then what's the point?”Me: Oh, yeah, I've felt like that before so I can relate, yeah. Wow.From the Philippines to PeruMe: And so from there, how did you...you said that you then went to Peru, right? So how did you go from the Philippines to Peru? Did you just one day up and decide to leave, or was there a specific incident where you thought 'OK I've had enough, I'm going to leave now'? Or...Kate: Well I, I'd gone to America to visit my friends over there and then while I was there I phoned this person...Me: Somebody in Peru?Kate: No, sorry, I phoned my boyfriend at the time. Yeah, and he ended up going “Oh I've decided I'm going to be a Peace Pilgrim”.Me: A Peace Pilgrim? What's that?Kate: So it's someone who walks around without anything, but just goes spreading peace and basically relies on anyone around them to support them. He said “This is my highest excitement”. So I was like, “OK, fine”. Obviously I was a bit heartbroken because I'd just travelled the other side of the world, but it made me suddenly realize that I wasn't following my highest excitement. So I thought “OK, what's happening right now? Where's the mother of all plant learnings?” And it's happening in Peru, with Ayahuasca, with Huachuma... Ayahuasca and HuachumaMe: What's huachuma? I mean, I know Ayahuasca and in fact I spoke about that in a previous episode, but what's huachuma?Kate: Huachuma is also known as San Pedro. San Pedro was the Catholic name they gave when they kind of came over to the South Americas. Huachuma is the original name for it. It's a cactus that is mescalin-based, so it's similar to the peyote which is a mescalin-based medicine.Me: Oh OK. So it's a similar kind of experience with...like a journey like you would do as if you were taking Ayahuasca but you're taking Huachuma?Kate: It's similar, yeah. Huachuma's much more about the earth and less cosmic. Ayahuasca is out there, attaching to everything that is. Huachuma's about the heart, about connecting back to the earth.Me: Wow. OK, so you did both of those when you were there?Kate: Yeah, that's right, so I spent 6 months being an apprentice to both of those plants.Me: Oh wow! So now are you able to perform Ayahuasca and Huachuma ceremonies for other people?Kate: I believe I can hold ceremony for Huachuma for other people. With Ayahuasca I decided that I'm just always going to be her apprentice (laughs). I just don't see how people hold space for that, it's such a powerful thing.Temazcals (sweat lodges)Me: OK. So you did those, and you also mentioned temazcals, you know, the sweat lodges, what were those like?Kate: It's really magical.So for somebody who doesn't, who doesn't know about a temazcal, can you say a little bit about like what it is? Because I've done one, but not everybody knows about it, right? Could you say a little bit about like what it is and what happens and why you might want to do a sweat lodge?Kate: OK. It's a really sacred ceremony and our ancestors have always used it to cleanse, to rebirth. To go into those sweat lodges is like going back into the mother's womb. You go in there with thanks, knowing what you want to get rid of or what you want to transition into. And you bless the rocks which are put into a sacred fire.Me: Sacred fire?Kate: Yes. They then heat those for several hours and then you will go into the lodge. You normally go through about four, yeah, four rounds. They'll bring in a certain number of rocks, and then water is poured onto the rocks once the door is closed.Me: And it gets really, really hot, I remember.Kate: It does. But it builds, it's not like going into a sauna. Your body gradually kind of gets used to it until it gets so hot that you're just like “Oh no I can't do this!” But quite often, we always say that the heat is your friend. Because that heat is sometimes not physical heat, it's sometimes you know, coming up against maybe a blockage of the energy of the thing that you're trying to shift, so if you can, stay in.The eyebrow of the Peruvian jungleMe: And so how did you...how did you go from doing the sweat lodges and the Ayahuasca and Huachuma ceremonies to the jungle? Cause you said that you were...I know that you mentioned to me that you were in the jungle with some friends and you had a pretty scary experience there. Can you say a little bit about like how you came to be there, and what happened?Kate: Yeah, definitely.I was a, I suppose an assistant to the woman that owned the retreat center. And we'd become really good friends because we obviously worked really closely together. We were offered a piece of land possibly in a part of the jungle called Manu which is known as the eyebrow of the jungle of Peru. So we went to visit, and our friend who also went with us, he was also an Andean priest. He went and hired a boat and took us to this special island which had quite rare breeds of certain animals, mammals and things. So he takes us over there and we're just so excited to see a different part and see rare species. Onto the land, you know you just start walking around and admiring things and I think it was about a third of the way around this island and all of a sudden something hit me.When the jungle gets angryKate: It felt like I'd suddenly started menstruating but it wasn't that time, it felt like all of my guts were just turning around. I just suddenly went white. Me: Wow!Kate: Literally it just felt like, I don't know, I could have eaten something that didn't agree with me, all that kind of stuff. So my friend tried to do an echo cleansing on me. Now all that did - this is the dirty part of the story – was give me diarrhea. It was awful. My body was emptying, everything was too heavy. I was getting rid of everything. It was really quite scary as it progressed.And then this feeling came over me that the jungle was angry. There was always this element of kind of doubt, skepticism I guess.Getting lost in another worldBut I was about to get lost in another world. The jungle felt like it was pulling me. The world that I knew, that part of the jungle that I was seeing with my physical eyes was disappearing. Me: Wow! That's scary!Kate: Terrifying. And interesting at the same time.Me: Yeah, kind of like 'this is really scary but this is really cool!'Kate: I mean I got really scared up until the point where I thought, 'OK, maybe I'm going to leave this other world that I know and I'm gonna be taken to another world'. And when I reached that level of acceptance, you know, that strange place of like 'OK this is just happening', I told my friends to go on without me. I said, “This is where I stop”. And it was like, it was, I don't know, it was like I was disappearing.Me: Wow.Kate: Yeah, I...after feeling scared it was suddenly this peace that took over. But then my friends became scared because they realized how real this had become. You know, they couldn't just leave me in the jungle.Me: Yeah.Kate: And the Andean priest, he was suddenly panicking around me. He was saying in Spanish, in Quechua, panicking about “Oh I haven't done it, I haven't done it, I haven't done it!” He was going on about the ritual or the ceremony that we were supposed to do when we arrived at this land.A hurried ceremonyKate: And so all of a sudden he's scrambling in his pockets to get things out and I was just flopped on the ground at this point and I had no idea what was going on around me other than his scrambling. He got out the cocoa leaves and he made like a little fan of these and he started doing ceremony. And he was doing all these different things around me but I didn't have any awareness to be able to learn or witness or anything, it was like I was being absorbed into the jungle floor.The next thing I know he's yanking me up off the ground saying “Stamp on the floor! Stamp on the floor!” Like this. And I was just like “I can't do it, I can't even lift my leg,” like I had nothing left, no physical ability whatsoever. But he was so persistent I just went and I just, I just kind of just flopped my foot on this space and I later found out that he'd buried the cocoa leaves there.And as I touched my foot down, something happened and I felt a little bit stronger. So then he went, “Again!” I stamped again a little bit harder with the strength that I'd found. And he said, “Again!” I stamped my foot even harder, and every time we did this, my energy started coming back and my color started coming back and I felt myself being drawn in, like my energy bodies being drawn back into this physical body. Until we'd done it enough that they felt comfortable with us making our way away from there.Me: Wow. Yeah, and then you just left at that point? Were you supposed to stay longer?Kate: I had to lay there while they went off in the boat for a while so I had to lay in the jungle for a bit and stop. Just to kind of recoup and make sure that I'd gathered all the parts of me back together I think. Me: Yeah, of course, yeah.Fear as teacherKate: And I gave my thanks and you know, and I said, “Sorry for not knowing better”. I should have known better, that's what I was there to learn, you know. How to respect these places.Me: Yeah, but you were there to learn. I would have thought the Andean priest would have... I mean, I would have been blaming him! (laughs) Right? Wasn't he kind of there to, you know, to guide you and look after you? I mean I would have been like, “Dude you forgot something! Look what happened to me!” No?Kate: Well, I suppose, but I didn't see things that way at that time. I kind of overtook responsibility if that makes sense. But I gave my thanks to the jungle at that point because that's when my skepticism left and I really started to trust that Spirit is there to guide. And it really showed me its strength, and the only way it could do that was through fear.Me: Wow.Kate: Yeah, I was really, really grateful to have learned that lesson because without that I wouldn't be able to practice, you know, the techniques that I do today.Me: I bet the Andean priest learned a lot too, right? I bet he never did that again! (laughs) Right?Kate: (laughs) I don't think so!Me: Almost killed a tourist, can you imagine? Oh my goodness. Wow!What Kate does todaySo then you said that that experience helped you do the techniques that you do today, so how? Like, how come? What was it about that particular experience and what did you take from there I guess is what I want to ask, that you now use? Yeah, that you use now?Kate: Well it's just the level of trust.Me: Ah, OK. That makes sense.Kate: When I'm doing the healings or ceremony or anything, I endeavour obviously – I mean sometimes ego gets in the way and makes you feel small. But that's quite rare these days. I just allow Spirit and the ancestors to guide me.Me: Yup. Yeah, because you have that trust now thanks to your experience in the jungle. I get it, yeah. Wow!So then, yeah, what do you do now to help other people? Because I know you do lots of different things, do you want to say a little bit about that?Kate: Yeah, well the main thing that I endeavour to do, like anyone that I come across I try and support and empower. Even if it's the smallest thing. And give people that different perspective on themselves. I think we're so made to feel belittled and that we think that, you know, to think good of ourselves is to be arrogant. But actually we need to come to a space where we can be comfortable and love ourselves without that. Me: Yeah.Kate: It's really hard to explain! I lead retreats and...Finding the Wild WomanMe: So what kinds of things do you do at the retreats? For example, do you take people on shamanic journeys as a group? Kate: So for the retreats, what I focus on at the moment is women. And I do this alongside a lovely lady called Amy who runs SoulShine social enterprise and we, well we call it Finding the Wild Woman. And it's all about rewilding, so finding that part of you that's been repressed through, you know, all the things that we should and shouldn't do and expressing your authentic self.Me: Oh I like the sound of that, yup!Kate: So we do all sorts of things.Me: Wow, that sounds quite fun.Kate: Yeah, we use all the different elements as well. So you know, we run through kind of water, earth, fire, air, spirit...so people can connect back with those. The very base elements of this world.Me: Wow, that's very cool.Individual help, even at a distanceMe: So you do those at the retreats, and then I think you said for individual people you help them find balance and things? Like what do you do for individuals? Because I know you also said you do some things at a distance as well. Kate: Yeah, so whether it's distance or whether people are there, I'll connect with them and I'll allow Spirit and ancestors again to work through me. I use my drum, rattle, feathers, anything. I always ask if the person's comfortable with it. Yeah, and then I use the vibe to kind of realign, as everything's made of vibration. The intention is to realign those things, on any level that person wants to work.Me: OK. So do people normally come to you...yeah I would imagine people would come to you with a really specific problem, right? Can it be any kind of problem? Like, I don't know, like everything from physical problems like physical ailments to maybe emotional problems or mental problems? Kate: Yeah, definitely.Me: So a bit of everything. Super! OKKate: The most common tends to be physical or emotional, but actually you find out that they're all interlinked so you just follow that path until...Me: Yeah, I know what you mean. Training for the Celtic sweat lodgeMe: So do you run sweat lodges? Do you use that tool in your work at all?Kate: I'm not running them yet, I'm gonna do another 2 years learning the Celtic lodge.Me: So how long does it take then to train to learn the Celtic sweat lodges?Kate: Well, I'm taking three years to do it.Me: Three years, OK. Is that your choice to do it over a longer period?Kate: Yeah, I know that you can learn the practicalities in a couple of weekends, but to have the experience of actually supporting people through that process...Me: Oh yeah, that's the biggest bit, yeah.Kate: It's a very different ballgame.My own experience in a sweat lodgeMe: Yeah, of course, cause I know, I mean I know for me that when I did a sweat lodge, yeah it was years ago now. And at the time I was...I was a total mess!And so when it got really, really hot, I could feel that kind of...how can I describe it? It was kind of like as if there was a well at the bottom of my being that was filled with all these like dark stuff. You know, fears and things like that that never got to come up to the surface, you know? That never got acknowledged.Just like really primal stuff, you know, almost as if you could tap into your most primal fears because there was no cultural barrier. There was no mental barrier, you know.You were just so hot that your mind...I mean for me my mind almost just left my body really because it was just so hot. And I thought that was...that was quite an amazing experience.I mean for me I was like wow! It was scary but it was also really cool and I can imagine that for some people... I mean, I like to think that I'm a pretty strong cookie but I imagine it would be scary for people to come to grips with what they find and to have to kind of, yeah, deal with that. I mean if they uncover something they didn't know about themselves before, maybe something that's super scary, then yeah I would imagine you have to have the tools to deal with that, right?Kate: That's right, yeah. You've got to be able to support people after they've kind of gone through the sweat lodge process. Like you say, sometimes people are left with things that they need to kind of then kind of speak through or go into a bit more.Me: Wow, yeah. But I'd definitely say better out than in, right? All that stuff.Where to find KateKate thank you so much for coming on to share your story. There's a friend of mine that also mentioned that when you hold any kind of retreat or workshop or any kind of event in nature, she said just ask the spirits there for permission so you're on their terrain as it were. So that's a really good example of what can happen if you don't, right? I'll have to tell her about it. Well, I'll have to get her to listen to the episode.But thank you so much for sharing that, I really appreciate it and I'll link to everything that you do below, but do you just want to say where... Where can people find you? What's the easiest way to find you?Kate: Yeah, it's easiest to find me on Facebook at the moment because I'm still working on my website but that's at kfheartwisdom.Me: Super! OK. I'll put the link to your site as well. Is it katefisher.co.uk? Is that right?Kate: Yeah.Me: Thank you so much, I really appreciate it, and I think I'm going to dive into our food tip.Foods to feel groundedAnd it's really funny that there was all this stuff about stamping on the ground and everything because...I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I would share one of the best foods to feel grounded. And first I do want to kind of emphasize what I mean when we say grounded.When we feel grounded, we feel more connected to the earth. Now this might sound airy-fairy, but it's actually really important. So you can think of feeling grounded as the opposite of scatterbrained. In other words, instead of feeling confused, all over the place, not knowing what to do, when you're grounded you actually have a clarity of purpose. It enables you to not only get things done but to know what those things actually are that you need to do for your own happiness.And believe me, this is really, really important. I speak from very personal experience. The other way that you can think of being grounded is eating foods to feel grounded. It's kind of like getting the benefits of comfort food without gaining weight, if that makes sense. You do get that, yeah, that sense of comfort from these particular foods, but you're eating good food, you know? Rather than junk.And for those of you who want to do some of your own shamanic journeys as Kate did, this particular food that I'm going to talk about can help you stay connected to this world too.So although there are many foods to feel grounded, the ones that I want to mention here, or the one specific one is...squash!Benefits of squashAnd when I say squash, this actually covers a variety of vegetables: so you've got spaghetti squash, summer squash, zucchini, marrow and pumpkin. Those are all types of squash. Gourds as well, those are squash.Squash is one of the oldest foods around – it's been cultivated for at least 10,000 years, and it may look kind of ordinary, but it has a lot of health benefits.Now you may not know this, but squash is listed as anti-fungal, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory! It contains vitamin A, several B vitamins, folates, magnesium, potassium, iron, copper, zinc, manganese, calcium, and beta carotene among other antioxidants.So it's insanely good for a whole host of things, including managing our blood sugar, keeping our lungs healthy, helping keep our eyes sharp and strong, having strong bones, and reducing the risks of many diseases including lung cancer, emphysema and glaucoma, and that's just to name a few.Squash has many other benefits and I'll link to an article in the show notes if you'd like to read more about it.Now however before you decide to start eating bushels of squash, I do have to warn you about one thing. Squash is very good at lowering blood pressure, and if you have low blood pressure already, squash could lower it even further. So if that's you, best to eat other veggies instead. Fortunately there are lots of other alternatives that I do mention in other podcast episodes!How you eat squashNow as to how you eat squash, well there are so many ways to eat it! Most people puree it and make pancakes, or they slice it and fry it. My favorite way to eat it – and if you know me you'll know what that is – it's to spiralize it! I'll link to an article in the show notes where I show you how to do just that. You can make great pasta using squash, and you don't even have to boil it. Plus it's naturally gluten-free, so everyone can eat it!I've also got some delicious recipes that use squash in my 5-Minute Mains recipe ebook that I'll link to as well.So I hope you've enjoyed our story this week!Have YOU got a story to share?And if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your particular situation), I'd love to hear from you! Email me at barbara@rockingrawchef.comIf you enjoy my stories and want to hear more, join us and subscribe! I share one amazing, true story a week. And if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments! And if you're listening on iTunes, do give me a review, that would be awesome.I hope you have an amazing day, thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESHow to spiralize veggies: http://rockingrawchef.com/what-is-a-spiralizer-and-what-can-it-do-for-me/5-Minute Mains and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Foods to feel grounded: https://www.sarahpetrunoshamanism.com/blog/12-foods-for-feeling-grounded/Benefits of squash: https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/squash.htmlKate's bioKate has studied many esoteric and spiritual practices to a basic level from an early age (13). When her Saturn return began (age 28), Kate moved abroad to study different healing techniques with healers and shaman of Philippines and Peru. She learnt that to know and embrace all parts of yourself is where true healing happens. With a holistic attitude to life and endeavouring to approach life from the heart, Kate believes that all aspects of the self - mind, body and spirit - play a part in the health of the person. Finding balance in all these aspects, we can live to our full potential.Kate's website: http://katefisher.co.ukKate on Facebook, YouTube​

Corrina's journey from dating guys to finding a wife...thanks to travel sickness! And of course the best food to help with travel sickness (in case you've already found your partner...)In addition to this story, at the end of this episode I'll share with you the best food for travel sickness (in case you've already found your wife or partner).OK enough hints from me, let's get on with the story.Our guest, Corrina Gordon-BarnesI am super excited to be joined here today for our story by Corrina Gordon-Barnes. Corrina is a Relationship Coach who’s committed to a world of happy couples and happy families. She teaches her clients how to be really good at relationships.So Corrina, welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today!Corrina: Thank you so much for inviting me to connect with you.Me: Oh well you're so welcome! I love your story and I really can't wait for us to share it with everybody.Corrina's story, starting with being boy madMe: Without further ado, the first question I wanted to ask you...and I've said a little bit about what you do now, but when you were small, or younger, how did you see your dream relationship one day? Did you have princess dreams or did you have a particular type of partner in mind before you actually met your life partner?Corrina: Well, I was boy mad.Me: Boy mad!Corrina: Boy mad, like going through my primary school years, I remember that I was the one in my class who learned about sex really early.I was the one who would get all these teenage magazines, even as a late primary school age kid, and I would be teaching my friends at school. “You can get pregnant the first time you have sex” and “be careful with your boyfriend”.Me: Oh my god!A relationship expert...in primary schoolCorrina: I was like this relationship expert, even at that age I was teaching my friends. Like “these are all the myths, don't do this, do this” and so I was kind of boy mad, I was relationship mad, and getting into my teens I remember with my friends we would literally kind of go out prowling the streets. We would walk along the high street in my town where I lived and we would be looking for boys and we would be kind of flirting and coy. There was always some boy that I had my eye on. Always some guy who had my attention, I would try and make sure I was in the same place as him so that he would see me...Me: Sounds familiar, yeah.So I was definitely, I definitely wanted boys. That was very clear to me.Me: And you got engaged to a boy at one stage, right?Corrina: Yeah, so I had one really long term relationship before I met who is now my partner, and we got engaged at age 17.Me: Wow!We were gonna get married and we were gonna have all these babies and we were gonna live in this particular kind of house and have this life... That was the path that I thought I was on at that age.Me: So then what happened to take you off that path?The path to self-discoveryCorrina: Well that relationship was not the right one, and so that ended 4 years later and I stayed then single for quite a while. You know, I was really wanting to find myself.So I went on this whole spiritual, personal growth journey. I read every book I could get, I did meditation, I went vegan... It had this whole kind of personal growth change in my life.Me: What do you think prompted that? Was it the end of that relationship that prompted that? I mean, what were your thoughts? Were you just like 'Oh I think I need to take care of myself more' or become a different person, or...?Corrina: I was in Australia and I was just there travelling for a year. And I met this guy – surprisingly enough – in a cafe, and he just said “Hey I go to this meditation course down the road, why don't you come along”.And so I went and that very first moment, that very first time in the room with that meditation teacher, she told me that I was a spiritual being. She said to me – to the whole group but I really heard this - “You are a spirit soul having this human experience, but you are a spiritual being”.And it was like someone had just told me who I was. Like “oh my gosh, that's who I am, this human life is how I get to journey and explore and have an adventure, but I'm a spiritual being”.The layers (or the clothes) fall awayMe: So did you have that as like an inner knowing, or how did you experience it? Because people experience those things in different ways, right? Some people experience a physical sensation of light, other people experience it as just an inner sense of knowing...Corrina: It was like all my clothes fell off.Me: (laughs) Um...I haven't heard that one before!Corrina: It was like this casing, this casing just fell off. I literally woke up the next morning and I was vegan, I went from a complete meat eater to being vegan overnight just like that, and I was just on this journey then to just explore and discover myself and get back to the essential nature of my being.It was like everything that wasn't true about me just kind of fell away over the coming months.Me: Wow. That's very cool!Corrina: Yeah, it was pretty cool. I felt much lighter, it was like clothes coming off. I was just light. I was much, much lighter, much more energized, much freer, much more joyful.Me: It's interesting that you say that for you, all your clothes coming off, like some people might associate that with being exposed, right? Being vulnerable. And for you, you associate that with being light. So that's really interesting.Corrina: And just free. I remember in Australia, those kind of days, weeks after that moment, it was like I was floating along the streets. I was so free, I was feeling so connected with people, like I had just woken up.On to Cambridge University...and a fated bus tripMe: Yeah. Wow! And so how did you get from there to Cambridge University?Corrina: Yeah, so I decided that I wanted to do teacher training so I came to Cambridge University and signed up for the English and Drama teacher training course here. And on that very first day in class, I was sat next to this woman called Sam. There was something about her that just immediately kind of, like something just...a light bulb went off or something just happened. It was like 'Huh, she's just come on my radar really strongly, why am I paying attention to her so much?'So she was really in my awareness and we were both in the same school together so we were both placed to do our teacher practice in the same school. And on the first day of teaching practice, I got onto the bus that would take us to our practice school and I got on and she was sitting in the front seat. Now I always need to sit in the front seat in a bus because I get travel sick. So I just went over to her...I'd already clocked her as someone who was on my radar, and I just said “Oh, are you OK if I join you in the front seat?” And she said “Yeah sure, I have to sit here because I get travel sick” and I said “Oh me too!”So we sat side by side and over the months to come we became best friends. Just absolutely clicked, became best friends, incredible support through the whole teaching practice.A brave declarationMe: And was there any like physical attraction at that stage? Or did that come later?Corrina: Immediately! Immediately, I was like 'Huh! What is this woman doing to me? What this? What is happening here? I just feel energized around her, she lights me up, I feel excited, I feel like the world is just kind of shinier...'Me: Wow!Corrina: Everything just felt brighter and more energized.Me: It sounds like a good, a good...I don't know, I mean, I've never like taken acid or anything but (laughs) it sounds like, you know, a positive drug experience without the drugs, right?Corrina: (laughs) Totally! Totally, a kind of 'switch-on, turn-on, I'm awake, I'm alive, oh my gosh, who are you' kind of thing.Me: Was it the same for her as well?Corrina: Well what was so funny was that over the months that then came, was that I basically told her (laughs). I just said “Basically I've realized that I'm just completely in love with you. Do you feel that too?”Me: Wow! That was so brave of you cause you were friends at that stage, right? Like best friends, you don't want to wreck your relationship with your best friend by taking the risk but you did!Corrina: I just did! And that's kind of, you know, the kind of continuity of the whole spiritual journey for me of just like I'm free. You know, I'm free. If I feel this thing, I have to follow my heart. I have to just blurt out like “I'm in love with you, I don't know if you feel the same way”. And to start out with, it wasn't something that she let herself feel straight away.Determined and keeping faithMe: So what did she say when you said this? When you blurted this out?Corrina: She said “You know, I feel really connected with you, I love you a lot as a friend, but it's not romantic for me”.Me: And how did that make you feel?Corrina: Oh, heartbroken. Absolutely heartbroken. But also there was something... it was almost like inside I was going 'You just wait!' (laughs) 'You just wait. I know that you're the one for me, I'll just be patient, I'll just hang on'.Me: Oh wow! Other people though could have had quite a different reaction, right? I mean some people might have, I imagine anyway, some people might have just, you know, stayed in the heartbroken phase and then just walked away, right? And lost it.Corrina: No, I believed, I really had faith that this... There was a reason I was feeling this way, I couldn't ignore it, I couldn't shake it, I just kept believing in it and stayed consistently just loving her and being a good friend in the months where... You know, it took 3 months basically of us staying friends and me just loving her, and loving her, and loving her. And then just after Christmas we got together as a couple.And just before Christmas...Me: And what happened? So how did that happen? Like you're friends, it's been like you know 3 months, she knows how you feel, did she just all of a sudden like make a move? Or did she say something to you?Corrina: Well, I made the move. Again.Me: (laughs) Oh my god! So it's like 'OK I've already been kind of rejected once, let me have another go'. Right?Corrina: Exactly! (laughs) Or a few gos! So there was that initial conversation and then there was another conversation where I basically said – this was just before Christmas – I basically said “Are you sure?”Me: Oh my god!Corrina: “I still feel this thing...” and she again was like “No really, we're just friends”. So that was the second time and then third time lucky! I just made a move and I thought 'You know what? I'm just gonna take a risk again, I'm just gonna be bold. What's the worst that can happen? Rejection, right? What's the best that can happen? I can be with the love of my life'.Me: Oh my god – yeah but that was still just so...Right, OK. That was still just so brave. Once is already like super brave, right? Braver than most people. Twice is like oh my god, you know, three times you start to think OK, hmmm...Corrina: Yeah, and it worked! (laughs) Third time lucky and it was just after Christmas and that was now 13 years ago – 14 years ago.What was she thinking?Me: And so what did she, like...You made the move and what did she then say? Was she like 'oh I didn't know until you touched me' or was she like 'oh I realized it at the same time as you' or was she...Corrina: I think it was less of a thought thing. It was just, you know, when it happened then it just felt right. Like 'oh this is where I was meant to be, OK, got it'.Me: And that's what she felt too? Was that how she verbalised it to you?Corrina: Well and to give her credit here, so she's gay and I'm bi, right? So for a gay woman, if a bisexual woman says 'I'm in love with you', there's gonna be a sense of 'hmm, OK maybe you're just trying this out, maybe actually this is just a kind of short-term thing for you and really you're gonna want to be with guys'Me: Yeah, I've heard that, yeah.Corrina: So it's a real credit for her that for those months she was, you know, guarding her heart for that, because you don't know what's gonna happen, if that person declaring their love for you is gonna be constant. So I had to kind of prove that actually I meant it. When I said I loved her, I meant it and I was gonna be in it for the long haul.Me: So do you think that a part of her was not testing you, but kind of like unconsciously perhaps waiting? You know?Corrina: Yeah.Me: Oh OK, that makes a lot more sense. Cause in my mind I was imagining somebody who, you know, was neither gay nor bi and who maybe had, I don't know, only gone out with guys or something and so then for somebody like that it would be much more of a 180, right?Corrina: Yeah, no she's gay through and through.Me: Well, fortunately for you as it turns out, right? (laughs)How relevant is gender, anyway?Corrina: Well that's the thing for me as a bisexual woman. For me it's not about the fact that I like men and women, it's the fact that I like people and the gender is just irrelevant.And that's kind of part of what happened in that spiritual awakening moment in Australia. It was like all of the coverings, you know, whether it's our bodies or our personalities or any of that is kind of what covers the essence of us. And actually for me the essence of someone doesn't have a gender. So I fell in love with her like I might have thought or indeed fell in love with guys in the past because I just fall in love with the person, you know, that essence of the human beings behind all the trappings.Me: That's amazing because I feel the same way. It's kind of weird how that works, right? It's kind of like yeah, you feel the essence of the person. I mean I even had one guy say to me – this was like in a totally different context and we did not get together in the end but I do remember him saying to me at one point, I mean he wasn't the right person for me but he was kind of freaked out at one stage. Because he was like “It's like you want my soul!” and I was saying “It's not that I want your soul, it's that I see it!” I believe that I see it, right?And I think that you know, some people... I mean, credit to Sam as well because she's obviously a really strong person too in that, you know, some people would be freaked out by that, right? Some people would be like 'oh well...it's the real me here that's being...I don't know if I want to say exposed but seen, right? Some people...we use those trappings to cover stuff up, right? As we all know, so...That brings a level of intimacy that's probably quite cool I would imagine, right?Corrina: Yeah, and you know, don't get me wrong, I love that she's a woman as well. I love her long hair and her soft skin and her blue eyes, all the things that make her a woman as well I love. So it's not like I don't see those things, but that was never gonna be a filter, like I would only go for...The spectrum of sexualityMe: Yeah. I mean it's really interesting because I...for me, I'm sure, I would imagine perhaps for you as well, I see the whole homosexual/heterosexual thing as this big spectrum and I have a really good friend who...Well I do playback theater and one of my friends, she's in a playback theater troupe where they're all either bi or gay or whatever, and then we did a workshop at one point. They were inviting guest playbackers to go. And one of the exercises they did that was...I just thought it was really cool. They said 'put yourself...if stage left is like totally 100 percent gay and stage right is totally 100 percent heterosexual, put yourself on the spectrum, place yourself physically where you think you are'. And it was really cool to see people, you know, all along the stage, all at different points. I just thought that was very normal, right? Because we're all...for me, anyway, in my mind we're all spiritual beings and so as you say, there's no gender there, right?Corrina: And for some people there are. You know, that's the thing, people who are that kind of 100 percent on the spectrum, brilliant, they're really clear that they only want people of the opposite or the same sex. Yes, spectrum is beautiful.What Corrina does nowMe: Yeah, wow! So now I really want to know more then about how... (laughs)...how you went from, well, what you do now to help people with their relationships. Because obviously you have a lot more knowledge than when you were in primary school and I know you're helping people with a lot more than how to not get unwanted pregnancies and things! (laughs)Corrina: (laughs) Absolutely!Me: So what do you do now with people and how do you help them have these beautiful, deep relationships?Corrina: Yeah, and my work is around all relationships that are important. So it's...my clients, some of them it's really about their partner relationship but for others it's about their relationship with their mom or their daughter or their brother.For me, connection...it's a kind of cliche but connection is what we're hard wired for. We as human beings love to connect, we love to love people with our full hearts. But there are so many things that stop that from happening within us. We get resentful, we get frustrated, we get disappointed, we feel let down, we feel indignant, all of this.And I over the course of my own personal journey have found a very, very miraculous way of dealing with all those blocks. So it's the process of questioning your thoughts, questioning your stories, that block connection.An example of our made-up storiesSo let's say I'm with Sam and let's say she's saying something that sounds critical. My story in my head goes, 'she's criticizing me, she doesn't love me, she's being mean to me'. You know, 'I want her to be kind, I want her not to point out my flaws', all of that. That is all story. It's all mental. It's all...Me: Yes! It's all made up.Corrina: It's all made up! And we don't realize it, we think, 'no but this is true, she's criticizing me, this is what's happening'. And so what I am so blessed to have come into contact with a number of years ago is the process of questioning those thoughts. Just sitting with those thoughts and asking them, 'Is this true? Is this accurate, is this the correct interpretation of what's going on?' Not just is it true that that's what's going on, but is it true that I would be better off if it were happening differently?Me: OK...Corrina: Like am I sure? So let's say your loved one is truly critizing you. They're saying to you “you're a stupid, ugly, whatever, whatever”. Can I be sure that my happiness depends on them not saying that? Can I be sure that I can only feel good about myself and peaceful if they stop doing that? Because it sets up a very limited version of life if I'm always waiting for someone else to give me something, to give me what I think I need in order to be peaceful and happy. It's like I delay my peace and my happiness until other people and other circumstances arrange themselves in just the right way.Our rules...and our scriptsMe: Yeah, it's like our rules, right? Where we all have these rules about what has to happen for us to be happy and the more...the easier it is to be happy, then the happier we are, right?Corrina: Exactly, exactly. I talk about our scripts. It's like, I realized pretty early on with Sam that I had a script, that if she followed this script and she said and she did exactly what I, you know, expected her to do then I would feel happy, but if she went off script then I wouldn't be happy, I'd be pissed off. She really helped me see this, she said to me one day “Why don't you just give me your fucking script Corrina! Give me your script, tell me what I need to do”. And I was like “How dare you! This is just what you're meant to do, you're my wife, this is how you're meant to treat me”. Then it kind of dawned on me a few days later, like 'oh my gosh, my script is the source of all of my unhappiness. Every moment that I want her to be doing something other than what's reality, I am causing my own unhappiness'.Corrina's 'big work'Me: Right. So then your relationship was, I guess, far from...I don't want to say far from idyllic, but you had to work through some of this stuff in your relationship with Sam?Corrina: One hundred percent. I wouldn't be doing this work if I hadn't had to...if this hadn't been my big work. You know, so yes like I was completely besotted with her in the beginning, and we got together and it was blissful, and then all my stories started to kick in. 'Hmmm, well she's not this' and 'hmmm, she said that and that's not OK' and 'would I be better off with someone who did this' and you know, all those stories eroded what I had imagined would be this perfect relationship. So it's like I had to work on that, I had to take those stories and stop those stories from sabotaging this beautiful relationship that we had underneath all those stories.Me: Yeah. It's good that you managed to do that, thank goodness, right?Corrina: I mean, it saved my marriage. It saved my relationship.A daily practiceMe: And did it take a long time?Corrina: Yeah, it's a daily practice. It really is a daily practice, it's like if you want to be fit, like you've done today (laughs), you go to the gym, you go for a run, you do your yoga. You don't just be like 'oh I'll do it one time and then it's done'. If you want a healthy, thriving, fit relationship with anybody, whether it's your son or your dad or your sister, there's daily practice to do. There's daily work to do every time you get triggered, every time something gets in the way of you being totally, wholeheartedly connected with the human being in front of you, you've got something to look at there.Me: Yeah, but at least you can...I mean, what am I trying to say, there comes a time when you catch yourself, right? At least, you know, having done a certain amount of work, then you can get to the point where you see what's happening, right? As an observer almost and you can go 'OK hang on, I'm doing this again, this is my script'. Whereas at the beginning, you know, when people aren't even aware of their scripts, I imagine it takes them a little bit... well it depends on the person I guess, right? How much time it would take them to start to see and to start to implement I guess the tools that you give them, right?Corrina: Absolutely, yes, you're completely spot on.When you get triggeredAnd you know, now I'm at the point where I get triggered and it could be like anything, right? It could be I'm on Facebook and I see a message from someone and I feel like 'oh they should have, you know, complimented me rather than give me negative feedback on something'. Right? Instantly, 'oh! OK, there's a trigger! A button's gotten pushed'. And now I'm at the point where I'm like 'Oooh, good, what's here for me?'Me: I do the same thing, that's really funny! Yeah, I had something that happened the other day that made me so angry and then I'm like 'OK if this is making me this angry and, you know, the other 30 people in the room are not angry, they actually think it's quite cute...' (laughs)We all get triggered, even by 8-year old authorsI'll tell you what it was, it was quite funny. I was at this day workshop with an amazing speaker and there was this little girl, she's like 8 years old and she's written a book. Actually she's written 3 books, right?Corrina: Wow!Me: And it made me so annoyed! And I just thought...you know, not only envious, obviously envious, you know, 3 books at age 8, but also annoyed because, you know, her mom was there and I knew what it was. It brought up all the old scripts of, you know, stage mothers because I did theater before and so I had a good friend who had a stage mother who was just absolutely unbearable whereas, you know, my mom was the opposite.So I see what you mean, you get these reactions, right, that are completely irrational because the people around me were applauding her and they were like 'oh isn't that wonderful' and I was like inside going 'this is making me so angry!' But we all get triggered, don't we, right?Examples of tiny triggersCorrina: Oh, everyone. And it could be like the tiniest thing, that's what I always find fascinating. It could be just one line in an email. Or it could be just the way that your partner, you know, turns over in their sleep, just the tiniest little things. Often my clients say to me “Oh, you know, I can't bring this to you today, it's just so small” and I'm like “No, no, that's exactly what to bring!”. The fact that he put tofu in the stir fry rather than kidney beans, you know. There was something, there was some offense against you. So there you are with that 8 year old girl, that offense that she's committing against you in that moment that's kind of violating something is like, you know, 'she's further ahead than me' or 'she's achieved one of my life goals' or, you know...Me: Yeah, and she's 8 and I'm 55!Corrina: And she's 8! It's just to be so compassionate with ourselves that 'oh look, there's this part of me that feels in some way threatened or violated or hurt by this, let me just so lovingly look there and heal that part of myself'.Being compassionate with yourselfMe: Ah, yeah, that's a really key point there that you brought up so I just wanted to emphasize it, yeah. That being compassionate with that part of ourselves, right? Rather than being like, OK, you know, with that kind of...what's the word, forced smile on our faces, going 'Ah, another beautiful part of me to transform', you know (laughs), right? Right? And we can be quite hard on ourselves with that, right, and be like 'OK what's at the bottom of this!' and take a kind of like pickaxe to it. At least that's what I would do or could do rather than choosing to as you say, acknowledge with love that part of ourselves and treat it as part of, you know, part of the inner child or whatever you want to call it, that needs love and compassion. That's a really interesting point that we don't want to forget. Wow! That's very cool.How to work with CorrinaSo when you work with people, I would love to hear just a bit more about what the different ways are that you...Do people come to see you in an office, or do you do things online, or how does that work?Corrina: Yes, so right now it's one to one. There's a potential of me offering something else in the kind of group workshop, retreat way, but not for now. What I do is I do free videos, everyone can just watch a free video every week, all about relationship hotspots and how to move past them, and then if people feel inspired and really like they're wanting that support, they can have the one to one coaching. And for now that is by Skype or by phone, and I'm just starting to also offer that in person as well for people who I'm unable to physically meet with.Me: Yeah. That's really fantastic, well thank you so much. What I'll do is, I'll link to everything that you do in the show notes but where's the best place for people to look online to find out more about what you're doing and more about you and to get access to the videos and things?An online video library...and a 7 Day Relationship ChallengeCorrina: Yeah, so if they go to corrinagordonbarnes.com, I'll just spell that out, and if you go to the blog page that's where I've got all the videos and articles that have happened so far. So that's a really good place just to go, it's like settling into a library of relationship wisdom and gems, just settling in and watching some of the videos and just seeing if the approach makes sense to you.The right people for this work are people who watch a video and go 'oh my gosh, that makes so much sense!' And they apply that tip that I'm sharing and they come back and they say “Wow I had this incredible experience with my mom! Because I did the thing that you...” I do like challenges in the video so they're like “I did the challenge that you set and I had a completely different experience with my mom this week, thank you!”Me: That's brilliant!Corrina: It's so good, it's so satisfying. So on the blog page that's where people can look at all the videos so far. And on the homepage people can sign up for the free 7 Day Relationship Challenge.7 days to feel more connectedMe: That sounds intriguing for sure!Corrina: Yes! It's 7 days to feel more connected, that's the overarching focus. How can you feel more connected? That beautiful feeling of just wholehearted connection with the person in front of you, and I give a number of challenges that you can actually implement to help you feel that way.Me: That is really fantastic! Well, I mean yeah, because as you say, we're all starving for connection and I mean, we could do a whole episode just about the different ways people connect, right? Through food and smoking and alcohol, and, you know, apart from people, right?Corrina: Facebook!Me: Facebook! There's so many...it's a massive, massive topic but...so I wish we had more time! But thank you so much for being here to share your story, because I love your story and I love your journey and I really, really love what you're doing right now, so I'm really grateful that you took the time to share that with us, so thank you so much!Corrina: You're very welcome, thank you so much!A food to help with travel sicknessSo now I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you one of the best foods you can eat for help with travel sickness. And I think it will come as no surprise for most of you anyway to hear that that food is...ginger!Ginger has so many benefits it's ridiculous. Not only can it help with travel sickness, but it's also beneficial for other causes of nausea, like morning sickness, and it can help with pain relief as well.Why ginger is so helpfulSo this powerful little root contains loads of antioxidant and antiinflammatory compounds, including curcumin and capsaicin which are also found in turmeric which is another superfood. They're part of the same plant family, turmeric, ginger and cardamom.Ginger also contains a ton of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, niacin, iron, zinc and folate. A big list, right?And ginger is a great way to warm us up, because it's a diaphoretic (that was my new word for today), which means that it heats the body from the inside out. So if you live in a cold climate for example, ginger can literally help warm you up inside. It also helps promote sweating, which is why it's so good to have ginger tea if you've got a cold and you need to sweat out some toxins.Ginger even helps with pain reliefBut did you know that ginger can also help with pain relief? Two examples are exercise-induced muscle pain (so if you work out, eat some ginger), as well as menstrual cramps. So the next time you're feeling crampy (I don't know if that's a word but I've just decided it is!), make yourself some strong ginger tea and see how you feel.Ginger can also help reduce inflammation, so scientists are looking to see if it can help with cancer, and particularly colon cancer. Ginger also is showing promise for helping treat that as well as inflammation caused by osteoarthritis.I'll link to an article in the show notes that has more information about ginger's many properties and benefits, it also includes links to the actual research in case you'd like to know more about that. And in addition I'll link to an article that has some overall tips for avoiding travel sickness, including using ginger.So how do you eat ginger?If you're feeling nauseous and you want instant relief, well, you can definitely try peeling the root and gnawing on a piece...although I haven't done that myself. Ginger's pretty strong stuff.What I do is I usually juice a small piece of ginger with some carrots and apples for a really zinging morning juice. It tastes really, really good. Or you can pop a piece into your blender with other veggies and maybe some fruit for a green smoothie or a soup to give it a bit of a zing. It also helps you use less salt because it's got a really strong flavor.Other people prefer to slice a few pieces into some very hot water and let it steep for a while with a slice or two of lemon to make ginger tea.And you can also grate ginger into soups, curries and other savory dishes. Or even just chop it finely and use it in stir-frys.I'll link in the show notes to some recipes that I've got in my 5-Minute Mains recipe ebook that use ginger too, such as my Green Thai Curry.One thing for sure that I definitely recommend is that you use fresh ginger root wherever possible, rather than powdered ginger or capsules. I say that because the fresh vegetable is so easy to use and it's always best I think to have the actual vegetable rather than some dried out version in a plastic capsule. But then again if capsules are all you have access to, better that than no ginger!If you do try something new with ginger, definitely share in the comments because I want to know!Have YOU got a story to share?Which brings us to the end of this week's story – and if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you!Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESLink to 5-Minute Mains and other recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article with nutritional information on ginger as well as links to scientific studies: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265990.phpArticle with general tips to help with travel sickness: http://mentalfloss.com/article/78131/9-scientifically-proven-ways-prevent-motion-sicknessCorrina Gordon-Barnes is a Relationship Coach who’s committed to a world of happy couples and happy families. She teaches her clients how to be really good at relationships – how to love full-heartedly, let go of resentments, forgive, accept and live from power not victimhood. She lives in Cambridge, England with her wife, Sam.Corrina's website: http://corrinagordonbarnes.com Corrina's Feel More Connected: a FREE 7-day Relationship ChallengeCorrina on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

Jessica Louise Li shares how she went from being in an abusive marriage to creating a legacy with a new love of her life using what she calls the path of Sensational Sex.And at the end of this episode I'll share with you a little food that I bet you don't know is a powerful libido booster – as well as another food that you definitely want to avoid, because it acts like a cold shower of toxicity!Our guest, Jessica Louise LiI am very excited to be joined here today by Jessica Louise Li. Jessica is a former raw food chef who now teaches women how to use the power of sex energy to unleash self-expression in both the bedroom and in business. Now I don't know about you, but that alone would get me very excited. But she's got a lot more to share with us today, so let's get started!Me: So Jess welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm super excited to have you here!Jess: Yes, thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to those tips you have at the end.Me: Yeah, let's see how that turns out! We'll see if you know them – including the toxic one.I'm really glad we're able to do this because we've known each other for quite a while. So I already know your story, but I love it and I think it's quite a powerful one. You went from such a place of hardship to a place of lightness and joy. I think people will be very inspired to know how you went from one to the other, and what it was like for you.I know that for a while you had a bit of a rough time because you were in a bit of an abusive relationship. Do you want to say a little bit about that? Because I think that's where your story starts, if I'm not mistaken?Jess: Yeah definitely.Jessica's storySo I was married for 10 years – I mean it was 14 years in the long run. But it was 10 years into the marriage where things started to accumulate more and more.An abusive marriage from day 1It always...from day 1 it was mentally abusive, verbally abusive, emotionally abusive...There were 5 times when he put his hands on me and of course as we know, one time is more than enough.It wasn't until almost 10 years into the marriage where he had actually tried to take my life.My husband had actually tried to kill me as my 3 children were sleeping upstairs.Me: Oh my God, how old were your children?Jess: They were 7, 9 and 11...or actually no, that was 2010...The kids are 2 years apart so they were 3, 5 and 7.Me: Wow.Jess: They were really young.And I know that's the hard run of the story, but...I want to share it like that because that's an experience. As dramatic and as crazy and wild as it may seem to some people, it's something that I happened to experience in life. But I know that that doesn't define me.A journey tooIt's really the journey of what I experienced back then to what I am now. And that's what I'm really here for, it's the inspiration, it's the whole picture. It's not just that one incident.Me: Exactly. If people were to look at your life now, when people see what you're doing now, it's amazing. I know that you'll say a bit more about that later but it's kind of hard to imagine that you started from that kind of place. Jess: Yeah, totally. I guess that's a testament to how far I've come. It was something that was really horrifying and I wouldn't wish it on anyone for sure.Married to a killer (literally)But here's the thing: when I was in that relationship, I knew that it was wrong. Deep down I knew that I shouldn't be in there. But the thing is that I was living in so much fear, and I didn't feel like I had the resources to be able to leave him.On top of that he was someone who was involved with the gangs, so I was in fear of him having someone follow me. Or, you know, because he was in that lifestyle, he had no qualms about coming after me or trying to kill me.Like when he said he was going to kill me, I like 100% believed him.Me: Wow.Jess: Because he had killed people before. And I can say that freely now only because he passed away. He died suddenly 3 years ago, it's been almost three years now.Living in fearOne of the biggest secrets that I couldn't tell – and I think even when I met you, I couldn't say my whole story. So maybe it's perfect timing now that we're doing this interview!There's only so many details that I could say, right? It's not about ratting him out or like trying to show off, even if you'd consider that showing off. But it's to highlight that I was living in so much fear that every night I knew that I was laying in the arms of someone that has killed before.People ask me, “Why didn't you leave earlier?” A lot of people say that about abused women, 'why do you stay' or 'I don't get why you're still with him'. And I think it's not until or unless you're in that situation that you really understand why a woman stays. Like I said, of course I knew it was a bad thing. As my kids were growing up, I knew that I didn't want my daughter to see that it was OK for a man to hit her and for her to go back. And vice-versa, I didn't want my son to think it was OK for him to put his hands on a woman and then she comes back and all is great.So I had to be mindful of that. When they were younger there was so much that I could get away with, but as they got older they started to mimic certain behaviours. They started to see my ruses, they started to ask “Why does Mommy have a black eye?”The turning pointIt just got to the point where you know what? This was enough. And yeah, unfortunately it got to the night where he attacked me and tried to kill me.Me: And was that the turning point?Jess: That was the turning point, because I was on the sofa, and without going into too much detail... One of the ways he tried to kill me...He was huge, he choked me twice unconscious on the sofa.So I had three thoughts. One, that my parents would find my body here. Two, that my children wouldn't have their mother. And three, that this isn't fair, I didn't get to do everything that I wanted to do.  It was the third thought that was the catalyst. That was what made me want to take my own life, after healing, and create something that was for me. To create the life of my dreams. And to do something that was gonna benefit my kids - I was gonna be happy.I didn't want to waste time, and I didn't want to life my life for someone else. Now I wanted to live my life for me.The scariest momentActually I was very fortunate, because he had stabbed me after I had regained consciousness. He had actually stabbed me in the head.Me: In the head?!Jess: He did, yeah. And I know it's crazy and it was the scariest moment. I mean, the whole night was crazy. Crazy scary. Me: Well it's amazing that you survived!Jess: Yes, but do you know what though Barbara? If you believe in it...I do... it was divine intervention.Face to face with a knifeWhat happened was he had picked up the knife, it was a big stainless steel kitchen knife. He came towards me and he was 6, 6 feet 1 and 270 pounds at the time. Mostly muscle, a big guy. And I'm like 5 feet 4, 5 feet 5, a 140 pounds, 135 pounds.He came to me, basically we were like face to face and he picked up the knife and I shut my eyes and I was hoping that it wasn't going to hurt too much.I was like 'wow, this is the last scene I'm going to see before I die'.And I shut my eyes and I squeezed my eyes so tight, and I was just braced for the knife. I felt the knife go in and out of my scalp really fast. It was really creepy.All of a sudden he backed off. I tried to deflect the knife for one or two seconds and he backed off and I thought this was weird, I was just in so much shock.After he had already punched me, after he had already broken a chair over me, after he'd choked me unconscious twice, and now he'd just stabbed me...my adrenaline was just pumping and all of a sudden he just stopped out of nowhere so I was in a huge state of shock. Then on top of that I was like 'what the heck? What's going on?'So I actually thought he was going to go get...I knew that he had a gun in the house and I thought he was going to go get that.Divine interventionAnd it wasn't till later that I realized when I talked to him that he has a rosary. Usually as you know you don't wear rosaries. But he had his decked out in diamonds, and he made it fancy. So he was wearing his rosary at the time, and it snapped, it broke. He had owned it for years, maybe like 8 years up to that point or so. It broke, and he told me that's what snapped him out of his rage, because when the rosary snapped it took him out of what he was doing to me and he was like 'What the f am I doing?' So I keep that piece with me to this day, I have it in my room. I've done talks when I've spoken in front of organizations and young girls, I've showed it to them. Because that's what saved me. If the rosary hadn't broken at the time, I don't know whether I'd be here talking to you.Me: Wow. Whoof! Jess: Yeah.Me: It's such a powerful story that I'm kind of glued to my chair. I'm kind of like wow, where do you go...Getting out fastSo how did you leave? Was it after that night that you just like left? Did you take your kids? Did you go somewhere?Jess: So after he had left, I guess what he did was he left, he took off in one of our cars because we had two family cars. And as soon as I knew he was gone, I ran upstairs like a madwoman. This must have been like 3 in the morning so the kids were asleep. Thank goodness they didn't wake up and they didn't witness any of this.I ran upstairs, they were all sleeping in one room and I grabbed them and I said “Hurry, hurry guys, we've gotta go, something bad happened”. And they were like, “What's going on?” They were groggy...So I grabbed some blankets, some toys, I threw them in the car...And I literally just threw everyone and got myself out of there so fast, cause I thought he was gonna come back and that was my only way to escape.At one point he said “Do you wanna leave?” And I knew that as a mother I wasn't going to leave 3 kids at home. I didn't think that he would harm them, but as a mother I needed to protect them and I needed to know that they would be OK.So yes it was risky, I knew I was risking my life by staying, but heck, my kids! I grabbed them and I put them in the car, and we left. He didn't come back.Being brave, or a bit nutsAnd I was scheduled to work that night. Two nights of the week I slept over there which was that night. It was crazy because I was trying to be tough, right? So I drove back there with the kids and I wrote a message to him as I was bleeding, saying “I'm so sorry I had to leave early, I'll be back in the morning to finish working”. That was nuts!I got back in the car and I drove to my employer's place. So I was working as a caregiver and her son had hired me to take care of her. Two nights out of the week I slept there and it was that night. I took the kids and I had some skin hanging off of my hand from one of the knife wounds and I looked at the kids and I was like, “Oh man, what am I gonna do now?” And I didn't want to go to the police, I didn't want to go to the hospital because I was afraid they were gonna take my kids away.Me: Oh!When even the police let you downJess: So the last time... I had moved from Ontario which is more on the eastern side of Canada from British Columbia which is on the west coast of Canada.When I lived in British Columbia my husband had threatened me at one time in the past. He didn't do anything but he said that he would kill me. And I had enough courage to go to the police back then.And crazy enough Barbara, they said... I walked up with my two year old at the time and my son who was in a baby carrier. So I walked up the steps and I told them what happened. I said my husband threatened to kill me and it was a female police officer.She said, “Do you have family in the city?” and I said, “Yeah”. Then she said, “Who is it?” and I said, “My uncle”. She said, “Here's the phone” and she hands me the rotary phone and she says, “If you don't call him right now and tell him what happened, I'm gonna have your kids taken away from you”.Me: Oh my God! That's awful!Jess: And I thought... I had gathered so much courage to get to the police! Because in that lifestyle, you're always trained to think of the police as someone that you'd never, ever speak to, you know, that's a bad thing. But I had the courage to go there when he wasn't home, and here she tells me this. Hiding in the hospitalI bawled. I cried – and I thought, “If the police can't help me, nobody can”. So that was the experience I had going into this situation. And I thought, “I can't have my kids taken away from me”. So I was just looking at my wounds going, “Maybe I can get some bandages”.I got some bandages and I was like, “No, this is not gonna work!” So I went to the hospital and I left my kids in the car, and I felt bad.But I went in and I said, “You know, I got this wound from chopping vegetables” and she said “Right handed?” and I said “Yeah” and she said “Hmmm, tell me what really happened because you don't hurt your right hand chopping vegetables with your right hand”.Well she knew, and they're trained to look for these things. I told her, and I told her I didn't want to press charges. And it actually wasn't until 3 months later that he got arrested, and it was because I was seeing a psychologist for some counseling to help me work through some things, and she was the one that said, “You know, just enquire at the police station what would happen if you wanted to report him. Don't say you want to, just enquire”.Me: That's a good idea.More guidance and helpJess: So I drove my way to work one day, and him and I, we were... we thought we would work things out, and things were going okay. And I was like, “See you guys later, I'm gonna go to work now.”Then on my way to work, something just took my hand. As if something just took my hand and made me turn the steering wheel the opposite way. I drove to the police station and I said, “Look, this is what happened to me. What would happen if I reported this?”She comes back and she says, “Let me talk to my supervisor”. And she came back to the front and she said, “Now that the ball is dropped we have to go and arrest him”.I freaked because I said, “You can't arrest him. He's going to come and kill me now!” And she said “I'm sorry, we have to go and get him. We have to bring him in”.I said, “I've got kids, my kids are with him”. They promised that they wouldn't see him getting arrested. Unfortunately my older daughter did see that and that's traumatized her since.The staying, leaving cycle...So yeah, that's how I got out of it. And the funny thing is with abuse – and I think this is an important conversation because there's a lot of people who have gone through domestic abuse. Men and women. There's a lot that don't talk about it, or they don't recognize it. And I know that a lot of men and women, they go back to their abuser and then something happens, right? It's that whole cycle of staying, leaving, staying, leaving. That's what happened to me.So even though he got arrested, I continued to see him for about 4 or 5 months after, going to the jail, saying that I would recant my statement. I would bring the kids to the jail and I would say “Let's work this out” and I really did mean it.Family men to the rescueAnd then it wasn't until I finally got to my lawyers and I told them what happened, and they were like “OK, from this day forward, you cannot go to the jail”. They told me, they shared their reasons that they saw my husband as not a good husband and not a good father.This was coming from men that were family men. At the time I never had male role models to look to. So to have them say that, it put something in me where I was like, “Holy crap, maybe, maybe they're right”. You know?They made me promise, they said “If we're going to work together, you cannot go back there”. And the guy that I was working for said “Look, you've started something, you need to finish it”.So I was lucky that I had those pillars in my life to hold me to that, because left to my own devices, I would have just taken him out of jail, recanted my statement and I don't know if I would be here today. And my life wouldn't be where it's at today. That's how I got out of it.Like I said, looking at my kids going “I can't have them look at me as a role model and going back to an abusive situation”. And that catalyst, that moment I had on the sofa, right? Going 'this isn't fair, I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do'. I'm taking the reins back on my life.The healing beginsMe: And so you must have gone through quite a long process of...I don't know, did you do counseling? What kinds of things did you do to start to, I guess sort of change your world view, or just you know, heal things in yourself to enable you to move forward?Jess: So the psychologist that I was talking about, the police referred me to them because part of the victim services and I don't know if they have that where you are. But they only allow 10 sessions with a psychologist and after that you have to pay and it's really expensive. So I thought any help I can get is awesome, and there was one group I had for mothers and children of abuse. Myself and my youngest two went, my oldest didn't want to go. And after that, honestly it was mostly self work and that's what really shot me into this world of spiritual enlightenment if you want to call it that.I was never someone that I would have considered spiritual before this incident. And I'm grateful for what happened to me because it allowed me to really go deeper into myself and just ask myself.Looking inside and pleasing yourselfYou know, as I was healing physically, I had the time thank goodness to just heal. Like in a great spot with trees and the forest around me and animals. And I would just look outside every day and go “What would  make me happy? What does Jessica want?” That was hard for me because I had lived my life for so many years trying to please somebody else. And I lost who I was, I lost my self expression. I was not allowed to talk to certain people, my friends and family were cut off, so I had to find me again.And so like I said, most of it was work that I did by myself and on myself, and when I was ready, then I started to talk to some people and I started to network after I made the decision, “You know what? I'm going to start a business”. I think that was about the time that I met you, you know, doing the whole raw food thing. Me: Yeah, I remember, yeah.A new career, and maybe a new man?Jess: Yeah, because I became a raw food chef. Because I decided, “You know what? I'm going to go down to New York City, I'm going to train as a raw food chef”.I came back and started a catering company here in Toronto and that's pretty much the time when I had met you. And I thought I would continue my journey that way, and it wasn't until this further journey, a couple of years went by that I said to myself...I knew that I wanted a new love in my life, and what was funny was, and I know that you can relate to this as an entrepreneur because there are so many things on your plate...And I said to myself, “You know what? I want my business to get to a certain level before I start dating again”.Me: That's what I've said to myself! (laughs)Jess: I was cool with that, but then I was like “Wait a second. I could be totally be cutting off the guy that's made to be there in my life.” And when I made that decision, I just declared to the universe that I'm giving this up. If the guy is out there, so be it, I can work through this with my business at the same time”.And really, like within the next two or three months, I met Michael!Enter the relationship coachMe: Wow! How did you guys meet?Jess: So we met at a trade show. He was doing relationship coaching at the time for women, so he was helping women find a great partner. He still does some of that work as well, so he helps women find a really great partner and keep a really good relationship.So he had just released his newest book at a women's trade show in Toronto. I was walking between the aisles and I was like “I know you, I recognize this name from somewhere” and he said, “You do?” And we realized we both belonged to the same entrepreneurial group online.But what was funny was he was in a relationship at the time and I was going into a relationship. So it was one of those like 'here's my business card' and there was some attraction there and then there was no contact at all for 5 months.Dating adviceAnd then one of my friends invited me to a concert that a friend was holding. I showed up early and Michael showed up, and I'm like, “What are you doing here?” So we didn't know that we had the same mutual friends, but the universe is so funny how it works. But he showed up that night, and he was there with his girlfriend, he was waiting for his girlfriend but he came early and I came early, so we just started chatting.And I shared with him where I was at, I was getting out of the relationship that I was previously in. I said, “I know you're a relationship guy, here's the deal, what's up with this guy?”He gave me some dating advice and he said “There's nothing wrong with you, look, I do some matchmaking. Tell me what you're looking for”. And I told him. Sneakily enough, I didn't find out until later, he broke up with his girlfriend that same night!Knowing what you wantSo you know, we were Facebook messaging each other. And I said, “Well if I get too specific, here's a general idea of what I'm looking for in a guy”. Then I said, “You know what? Scratch that, here's my specifics”. And I went very specific, and I guess that on the other side he was like “Oh my goodness, this is me, I'd have everything!”He didn't tell me that, he said, “Awesome, I think I know someone for you. Can you meet me downtown for tea next week?” And I said, “Yeah, sure”. So we met and about an hour, an hour and a half talking, I said, “Where is this guy?” Because I was expecting this guy to show up. And he's like, “OK so you know that guy I was telling you about? Yeah, it's me!”Me: Oh, it's like something out of movie, out of a romcom, right?Jess: Totally! And it wasn't until that moment, until that day, that I found out that he broke up with his girlfriend back at the concert. Like once I know someone's in a relationship, to me they're categorized as off-limits.Me: Yes, of course.Jess: I didn't think that, you know, that it was gonna be him at all. And when he got that he was like 'My ex-girlfriend thinks you're really pretty'. And I'm like 'OK so the girl before this girl? I don't get it'. He said 'Oh, she's no longer my girlfriend, we broke up' and I'm like 'Ohhh...' and that's when it totally clicked in.Friends with benefitsSo we started seeing each other just for sex and he knew I had needs and I wasn't looking for anything serious right now so I was like, “Yeah, sure”. I had a couple of rules and one of them was 'We don't tell anyone about this' so for like 5 or 6 months I would go to his house and I would leave the kids because I had kids at home and he doesn't have kids. And I would drive 45 minutes each way just to go and have sex with him, twice, sometimes three times a week, and we would do this for 5 or 6 months.Then of course feelings started to...We started talking more, and then one day he goes, “I know this is crazy, but do you want to go out on a date?” After like 5 or 6 months of sleeping together, 'do you want to go out on a date'. And yeah, things just went from there, that was 2 and a half years ago and we're getting married in a few months!Me: That is so cool! You seriously have to...that has to be made into a movie, that just has to happen.Jess: Well what's funny about that is there's actually a producer who heard about my story and he wants to make a movie out of my life, so maybe we'll stick that in there.Me: Yes! You have to stick that in there!ForgivenessJess: Yeah, that's where we're at right now and life is just incredible. And see, the thing is after my husband tried to kill me, it took me some time but I forgave him and I got to verbalise that to him before he passed away.He was impressed by my healing and my journey, and he was like “Wow, sweetheart I'm so happy for you, maybe one day you can help me get to where you are”.Me: Oh wow. That must have been...How did you feel when he said that?Jess: Just chills! And it was also because we met up, we weren't talking to get back together. We met because he's the father of my kids but there was no talk of us getting back together. So we had the best communication just before he died, funnily enough. Should I stay or should I run?After they released him from jail, after he got out of jail for what he did to me... Oh by the way I completely freaked out when he was released, I was ready to run. My mom said, “Look, if you need to run and hide, you just run and wherever you are, you just tell me where you are and you're safe.” Like I was ready to take my kids in the car and just, like...Honestly, Barbara, I was Googling things like 'how to become a refugee in Australia'. I was looking for ways to escape Canada. And then I just came to the point where I was like, “If I start running now, I'm going to be running for the rest of my life”.I had a friend who when I was attacked...she's very spiritual and I wasn't there yet. But she said to me, “Jessica, you just need to trust” and I said “No” and in my mind I was like “Are you f-ing crazy? Do you know who... He's gonna come get me!” She grabbed my hand and she was like, “You just need to trust. You just need to trust”.Giving up fearAnd I totally didn't understand that at all back then, and it wasn't till later till I was just like, “I need to just trust, and everything is going to work out. The universe is going to support me. I don't know how, but I just need to give up this fear that I have”. So I decided to stay in Canada.The first conversation I had with him, it was the first time I'd talked to him since I'd left him in jail. Because he was livid when he found out that I'm not going to get him out of jail and recant my statement. I mean he was absolutely livid, he was ready to send someone to kill me. He told me this afterward, but luckily he had the time to just cool off.So when he first got out of jail, I didn't know how he was gonna react. I'm like, “This could be the worst mistake of my life or this could be the best thing”. And I just knew that the first conversation I had with him, I just had this huge feeling rush over me like 'everything is going to be fine, everything is going to be good'. I can't explain, it was just a knowing.And things just blossomed from there. Like I said, not to get back together, we were going our own ways but we were in conversation so it was a big shock that his dad called me one day and just said, “I'm so sorry, he passed away this morning”. He wasn't even sick.A huge shockMe: How did he die?Jess: He died of an overdose, and they thought it was a heart attack because 95% of his arteries were blocked in his heart. But the toxicology report said that it was an overdose and he wasn't someone to do drugs. I think what it looked like was some of the pills he was taking were laced with fentanyl, which is... There's a huge problem in British Columbia with a lot of people dying from fentanyl. They're lacing Fentanyl into other drugs currently.So it was a huge shock, a huge shock. I was driving down the street in Toronto with my youngest daughter and I just collapsed. I had to get out of the car and I collapsed. Then I was screaming, like “Why!” And I had so much of this 'you just left me here and I've got these 3 kids, but... You know, I see signs of him all the time. So even though he did that to me, I still talk to him all the time. And I ask him to look after the kids and support them and look after me, and I know that he's in a better place to be able to support me.Me: That's just what I was gonna say.Taking responsibility to empower yourselfJess: Yeah, totally. And the thing is, I could have gotten hung up on 'I was abused, this happened to me...' Trust me, I've had many more reasons than we've talked about here to keep myself in a place of victimhood and blaming everyone else. But instead what I did was take responsibility.Even when before...you know, we didn't get a chance to talk about gang rape, but in my younger years when I was gang-raped, I took responsibility for my part. Not to excuse them, but there was a certain responsibility that I had to take for myself, and the same thing with my husband.So going back and taking responsibility in those areas really got me empowered, and then, you know, people encouraged me more and more to share my story. And the more I did, the more women would stand up and say 'this has happened to me'. The more I did that, the more I realized that I have a powerful story to share. I can inspire others, hence this podcast.From sharing to teaching to rocking out seminars!And you know I've just realized that the raw food that I was doing before, it's funny how the universe has its plans. It wasn't until I met Michael and we were having this incredible sex... We had a lot of experience prior to meeting each other, but this was something different. One day he was joking around, he said, “You know, this is so great, we should teach this to people”. I said “Yes, we should!” And he's like, “Really? Cause I was just kinda kidding”.But within 5 months of that idea, we sold out our first event in Toronto and we just rocked it. It was amazing! And we have our 7th one coming up pretty soon here. Me: And those are your Sensational Sex Seminars, right?Jess: Exactly, yeah. Hopefully one day soon we can bring it to the UK.Me: You have to bring it to the UK because I want to come!Jess: Yeah!The power of sexual energySo what happened too was my sexual energy, when I was younger I always had this innate feeling of...I don't know what you want to call it. I knew what sex was or sexual feelings before a child should even know what that stuff is. And I couldn't put my finger on it as a kid, but as I got older, people would shame me and I would feel repressed. I felt like I had to shut off that side of me.What I realized was I was cutting off my sexual energy and I completely lost that when I was married. Of course we had sex, but I wasn't in the flow, I wasn't embracing my feminine energy. I didn't know about masculine and feminine energies and honoring them both within each of us, within myself and within my partner.It was the gift that I got afterwards with being with Michael that I discovered how powerful sexual energy is. Because sex energy is how we all got here, it's life energy. It runs every area of our life, it permeates into everything that we do, the way we walk, the way we dress, the way we do business, it's all sexual energy. If we can really tap into that, our life will be remarkably powerful. And that's what I want to spread right now, because I regained my power, my real power, by tapping into, by reclaiming my sexual energy. How to find JessicaMe: Wow! Now I think there's a lot of... I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who would love to know how to do just that. So how do people find you? Because I know that you help a lot of women with precisely that, so where's the best place for them to find you?Jess: The best place right now would be to go to my website, so it's www.jessicalouiseli.com and Louise is l-o-u-i-s-e and Li is l-i because some people ask, so jessicalouiseli dot com.Me: Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes as well, so... Wow that is fantastic, and yes, you've got to bring the Sensational Sex Seminar to the UK so let me know what I can do to help make that happen!Jess: Definitely! We'll chat!Me: Well, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast and for sharing your absolutely incredible story. I think the image of you with the broken rosary is going to stay in my mind for quite a while, that's really something.Jess: You're welcome!A great libido boosterNow I did mention at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you a little food that I have a feeling you may not know can boost your libido – as well as one food that you definitely want to avoid.So as far as aphrodisiacs go, you may be thinking chocolate, right? And yes, chocolate does have lots of substances that give us some feel-good chemicals, but most of us know that. I'm not going there.The food that I'm talking about is...blackberries!Benefits of blackberriesYes, blackberries. Both the berries themselves as well as their seeds are great libido boosters, according to Drs. Anna Maria and Brian Clement, who are the directors of the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. This is because blackberries are so rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that they just have a very powerful effect on our wellbeing.Blackberries have lots of other benefits – including helping to relieve PMS and hot flashes, helping with bone health, keeping your hair clean, helping prevent memory loss and loads more. In fact there are way too many benefits to list here, so I'll link to an article in the show notes where you can read about it if you want to.How you use blackberriesHow do you eat blackberries? Well, this is easy. You pick up a big handful, about 10 berries, and that should do the trick! Or sprinkle them on cereal or a fruit pudding. Just don't have them with dairy because dairy is another food that cuts our libido short. It's very clogging, and we don't want clogged bodies, right? We want everything to be working at its max efficiency!Now blackberries are delicious on their own, but if you'd rather have them with a gorgeously tasty yet healthy dessert, I've got loads of recipes that would go really well with blackberries in my 5-minute dessert recipes ebook which I'll link to below as well.One of the top foods to avoidRight, so I have to tell you one of the top foods to avoid. I can't help it, especially because it's famous for being an aphrodisiac. And that food is oysters!Oysters are high in zinc which has been linked to the creation of hormones, but unfortunately oysters, like other bottom-feeders in the ocean, absorb a lot of toxins and parasites. And those toxins far outweigh any benefit you might get from the zinc. Oysters are not a love food, they are a toxic food!So I hope you've enjoyed our story and our foodie tips!Have YOU got a story to share?And if you've got a true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day or enhanced your situation),  I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESJessica's website: www.JessicaLouiseLi.comArticle on foods that boost (and inhibit) libido: www.fitnessmagazine.com/mind-body/sex/libido-boosting-foods/Benefits of blackberries: www.valuefood.info/1292/health-benefits-for-blackberries5-Minute recipe ebooks: rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes 

Alexandra Merisoiu shares her story of how she went from guzzling Coke and eating at all hours to lean, fit and healthy. Plus a tiny food that you'd never guess has more calcium than dairy, and a food for sport that keeps you going all day long!The food that I'll share with you is not only an amazing source of protein, energy and healthy fats, but one tiny ounce contains 18% of the recommended daily allowance for calcium. So it's also an amazing bone food for all you people who don't eat dairy and might be worried about where you're getting your calcium. And I bet you don't know what it is! Or maybe you do...you'll find out in a bit! Our guest, Alexandra MerisoiuI am very excited to be joined here today by Alexandra Merisoiu, also known as The Body Engineer.Alexandra specialises in working with runners, beginners and advanced, who want to run faster and further, with less effort and fewer injuries. She also has a 3rd Dan Black Belt in Karate Shotokan, and she is a Martial Arts British National Champion, with a host of national and international awards in the sport, including World Cup Champion. And if that weren't enough, in between helping others with their running, Alexandra still competes at an international level!Alexandra's storySo let's get to the story. Alexandra welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today!Alexandra: Thank you very much for the invitation. And thank you for the introduction as well.Me: Oh well you're welcome! I just find it astounding, everything that you manage to do. And I don't know how you do it, but I'm sure you'll share a bit about that in a moment.I mean, I know when we talked about you coming on the podcast, you mentioned that there was a time when you were drinking like 2 liters of coke a day and definitely with a very different level of health and fitness compared to what you have today.And I would really love for you to tell everybody how you changed your relationship with food, because there are a lot of things that you've overcome that a lot of people still struggle with, you know?Alexandra: Yeah, well that's true. 2 liters of Coca-Cola, 2 liters of Sprite, I kind of changed from one to the other. Me: Variety, yeah...Training hard in RomaniaAlexandra: I mean, back then in my family I didn't have the education that I have today. When McDonald's came to my country, I was there a few times a week. But we didn't really know what and how and why...Me: Oh sorry, so can you remind people where you grew up, then?Alexandra: Oh yes, in Romania. In Eastern Europe.So I was practising martial arts 6 days a week, sometimes 12 sessions a week. Twice a day was in school holidays.Me: Wow!Alexandra: A holiday with my family didn't really exist because I was always training. And yeah, I was just eating, burning calories, eating, burning calories...There was no way I could have put on weight.But fast forward to today, it's not actually about being able to burn calories. It's about what's going on inside your body, it's all about calories.Alexandra's first turning pointMe: I know you had a turning point at one stage, right? Because you said you had Coke and a sandwich, and...what led you to change?Alexandra: Oh yes, I remember it. I was actually a little bit scared. I was twelve, thirteen years old, and I was eating a sandwich really quick. And I was drinking Coke while eating a sandwich, right?Me: As many people do, right?Alexandra: Yes, and two minutes into eating, I just threw it up. And I think from what I remember, that was the turning point. At that point I just stopped drinking Coca-Cola.Me: Yes because you weren't feeling sick, right? It wasn't like you had an illness and threw up, it was actually the...Alexandra: No, no, I actually think I was getting ready to go to my karate training. I actually went!Me: (laughs) That doesn't surprise me!Alexandra: (laughs) Yes, my training is a bit like if I'm not in the hospital...Me: Were you competing at that time too?Alexandra: Yes, yes, I think my first competition was when I was ten years old, or nine. It was an in-house competition, so small. But yeah, I was competing, and then at fourteen I received my first black belt.A definite U-turnMe: Wow! And what were you thinking when, I mean, you've eaten the sandwich, you've drunk the Coca-Cola, you've thrown it up. I mean, what thoughts were in your head when you were like 'I've had enough, I can't eat this way any more'?Alexandra: Oh it's been such a long time, I don't remember. But the shock of throwing up and of feeling sick...I think it was a U-turn, basically. I don't think I thought about it too much. I don't remember thinking 'Oh this isn't too good for my health'.Me: Yeah, a twelve-year-old probably wouldn't think like that, right?Alexandra: Yes, probably I thought 'This made me throw up so I'm not gonna have it anymore'.From training to clubbingMe: Cause you were quite heavier at one point, right? You said that you were like ten kilos heavier at one stage, so how did that happen?Alexandra: Yeah, so when I was eighteen I stopped karate. I did the other martial arts, but I stopped karate because I started travelling. And I kind of...when you are an athlete, you don't go out much. You don't have a lot of friends.So I made some friends and then we started going clubbing and dancing and drinking and all the other stuff. I saw the other side of life and karate all of a sudden didn't seem so fascinating anymore, you know?I trained less, but I was eating the same. And when you're an athlete and you train 6 times a week, maybe 12 times a week, and you eat a certain quality of food and a certain quantity of food, you're balanced. You don't put on weight.Piling on the poundsBut when you stop that, when you take your training to 3 days a week, and you eat the same, you start putting on weight. And you put on weight fast. So that's what happened. I stopped karate and I went to visit my father who was living in France. With my friend. And basically what we were doing was we were eating McDonald's and other fast food at midnight, and you know, watching movies...Me: Whoa! So like the worst time ever to eat the worst kind of food ever!Alexandra: Exactly! So I think I was there for 2 months during the summer holidays. And when I came back I was 10 kilograms heavier and my mom was like, 'What happened to you!'Me: Ohhh!Alexandra: Of course, going from 49 kilos to 60 kilos doesn't seem like such a big thing. But for me it was a huge contrast.Me: Yeah, because you're not like super tall, right?Alexandra: Yeah, exactly. And as an athlete I was skinny, as skinny as...Me: Skinny as a rail, right?Alexandra: Right! So for me that was a bit of a psychological downfall.Me: Yeah, of course.Weightloss: a fast-moving trainAlexandra: No-one was looking at me in any other way, but it was how I saw myself. I mean, I was used to being lean, being fast and strong. And all of a sudden – well not all of a sudden, over a few months – that changed.Me: But it creeps up on you as well, right? I mean, that's the difficult bit. You said you put it on fast, but I imagine it wasn't like all of a sudden you woke up and the 10 kilos were there, right?Alexandra: No, it wasn't. It was a few months. I don't remember exactly because it was a while ago, but probably when I was in France I put a few kilograms on and then...I see weightloss like a fast moving train. It gains momentum. You put on a little bit of weight and then faster and faster until...Me: Out of control!Alexandra: Yeah, and with weightloss the same, but you have to stop the train and then go back and build the momentum. So that's a weightloss lesson, for example.Me: Yeah, yeah.Alexandra's second turning point: in the poolAlexandra: So one turning point was with Coca-Cola, and the second turning point was with the fast foods when I gained weight and I just didn't feel good about myself anymore.Me: So then you made a massive commitment at that point. What did you say to yourself? Were you just like 'This ends here, I have to just change everything'?Alexandra: Well I actually remember – I don't know if this is the first, but I do remember – I went swimming. There's a 50-meter Olympic swimming pool that I learned to swim in. And I was struggling to do 3 or 4 lengths!Me: Wow!Alexandra: In the past I could do 15, 20...I could just do it! So my fitness level was just...And that was the turning point. That scared me and I thought 'I need to get my fitness back'. And I think that was in 2007 when I became a runner.Motivation for changeMe: Did you start both at the same time then?Alexandra: Yeah, I think from what I remember that I used running to lose the weight. I was also going to the United States, it was the first time that summer and I was going with a working travel program on the shore of the Atlantic. At the beach. So that kind of motivated me more, because my swimming suits weren't fitting me anymore!Me: Oh no!Alexandra: My clothes weren't fitting anymore! Now I do have to say this, because it's really, really important. The people you surround yourself with.I had some very good friends. Very good friends, I learned a lot from them. However from a health and fitness point of view, they weren't the best people to be around me. So in the personal development world, you know, they say you're the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.And looking back, I didn't know about personal development then. I know now, but looking back, I was drinking a lot. And I could take the spirits. I wouldn't have a hangover. It was so easy for me, that I could just drink.Me: (laughs) I can't do that!Alexandra: (laughs) Well, I can't do that either, it's been 4 or 5 years since I've had a sip of alcohol, so...yeah. The swimming pool, that's what turned me around and made me start running and made the commitment to give up the fast foods.And my mom had a very important role in this. She understood that in order for me to lose the weight and get back to normal, I needed to make some drastic but gradual changes.The plan of attackMe: So what were those changes? Because I know you said you cut out a lot of foods, right?Alexandra: Yeah. So first of all, the drinks. My mom always said, 'Don't drink Pepsi and Coca-Cola and all this stuff. These are the first things to cut out.' So we started with that.And I say 'we' because my mom was there all the time. She always said, 'Have one day a week where you can eat whatever you want. Don't deprive your body because then you will crave it'.And she's right again, right? (laughs) Moms just know!So one day a week I would have, I don't know, whatever I wanted. But it's important to say that I made these decisions. My mom supported and advised. She's not a nutritionist but she has a very good intuition when it comes to nutrition and weightloss.The next foods to go were...The second thing I cut out was pretty much anything that had sugar. So any chocolates, ice creams, anything that tasted sweet.And then we started taking out the potatoes, oh and bread. Bread was actually together with the drinks. The drinks and the bread were like the first things we started with.Me: But when you started, you did it gradually, right? First you cut out the bread and the drinks for a little while, but you were still eating ice cream and other sweet things?Easy does itAlexandra: Yeah. But I wasn't replacing. I was still eating the same amount. So it wasn't like, 'Oh, I'm not gonna drink Pepsi anymore but I'm gonna eat 3 more ice creams!' (laughs) I wasn't eating ice cream every day, I was eating ice cream once or twice a week maybe.Me: But I think that's a really interesting point though. That you did it really gradually. Because most of us are like, 'Right! No more ice cream, no more bread, I'm gonna eat super healthy every day'. And then like 3 days later we just fall down, right? Whereas you did it really gradually, right?So for example, just to give people an idea of the timeline, you know? When you said the drinks and the bread, do you remember how long you went before you decided to cut out the next thing? Was it really like...was there a system behind it? Or did you just go with what you felt?How you can know when you're ready to cut out a foodAlexandra: At that point I didn't know about systems. I just went with what felt comfortable. So if I was still thinking about having Sprite or another fizzy drink, then it meant that I'm not ready for taking out the next food or foods.Me: Oh, that makes sense! Oh!Alexandra: Yeah. So once my craving for something or the thought of having something disappeared...Now for example if I think of a sandwich, no matter how good the sandwich looks, I don't really want it, right?So I guess we went with how I felt. And I think to give people an idea, I probably would go 4 to 6 weeks of taking out one group of foods. Or one food, not necessarily one group of foods.Me: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because they say it takes at least 30 days if not longer to establish a new habit, right?Here's how to test yourselfThat's really cool, I just want to really emphasize that point, because it would never have occurred to me to cut out one thing and then wait until the cravings for that one thing disappeared before cutting out the next thing! I think that is amazing! I've never heard that before, actually.Alexandra: Well, it's just going with what you feel. It's a test. If you think about having bread, how do you feel? Do you really want it? You know, if you have a slice of bread in front of you, are you gonna take it? Or can you just ignore it?So I think that's when the change happens. When you can go to the next phase.Change for lifeMe: Yeah! Plus the other thing that I love about that is...that's like lifetime change, right? That's not the kind of thing where you fall down again after a year. I mean you hear about people who deprive themselves for months and months and then they just...they manage to go past the 30 days and yet they still fall down because they haven't passed the test yet!Alexandra: Exactly! And no matter, it can be 30 days, it can be...you can do the same habit for 2, 3, 6 months and then go back to it. Seriously. Nothing is guaranteed.Me: Yeah, of course.Alexandra: That's why I don't go with 30 days or 44 or 60...Me: Well, we're all different as well, right? One food isn't going to have the same effect on everybody, right?Alexandra: Exactly, yeah.How to refuse politely...Me: Wow, that's really cool. Oh and I wanted to ask you, because you said that in those first 3 to 6 months, that was the worst, right? And that sometimes you had people offering you other foods, foods that you don't eat and stuff. So how did you manage to a) resist the temptation and b) manage to say no in a nice way? (laughs)Alexandra: (laughs) Yeah, well I don't know how to say no in a nice way actually! (laughs) I say “No thank you” and that's it!Me: (laughs) Oh! Ok! The truth comes out... (laughs)Alexandra: Right, well it's about educating the people around me. It's about how you educate the people around you, or reeducate.So they know I like this kind of cheese, it's like a kind of cottage cheese, a type of cottage cheese pie that we make in the east. And I love it, you know? I always loved it. So all of my family, when you go for Easter, they always have it for me. And it has the right amount of cheese in it... (laughs)And you know, in the first 6 months it was difficult because I was trying to cut out all these things. But there you have it in front of you on the table! So...Me: And made by people for you, right? So the guilt thing could come in if you let it, right?Alexandra: Exactly!What to say to friends and familySo there were 2 ways, well a few ways, actually, out of this situation that people can use.First of all, you say “Thank you, but I can't eat anymore”. You know, after your meal, you are full. “Just leave it for later”, right?Sometimes it's good to tell people, “I don't eat this anymore, but I'll just have a small piece”. And you just have a small piece! Not a whole slice, you know?And here's what you tell yourselfBut it's good to voice it. What you tell yourself, that's what you're going to believe. So if you tell yourself, “I can't eat this” or “I can't have this” or “I'm not allowed this”, it's like an interdiction. You tell your brain you can't have it and it wants more.Me: And you want it, yeah.Alexandra: So what I did – unknowingly I did it – I said, “ I don't have this”. I mean, it's my choice not to have this any more. And in my head I always said that, it's my choice to have this or to not have this.Alexandra: And then, you know, people insist, because, you know, that's how family is...Me: Yup!Get a family member to support youAlexandra: And they're right...I love them all. But I have to say that after a few times of insisting, I would start to get a bit bothered or annoyed by it, and that's when they would leave me alone. (laughs)But also my mom was a big supporter, to be honest. Because she would say “No, no, she doesn't eat that”. And when my mom would say it, then everyone would just let me be.Me: Oh, that's really nice!Alexandra: So it's very important if you can have someone in your family to support you and to, you know, be on your side for the first year or so. That makes a huge difference.Make the right choice, every single dayAnd if not, always remember that your mind is the most powerful. So you make the choice, every single day.Me: I love that. I'm glad you said that again because I love that idea of making the right choice every single day and remembering that it's always a choice. Because it's kind of like reminding yourself how powerful you are over your life, right?Alexandra: Absolutely!Me: Yeah, that's really cool!Alexandra: Many times – even today – when I have pizza...Well, I can have pizza maybe 3 times a year even though it's one of my favorite foods. I always say I want pizza but I never get it.How to take charge of your mindEven if I have a pastry or an ice cream, I always tell myself, “I choose to have this. I don't need it, and I don't crave it, but I choose to have it today”. And if I do crave that stuff, I don't have it in that moment.This is basically one of the food discipline lessons. It's like disciplining my mind to say that if it craves something, it doesn't mean it's gonna have it. So there's no point in craving it. It's when I decide.Me: Oh!Alexandra: There's this book, The Chimp Paradox. You know it.Me: Yeah.Alexandra: It's talking with your chimp, telling it “You're gonna have this when I tell you, not when you want!”Me: Exactly, yeah!Alexandra: So that's one of the food discipline lessons: don't have them when you crave them.Cravings: what they really mean...Me: Yeah! That's really good! And also because some people think that...I think it can be an excuse sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes...especially if it's something unhealthy. Some people think, 'Oh well, I have this craving because I'm lacking in iron' or some other nutrient. I mean, I don't know what your take is on that?My take is that if it's a healthy food you're craving, yeah then it's probably true. But if it's an unhealthy one...Alexandra: Yeah, absolutely. That's right. If it's unhealthy...If you lack iron, get foods that have iron. Or, I don't know, vitamin E. Get foods that have that. Don't lie to yourself. Don't say, 'I want this pastry' or whatever it is. Or chips, or ice cream, or whatever, because you crave the healthy stuff that's in the chips.If you crave salt, that means maybe you've trained and you haven't replaced your salts. But you can do that without eating chips.Me: Yeah, exactly, yeah. (laughs)Take your time with the processOh I remember what I wanted to ask you. When I read your story on your website, I remember you were saying that it was really important to you to take your time with the whole process. I think you said the whole process took...How long did it take? Like 1 to 2 years or something?Alexandra: Yes, it took about 2 years to get to a stable point, so I took the 10 kilograms off. Then I would know that I could eat other stuff and not put on weight.But I have to say that I did not want to deprive myself and restrict myself, right? So in the 2 years my weight went up and down. You know, 2 kilos down then half a kilo up, then 1 kilo down and 2 kilos up. So up and down, up and down. I wasn't looking to starve myself. I didn't want to be hungry. That was the last thing.Me: Oh yeah, yeah.Alexandra: So I would eat quite a lot of healthy stuff. I would eat quantity and quality. Both. So that's why my weight went slowly. 1 to 2 years.But at the end of 2 years I could start eating other stuff as well without worrying about it. Although if I had eaten cakes and stuff in the first 6 months to 1 year, I don't think I would have actually taken the weight down. Because I would have just fallen back into...Me: Old habits, right?Alexandra: I still have that one day a week. That's really important.Me: Yeah, that's really good! And so for the other 6 days a week, what do you eat typically now?What Alexandra eats nowAlexandra: Well, since then, this is what I eat. I would say 80% of my food is fresh vegetables. I have salads and fresh vegetables in my fridge day in and day out, 80%. Then about 10% is dairy, 10% is meat. Meat I would say...turkey and...turkey, actually. Chicken very little, and the rest is mostly when I go home and my mom says “Have this because it's healthy”. And I say “Mom even if I don't have it, I'm not going to be unhealthy”. But yeah, meat's about 10%.Me: And fruit? Do you have fruit as well?Alexandra: Yes, I have berries, but not as much as I used to. Berries I have, but not the other fruit. The reason for that is because fruit is healthy but it still has a lot of sugar. I love fruit! I can eat 2 or 3 kilos of apples a day! Without my stomach having any problems.Me: Wow! That's a lot of apples!Alexandra: Yeah, I can eat that. Or clementines...I like them. They're fresh, they're sweet, they have water so they hydrate me, so I like it. So for me fruit is...I need to be in control, because otherwise I could just eat fruit all day!Me: Oh, OK!Alexandra: Yes, it's healthy, but it's a lot of sugar.Alexandra's other food guidelinesMe: And is that something that you suggest to the people that you train? To the people that you work with? To eat very little fruit?Alexandra: Well, I advise them 5 a day, as a nutritional guideline. But obviously you can have 6 or 7, you can have less. Everyone has to know where they're at.Like I don't need that much fruit. I need vegetables, fresh vegetables. If I don't have vegetables...Red peppers, I like red peppers because they are very refreshing with all the water. I like baby plum tomatoes because again, they're slightly sweet, but they have water in them. So for me if I don't have that, at the end of the day I feel like I'm missing something.For some people, if they don't have some fruit they'll feel like that. So you kind of have to look at it and judge the what and how to have the minerals and vitamins that you need. But again I take, upon my Sensei's advice, I take a multivitamin. Because I train so much, he said 'You need to get this, because the foods nowadays are not the ones you grew up with'.You can still do it, even working full timeMe: And one thing that I read in your story where I almost fell off my chair, I mean I was like amazed. When you started running and eating really healthily and doing all the food and stuff, you were working like 8 hours a day? Is that right? In an office?Alexandra: Yeah, at some point I was working 8 hours a day, 9 to 5.Me: Oh wow!Alexandra: So in the morning I would wake up at 5. And I was a student back then, yes?Alexandra's routine (in a full time job)This was my routine, and I loved it actually. At 5 am I would wake up, by 5:15 I was out the door going for a run, running 1 hour. 1 hour meant 12 k for me. Then I'd come back and cook breakfast and cook lunch, had breakfast and took the lunch to go. I took my bike, because I could cycle about half an hour to my office.I was working in corporate banking back then. And, you know, I would stay for 8 hours there. And like anyone who works in an office, people would come with chocolates and with biscuits and all the other stuff. My answer was always, “Thank you, but I don't eat this kind of stuff”. Not like that, but “Thank you, I don't eat that”.And from time to time if it was someone's birthday, I would take a small piece of chocolate. But one – and one every once in a blue moon. Most of the time though I'd say no thank you, even if I was hungry. I would have a tea, I don't know, I would just...Me: Yeah, the reason I ask is because there are so many people who are working full time in an office, and they already struggle with just eating healthy, you know? So being able to do that, plus working in the exercise regimen as well, I mean I just find that really incredible.And evening classes on top of everything elseAlexandra: And after that actually I would cycle to university which was about 1 hour cycling. I would have my master's degree and most of my classes were in the evening by then. It was full time, but classes were in the evening. I would have my master's degree classes, and then I would be back at 7 or 8. Then I would eat something, and then go ice skating if it was winter, or go for another run if it was not winter.Me: Wow! And you were still competing at that stage, right?Alexandra: No, at that stage I wasn't competing anymore. That was...I think I was 19 or 20 years old. So I left karate behind for a while and then I started another martial art: Daitoryu, the ancestor of aikido. I don't remember when I started it, I was doing it at the weekend, 3 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday I think. It was in the time I was in corporate banking. I think that's what it was, if I remember well.Me: So then how did you...You were in corporate banking and then 1 to 2 years later, you lose all the weight, you get really trim again, and then you went back to competing, is that right?Competing againAlexandra: I went back to competing when I moved to England. So I moved to England when I was 24, I went to London when I was 25, so about 5 years ago. I joined the SKC – Shotokan Karate England. They invited me in the squad and I've been in the squad for 3 and a half years now I think. And now I wear the English flag!Me: That's really cool! That's so cool! I really love your story, I think it's just absolutely incredible. And I really want people to know where they can find you, because you help other people do the same, right?Can you say a little bit about what you're helping people with now, and what you've got going on at the moment?How Alexandra helps others nowAlexandra: Right, so now I specialize in working with runners. I'm very passionate about body mechanics. And that's because I've had a lot of injuries when I was 12 or 13. Structural injuries, damage to joints. So my interest in how the body functions was fueled by that curiosity to understand why that happens.So now I specialize in working with runners who experience these injuries. Obviously not any injury. Some injuries you need to see a physio, osteopath, chiropractor, it depends on the injury. But a lot of aches and pains come from the way we use...the way we move, particularly if you're a runner.I'm also qualified to work with lower back pain...people...so most lower back pain is due to activity - a lack of it, or the wrong type of activity and poor posture, so we work on that. And obviously the nutrition, the food discipline lessons which are part of my system.How people can get in touch with me is through themerisoutechnique.com - or easier – themtechnique.com – m like Mike. And should I say something about my event in the summer?Me: Yes! There's an event you're doing that I've got to have you talk about, because I just think it's fantastic! I looked at the description and if I didn't have events of my own going on, I would be on a plane! I want to hear all about it!Alexandra's summer eventsAlexandra: It's called Dracula's Retreat.Me: Yay!Alexandra: As the name goes, it's at Dracula's castle. Well, it's not at Dracula's castle, it's like 1 kilometer away.Me: But still! That's pretty close!Alexandra: (laughs) Some people think it's scary, but it's not scary.Me: No, it looks beautiful!Alexandra: Yes, and in summer because we will be in the mountains, you have the green, you have the forest, you have trails to go up the mountain.3 aspects to the retreatSo Dracula's Retreat has 3 components.One is touristic, so obviously you learn about the culture of Transylvania, you learn about Dracula's story, you visit the castle, then another fortress which is close by. Then it's the fitness, so we will go hiking. Now hiking is more like trekking. So we don't need axes...Me: (laughs) You're not gonna be chopping down the jungle and stuff.Alexandra: (laughs) Not on this occasion, no. And natural movement fitness. Now if we have runners, we go running. And actually we do have runners as well. And natural movement fitness, which has to do with animal movements, balance, logs: carrying, throwing, lifting logs, slack lines...So for people who don't know, that's a flat type of rope, you'd call it. But it's flat and it's slack, so for upper body exercises. Hanging off of branches...And it's all about exploring nature, leveraging nature. And understanding that to get fit and healthy and to experience the joy of training, you don't really need a gym. So people who are bored with the gym, they come to me, basically. And then there's the social part because you get to be with a group of people and you do the whole thing...The food is also a very important part of it.Me: Yup, I'll bet!Alexandra: Trying to keep it as healthy as possible, but it will be traditional. So there will be the odd pleasure for everyone.Mindfulness and meditationMe: Yup! And there's a meditation aspect to it too, right? A mindfulness component to it?Alexandra: Well, yes. Natural movement and balance exercises first of all, you know, you need that body awareness and mindfulness. But we will go through guided meditations. Guided meditations are a big part of Qigong and Tai chi which are a big part of my personal training.We will practice breathing exercises, mindfulness meditations, and some Qigong exercises. We're gonna look at what Chinese medicine says and how the meridians connect to the internal organs. I'm not a Chinese medicine expert, but I read a lot and I practice a lot, so...I'll be just sharing the knowledge.Me: Oh, that's really cool. And so where's the best place for people to find information about the retreat? I mean, I'll link to it in the shownotes, but...Alexandra: Simply draculasretreat.comMe: Oh! That's easy! Alexandra thank you so much, I mean I just love your story, I mean, it's inspiring and also I learned a lot. I can't wait to hear how Dracula's Retreat went, and I'm definitely coming on one of them!Alexandra: Yes, it's going to be every year. This is it. I have such a big vision for it, and it's going to be an amazing adventure, really. I'm taking people on an adventure, not only on a retreat.Me: No, of course. That's really cool.Well thank you so much, I'll link to everything that you've mentioned in the shownotes so that people can find it easily. I'm going to share our food tip now, and thank you so much! Awesome!Food for sportRight, so I also mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you a tiny but amazing food that is an incredible source of protein, energy, healthy fats and calcium. Not only is it a fantastic food for sport, but it's a great bone food as well. And that food is...are you ready?Chia seeds!Benefits of chia seedsChia seeds are one of the best foods ever for everybody to eat in my opinion. I don't really care if you're vegan, vegetarian, paleo, junk food addict – you want to be eating these little guys. They have so many benefits it's ridiculous. I'll link to a really good article that I found in the show notes if you'd like to read more about the health benefits and the nutritional analysis of chia seeds. And a recipe of my own as well.Eating chia seeds has been linked to not only bone health, but also gut health, stabilizing your blood sugar and helping reduce inflammation.Components of chia seedsOne cool thing about chia seeds is that they do contain a good amount of fiber but they're also gentle on the gut. So this is important for people who have trouble digesting high-fiber foods like broccoli and cauliflower. Chia seeds actually are soothing for your whole digestive tract.They're small and hard when you get them in the packet, but when you soak them or when they mix with your digestive juices and things, they puff up and they're quite viscous which sounds horrible but they're actually quite delicious!They also contain minerals like phosphorus, manganese and magnesium, as well as calcium. And for those of you who don't eat dairy and you get people asking where you get your calcium, you can tell them that ounce per ounce, chia seeds actually contain more calcium than most dairy products.Chia seeds are also a complete protein, so if you don't eat meat and you get the 'where do you get your protein' question, well you can tell them that one ounce of chia seeds has 4 grams of protein. So you won't wilt.Why chia seeds are a great food for sport On the contrary. Besides providing protein, calcium, minerals and antioxidants, chia seeds also release energy over a long period of time rather than all at once. That's why they're such a good food for sport.Also if you've got a long day ahead of you and you know you won't be able to eat for a while, chia seeds can help keep you going for longer. You can try this out for yourself actually, have yourself a chia seed pudding for breakfast and see how you feel.How you use chia seedsWhich brings me to how you eat chia seeds. A lot of people just sprinkle the dry seeds over food, like you would any seed. Over salads, for example. Because they absorb liquid, you can also use them to thicken sauces and other dishes.But my favorite way to eat chia seeds is to soak them in some nut milk for an amazing pudding. It's a bit like tapioca, so if you like tapioca, you'll love chia seed pudding.There's a lot of them out there on the internet which you can find, but I've got a gorgeous recipe for chia seed pudding on my website which I'll link to in the shownotes, along with other recipes as well.And as an extra special bonus for you, Alexandra has an extra special recipe that uses chia seeds!Alexandra's super food for sport recipeAlexandra: Right! So I compete a lot. I go to a competition at 8 am and I come back home at 9 or 10 pm, so it's a very long day. And in 12 hours, I probably compete 10 or 15 minutes throughout the day.Me: Wow!Alexandra: Yeah, sometimes I have my fights at like 6 or 7 pm. So it's like, it did happen, I had one fight at 7 pm. You have one event in the evening. Because it's senior – senior meaning plus 21 - you have to wait a lot.So I read in a book this chia seed drink. The first time I had it was the world championships in Bulgaria, and I did not need water, or food, or anything else for the whole day. I was not hungry. And it was really amazing, because by 4 or 5 pm, I would be so dehydrated that nothing – tea, water...No matter how much I would drink, I would be dehydrated. My tissues, my body...my body was just saturated with water.Having this drink, what it did was it kept my energy levels up. I did not need to eat solid foods because it gives you protein, omega 6 and 3 fats, and in the drink it also has carbohydrates. You also have something that gives you a bit of a zing.So I was with my energy levels up, nourished, hydrated, focused...pretty awesome. Strong! Everyone else by 7 pm, they were down, you know, they can't drink anymore...but I was, yeah!How you make itFor the drink, how I make it, so everyone needs to test and see whatever they like. 500 ml of water, 2 tablespoons of chia seeds, the juice of 1 lime...sometimes I put 1 ½ depending on how sour I want it. And 2 or 3 teaspoons of organic honey. You just mix it up, shake it up, and it becomes like a gel to be honest. You just drink it throughout the day.I have 3 or 4 bottles with me when I go to a competition. And I had 3 competitions already. I tested it – it works!No drugs, just food for sportMe: Wow! That is so cool! And I think you said somebody...you were afraid they were gonna think you were on like, you know, performance enhancing drugs!Alexandra: Yeah! Well, you know, it's a food. So if they were to test anything, they wouldn't find anything besides chia seeds! (laughs)Me: (laughs) They'd find a lot of chia seeds!Alexandra: A lot of chia seeds! But yeah, people look a bit weird at you because the bottle is see-through, you know? You can see all the bits, and they don't really know what it is. So you have to say, “It's chia seeds, it's a food”.But you know, it's not their problem. As long as you don't have any weird substances. And you don't need weird substances, you know? You have all these foods...try this! This is good!And for runnersAnd if you're a runner and you do marathons and stuff, see if you can create a thicker gel. You put it in those pouches, and it's a lot better than the geogels and all that other stuff.Me: Oh yeah, yeah.Alexandra: Much, much, much better, so...Me: That's fantastic, yay! You guys have to try it! I'm gonna try it! Thank you so much!Alexandra: My pleasure.Have YOU got a story to share?So I hope you've enjoyed Alexandra's amazing story today as well as our food tips. And if you've got a crazy, true story to share (and you'd like to know what food could have been helpful, or even saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment?Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes.I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now!RESOURCESAlexandra's website: http://themerisoiutechnique.com/unleash-your-physical-potentialAlexandra's retreat: http://draculasretreat.com/Book The Chimp ParadoxChia seed pudding recipe: http://rockingrawchef.com/gluten-free-rice-pudding-recipeOther 5-minute recipe ebooks: https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/Article on benefits of chia seeds: https://authoritynutrition.com/11-proven-health-benefits-of-chia-seeds/Alexandra Merisoiu, The Body Engineer, is the Founder of The Merisoiu Technique Institute and Dracula’s Retreat. She is also a qualified Low Back Pain Prevention Exercise Instructor and REPS registered. She specialises in working with runners, beginners and advanced, who want to run faster and further, with less effort and fewer injuries. This is done through natural movement fitness and running technique and mechanics.

  From the arms of a martial arts instructor to a Russian yoga teacher, all while mourning the loss of her mom and renewing herself, Francesca shares her journey which has led her to teaching and coaching others worldwide. And at the end of this episode I'll share with you a tiny food that is a big powerhouse for helping fight depression as well as balancing hormones. Our guest, Francesca Gentillé I am very excited to be joined here today by Francesca Gentillé, who is an initiated shaman in 4 traditions, a clinical sexologist, she's an empowered aging specialist, and a relationship counselor. She has published, appeared on television and also teaches all over the world. Francesca has an incredible story to share with us today as well as a really generous gift just for listeners of Clean Food, Dirty Stories, which we'll share with you later. First though, let's get to the story. So Francesca welcome to the Clean Food, Dirty Stories podcast! I'm really excited to have you here today! Francesca: I am so delighted to be here Barbara. Barbara is also one of my favorite people in the world; creative, talented, big hearted. Me: Well we've had a lot of adventures together. We have enough stories to fill up an entire season of a podcasts all by ourselves. But for today's story I know that like me you grew up with depression. Also, you had some quite heavy food intolerances where you may have felt like you were almost in the wrong kind of family. So can you tell us a bit about that? Francesca's story Francesca: Yes absolutely. I was raised in a very loud, periodically, emotionally volatile, creative, dynamic, great cook Italian family, an Italian American family. And my mother was bipolar: it was the worst of times and the best of times, and of course they were cooking Italian. So there were lots of pastas and wonderful homemade pizzas and canola. Me: Sounds like heaven. Francesca: It was on the one hand beautiful and so tasty but I would always feel tired and I would feel depressed and they would say in the family that I was always sleeping. They'd say "Why is she so sensitive?" Enter the food intolerances I think some of our sensitivities are signs of being a shaman and but on the other hand I think some of the sensitivity was exacerbated by the food intolerances. And I didn't know this until many years later when a friend of mine was reading The Body Ecology Diet for candida yeast infection that wouldn't go away. She said that when she started doing the diet her yeast infection not only went away, but within two weeks her body pain went away and within a year she lost thirty pounds. And it was the body pain that I that I kind of tuned into and I decided to try it and as I tried it I realized that my body wasn't hurting. Suddenly I felt like I had more energy and I also felt like my mood was stabilized. Yes, a huge difference. Me: So what food did you cut out for that? What were you intolerant to? Francesca: I was intolerant to gluten. Me: Wow! So Italian food was a big no, no. Francesca: All the breads have lots of gluten. So all the pastas all of that is gluten. We eat that and I was also intolerant to cow dairy; so lactose basically. Me: Well so cheese. Francesca: Cheese, and I could have a little goat or a little sheep but in general they were cooking with cow cheese. And so those were two things that were death to my body and my immune system and really I think creating that leaky gut syndrome for me too. Cutting out the bad stuff Me: I know that you said that later on you solved all of that. So besides cutting out gluten actually what other foods did you cut out? Francesca: Well eventually, I have to say I'm somebody who does my life in like small steps. I'm not someone who has created success by changing my whole life overnight, whether that's in relationships or whether that's in business or whether that's and in food. Normally I'll try one little thing and then try another little thing. Me: Sounds like me. Francesca: At first it was gluten and dairy but I was still eating processed, you know like quinoa pasta and millet bread. And then eventually I went on a two week kind of cleanse where it was no processed flours at all; some grains but no processed flours. No sugar, no caffeine, no dairy of any kind and lots of vegetables - cooked and raw. A little bit of grains that might be cooked and then a small amount of either fish or chicken, but lots of vegetables everyday. Many more than I had normally done in any given day and some fruits. And I found in two weeks that I started to feel better and I found in a few months that even though I actually hadn't lost any weight which was something that I wanted but even though I hadn't lost any weight people would start to say "What have you done to your face? You look younger, you look radiant!" It was all these fruits and vegetables and wonderful fruit and juice smoothies. Then within a year I was down to my ideal weight and I just felt amazing! Me: Wow, that's fantastic! Francesca: I did it the healthy way. Enter the martial arts instructor Me: So then I guess you looked so radiant and so amazing that the martial arts instructor found you right? You mentioned that - how did you meet him and what happened? Francesca: Well in this process it wasn't at the complete end of the steps towards health. But in this process of getting more and more healthy, I am also a teacher of relationships and sexuality, and I teach recovery from trauma, and I teach about tantra in a healing way for couples. So while I was doing this, this gentleman came to one of my classes. I felt some energy between us, but at the same time I had learned that sometimes the man I'm most attracted to is the one that I need to walk away from. My animal instincts that get very attracted to people do not tell me that that person is honest. They do not tell me that that person is good. They only say that we have compatible histo immune systems. I thought I should walk away and I did. But he kept writing to me and one day the email wouldn't work. I tried so many different ways but it would not go through. He had given me his phone number so I called him and I said "Do you know if there's a problem with your email?" and he said "Maybe you're just supposed to talk to me." A beautiful relationship So we started to talk and it developed and it really became a very beautiful and magical relationship. He had been studying Dzogchen Buddhism which is a very spiritual form of tantra for twenty five years. We had a lot in common in terms of core values, and it became a relationship which I think of as a soul mate relationship of the best kind, where we were passionate and compassionate. In the six years we were together we never yelled at each other, we never raised our voices. That's not to say we never had a problem or a disagreement, but we were able to work through those disagreements while staying in a centered, mature, adult state. It was such a grace. When I would walk into the room we'd each take a breath like "ah, now I'm safe, now I'm home". And even though he swore he would never get married because he'd been married twice before and they were these terrible relationships, in four years he asked me to marry him. Are you sure you want to marry me? I always knew he would. Although I thought it was going to take a decade, but I always felt like "yes, he's going to ask me to marry him. He just needs to heal a little bit from these past relationships". So when he asked me to marry him after four years I was shocked. He said "You're not saying yes!" and I said "Well I-I didn't expect you to ask me to marry you yet!" I said "Are you sure you want to marry me? Do you know my flaws? Sometimes I'm messy and I don't clean up right away". He said "Yes, I know that". I said "Oh and I love pretty things and sometimes I can kind of over shop and I'm not good at saving money". He said "Yes I know that". So I was like going through the list of all my flaws and he said, "Why do you think it took four years?" He said "I actually wanted to marry you sooner, but I wanted to make sure that I could hold space for your imperfections". And so I said yes, but we decided to wait until my son graduated from high school. That was a few more years down the road. Good news So you know, things were going well, but his business was failing. He was a full time martial artist, he taught martial arts to school children and adults. And it really wasn't financially successful and that was very hard on his heart. It was very challenging for his self-esteem. One day he came to me and he said "Francesca I have some good news and some bad news". And I said "Tell me the good news!" He said the good news is that a friend of his was selling a fitness center, a gym in town in his town with all the workout equipment etcetera. John said "If I combine fitness and martial arts, maybe that will be the ticket for success". I said "Honey, that's great!" Because of course we want our partners to be happy and fulfil their life's mission. I said "You should do that, what's the bad news?" And bad news His martial arts studio would be open from about 8 or 9 in the morning till 9 at night with some breaks in the day. It would get very quiet until the kids came after school. So it had a certain pace that had some spaciousness in it. And you know 8 or 9 in the morning till 9 at night, although still a long day, is not terrible. He said that this fitness studio was open from 4 in the morning till 11 o'clock at night. Because he was investing his money into it, he felt that for at least the first maybe 4 to 6 months he needed to be there. He needed to see how it was being run so that he could try to change it and make improvements. And he said "For approximately 4 to 6 months sweetheart I'll be getting 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night and I really won't have any bandwidth". Well, be careful of what you say to the universe! I said "Oh don't worry, our relationship is so strong, we can handle this". And 5 days later... Within 5 days of that my mother died. 5 days after he signed the papers and put the money into the investment. You never know how you're going to respond to the death of a parent or someone that's very, very close to you. You don't know until it actually happens. And I adored my mother but I was also afraid of my mother. I was conflicted and although I had a lot of anger towards her while she was alive, I made a choice never to bring that anger to her. As she got older her bipolar got worse and she eventually had Alzheimer's, and it just isn't appropriate to bring these kinds of unresolved issues to people who are mentally ill. Me: But then you have to solve them for yourself, right? How do you do that? The grieving process Francesca: And all of those unresolved emotions were there. All the anger and rage that I never expressed to her was there. And then the grieving, because since about twenty five till when she died when I was fifty I had chosen to mostly be separate from her even though we'd been very close when I was young. So I was not only grieving that she was now dead, I actually was grieving the twenty five years that I had chosen to be separate from her. Me: And did you regret those twenty five years? Francesca: Yes and no, because if I had to go back I would probably still make the same decision because she didn't feel safe to me. On the other hand, for the little girl like when I was very young and she was a bit healthier, probably from you know birth till about thirteen we were very, very close. And so the little girl in me just missed her mommy. I would be at home alone curled up into a little fetal ball rocking and this little voice would come out of me saying, "I don't understand!" It was this little girl who just didn't understand that her mother was gone and didn't understand that she would never have an opportunity to be close to her. I think the magical child always hoped in some way that they would reconcile. So yeah I was very shattered. My son would later say that it was like I was missing for two years. Me: How old was your son? Francesca: My son was... I think he was either, maybe about fourteen, something like that. Me: Oh wow! Okay, so old enough to know that yeah there was some heavy stuff going on. Walking in the underworld Francesca: And yeah, those two years in many ways are a blur. I would eventually end up going to two therapists a week for over a year, a year and a half. And I really ended up feeling like I was later like I was walking with my mother in the underworld for that time. Me: Oh wow! Francesca: Yes, it was very deep, it felt very profound. Me: That must have been very helpful, very healing. Francesca: Where I am now, I'm at peace with her. I feel her love for me, I feel my love for her. It's like we've completed what we were meant to complete in this life, and I feel like I've known her many lifetimes and I'll probably know her again. Me: Yep, I'm sure you will. The birth of a crazy idea Francesca: But in this time period where so much of my energy is now in the underworld or so much of my little girl is grieving and crying while my adult self is missing...In that time period John is getting three or four hours sleep a night. He needed me more than he ever needed me and I couldn't be there emotionally. And then I needed him more than I ever needed him, and he couldn't be there for me emotionally. Neither one of us were thinking particularly straight. But we were noticing that we were getting more and more depleted, more and more raw. It's almost like when you haven't had enough sleep and your mind is just starting to think sort of crazy, and you almost feel like you're shaking because you're under-slept. Both of us were like that because I wasn't sleeping well with the grieving. Me: Well and you do literally start to lose your mind when you lose sleep, when you don't have enough sleep, right? I mean that's a proven thing. Francesca: Exactly, and we came up with this crazy idea which is "We need more support, we need more energy in the relationship. I know! We'll open up the relationship in a 'don't ask, don't tell' model". Me: Wow! So can you explain? Because some people might not know what that is. How not to navigate an open relationship Francesca: I'm not against open relationships or polyamorous relationships or swinging or anything else. And I think there are ways to have open relationships that are beautiful and ways to do them terribly. Just like there are ways to be monogamous that are beautiful and ways to be monogamous that are awful. I mean it's not the design of the relationship that is the grace or the problem. It's really "Are we centered? Transparent? Collaborative? Compassionate? Do we have good communication skills?" That's what's going to make any design better or worse, depending on who we are bringing to that relationship. Well one of the things as a relationship counsellor that I would say is that if you're going to have an open relationship it's actually healthy to be transparent, to reveal to your partner, to not lie, to not hold things back, to be able to collaborate so you still feel like you're a partnership. So even though you might be dating someone else, or going to a party and canoodling with someone else, you still feel like your home partnership is your best friend, is that place that you're the closest to, is the person that you're revealing everything to. And I think it's very dangerous to try to do this without revealing to each other. It's very easy when we start withholding information, whether about sex or anything else. Sex, money, you name it; when we start to withhold information, it's easy to build resentment. So it's easy to start feeling more and more separated. Now this is a crazy notion that I never would have agreed to in my right mind, but I wasn't in my right mind. Where's my primary care support? So we agreed and we weren't living together at this time. We were living in different houses but we'd see each other every weekend and talk every day. And he ended up having a couple of, you know, kind of flings. Things that were a little lighter, it was fun, it was sexy but it wasn't particularly emotionally depthful. But I felt - oh my God! Barbara, I felt like I was going crazy. I felt like I just wanted someone to hold me when I cried. And I wanted someone to hold me in the night when I felt so frightened and alone. For me, I didn't want just a little sexy fun fling. I felt like I needed what they call in the hospitals in America 'primary care support'. Like when someone is in the intensive care unit and they need twenty four hour care. I felt like that was me. Enter the Russian yoga therapist And there was a man that had been a student of mine who was very, very alluring, kind of reddish brown copper hair, big almond brown eyes, slender...He was a Russian yoga therapist and massage therapist. Me: You already got me intrigued! Francesca: With long hair...and he and I started to spend more time together and he was being emotionally supportive. And when this open relationship design came into being I went to him and I said, "What do you think?" Well he was all over it! Me: Literally! Francesca: Oh my God all over it and all over me! I remember a night, I think it might have been the night where I said you know, we've opened the relationship and we could get together where I think he said like he couldn't get out of this chain link fence, he was somehow locked in. He actually climbed the fence, and he ripped his clothes! You know, this person who's just like running to try to get to you... Me: Like in a movie, right? Francesca: And it was the beginning of...of course it was very passionate in the beginning and we were, you know, making love at night and in the middle of the night, and in the morning, and we were traveling together...within a month I had actually moved this guy in! Me: Wow! Did John know at that point? Francesca: No because we were doing the 'don't ask, don't tell' model! Me: Oh! Oh my God...okay! Francesca: Yes! Life with a sexy fitness coach And this guy was this primary care support where he would cook for me, and he was someone who cooked very vegan, very healthy. So he would cook for me. He was also a fitness coach so in the mornings he would have me do yoga stretches. And it was in a way it was exactly what I needed. I could tell that this was moving too fast and that John... I couldn't keep doing 'don't ask, don't tell'. When 'don't ask don't tell' becomes 'you'd better tell' So I visited John and I said I need to talk to you. I said "I have gone and not just dated someone, I've not just had sex, but I've gone very, very deep. I've formed another primary relationship and I've already moved this person in". And of course John was shocked and hurt but once again he was getting three or four hours of sleep a night. He just didn't have the bandwidth to even talk about it. It was just...we tried to talk, but he didn't have the bandwidth, and I didn't have my normal skill sets. I'm normally quite erudite, normally very adept in language and communication and in graceful language and communication, and I wasn't. Within I would say maybe a couple of months, John called me and he asked me if we were having unprotected sex. And we were. John said, "Were you planning to tell me?" I said "Yes". He said "When were you planning to tell me?" And I said "You know, I think the next time we were going to get together". John said "Well, it's over". Another death to grieve And then I was not only grieving the death of my mother, but I was grieving the death of the relationship with my soul mate. It really was the best relationship I'd ever had and it's now been ten years and it will be best relationship I've had so far; hope springs eternal, but so far - and it was another shattering for me. So now I'm with this seductively charming Russian yoga master, and it seemed like 'well maybe you're supposed to be with him'. Is this my stuff or his stuff? But something starts to happen where I start to feel more and more insecure. And at first you know maybe I'm thinking 'well it's because I'm grieving' or 'it's because I'm not centered' But I've come to find out over the years - I now have a data collection taken from many relationships - that in the relationships where I feel the most calm, I am with someone who is honest, with good integrity and who is in fact trustworthy. And when I'm in a relationship with people who are lying to me or withholding or cheating in some way, I start to feel more and more insecure. Me: Well that makes sense, right? Francesca: There is an exception to this and usually whenever I start to feel a little insecure, possessive and obsessive in a relationship, I make sure to get counselling. I make sure to get the support so that I'm coming back to the center and I've separated out what are my issues from my childhood versus what is my energetic intuition saying about this relationship. Me: Yep I get it. When a healthy influence turns to dysfunction Francesca: And so sometimes we do have some of our own issues from the past. But with all the therapy and everything...One week the therapists both said - even though they weren't talking to each other - in the same week they both said "I think you need to look at your relationship. I think you're not just grieving and I think that there are some things that might be unhealthy in your relationship" and they both said it interestingly enough the same week. So with this guy, something would just snap in him and he would begin to yell at me. He'd yell at me and shame me and denigrate me - not just for like three minutes, but I would time it. For fifteen minutes, for twenty minutes, for twenty five minutes, for thirty five minutes. Me: Right, so super unhealthy. Francesca: Super unhealthy! and I would tell him, you know, "I'm grieving, this is not okay, I can't handle this". It would be fine for a little while and then he'd go back to it again. Very emotionally abusive. I didn't actually find out until after we broke up that he had been... we also ended up teaching together and he had gone to some of the students in our classes after he found out that they had been molested as children, after he found out that they had terrible family backgrounds and it was hard for them to understand their boundaries. After he found that out, he would seduce them. Me: Whoa! He should be in jail! Seriously! Francesca: Yeah! I didn't find this out until after we broke up and then ... Me: So what did you do? What's the lesson here? Francesca: I tried to let my community know that this person was very, very unhealthy. And you know I did my best to get that information. But it felt terrible, really, really terrible. I had allowed him to stand beside me and teach, I'd actually helped promote him in my community. That's still something periodically that's heavy on my heart. And for me I want to say that I've learned to forgive myself and that's an important part of healing. Me: Oh yeah. Francesca: We can't just beat ourselves up, we have to get the lesson. Like what's the lesson? Part of that lesson - this is very interesting - when my mother died, no one came to visit. What do you do when someone dies? Where I come from back in the center of the United States, it's more farmland, it's more...people are in the same area generation after generation, and when someone dies, your friends show up or your family shows up and they bring you food. They understand that you're not going to want to cook, that you're going to feel sort of out of your body. So people show up and take care of you at least for the first couple of weeks if not longer. When my mother died, no one came to visit. I tried to email and say, you know, my mother has died, I feel very shattered, this is so hard, I'm having so many emotions...and no one came. Tough questions and enlightening answers A couple of months later when I was out in the world I would see my friends and I would say "Do you know that my mother died?" "Yes". "Okay uh...I'm curious, why didn't you stop by? Or why didn't you call?" And what I heard really highlighted the wounding that we have in our culture around grieving. So what they said was, "Well you're such an independent woman, I thought you would want to do it yourself". Well this is weird because you know, in most cultures in the world you grieve in community. You don't grieve by yourself! That's such a weird modernization. We're meant to do this together. And so I thought 'hmmm, that's a wound of culture that they thought I needed to grieve by myself'. Some people said that they were afraid of death. I understood that and I could have compassion for it, but I thought that's another wound of culture. Because death is so removed. It's in the hospital, it's far away, it's in a hospice. We don't see death like we would have seen it a hundred years ago, a couple hundred years ago where death was a part of life. You learn to work with it. Once again you learn. People would say "I wouldn't know what to say, I didn't want to make it worse". I would say "Well, let me give you an option. One possible thing to say is 'I'm so sorry for your loss'". Me: Yes exactly! Francesca: Fairly safe, but they literally didn't know that! Enter the life-changing answer So the answer that started to change my life was when people said, "Francesca of course I love you, of course you're important to me, but I thought that you're so well loved that you would have people that were closer to you than me. People who would be with you". And I said "Well what I think I hear you saying is that you don't realise that you're important to me. That you don't realise that you're actually really close to me". And they said "Yes!" and I thought 'Whose job is it to let you know that you're important to me?' Me: Yours! Francesca: It's my job! But I'm not doing a good job of letting people know that they actually matter to me! When walls no longer serve When I saw that I thought 'Oh my God! I have a wall around me'. It's the wall that I built to protect myself. I built it brick by brick as a child, as an adolescent, as a young woman. And I built this wall to try to protect me from being hurt by my family or being hurt by mean kids or etcetera. But now I realize this wall that has been designed to protect me also keeps people from me and I have spent my life proving my independence and that I can take care of myself. So if I need to move forward in life, the next development in life is to let people in to care for me and to let out, to be vulnerable, to reveal how important you are to me. Me: Wow! That is almost freaky because I had the same realization about the wall about a year ago. And in fact that was one of the reasons why I started this podcast! Because I thought, 'What way can I start to share some vulnerability with the world?' How can I start to yeah, just you know, tear down the wall, basically! So that is really freaky because I didn't know that that was going to come up today. Wow! Francesca's gift We have to wrap things up pretty soon but before we do that, I mean what an incredible story! I want to put links obviously to what you do in the show notes. But before we get to the food tips for this episode I know that you have very generously offered a special gift for our podcast listeners. So can you say something about that? Francesca: I have! You know, all of the suffering becomes a grace when we learn from it and in that we can help others. So if anybody's listening and they've suffered a lot, on the other side of that suffering is who you are as a healer. I want to offer my support to all of the listeners and to say that I'm happy to offer you a gift session by phone or Skype. This will be approximately forty five minutes to an hour. You would email relationshipdiva@gmail.com and put in the subject, 'gift session'. I'm happy to collaborate with you and really offer my support for our time together. Me: Wow! That is awesome Francesca, thank you so much. I know that people will take advantage of that because I mean you've got so much to offer in so many areas. Around sexuality and relationships and even, you know, life's journey and the whole thing. So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. It's been super, super having you on the podcast! So thank you again so, so much! A food that helps you fight depression and helps with balancing hormones So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I'd share with you a tiny but amazing food that can help fight depression as well as help with balancing hormones. And that food is... Flax seeds! Benefits of flax seeds, including balancing hormones Flax seeds are amazing and if you aren't eating them yet, you've got to get yourself some. The reason they can help fight depression is because they're high in omega-3 fatty acids. But they also can help with balancing hormones. I'll link to a study in the show notes that seems to say that eating flax seeds may help prevent some forms of cancer. Flax seeds are also high in fiber and low in carbs, and they help reduce sugar cravings, they improve your skin and hair...I mean there are just too many benefits to mention here, so I'll link to an article or two in the show notes if you'd like to read more about flax seeds. How you eat flax seeds Now, how do you eat flax seeds? Well, some people buy flaxseed oil and pour that over salads and veggies. What I like to do though is buy the whole seeds and then grind them quickly in a coffee grinder or high-speed blender. You can then sprinkle them over salads or cereals, or use them to make crackers, bread, pancakes and all kinds of things. They're great to thicken recipes. And of course if you want some specific recipes that use flax seeds, I've got a gorgeous recipe for Nut Burgers (and ketchup) in my 5-Minute Mains recipe ebook that I'll link to below. Have YOU got a story to share? If you've got a true story to share, and you'd like to know what food could have saved the day in your situation), I'd love to hear from you! Got a question, or a comment? Got a question, or a comment? Pop a note below in the comments, that would be awesome. You can also subscribe to the podcast to listen 'on the go' in iTunes. I hope you have an amazing day. Thank you so much for being here with me to share in my Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Bye for now! RESOURCES Francesca's website: www.FrancescaGentille.com For a 30 minute Gift Session, email Francesca and mention Gift Session from Clean Food, Dirty Stories. Article on benefits of flax seeds: https://draxe.com/10-flax-seed-benefits-nutrition-facts/ Article on brain benefits of flaxseed oil: http://www.livestrong.com/article/472237-flax-oil-for-mood-brain-functions/ Scientific study on flax seeds and cancer: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/11/10/3828.short Recipe ebooks including 5-Minute Mains (for Nut Burgers and Ketchup recipes): https://rockingrawchef.com/5-minute-recipes/   About Francesca Gentillé Francesca Gentillé is a Certified Clinical Sexologist & Relationship Counselor. She is the popular internet radio host of Sex: Tantra & Kama Sutra and co-author of the award-winning sex & relationship book "The Marriage of Sex & Spirit." Francesca is the co-director of the The Somatic Sensual Healing Institute, and the founder of The Sacred Courtesan School of Feminine Mystique and Power. She says: "There is no one true, right and only way to design a relationship, fulfill you purpose, or heal from past trauma. Together we will create a path that is uniquely suited to you. In a gentle, graceful yet powerful manner you will deepen your authentic life."

Me: "I'll do #'s 1, 6, 7, 8, and......"   Dude at Crooked Tooth, without hesitation: "3!"   Me: "Huh?"   Dude at Crooked Tooth: "If you like those 4 you'll love #3"   Me: "Well alright, alright"   That was my first interaction with Ben Vernon from Crooked Tooth Brewing Company in Tucson. And you know? #3 was my favorite. I knew right then that Ben was a cool dude who truly cared and knew a lot about beer and how to make his guests feel welcome. In this episode I sit down with Ben and talk about the challenges/joys of transforming an old service shop into a fantastic brewery and whatnot.    A little while back I took a trip down to Tombstone to visit Matt Brown at Tombstone Brewing Company which was a great place making great beer. But I also had a secondary objective that day: get back to Tucson ASAP and grab chimichanga at the place that apparently invented it and just an awesome Mexican food joint in general. The story about the chimichanga is great. But they had me at “fried burrito”. I had even skipped 2nd breakfast to make room for this legendary treasure. So we made the trip back to Tucson and walked into El Charro at around 2:30. “The wait is about 45 minutes”. My heart sank which is probably preferable to what that chimichanga would have done to my heart had we possessed the patience to wait that long. But 45 minutes was much too long for me to wait in my fragile state so we decided to go with Plan B: take the 0.3 mile walk to Borderlands Brewing Company to come up with Plan B.   Borderlands Brewing Company was a really awesome place too. Located in an old brick warehouse right by the railroad tracks this place has character for days and some marvelous beers. The bartender was cool as hell and when we expressed a desire to check another brewery without hesitation she said "Crooked Tooth. You gotta check them out. Cool people making great beer". It was decided: Crooked Tooth would be the next stop. Another 0.3 mile walk (by the way, I was burning WAY more calories than was necessary at this point) and we were there. On the journey over we noticed hoards of people stumbling around the streets and realized we were right in the middle of a pub crawl. Lots of people wandering aimlessly trying to find the next place to find a great craft beer? I can relate to that.   We came around the corner and there is was: another great Tucson brewery in a brick building that looked like it had been there for a hundred years. As soon as we walked in I knew I was going to love this place. Right when you walk in there is an old payphone with vines on it sitting beside an old safe filled with board games. And the place was beautiful inside. Exposed brick everywhere and the huge wooden tables were heavy duty as could be. The place just had a cool vibe to it. And then I saw what they were serving flight tastings in: wooden skateboards with 5 holes in them to hold the tasting glasses. Heck yes! That when I first met Ben (see beginning of this article). I knew right then I had to cool this dude on the show. And he was totally down. Plus their beer is the real deal. Especially the It's Always Sunny in Amarillo (and such a great name).   A few weeks later I was back in Tucson with mics in hand to record this episode. It was on a Saturday before they opened for the day during a "Pints and Poses" thing they do where people come in for an hour of yoga and then have a pint, all for $5. Yoga is just one of the events they are known for. Don’t forget about speed dating, live music, stand up comedy, the list goes on. So in the background of the episode you'll hear the Zenful music of the yoga in the background as Ben tells me the story of Crooked Tooth Brewing Company thus creating "Ben The Beer Zen Master". Has a nice ring to it. Enjoy the show. And go have a beer there. Today.   Intro/Outro music is "La Negra Tomasa" by Arizona's own Fayuca Want to show your support and help this show grow? Simply click here, give the show a rating and share some feedback! 

Drew Sample: So what's the problem at the universities? Me: Well, I'm realizing it's more complicated than I had thought. Monologue: - A new perspective on classroom trigger warnings - Getting beyond the low hanging fruits of SJWs - My postmodernist thinking traps - How methods of deconstruction can turn into attitudes of destruction - my enemy's enemies are not necessarily my friends Discussion: Recorded 2/17/17 - Drew Sample and I discuss many of the factors that brought about the "snowflake generation" and the current crisis in higher education Full Show: TSH - 142 - College vs Self-Employment, Postmodernism, Persuasion

Today’s expression and dialog: to have no say   I’m going to major in Philosophy.   What? Did you ask your parents?   They have no say.   Aren’t they paying for your education? Yeah…so?   Do you make ALL of your decisions? Do you allow anyone to help you? If you DO allow someone to help you, who? And for what decisions? Me? Well, right now I am seriously thinking about moving. Because I work online, I can move anywhere...BUT, the internet connection MUST be very good. I upload SO many large files, it has to be REALLY good. So, the internet speed in the community will INFLUENCE my decision. Oh...I hope I can find a nice place with cold weather and excellent internet speeds!  Today I will teach you an expression YOU can use IF you allow someone or something to help you make your decisions!   Have a super Sunday,   Coach Shane^^   Please subscribe on iTunes and get this podcast EVERY DAY! Support Coach Shane by giving $1 a month! Our sponsors: Click on JOIN CLASSES and get ALL the information! (Get a free AUDIO BOOK!) Our YouTube channel:     Today's Daily Easy English Expression PODCAST is UP and READY for YOU!! #LearnEnglish #ESL #Twinglish

Talkin' Talkies 18 - Taxi DriverThis week we watched "Taxi Driver" which was requested by Chris Decker. You Talkin' to Me? Well, we are talking to you, it's how podcasts work.Next week's movie will be "Mad Max" in preparation for the upcoming "Mad Max: Fury Road."podOmatic http://talkintalkies.podomatic.comAlso featured in the GiantMediaBall.com feed.Part of Club Kayfabe Programs.

Me: In the last episode, we talked about efforts to save charismatic animals from extinction. In this episode, we ask a very different question: is it ever ok to MAKE an animal go extinct? Not me: Of course not. It's immoral to just wipe a living creature off the face of the earth. Me: Well, let me tell you about an animal I - and the U.N. - think should be made extinct: the guinea worm. Guinea worms are these tiny little worms found in Asia and Africa. Not me: Nothing wrong with worms. Me: This worm is a parasite. People drink dirty water containing the worm's larvae, and these larvae burrow into their host's stomach and intestines. Photo from Wikipedia Not me: So what? There's plenty of food to go around. Me: I’ll tell you. After growing for about a year, the worm migrates to your feet, causing excruciating pain as it slithers through your leg. Then…a blister forms. Slowly, a worm three feet long and as thick as a spaghetti noodle crawls through your ruptured blister. The process often takes days, but the worst part about it is the horrible burning sensation you feel while the worm tunnels out of your body. Because it feels like your leg is on fire, you put your leg in water…at which point the worm releases her eggs, and the cycle starts all over again. Not me: KILL IT Me: Not so fast. These worms have brains and heartbeats and little worm children. Not me: KILL IT Me: Well, I do believe the guinea worm should be destroyed, but it helps to use something other than emotion in these decisions. There are generally two ways the value of a species is measured: instrumental value and intrinsic value. Instrumental value is the value of an animal as a means to an end. For example, bees pollinate about 2 billions dollars worth of crops in California each year. Intrinsic value is a little trickier to understand. Basically, it's the value an animal has in and of itself. There is some debate on what makes an animal have intrinsic value, but many ethicists think characteristics like self-awareness, a conception of existing over time, and holding preferences for the future are key. Not Me: So how does the worm stack up? Me: Well, it has negative instrumental value - it causes excruciating pain to people and doesn't seem to have any benefit. And its intrinsic value is pretty low - as such a simple animal, it is unlikely to fulfill many of the requirements of intrinsic value. Not me: So it's okay to get rid of it? Me: Yes, and people have been trying. In 1986, there were 3 and a half million cases of guinea worm disease. In 2010, there were less than two thousand. However, the decision to make an animal go extinct cannot be taken lightly. Just because an animal grosses us out does not mean it's alright to kill it. And many animals have hidden instrumental values. Next episode we'll talk about two more creatures, the disgusting leech and the lethal cigarette snail. Both of these animals, it turns out, have fantastic benefits for humans. But that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for listening. Photo: PD-USGOV.