Podcast appearances and mentions of miracle gro

In this edition of DIG IT Peter Brown and Chris Day chat with Stuart Lowen, the Marketing Manager at Ball Colegrave, a leader in all areas of floriculture excellence. Stuart gives us the latest news from the seasonal plant industry, hanging basket advice, plus new bedding plants to look out for this summer.The Blue Flag winner in 2024 was Lantana Passion Fruit, a trailing spreading variety with a long flowering season of fruity, coloured flowers.The Tree of Life display at Ball featured Petunia Bee's Knees.Mad About Mangave ® Praying Hands, a unique foliage plant, similar to an artichoke that grows up like a teardrop.Plants mentioned and to look out for this summer include; Antirrhinum Snap in Black Pink. Begonia Hula, Begonia Megawatt, Begonia Angel Wings, Trumpet Flower, Bidens Bee Happy, Coleus King Jr Rose, Coleus canina (Scaredy cat), Cosmos Cherry Chocolate (bright cherry pink flowers with the chocolate fragrance, Calibrachoas, Dahlia Gardenetta range of varieties, Geranium Moonflair (ivy leaf), Impatien Beacon ® Raspberry Sundae Mixed (highly resistant to downy mildew), Impatien Glimmer ® Pink, Mandevilla Tropica Jade Red, Osteospermum Akila Hawaii Sunset Mixed, Pansy Cool Wave (trailing pansy), Petunia Fanfare Heartbreaker, Petunia Surfinia and Sunflower PetiSol.Kitchen Buddies, a range of compact growing vegetable plants including Cucumber Quick Snack, Pepper Hot Banana, Sweet Corn Pot of Gold and Tomato Tumbling Tom Yellow.Product mentions: Control-release fertiliser, Miracle-Gro and a high potash fertiliser such as Tomato Food. Water-retaining granules such as Swell-Gel. Popular Speedplanters, Pop-In/ Drop-Ins, popular for instant colourful results.The late Peter Seabrook created an amazing garden at RHS Hyde Hall in Essex called Floral Fantasia, the garden is designed to showcase and celebrate the spectacular potential of seasonal plants. The garden acts as a bridge between the growing industry and the general public. Peter's legacy lives on in this garden which you can visit to see the latest innovations, including this summer, Begonia Trials. 2025 is the Year of the Begonia.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supplying the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Consumers crave personalized experiences. In this episode of The Marketing Rapport, Tim Finnigan speaks with Lissa Cupp, Marketing Strategy Consultant & Faculty Lecturer at the University of Dayton, about the power of personalization in driving business growth and creating stronger customer relationships. Lissa shares real-world examples and insights from her extensive career, including work with brands like Scott's Miracle-Gro, Angie's List, and Facebook. Lissa emphasizes understanding the consumer beyond standard demographics. She highlights the importance of knowing their interests, motivations, and customer journey. Lissa explains how true personalization goes beyond simply inserting a customer's name into an email. It requires empathy and curiosity to identify unspoken needs and tailor marketing efforts accordingly. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of Verisk Marketing Solutions or Verisk Analytics. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. This podcast is not intended to replace legal or other professional advice. The Lead Intelligence, Inc. (dba Verisk Marketing Solutions) and Verisk Analytics LLC names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service. VERISK MARKETING SOLUTIONS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL'S USE OF, REFERENCE TO, RELIANCE ON, OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PODCAST OR THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS PODCAST.

Send us a textGroundhog Day Loops and Cannabis Legalization NewsTom discusses the latest developments in cannabis legalization with an emphasis on RFK's hearing, the fate of cannabis policy in the next four years, state-level changes, and significant legal cases like the RAW rolling papers settlement. The episode delves into a DEA-centric approach to cannabis regulation, the resurgence of marijuana raids, the economic impact on industries like transportation, ongoing legalization efforts in states like Kentucky, Hawaii, and Pennsylvania, and the challenges faced by the cannabis market as seen through companies like Scott's Miracle Gro. There is also a lighter segment on identifying cannabis strains and a farewell to industry legend David Watson. Join for in-depth analysis, expert opinions, and a dash of humor.00:00 Welcome to Cannabis Legalization News01:00 RFK's Controversial Hearing01:34 The DEA's Role in Rescheduling04:11 Federal and State Legal Battles11:09 Marijuana Use and Memory Studies26:54 Raw Rolling Papers' Legal Victory30:37 Cannabis Market Challenges and Opportunities33:10 Chicago's Hemp Regulation Challenges34:21 Skepticism from City Officials38:28 Transportation Industry Concerns42:25 Kentucky's Medical Cannabis Progress49:41 Texas's THC Ban Initiative54:14 Cannabis Industry Struggles01:04:42 Groundhog Day and Future OutlookSupport the show

Up to 8th after a 3-0 win at Wealdstone, Ben and Ian hear about it all from Dave. Plus we look ahead to Tamworth and take your GCQs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us for an insightful journey with Joe Sanhanga, a remarkable e-commerce entrepreneur generating millions annually through unique and high-priced products. Listen in as Joe shares his inspiring story from his roots in Zimbabwe to his educational pursuits in the UK and the US, ultimately landing in Las Vegas. His journey began on platforms like Shopify and WordPress, selling distinctive items such as African-style swimsuits and nano tape toys, before discovering the immense potential of Amazon's FBA and FBM models. Through their conversation, Bradley and Joe emphasized the transformative power of networking at conferences like Amazon Accelerate. Explore the strategies behind Joe's successful transition to selling on Amazon, starting with assisting a soil business during the pandemic and leading to the creation of "Wonder Soil," a private-label product on Amazon. Joe's ventures into innovative products like tanning lamps, vitamin D lamps, and seasonal depression lamps highlight the importance of team collaboration and strategic Amazon sales optimization. With aspirations to surpass a $30 million run rate, Joe shares valuable insights into leveraging Amazon's platform to achieve extraordinary growth in niche markets. Discover the challenges and tactics involved in marketing high-priced products, like a $599 lamp, in a competitive landscape dominated by lower-cost alternatives. We discuss the advantages of having larger margins for experimenting with keywords and bidding strategies, alongside the creative approaches necessary to maintain product visibility amidst Amazon's policies. Joe also shares his experiences optimizing advertising strategies, managing warehouse transitions to Amazon's Warehousing and Distribution system, and utilizing tools like Helium 10's Adtomic to automate and enhance PPC strategies. This episode provides a comprehensive view of the perseverance and innovation required to thrive in e-commerce, offering inspiration and actionable advice for sellers at any level. In episode 604 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Joe discuss: 00:28 - E-Commerce Strategies and Global Perspectives 04:54 - Amazon Product Sales Success Story 05:41 - Amazon Brand Growth During COVID 11:37 - Strategies for High Price Point Products 11:50 - Product Pricing and Brand Strategy 15:23 - Optimizing Keywords for Product Sales 18:21 - Amazon Advertising Strategy Discussion 19:14 - Managing $120,000 of Ad Spend With Adtomic 23:49 - Amazon PPC Management Strategies 27:52 - Optimizing Ad Placements to Lower ACoS 30:51 - Pricing Strategy Impact on Sales 32:45 - Warehouse Cost Savings and Amazon Advertising 34:28 - Inventory Management for Amazon Sellers 38:14 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Conversion 41:17 - Online Presence and Networking ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we talked to a $30 million a year seller who is selling, and has sold, some of the most unique products I've ever heard of, including one at a $600 price point, when everybody else is priced at only 40 bucks. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. In my travels recently, one of the things I like about going to conferences and it's what I always tell people about is that you know you can meet different people, network with people and find out about their story, and that's kind of like how I structure this whole podcast. But then I actually did that recently at Amazon Accelerate and I'm glad I did it, because I'm glad I did it. As I went to this one mixer that they organized and I was at first, I was like, oh man, I was so drained after that day and I'm like, oh man, it's gonna be a crowded place. I don't like to be in crowded places, but you know what? I'm going to hop on this little lime scooter from my hotel and go over to this restaurant where the event was and I was sitting down talking to some people at the table and then I met today's guest there, Joe. How's it going?   Joe: I'm going good. Thanks for having me on.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now, you said you're in Vegas right now. Right?   Joe: Yes, we're in Las Vegas, Nevada.   Bradley Sutton: Now, that's not a typical Vegas accent you've got. So where were you born and raised?   Joe: Yeah, so I was born in Zimbabwe, raised as well in Zimbabwe, then I moved out to England where I spent a lot of my time there doing some education and stuff and then I got tired of the cold being a Zimbabwean.   Bradley Sutton: You went to the opposite, then if you went to Vegas, I cannot imagine a more opposite than cold place.   Joe: Oh yeah, 100%. I just went on to Google and I was like okay, I want to go somewhere in America, but I need to find somewhere warm. And I think the first thing that came up on the search was Death Valley, but there was nothing over there. So the second thing was Phoenix and Las Vegas. So, I eventually found myself in Las Vegas just because of the ease of doing business. Ability to meet people here is really good.   Bradley Sutton: And did you go to university uh over in UK or in the US?   Joe: yes, I did university in the UK as well as in the US, so I got an accounting degree back in uh UK um and then in the US, I did a um was a business management degree with some entrepreneurship uh additional to that   Bradley Sutton: was it like a unlv or?   Joe: I know this was in um in Phoenix in ASU, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: ASU, uh, Sun Devil right? Joe: yes, sir, okay, there, you see it.   Bradley Sutton: I always test my I don't know. I'm not going to ask you any kind of mascot because from England I don't know anything about England schools, but I know most of the US schools have mascots here. Actually, I'm wearing a. We'll talk about this later. I'm wearing a mascot from a minor league baseball team is my hat. This is called from nearby to Arizona is Albuquerque Isotopes. But the reason I use this today was because this is very similar, this logo, to our Helium 10 Adtomic logo. I know you and I were talking about Adtomic, doesn't it look like the A from Adtomic yeah,   Joe: it actually does. Now I see it when you mention it.   Bradley Sutton: So that's why I wore this on purpose. There's a method to my madness, but anyways, before we get to Adtomic, talking about Adtomic, I just want to talk about your e-commerce journey. So when you graduated from, after you know, there at ASU, did you get into e-commerce at all, or at what kind of?   Joe: So this was actually still back in England , around 2017 is when I kind of got first into my e-commerce kind of journey, which was on Shopify. Specifically, Shopify and WordPress was where I started out and I bought a random course of somebody online, learned all about basically advertising from like Facebook, from Instagram, from Google, sending it to this website and landing pages that we used to do. And then, within being in that realm, I started hearing this FBA term being thrown around.   Bradley Sutton: What were you selling on Shopify in those days?   Joe: Oh, so I remember we had to go at, we did these other swimsuits that we did African style print swimsuits, and then we also went on and started doing it was like these little tape toys, sort of like double-sided type tape. Yeah, exactly so we were doing those. It's called nano tape, um, so, yeah, that's basically how, how that started and then,   Bradley Sutton: and then that's when you, when you kind of like, learned about the amazon, uh potential.   Joe: So I heard, obviously, being in that space, I started hearing this word FBA being thrown around uh, the acronym, and you know. Then I went on Google, searched up, okay, what is FBA? And it's some sort of Amazon selling thing. Okay, and then there's FBM as well. So now I'm like, okay, there's these two terms, what is this all about? And that's basically when I started doing my research and I was like, okay, this Amazon thing seems to actually have some stuff to it. And at the time I think the platform is not the way. It's so different now, because sometimes I've got screenshots of my old dashboards and it just looks completely different. So, yeah, that's how I basically then started with Amazon.   Bradley Sutton: Did you start selling like your own account, you know, on Amazon, start selling your own products, or did you just start working for other companies that were selling on Amazon?   Joe: Yeah, so to begin with I was working with this other lady. She basically had soil and the way we actually started working together was I created a website for her, put on Shopify, to sell the soil, and then she was bagging up the soil to try and get it to consumers, because her business was mainly sending thousand-pound totes to farmers. But she said, how can I get this you know three-pound bag to people that are at home and want to grow some plants and what actually it was? This was around 20.   Bradley Sutton: Soil on Amazon, man, when you think you've heard it all.   Joe: It's called Wonder Soil. It's actually one of the rivals to Miracle-Gro and we actually I actually raised it to get the Amazon choice badge. We were on Business Insider as one of the top growing brands on amazon too, um, but basically the cool thing about it was we've tried to find a way to get the soil to consumers and everything worked well, because this was during covid, so people were at home, people had nothing to do, and you know people are growing stuff at home, people. You know we're just trying to, yeah, so the product hit at the right time uh, what year is this 2020.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. 2020 okay yeah. Oh yeah, I mean that was a good time. Yeah, during covid, people were always are really trying to make their own gardens and stuff like grow their own vegetables and stuff like that okay yeah this is a private label brand or you're reselling um others?   Joe: oh, so we actually have manufacturers in China. Uh, that we get all that product for We've actually gotten rid of our warehouse Now. We've gone full into AWD, so we're getting.   Bradley Sutton: Let's talk about that a little bit later in the show too. I haven't talked to many people who are doing that, so I'll be interested in that, ok.   Joe: Yeah, so that's, that's what that one. And then there's another lamp company, which is pretty funny, is tanning lamps and vitamin D lamps, so we run through those on Amazon as well. Those are actually the only there's a lamp that can give you vitamin D.   Bradley Sutton: It's the only lamp the same like the sun.   Joe: Yes, you spend five minutes every other day in front of it and it'll give you. And there's studies on YouTube. People use this lamp, where this lady her name is Carnival Doctor on YouTube. She did a study with a lamp for six weeks and her levels went from 20 something to 40 something vitamin D. She feels healthier than ever and it's perfect. It stopped her from having to buy, you know, vitamin D pills and, of course, all those sorts of things. So, yeah, it's the only one, and you get tan at the same time. So now, that's the difference. So, there's two lamps One gives you vitamin D and one gives you a tan, because there are some people that don't want the tanning effect. So that's what it is. So, it's-.   Bradley Sutton: Now what if you put this tanning lamp over your miracle magic soil? Are you going to create some like hybrid plant? Oh my, you sell the most interesting things. All right, there's a third account too,   Joe: yeah, so it's basically the third account is also in lighting, but this one is seasonal depression lamps where basically you look at it so that one is its own brand.   Bradley Sutton: Did you say depression? Yes, depression lamp Like as in I'm very depressed and I'm sad like that word depression.   Joe: Yeah, depression, you're sad. What does that have to do with a lamp? So, you look at this lamp for 30 minutes and you become happy. I know it sounds stupid, but minutes and you become happy. I know it sounds stupid, but that one doesn't give you vitamin D.   Bradley Sutton: That one doesn't give you vitamin D. Nor a tan. Yeah, you see. Hey, there's a product idea. You got to combine all three and then, oh my goodness, you'd have the most amazing.   Joe: That would be powerful. We've had people that have requested you know, do you have one that does both, or this, this, this? But because of FDA regulations, we've had to separate a lot of the things.   Bradley Sutton: Is these three separate companies or is it like the same group of people who's all owning all three of these?   Joe: So two of the companies is one group of people and the other one is one person.   Bradley Sutton: And then, what do you do in these?   Joe: So I run just an Amazon account. So I run just an Amazon account. So running the ads, running the listing optimization, making sure the account is obviously hitting the sales numbers, everything that just literally goes through Amazon and inventory everything.   Bradley Sutton: What's the overall projected sales for all three combined on Amazon?   Joe: So for all three combined, we're looking at 28. We're on pace to do 28 million this year on all three.   Bradley Sutton: Will that be your best, our biggest year yet.   Joe: Yeah, this would be our biggest year yet. We've seen record numbers in previous months. In previous, like this past quarter, we'd had record sales as well. I know we had our biggest. We had, I think, our first. We had two days in September where we had 100K sales days, which was the first time we've done that. We also had our highest sales days in the past two years. Nine of those days in our top 10 sales were all in September. So we've had record sales. Especially Q3 was really, really amazing. I think we were up about 800K across the board in Q3 alone. So we're on pace to do a really good year and it sets us up for our plan is to do a 2.5 million month at least once this year in total and that will set us up for a run rate for next year. We want to push over to that 30 million stage.   Bradley Sutton: If you're like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC, or maybe you think you just don't have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I'm managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10.me forward slash Adtomic for more information. That's h10.me forward slash A-D-T-O-M-I-C. I'm just curious, before we get into some more details about, like, your advertising because I know that's one of the things that is your specialty these lamps that you're doing like, were these kind of like inventions, or? Or there was an existing market of vitamin D lamps or an existing market of lamps that make you happy Like was that an existing keyword or is this something that you're you guys invented and kind of like created the demand for?   Joe: So it's actually crazy. You say that is because the first vitamin d lamp started in 1924. It was a guy by Dr. Sperti is his name. He's the guy who made it. He invented it and he started selling it throughout the US. It was a company in Kentucky, um, but he was just selling it out of his own like little warehouse and then eventually he got old um and then sold off for business and then basically that's where we put it online, um to run it through Amazon, and we first were going like, for example, the vitamin D one it's the only lamp that's there. The only competition are these vitamin D pills that you'll see on Amazon. But our price point for the lamp is like 599. And we're competing against people that can buy a bottle for four bucks, five bucks on Amazon. So it's been a pretty interesting game competing against people that can buy, you know, a bottle for four bucks, five bucks on amazon. So it's been a pretty interesting game. But it moves. It moves um on amazon. What's the price of the product?   Bradley Sutton: you said 599 599, 599, yeah, wow, uh, I want to. I'm trying to look at, look for it on amazon right now. What's the brand name called?   Joe: SpertI s-p-e-r-t-i, and then you'll see vitamin d we got to show the audience this.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, oh, my goodness gracious, here it is. Hold on, this is incredible. All right.   Joe: That's it and it's right. That's the first one that's popped up against our competition. All those are competitors on the right.   Bradley Sutton: So 500 and Sperti. So that was what the doctor's name was. Who?   Joe: made this up.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Dr. Sperti, that was his name yeah, there was a ready demand for this out there.   Joe: Oh, huge, because, if you think about it, vitamin D pills are basically the same target market as us. Yeah, so this is just a non-invasive way that you buy and you keep this for a very, very long time. So that's that. So something interesting. As you go through this, this listing, you're not going to see the word vitamin d anywhere on the listing and you'll notice our carousel images, our images on there. we have our box images because amazon actually took us down because our lamp has the word vitamin d on it.   Bradley Sutton: ah, yeah, yeah, I see it in the video there, so you don't have vitamin d anywhere in there, but you probably got indexed for the keyword by Amazon.   Joe: Exactly so. That's why we use UVB, which is basically the term for vitamin D. So Amazon is not allowing us to use it, even though we're FDA approved and everything. Amazon is just not letting us go for that.   Bradley Sutton: I see some of your main keywords. Yeah, vitamin D lamp.   Joe: Oh yeah, we can use them in the back. Vitamin D light.   Bradley Sutton: Vitamin D therapy lamp, vitamin D light therapy. Now, I'm just curious. I don't talk very often with people who have this high price point. What is different about having a product that's in the hundreds of dollars? Like, do you approach advertising differently, cause it's not like where I mean. You might now you know you, you might get a hundred clicks with no sale, but still you just get one, the 101st click. All of a sudden, that's $600 of revenue. So, so, like, how is it different, uh, with something like this, compared to your, your other products, which I'm assuming is like more you know, regular pricing 10, 20, 30 bucks.   Joe: So the cool thing about it is that across all the catalog that I, that I that I run, I have products starting at like five bucks, all the way to this one that has $5.99. So the landscape with this one is totally different. Like you said, you can set up an ad, you'll get 50 clicks at $1.20 CPC and, based on our margins, we're still clean on a sale. If we get one sale, we profit. So the cool thing about it is you just have to be a bit more patient. However, because we have such kind of should I say a big space for those clicks, it allows us to test a lot of keywords in this space and we really kind of exhaust any keyword that's there without having to really be careful, unlike if I was selling a smaller, less priced product, I can't just throw in all the keywords and just you know it'll go crazy if it's like a $60 product.   So with this, it gives me that comfortability to go out and bid higher and also it allows me to, like I said, like if you saw on that page where you searched, my competition were those pill bottles that are like five bucks, six bucks, seven bucks, so I can bid above all of those guys. So I ensure that every time you search the keyword I'm going to be first, because there's no way they're going to bid the same amount of dollars. I'm going to bid because their price points are different. However, they can take a loss on a sale because they have repeat products. So people finish that bottle, they come back and buy another With ours. That person buys a lamp and is done. So we obviously have to gauge it to a point whereby, okay, this is our ACOS target and at this A-cost target we're profitable. So that's now how more I manage that one. It's more ACOS targeting, but I'm basically trying to make sure I stand out for every single eyeball that's there because I have the room.   Bradley Sutton: So this is interesting because, regardless of the price point, there are similar kind of scenarios where it would be like this they're probably actual keywords of how somebody who's searching for this exact thing is probably very limited Vitamin D lamp or lamp for tanning, you know for your other product, or it's not. Like oh there's you know 5,000 way, you know 5,000 ways that are going to come up in Cerebro to search for this one thing. You're like it's kind of like that way with coffin shelf. If you're looking exactly for a coffin shelf, that's pretty much it, that's it. Coffin shelf or shelf shaped like a coffin, like there's very limited number of words. The other keywords I get sales from is more like the, you know, gothic decor or spooky things. So how are you doing your keyword research? Like using Helium 10 or amazon, for you mentioned you do a lot of testing for targets. So like, where are you coming up with these keywords to test to see if any of them stick?   Joe: So that's. It's more like said, I run Cerebro on a lot of those vitamin D bottle and pills and basically a lot of my. So, like I've said, I've exhausted the keyword vitamin D and the more you get long tail with this product, the less traffic you have. You know, for some of the products you can get long tail with a bunch of keywords and you still have traffic. Like, for example, if it's like a Ziploc bag, I can put Ziploc bag for Legos, Ziploc bag for sandwiches, Ziploc bag for this. You know the list is endless and you have traffic with this. Not many people even know this lamp exists.   So what I've actually done is sometimes I go and target competitor company names and key names. So if it's like some company that sells a bottle of vitamin D lamps or vitamin D pills, I'll actually target their brand because when I look at their keyword, it's people that are repeat purchases, so it always has traffic. And but because I can bid high on their own company name, I'm going to show up first and I have the room with my price point to show up consistently and eventually, if you're somebody that is very hooked on buying these products, for vitamin D pills, you're going to see my product and think, okay, what is this? Because it's coming up. I've seen it so many times when I come and buy this product that when you read about our process, you then be like, okay, so this is something that actually can benefit me and can work as an alternative for ingested pills and all the other disadvantages that come with that. So that's basically how I find other keywords and start going for those.   Bradley Sutton: You know, price game is something nobody ever wants to play, and you're not playing at all, you're doing the opposite. You know, like on some of these keywords I do see some like people ranking for, like vitamin D lamp, but they're, just like you know, $20 products and they're selling thousands of units. But then are you going after those people too, Like the people who are going after that or how? How, how do you still get sales when people can technically get something one 10th the price? People you just got to like, make sure that they know the value of what you, that yours is different.   Joe: Yeah, so that's where we have to communicate that through the listing, and it's because a lot of those $20 lamps that you're seeing there, those are not actually vitamin D lamps, those are seasonal depression lamps. So if you're looking at, can you see that Alaska Northern Lights big box on the right where your mouse is? Yes, that's one of the lamps that I sell. That's for seasonal depression.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, I was about to click on that, but no, I'm not going to click on the sponsored ad and charge you $3 right there. So good thing I didn't.   Joe: But then if you look at to the left, you've got that product. That's 19 bucks. Those are actually seasonal depression lamps, so they don't give off vitamin D. So somebody would purchase that and then they'll realize that doesn't give you vitamin D. So they'll probably return it and then come back to ours. But if they're looking for seasonal depression those would be those ones.   Bradley Sutton: This is just an interesting niche. This is kind of fascinating to me. So then, overall, almost $30 million. What are you spending per month? Or what are you paying Amazon for advertising per month?   Joe: So monthly. Right now we're spending total across the board with about 120K a month on advertising budget.   Bradley Sutton: Advertising. And then, what's your TACoS then? At kind of, is it different per account? Are you looking at your TACoS?   Joe: yeah, so the lamp TACoS are, like, I think, close to two percent um, and then uh, because that ACoS is really low, um. However, with uh, with the one that's got the majority of the products, our tacos right now we are sitting at a 5.38. That's what we just closed out at, okay. Okay, our ACoS is at 15 point. I think it was 15.5 is what we ended on in September. We brought that down from a 20 ACoS down to a 15. Our goal was to bring it down to 10, but obviously we've done about 50% of that target. Now, which is hard, you know, if you're spending, you know, over a hundred K. To bring down a cost by 5% is really difficult. So that's, that's where we are.   Bradley Sutton: Are you using Adtomic for all of this spend, all of this $120,000 spend?   Joe: We've launched. So with Adtomic, we've put in some rules for some SKUs and we're watching that and I actually had a call with Travis, like I said before, to try and we've got different rules for different products and we're trying to see how we can build out those rules in Adtomic.   Bradley Sutton: Like rules that you were just using manually, like downloading search term reports. What are some of the rules? Tell me how you run your PPC.   Joe: So most of my rules would come into the shipping product, one where basically first rule is identifying the product, pricing. So if it's a bag so let's say Ziploc bag, right, we've got a Ziploc bag, a four by six size. We have different variations. So we have a hundred pack, five hundred pack, thousand pack. The hundred pack could cost maybe 19 bucks, five hundred pack 50 bucks, other one 99 bucks.   So based on those, we make rules where if it's the $19 one, we want to start our bids at $0.40 or something like that. Somewhere it makes sense. But then if it's for the 1,000-pack one, we can start off our bidding at $2, $3. And that's because if somebody then buys it it's $99. So it's more of guiding based on that price threshold of the product and getting that rule in. And then, as we keep going, we want to make sure that if it's not getting any spend after two weeks it'll look back and add, you know, 10 cents to it if it's getting too many clicks. And if it gets like 10 clicks at that price, at that um, 44 cents, uh, whatever, 40 cents, um, and no sales, it'll dial it back by five cents or something like that, just to just to start, you know, bringing it back to see what we can get. So those are.   Bradley Sutton: So then, instead of basing your rules in Adtomic, like, necessarily on ACoS, you're like doing it on the, the performance, like clicks and. Are you doing impressions at all, or just mainly clicks? Mainly clicks and then sales? What about your keyword harvesting? Did you set up any keyword harvesting rules on your auto or broad campaigns? Yes, and what's your thresholds there?   Joe: So with there we do have our keyword harvesting set up and we usually just go in when it shows us. Then we'll add and accept whatever we want to Others we don't and we basically just throw them in. So we have one that right now has some rules and we've been working with the one that keeps the ACoS threshold in different margins. That's been looking good. So we've actually decided that when we've got launch ASINs because we're planning to launch another 42 products, I think it was soon is put those into the ACoS threshold, get those spending. Then, once we've gotten some traction with those, we start messing with the bids ourselves because we look at these in different silos as well in terms of market share.   So if it's like tapes, we might not be the biggest player in tapes, so we can't really go out the income on the market. But if it's like Ziploc bags, Celo bags, we have tons of market share. Our brand is known. The moment you see our packaging on our default listings, you know it's us. So we bid higher on those ones to really just take up and kill anybody that's coming in. And we're happy to take up that high bid because people repeat purchase on those ones so we can lose money on the first sale because we can look at the lifetime value of those customers and it makes sense.     Bradley Sutton:   How many targeting type, different targeting types are you doing per product? You know for me, sometimes a lot of some. I'll have three main keyword ones, at least, obviously, to start, because then I'll cap it and start new ones, but I'll have an exact, you know, like, like atomic calls, a performance campaign. I'll have a broad campaign with broad targets. I'll have an auto, but then I'll also a lot of times have an ASIN targeting campaign, product targeting campaign. I'll also do a sponsor display campaign. I might do a video, two video campaigns, like a keyword video campaign, an ASIN video campaign and then maybe, if I have, you know, three products in a certain brand, I might have a sponsor brand that's feeding a few of those. Like, are you doing all of those or just you're just keeping it to the basic keyword targeting campaigns? What do you guys do so?   Joe: So for every ASIN we basically have five different ads and it starts off with broad, which is obviously our broad keywords, and then we'll go to exact keywords where basically we don't start off by putting keywords in the exact. We let you know, get it from helium and atomic and then we put those in uh based on what it's telling us, and then we've got auto testing. So we uh, or it's called a auto cam, just normal campaign, which is obviously we let that run in the order category. Then ASIN testing, where basically we're running targeting that specific category of that product. And the cool thing about those ascent testing is it helps us identify new markets. So let's say we have a variation in poly and plastic packaging and let's say this product is sitting at number two. We might actually take that product. And then let's say we have other products that are like three, four, five, six in that category. We might take the number two product and move it to mailbags. It'll drop the BSR because of its historical performance and its ability to perform. We might actually start testing a different category just to gain more market share in a different category because we know we've kind of succeeded in that one. So that's more for ASIN testing.   Then we have ASIN targeting, where we actually we use our Cerebro to get competitors, Black Box to get competitors Then we obviously target those competitors depending on how many reviews they have. So if it's somebody that's got anything less than four stars, what they're targeting you, because most of our products are sitting within the 4.5 to 4.89 range. So anybody below four stars we're targeting you, and then we also use what's it called. Then those are basically the five that we do per ASIN and then we also use what's it called. Then those are basically the five that we do per ASIN. And then we have started testing some display campaigns. We had VCPM running, which was a waste of money really. It was just the attribution was wrong. So what we're doing now is some display campaigns to actually do some retargeting and basically that's where we've got started going. We haven't done much sponsored brands. Things have just really been working in sponsored product for us.   Bradley Sutton: Or the auto and maybe broad campaigns. Did you set any atomic rules as far as when to suggest a negative match or like a poor performing search term? Or how are you managing the spend on your auto campaigns? Because you know, sometimes if you just let Amazon do what they want, they'll just show you for all kinds of crazy stuff and they don't care about how much your spend is. So what are you doing to keep your auto campaigns under control?   Joe: Yeah, so what we basically do, obviously we have the loose you select the loose substitute compliments and all that type of stuff. We have those like basic keyword rules that we set our bids at where, and we do that based on our pricing. So, depending on the product's price, we'll add in those rules and then basically when Adtomic starts showing whatever negative is in there, we'll go in and either accept the negative and or reject it. And I remember I don't know if it was Travis who told me we don't want to is it reject the negative or something, because it will completely kind of block it out forever or something like that In Adtomic. If you were to do that on a negative, I think it was if you fully approve a negative. So we kind of just watch it and see if it's really a negative and then we test it out. But that's how we kind of do it. So we haven't really put much rules on that side. It's more depending on the price of the product.   Bradley Sutton: And then you said for like keyword harvesting, like if an auto finds something like is it just one for you? And then you, hey, I'll go ahead and move it to one of my manual campaigns. Or do you want to see like two or three orders of some new keyword before you put it to your exact campaigns, or what's your threshold there?   Joe: Yeah, usually we try and get up to about five, five orders. Um, cause, that's that we've, we've, cause we've had keywords where you might get an order or two, and then it just starts burning money after that. So, yeah, um, we let whatever's winning win and then if something shows promise and you know it comes up with like five orders, uh, that'll be cool and then we'll add it back in. And the cool thing about it is, if it was obviously like the, the lamps, five orders is a bit too many for a keyword. But if it's the Ziploc bags, we know we can easily get those five orders and it justifies because you know that the, the traffic on those is way more than the people that are looking for the lamps. So it just depends on the product as well.   Bradley Sutton:     What is what brought you from, I forgot what you said like, from 20 to 15 a cost, like? What specific strategies you think? Like, was it something different? You were doing um, or, or you just change the rules, or what. What can you attribute that lowering of ACoS to?   Joe: Okay. So basically, we started a KPI where we looked at the number of ACoS campaigns that are above 100% in our account, because I think we have about 4,000 something campaigns running. So basically, when we sorted that out, we would start off with, like, let's say, 40. Then of those 40, that's our priority for the month and basically, we'd look at what the ad type is. We'd look at what the ad type is, we'd look at where the you know impression share is going. Is it top of search, is it product key, is it product pages or is it in the categories? And then basically sometimes we would notice that, let's say, if it's product search for this specific ad, it's showing a way better ACoS but it's not getting as much spend and impressions as this one. But you know, the product page is just spending money. So what we'll do is we'll change the percentage on the impression share to show more on that specific placement that's actually performing the best.   And what we realized is a lot of our ACoS started just, you know, dropping for those campaigns where we doubled down. Yes, it might not spend as much, you might not as much traffic, but if our ACoS drops, you know, by 50% on that campaign, that's a win. So that's what we're doing. And then sometimes it's actually where you're getting a bunch of sales at like 60, 70% ACoS from top of search, but this product page placement is at 20% ACoS but it's not getting as much spend. So now we'll move our spend and our impression share more on that product page and reduce the top of search. Even though it cancels out some sales, the profitability of investing in that product placement on the product pages makes more sense. So that's how we've been kind of juggling the placements and it's been helping really well to cut ACoS.   Bradley Sutton: When you launch new products. What's your strategy? Is it strictly I mean, like do you have this big audience that you're able to promote to and then they send a lot of traffic that way, or is it 100% with PPC that you're launching products? What's your strategy? Like?   Joe: So 100% of PPC. We have been talking about, you know, starting to get an email list together, but, as you know, with Amazon you don't get that information of your customers, so it's very difficult. If we had like a website, then maybe we could leverage that side of it. But, like I said, 100% of all sales is Amazon and unfortunately, we don't have the customer data. So what we usually do is set up our PPC. Sometimes, depending on the market or the product, what we'll use are the deals, if it's promotions, and sometimes we've actually, you know how you can now put price, the strikethrough pricing. So sometimes when we launch a new product, we launch about a few bucks higher than we're actually planning to sell, and that's because we just want to get the featured offer pricing going. And then, once the featured offer has registered onto Amazon, we'll set a strikethrough price at the intended selling price that we want to and then we'll pump up our PPC. Why? Because now our product is showing amongst everybody else to have this discount of like 20% or whatever it is, and that increases our conversion rate because obviously people are seeing this discount. And then sometimes you might actually get the badge that says lowest price in 30 days and on a new launch. That helps quite a lot and basically that's what we do.   Then we start pumping PPC and then, once that ends, we actually noticed with another product where we were averaging about, I think it was 0.78 run rate so which is basically close to a sale a day on that product at 24 bucks. We raised the price to 28 bucks so that we could make a strike through at 24. And then at the end of the strike through because after 30 days when you set the strike through it stops the deal, we actually realized that our run rate went to 0.68 at 28 bucks. So we started noticing that the difference in sales were not actually bad from the price going back to four bucks. That's because we just had forgotten to change it back to that 24. So it actually helped us realize like wait, we were still selling at that 28 bucks, so now we just drop it back and when we drop it back to 24 with that strikethrough it just increases the sales and obviously the conversion rate and the ACoS, which allows us more dollars to spend on that product.   Bradley Sutton: Before you switched to AWD, did you guys have your own warehouse? Did you have multiple 3PLs, One 3PL? What were you doing?   Joe: So we had our own warehouse and basically obviously we're shipping it from China to our warehouse and then from our warehouse to Amazon, and then basically with AWD, and the fees just got out of hand. It kind of priced us out of obviously doing that route, which is why we went with AWD. And it's kind of been our first kind of-.   Bradley Sutton: The new fees you're talking about, like the inbound inventory placement fees and things like that,   Joe: all that type of stuff, yeah, it kind of really hit us hard. So we realized, and we priced everything up in Seoul, it's way more lucrative to go with AWD, and you have to have   Bradley Sutton: Is that AGL too? Or just like? Are you actually having Amazon ship from China or you're shipping it into AWD?   Joe: We're shipping it into AWD. Right now, we haven't fully gone into Amazon shipping it from China, but we're shipping it into AWD. And that's basically where we just noticed that economics-wise it just made way more sense to go with AWD. So we took that big step of obviously getting away with our warehouse and now just sending product into AWD. How big was your warehouse? It was pretty big. It was pretty big. I don't know how many square feet on the top of my head.   Bradley Sutton: Do you know how much it costs per month? About?   Joe: Yeah, it was close to about. I think it was like 25 grand.   Bradley Sutton: Oh my goodness, yeah, so we're talking probably 20,000 square feet or above. They're in Vegas. Yeah, it was pretty big. And then how many full-time employees had to run it?   Joe: So we had four people there   Bradley Sutton: and then now you had to let them go after you close the warehouse. So then it's not just $25,000 a month, but then probably another $10,000 of salary you're saving.   Joe: yeah, so there's a big saving, when you look at it, from everything. And we've kept one person I think it was that basically helps us with inventory forecasting and just helping manage kind of the inventory side of AWD. Because right now we've moved into AWD. But some issues we've had with AWD is when FBA goes out of stock there's like a two-week period we've seen that it takes for that transfer of inventory to go into FBA and that's because AWD hasn't learned our sell through rates yet. So right now, for example,   Bradley Sutton: you can't control that at all. Like you can't just force AWD to say, hey, I know I'm going to sell more, send more to FBA. Like you have to wait for them to be able to see it.   Joe: Yeah. So you can manually send more. But because we have a catalog of 900 products, it'll be very tenacious to look at FBA for all these products and then go to AWD and manually click one. So what we've done is we put the auto replenishment. But because Amazon hasn't learned our products yet, literally, we had a product that had a sell-through rate of I think it was it'll go through about 300, 400 products a month. We ran out of that product and AWD transferred 10 units to FBA and it took two weeks to get those 10 units and those sold out within a day. So it was just the worst and the worst.   Bradley Sutton: I got to start you on Helium 10 inventory management, because helium 10 inventory management is created for people who have three PLs and then and then we tell you, all right, set up a new shipment. But theoretically somebody just asked me to say the other day we don't integrate yet with AWD. I know that's on the roadmap, but like a third-party warehouse, like you know how much inventory is there, so you put the number in and then you know what you know. Helium 10 knows what your inventory is in Amazon. And then so we would just tell you the same way hey, it's time to trigger, you know. So I know you said before like hey, yeah, you might not have time to, you know, be checking 800, but that's the whole point of inventory management where you just you know you better send, you know, 500 units in from your warehouse and so, yeah, we'll get you started on that.   Joe: Yeah, that would be a lifesaver because this is how it's impacting my ads now. So you know back in the day, if you run out of stock on FBA, your listing is not showing anymore, your ads are not delivering. However, with AWD, if you've got stock, what it's done now is it changes our seller delivery date. So we realize that with this duct tape,   Bradley Sutton: and you're conversion like tanks right, because it says like oh, delivery in three weeks or something crazy like that.   Joe: So this duct tape product had delivery in two months. I'm not waiting two months to get duct tape.   Bradley Sutton: So instead of the listing going dead, it still shows available, but then two months.   Joe: So people are clicking on this sponsored ads and they're like, yeah, I'm not waiting two months to get a duct tape, I'm going to the alternative person which is their competitor. So, I'll add just hitting, hitting, hitting, hitting, no sales. And you're like what's going on? And then now when you look at it and it's fine detail, delivers in two months. You're like that's so. Now we've had to end the crazy thing about when you've got 4,000 ads, because you've got five ads SKUs, you can't go and manually turn all those off and then wait until it comes back in stock to turn it back on. So that's been a nightmare as well.   Bradley Sutton: Now Interesting, okay. So yeah, it looks like AWD, like overall pretty decent. You save all those fees, probably thousands and thousands of dollars of fees. You're saving tens of thousands of dollars in warehouse, tens of thousands of dollars in warehouse. But on the flip side, you almost have to, you know if, if you're not using Helium 10, um for inventory management, you almost have to like hire another full-time employee just to manage that, depending on how many SKUs you have, or else, or else you're going to lose, you know too much money.   It's not just the lost sales, what's advertising, like you said, very good, very good, uh, very good point. Um, if I were to ask you like, all right, hey, end of the day, not everybody can, can have a business that does 30 million a year. What set? What has set you guys, uh, apart? Obviously, you know you have some cool patent and some product. You know for one of them that that nobody else can get. That's been around since 1920, but it's anybody you know. I'm sure there's billions of or millions of businesses that were made a century ago, that that technically you could sell, but that doesn't mean you're going to be a 30 million dollar seller. So what sets you guys apart, would you say?   Joe: I think it's that consistency and never give up mentality when you start off a product, because a lot of things that I've seen with other sellers is they're quick to write off a product because they're not profitable with it within the first kind of initial launch phase. And what I've noticed is we stick out with the product and our launches are in strategies here. So we start off with a launch. So, let's say, we're doing zip bags right and we have these zip bags. They're heavy duty, so it's four mil size. When we start off with a zip bag, we're happy to lose some money on that because we know it's repeat purchases. So we now have to calculate and understand okay, this is the frequency of those sales, this is what we expect to come in, what sizes are winning, and basically having the consistency to keep pushing, even though it might not be profitable to start. Eventually, when you start getting those repeat sales, you'll see the profitability come in and that's where those products, when they start winning. You do the exact same thing with new launches and it's, like I said, that consistency to keep doing that with new launches and new launches and new launches has been a game changer. And then also just not being afraid to test Amazon. So you know, like I said with our vitamin D one, we've thrown different keywords in there, we've thrown different words in there, even at times where you get delisted because Amazon said these things don't work or this is, you can't put that writing, so it's.   It's helped us push our listing and appear in different places and we always do tracking to see if it's click-through rates, if it's the title. So, for example, some of our titles have our brand name, which is spot and industrial. That's a pretty long brand name and if you look at our uh, a product of ours on mobile devices, our brand name takes up should I? I say, 40% of the title. So a lot of our keywords and use cases don't actually show on mobile. So what we did test was removing the brand name and leading with the use cases and the product keywords and it started converting better because nobody cared what our brand name was.   But if they're seeing that zip bag for Legos, for this, for this, and it's heavy duty and it's waterproof, that's what people want to see and it increased our click-through rates, which increased our conversions as well. So stuff like that and they're minute tests. But if you do that on a catalog and with products at a volume, it can be a massive scale. And when you realize that from a potential of okay, we have 800 ASINs, 50% of them increase in conversion rates by just 10, 20% I mean in click-through rates you're bringing in even way more traffic and if you hold your conversion rates, that increases your sales without having to do any change in bids and anything like that. So those key changes allow you to save your dollars but still gain on all that traffic.   Bradley Sutton: Now, if I were to ask you your favorite Helium 10 tool, is it Cerebro, is it Adtomic? Is it Magnet? Chrome extension, what is it?   Joe: I would say I love the Chrome extension because it helps me. If I go onto a competitor, straight away I see what they're lacking If they don't have 150 characters in their titles, if they don't have enough bullets, if they don't have, you know, enough bullets, if they don't have enough images. So the moment I see a competitor that doesn't check all the boxes that the Helium tool shows, I'm targeting them. Why? Because if you look at my products I have 10, you know most optimized on your thing. Then at the same time I look at keywords and it gives me a breakdown of how much revenue is in this keyword, how much revenue is in this industry. So before we go launch a specific product like we were launching an anti-slip tape because we want to add to our tape ranges so just looking at that, you'll look at that keyword anti-slip tape. It brings in 600 million a month from all these different competitors.   Now I can run those competitors through Black Box and I love Black Box as well because it helps me really fine tune what I'm targeting and who I'm looking for. So, I can say they get X amount of revenue monthly with X amount of reviews. Like I said, if they have anything below four, Black Box shows me those people. Those are easy people I can add to my product targeting campaigns and I know, because our listings are optimized, we'll easily take some sales from those people. Campaigns and I know, because our listings are optimized, we'll easily take some sales from those people. So, I would say the listing Blackbox and also the Chrome extension will be my two favorite.   Bradley Sutton: All right. If anybody wants to find you on the interwebs out there, like on LinkedIn or somewhere like you open to saying how they can find you guys out there.   Joe: Oh yes, of course, on LinkedIn obviously it's just Joe Sanhanga, my name, and then on Instagram it's j.sanhanga, which is my last name, s-a-n-h-a-n-g-a, and that's mostly where I am on social media. But any questions or whatever I can on LinkedIn, you can just pop it in and I'll try and help where I can.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and hope to see you at an upcoming event soon then.  

Summer gardening reaches it's peak this month as Peter Brown and Chris Day discuss the latest stories in the world of horticulture, must-visit events and a run-down of those essential tasks to keep your garden productive and colourful in the weeks to come. What's on 31st July - 4th August: RHS Garden Hyde Hall Flower Show, Essex. 2 - 3rd August: Taunton Flower Show, Somerset.Until 4th August: 2024 Big Butterfly Count – have you got involved yet? There's still time!3 - 11th August: Singapore Garden Festival at Suntec, Singapore. 9 - 10th August: Shrewsbury Flower Show, Shropshire. 15 - 18th August: Southport Flower Show at Victoria Park, Southport. 16 - 18th August: RHS Garden Rosemoor Flower Show, Devon. 30th August - 1st September: BBC Gardeners' World Autumn Fair at Audley End House & Gardens, Essex. NewsNew YouTube short film filmed at the RHS Urban Show in May featuring Cloudscape and creating 7 amazing gardens. Trees for bees at Wakehurst Wakehurst is using citizen science to help discover the trees most favoured by pollinators. A unique flower shaped Cyclamen Illusia picks up top New Houseplant Award. RHS Tatton Park Show celebrates its 25th anniversary by actively promoting awards for new designers, plants people and contractors aged 31 or over. Scottish topiary artist wins major award for their Moby Dick inspired design. Gardeners urged not to plant or purchase Rhodendron ponticum as The Woodland Trust says its invasive nature is creating problems. Native vegetation does no impact insect biodiversity in small urban gardens. Rare ‘Puya sapphire tower' blooms outdoors in Scotland for the first time. Dianthus breeding specialist Whetman Pink changes hands. War against poaching succulent plants in South Africa. Manchester's Castlefield aerial garden Viaduct gets green light to develop from National Trust. OBE awarded to Horatio's Garden founder Dr Olivia Chapple. Rittershausen family orchid nursery celebrate 75 years. Dr John Grimshaw appointed Editor-in-Chief of Curtis's Botanic magazine. Head of horticulture at Garden Organics and former Blue Peter gardener Chris Collins has been named a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture. Natural History Gardens are now open and free to visit. Olympic Dahlias shine at Paris 2024 games. The 2025 rose of the year is announced. Plants, and product mentions: Hardy geraniums, Chrysanthemum, Lavender, Lupins, Delphiniums, Blueberries, Strawberry, Wisteria Amethyst Falls, Leeks, Potato/Tomato blight proection, Taylors Seed Potatoes for growing for Christmas, Sow the seeds of Basil, Borage, Dill and Fennel, Mint. Summer pruning top fruit trees, dahlias, Lilies and Gladioli staking and feeding. Children seed sowing projects for the school holidays. Cut flowers from the garden. Continue with slug, snails and earwig control. Miracle-Gro, Tomato fertiliser, garden twine and canes. Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supplying the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Homily from the Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time, A.D. MMXXIV.

June is here and with it brings the sun and fun in the garden! In this month's Dig It, Peter Brown and Chris Day discuss the latest gardening news stories, events, and those all-important gardening tasks, plus celebrating DIG IT's inclusion into the Rephonic top 15 gardening podcasts!What's On3 - 9th June British Flowers Week celebrating the variety and skills of the nation's flower growers.8th June: Royal Windsor Flower Show in Windsor Great Park, Windsor.8 - 9th June: London Open Gardens event.13 - 16th June: BBC Gardeners' World Live at the NEC in Birmingham.21st - 23rd June; Blenheim Palace Flower Show, Oxfordshire.People, gardens, products and plants mentioned. Tom Stuart Smith, Val Bourne, Jonathan Sheppard - Cosmos National Collection and Dame Judi Dench plants the Sycamore gap seedling. Water Aid Garden, Octavia Hill Community Garden with the National Trust. The RHS No Adults Allowed Garden, Malvern Garden Houseplant Studios, Hanley Open Side Building from Malvern, and Taylors Bulbs win their 31st Gold medal.Miracle Gro, Tomorite Tomato Feed, Enviromesh or garlic spray to deter carrot fly. Slug copper tape, Slug Gone, beer traps and coffee grounds.Euonymus Green Spire and Euonymus Jean Hugues (good box alternative). Rose ‘Emma Bridgewater' from David Austin and the ‘With Courage' from Peter Beales.Make direct sowings of Peas, Beans, Courgettes, Sweetcorn, Lettuce, Carrot, Spring Onions, Radish and flowers Nasturtiums, cornflowers, and calendulas.NewsWinner of the RHS Plant of the Year Prunus ‘Starlight'. Runner up: Cosmos ‘Cherry Chocolate'.Bromeliads cultivated at Walton Hall in Cheshire.Growing plants should be on the curriculum.Kew ‘Carbon' Garden created.Scientists eavesdrop the sounds from the soil.Long grass is benefiting butterflies says charity.RHS Garden Wisley opens Oakwood Summerhouse to pay homage to Ellen Willmott.National Trust revamps some gardens by future proofing with more resilient planting.Aviva issues flood risk warning as residents turn to artificial lawns.Jekka McVicar recipient of the Prince Edward Award.Oudolf landscape opens at Wisley.Lack of collective of nouns of trees.Auckland gardens regeneration in County Durham.Roses at risk from lack of genetic diversity.A UK first Tulbaghia National Collection at Eastwood Park Prison.25 years of research creates UK first for oak seeds.King Charles III to continue as Patron of the National Garden Scheme, and is the new patron of the RHS.Top 5 bedding plants 1 Geranium Zonal Mixed 9-pack, 2 Geranium Zonal, 13cm, 3 Hedera (ivy) Mixed, 9cm, 4 Geranium Ivy Leaf Mixed and at 5 Petunia Mixed carry pack.In our next podcast we chat with Jessica Naish from Buckingham Flower Farm about the growing cut flowers.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for supplying the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't have to douse your plants in Miracle-Gro to grow an abundant and beautiful garden. You don't even have to use fertilizer at all. (I don't!)   Now, I'm not talking about natural minerals or animal products. I'm talking about synthetic materials. Here's why I think you should stop using fertilizer in your garden and what to do to nourish your veggies instead.    Shop Kitchen Garden Revival if you still need to set your garden up. And check out my book Leaves, Roots & Fruit for more tips on how you can grow WITH nature, not against it.    Grab your 2024 Gardenary Planting Calendar for free at www.gardenary.com/podcast.   For full show notes, head over to the Gardenary blog.    Thanks for being a part of Gardenary! If you liked this episode, help us grow by sharing it with a friend!  And if you're not already following Gardenary @gardenaryco on Instagram, we can hang out over there too! You can see all the things I'm planting and growing in 2024, and I'd love it if you'd tag us in pics of your fertilizer-free garden! 

Resisting, denying, and suppressing big ouchie feelings will give them Miracle-Gro and make 'em stronger.Do this instead!My bookMy siteFacebookIG

We know that exercise does have a positive impact on the brain. We know that exercise can optimize brain function and prevent cognitive decline in adults. But what can it do for children and adolescents that learn and think differently? Today's guest is Dr. John Ratey, an internationally recognized expert in neuropsychiatry. Dr. Ratey became interested in the science of exercise and the brain early on in his career and has seen first-hand the benefits not only to one's body, but also behavior, executive functioning skills, and even attention. In today's episode, Dr. Ratey digs in and explains how exercise and being physically active can change more than your physical health.   Show Notes: [2:38] - Dr. Ratey became interested in the impact of exercise on the brain as an athlete in medical school and seeing studies comparing exercise and antidepressants. [4:49] - Dr. Ratey also became interested in ADHD, specifically how it impacts adults. [6:31] - Consistent exercise can be a type of treatment for ADHD symptoms. [7:45] - Not only do our bodies need exercise, but our brains do as well. [8:52] - The beauty of exercise is the accessibility. [11:12] - When we move, we activate the same nerve cells that we use to think. [13:12] - Movement and exercise improve attention as well as executive functioning skills. [15:04] - Dr. Ratey explains how he has visited schools over the years and has seen the results of exercise on student behavior. [17:29] - Dr. Ratey lists the endorphins and hormones that are increased as a result of exercise. [20:42] - The more brain cells you activate, the more BDNF you have. It is like brain fertilizer. [23:06] - Dr. Ratey calls this “Miracle-Gro for your brain.” [25:23] - Exercise also has an impact on the cerebellum which is discussed at length in the book, ADHD 2.0. [29:29] - “Sitting is the new smoking.” The more sedentary someone is, the less healthy they are. [30:44] - The experience of COVID-19 changed our society's drive to exercise and move their bodies. [31:39] - To optimize brain function and prevent cognitive decline, exercise is so important.   About Our Guest: John J. Ratey, MD, is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an internationally recognized expert in Neuropsychiatry. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles, and 12 books published in 20 languages, including the groundbreaking ADD-ADHD “Driven to Distraction” series with Ned Hallowell, MD. Their latest release, ADHD 2.0 (2021) explores new science and strategies. With the publication of his bestseller, "Spark-The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain," Dr. Ratey established himself as one of the world's foremost authorities on the brain-fitness connection in areas such as ADHD, Autism, Aging, and Cognition. Recognized by his peers as one of the Best Doctors in America since 1997, Dr. Ratey was recently honored by the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society as "Outstanding Psychiatrist of the Year" for advancing the field. Dr. Ratey and his work are frequently profiled in the media, where he's been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and NPR, as well as in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, US News and World Report, Men's Health, and other national publications. Dr. Ratey maintains an active practice in Cambridge, MA and Los Angeles, CA.   Connect with Dr. Ratey: JohnRatey.com   Links and Related Resources: Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by. Dr. John Ratey ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction - from Childhood Through Adulthood by Dr. John Ratey and Dr. Edward Hallowell Episode 40: Lifestyle Activities That Can Improve ADHD Symptoms with Dr. Joel Nigg   Connect with Us: Get on our Email List Book a Consultation Get Support and Connect with a ChildNEXUS Provider Register for Our Self-Paced Mini Courses with LIVE AMA Sessions   The Diverse Thinking Different Learning podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or legal advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Additionally, the views and opinions expressed by the host and guests are not considered treatment and do not necessarily reflect those of ChildNEXUS, Inc or the host, Dr. Karen Wilson.

  Discover how slowing down to re-energize and refocus can help creativity and innovation.   Ask the Agent Survival Guide Podcast! Fill out the form: https://bit.ly/askasg email us ASGPodcast@Ritterim.com or call 1-717-562-7211 and leave a voicemail.   Follow Us on Social!   Ritter on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/RitterIM Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/ritter.insurance.marketing/ LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/company/ritter-insurance-marketing TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@ritterim Twitter, https://twitter.com/RitterIM and Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/user/RitterInsurance   Sarah on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjrueppel/ Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thesarahjrueppel/ and Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thesarahjrueppel  Tina on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-lamoreux-6384b7199/    Resources: 3 Tips on How to Improve Adaptability in the Workplace: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG546        7 Ways to Overcome the Fear of Rejection: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG547 Agent Apps | Get Focused with These Apps: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA20 Agent Apps | How AI Chat Bots Can Assist with Marketing & Social Media: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA20230809 Agent Apps | Mental Health & Mindfulness Apps: https://link.chtbl.com/ASGA20231018 Things to Think About Post-AEP: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG558 Using a SWOT Analysis to Review Your Insurance Business: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG559 Ways to Boost Morale in the Workplace: https://link.chtbl.com/ASG556   References: How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier, and More Creative: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_nature_makes_you_kinder_happier_more_creative How nature nurtures: Amygdala activity decreases as the result of a one-hour walk in nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01720-6 How to achieve more by doing less: https://www.uwlax.edu/currents/how-to-achieve-more-by-doing-less/ ‘Physical activity is like Miracle-Gro': Simple steps to boost your brain as you age: https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandwellbeing/arid-40251431.html   Psychology Today - Burnout: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/burnout Stimulating creativity via the exposure to other people's ideas: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6870350/ The science behind creativity: https://apa.org/monitor/2022/04/cover-science-creativity

Sybil is joined by special guests Michael Littledike and Daniel Blake. They delve into the creative ways a donor can use Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) to their advantage. The interview will shed light on the interplay between charitable giving, wealth management, and personal philanthropic impact. The interviewees highlight key points, including the benefit of receiving an immediate tax deduction when donating to a DAF, and the flexibility to invest those funds for charitable purposes over a longer time horizon. Daniel and Michael also delve into ideas for reforms to ensure that DAFs are used effectively and responsibly.Episode Highlights:The benefits of DAFsThe role of experts in helping donors make informed decisionsAnswering the concerns surrounding DAFsMichael Littledike Bio:Michael founded Capita Financial Network in 2008 with the vision of creating a collection of financial professionals to build a complete wealth management experience for the clients of Capita. Capita Financial Network continues to grow as the company fulfills its mission to "create the optimal wealth management experience." Mike spends most of his time building the company, finding strategic partnerships, presenting on financial topics, and building adventure-packed events for like-minded business owners to synergize. Mike and his wife, Britney, hold their family close and use their charitable opportunities to support Down Syndrome foundations. The Littledikes support their community and the next generation through UVU's Scholarship Program and the Success in Education nonprofit. They are also passionate about their support for veterans as they fund special experiences and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities through Operation Pay it Forward at their ranch in Texas.Daniel Blake Bio:As CEO, Daniel leads the team at UI Charitable Advisors and spearheads initiatives that empower high-net-worth individuals to achieve their philanthropic objectives while nurturing the next generation of social impact leaders. Previously, he was the CEO and co-founder of EcoScraps, which Scott's Miracle-Gro acquired (NYSE: SMG), where he was a Director for their sustainability and hydroponic business unit. He has led sustainability initiatives with the US State Department, United Nations World Food Programme, Amazon, Google, Home Depot, Walmart, and some of the world's largest food companies etcDaniel has been named one of the top Social Impact Entrepreneurs in the USA by Bloomberg Businessweek and has been featured as the cover story in both Inc. Magazine and Forbes. Daniel studied English at BYU where he currently serves as an adjunct professor and is on the board of advisors for the Ballard Center for Social Impact.Links:CAPITA https://www.capitafinancialnetwork.comINSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/capita_financialCharitable Advisors https://www.uicharitable.orgIf you enjoyed this episode, listen to these as well:https://www.doyourgood.com/blog/152-Whats-the-Big-Deal-About-Donor-Advised-Fundshttps://www.doyourgood.com/blog/151-The-Ins-and-Outs-of-Donor-Advised-Funds-with-Andrea-Rushhttps://www.doyourgood.com/blog/148-Sybil-Speak-The-Ins-and-Outs-of-Donor-Advised-Funds-and-Pooled%20FundsCrack the Code: Sybil's Successful Guide to PhilanthropyBecome even better at what you do as Sybil teaches you the strategies as well as the tools you'll need to avoid mistakes and make a career out of philanthropy.Sybil offers resources that include special free short video mini-courses, templates, and key check lists and words of advice summarized in easy to review pdfs. Check out Sybil's website with all the latest opportunities to learn from Sybil at www.doyourgood.comConnect with Do Your Goodhttps://www.facebook.com/doyourgoodhttps://www.instagram.com/doyourgoodWould you like to talk with Sybil directly?Send in your inquiries through her website https://www.doyourgood.com/ or you can email her directly at sybil@doyourgood.com

CCS Medical's chronic care extension teams leverage data to provide personalized clinical guidance and coaching that supports behavior change for chronic care patients. This Geek Squad style approach is transforming CCS from a traditional Durable Medical Equipment (DME) supplier to a much more central roleCEO Tony Vahedian got his start in consumer-oriented businesses (Miracle-Gro anyone) before shifting over to healthcare.Support the showHost David E. Williams is president of healthcare strategy consulting firm Health Business Group. Produced by Dafna Williams.

"Neuroplasticity knows no bounds; it is a lifelong journey of growth, learning, and personal transformation." – Dr. Andrew Huberman whose quote we ended our last EPISODE on a “Deeper Diver into Neuroplasticity.” On today's episode we will review: ✔ Tips for regrowing our brain cells (neurogenesis) ✔ A reminder of what prevents neurogenesis and hurts our brain and what we can do to help increase neurogenesis in our brain. ✔ What's the Difference Between Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis? ✔ What's the Controversy with Neurogenesis? What's the difference between Neuroplasticity, that we covered on EPISODE #302[i] (that knows no bounds) that's defined as “the ability of the brain to form new connections and pathways and change how it's circuits are wired; (as shown so well in the Sentis YouTube video that gives us a representation of these pathways visually, and what they look like in our brain when we create NEW pathways).[ii] This we KNOW we can do throughout our lifetime, (while) neurogenesis is the even more amazing ability for the brain to grow new neurons (Bergland, 2017).[iii]  And on today's episode #303, we will take a closer look at “What Exactly IS Neurogenesis and Why is it Controversial Among Neuroscientists.”[iv] Welcome back to The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning (that's finally being taught in our schools today) and emotional intelligence training (used in our modern workplaces) for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren't taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience. I'm Andrea Samadi, an author, and an educator with a passion for learning and launched this podcast 5 years ago with the goal of bringing ALL the leading experts together (in one place) to uncover the most current research that would back up how the brain learns best, taking us ALL to new, and often unimaginable heights.    For today's episode #303, and in keeping with our Season Theme of Going Back to the Basics, to take our learning to new heights, I'm going back to EPISODE #141[v] on “Neurogenesis: What Helps or Hurts our Brain Cells” because it became clear to me that while researching for our last episode that Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis are closely connected, but the former is widely accepted, while the latter holds some controversy. In our first episode on neurogenesis, we looked at: ✔ Tips for regrowing our brain cells (neurogenesis) ✔ A reminder of what prevents neurogenesis and hurts our brain and what we can do to help increase neurogenesis in our brain. Dr. Andrew Huberman on Neurogenesis While researching Dr. Huberman's work last week on neuroplasticity, he mentioned that there was “bad news” with “neurogenesis” and that many people think that they can exercise and add “new neurons” in the brain and “that after age 14, the human nervous system adds few new neurons.”[vi] He said that “in rodents neurogenesis could occur but in humans it was less obvious” and “that while we can't add new neurons, we can change our nervous system”[vii] and dives deeper into the definition of neuroplasticity and why this holds no bounds. Now I'm starting to see the controversy in this topic, as I went back to my first look at Neurogenesis. Dr. David Perlmutter (a board-certified neurologist) on Neurogenesis and Dr. John Ratey, the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain To open up EP 141 from June 2021, I quoted Dr. David Perlmutter, a board-certified neurologist and six-time New York Times bestselling author who said “the best way to increase neurogenesis (regrow your brain cells) is “when your body produces more BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (Dr. David Perlmutter) and we covered this topic deeply on EP 274[viii] “What New With BDNF: Building a Faster, Stronger and More Resilient Brain.” I even remember Dr. John Ratey[ix] the author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain said that BDNF was like “Miracle-Gro for the brain” (you can't forget some of the things some people say over the years and he cites a paper where he talked about how brain cells “do grow back in the hippocampus (and that in the study he sited), they saw while looking at the brains of terminally ill patients who had donated their body to science (Cancer patients who had been injected with a dye that shows up in proliferating cells so that the spread of the disease could be tracked) found their hippocampi were packed with dye marker, proof that the neurons were dividing and propagating—a process called neurogenesis.”[x] (Page 48, Spark) Dr. Ratey's book Spark, talks about “how to kick-start neurogenesis” and where the research began, causing me to think back to Dr. Perlmutter's website where he mentioned that BDNF causes neurogenesis or new cells to form in our brain. He cites the studies that show how “exercise training increases the size of the hippocampus and improves memory” exactly what Dr. Ratey saw that made such a huge difference with those students he worked with at Naperville High School. Dr. Perlmutter's video talks about the study that showed that after 1 year of aerobic exercise, “exercisers had a marked increase in BDNF, and they showed substantial improvement in memory function.”[xi]    Then I found another video I watched in our last episode from Sandrine Thuret called “It's Possible to Grow New Brain Cells” where she said that “we produce 700 new neurons a day in the hippocampus”[xii] Sandrine Thuret's TED TALK lists many ways you can grow new brain cells (the highlighted words) with intermittent fasting, flavonoids (found in dark chocolate) and caffeine being a few evidence-based strategies. Conversely, she mentions a diet high in saturated fat, sugar or ethanol, will have a negative impact on neurogenesis. She even showed a study (from Praag, Kepermann and Gage) where rats who were runners shows an increase in neurogenesis vs the control group who were non-runners that Dr. Ratey talks about in his book Spark. What Does This All Mean? Where's the Controversy? Neuroplasticity vs Neurogenesis To review and conclude this episode on “Diving Deeper into Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis” I think we've got a clear picture of how neuroplasticity works from our last episode, (by making a conscious effort to build new neural pathways in our brain when we learn something new) but the topic of how we can grow new neurons seems to be where the controversy exists. It seems like this is only possible in the hippocampus but I still do wonder why a neurologist like Dr. Perlmutter says neurogenesis is possible through exercise[xiii], while another respected neuroscientist's stance is that “in humans this is less obvious.”[xiv]  This is where the deep learning comes into our study, and being open to what we might uncover here. If we aren't continually questioning what we are learning, then we aren't thinking at all. Mark Waldman's AHA Moment: What Neuroplasticity Is and Isn't While thinking about why neurogenesis is “less obvious” in humans, as it might be in rodents, like Sandrine Thuret's TED TALK covered, and even Dr. Ratey took the same rodent study and made a comparison to the students at Naperville whose test scores improved after running. Then I remembered my mentor Mark Waldman made me think deeply about this when he wrote about “What Neuroplasticity Is and Isn't”[xv] where he explained an article “Adult Neurogenesis in Humans”[xvi] that ended up being my AHA Moment of learning here. He said to “imagine the brain as a city map, and instead of there being 214 streets in Manhattan, imagine that it had a million streets! No room for buildings, just streets winding and weaving east to west, north to south, up and down and diagonal, all woven together like a giant hairball. Each city is a brain function – vision, movement, memory, imagination, feelings, etc. – and the entire state of New York would have cities upon cities woven together on top and alongside each other. Those billions of roads have trillions of cul-de-sacs which are the synapses. Can you visualize that? Below is an actual slice of a thousandth of a millimeter of mouse brain: Everything is jam packed but you the traveler can decide which road or neural pathway to take in order to reach a specific destination to help you perform some action of achieve a particular goal. The fastest your brain can process information is about 60 bits per second, and he guesses that any cognitive function would be traveling around 2,000 miles per hour down those roadways in your brain! Now we can ACCURATELY visualize what plasticity looks like in the adult human brain a bit deeper than what we first looked at the Sentis YouTube with the connections in our brain this way. This was my FIRST look at neuroplasticity, and this video came out 10 years ago. Look at the difference with this image that came from the research paper Mark Waldman read on “Adult Neurogenesis in Humans” that changed his thinking about neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. He said “the roads/neurons don't change but the tiny exits that lead you to another neuron can slowly move to a different synapse, similar to how switch-ways work on a railroad track. That's where synaptic plasticity takes place and that's what happens when you learn something new: You're beginning to find new pathways that create different decisions and behaviors. Waldman went on to point out some main take-aways from this Paper on Neuroplasticity but the ones I want to mention are that   “This kind of plasticity does not add or replace neurons.” “the exception is a process called “adult neurogenesis” conferred by active stem cell niches…in restricted regions [olfactory bulb & hippocampus]” (Confirmed by Dr. Huberman's research)[xvii] “After 60 years of intense research and more than 10,000 peer-reviewed publications, we still do not know if our brain maintains such capability.” Synaptic changes are very slow, involved with learning and brain repair. Stem cell-driven “adult neurogenesis” is still far in the future. ------------ La Rosa C, Parolisi R, Bonfanti L. Brain Structural Plasticity: From Adult Neurogenesis to Immature Neurons. Front Neurosci. 2020 Feb 4;14:75. Review and Conclusion: Neuroplasticity vs Neurogenesis: Uncovering the Controversy So now I've opened up a bit more as to “WHY” this topic holds controversy among neuroscientists, and I think while this is a good start at explaining how Neuroplasticity is different than Neurogenesis, I do want to leave this topic open, to come back to at a later date, and see what else we can add to our understanding In the meantime, I'll continue to read, learn and think of how this learning can apply to our daily life.  While researching this topic, I found an article I like called What is Neuroplasticity[xviii] written just this past April 2023. It explains neuroplasticity thoroughly, and how it applies to learning, a growth mindset, and how it changes as we age. It covers neuroplasticity and how it can help with anxiety, which made me think back to when we changed our brain with Dr. Caroline Leaf's 5 Step Process for Cleaning Up Our Mental Mess on EP #299.[xix] It even covers neuroplasticity exercises for treating chronic pain that took me back to our interview with Ashok Gupta[xx] a well-known brain-training neuroplasticity expert who taught us how to use our brain and mind to manage chronic pain and illness. At the end of this article there are YouTube videos from many of the experts we've covered on this podcast like Dr. Daniel Amen, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and books from Dr. Caroline Leaf, and Norman Doidge. But what was missing, was more about Neurogenesis and how we can change actually change our brain, not just re-wire the pathways in it, there were a bunch of quotes at the end of this article but they were all about neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity Quotes Among other things, neuroplasticity means that emotions such as happiness and compassion can be cultivated in much the same way that a person can learn through repetition to play golf and basketball or master a musical instrument, and that such practice changes the activity and physical aspects of specific brain areas.--Andrew Weil Because of the power of neuroplasticity, you can, in fact, reframe your world and rewire your brain so that you are more objective. You have the power to see things as they are so that you can respond thoughtfully, deliberately, and effectively to everything you experience.--Elizabeth Thornton Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.--Santiago Ramón y Cajal Meditation invokes that which is known in neuroscience as neuroplasticity; which is the loosening of the old nerve cells or hardwiring in the brain, to make space for the new to emerge.--Craig Krishna Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.--Norman Doidge Neurons that fire together wire together.--Donald O. Hebb (Dr. Huberman would say this came from Carla Shatz) Brains are tricky and adaptable organs. For all the ‘neuroplasticity' allowing our brains to reconfigure themselves to the biases of our computers, we are just as neuroplastic in our ability to eventually recover and adapt.--Douglas Rushkoff Our brains renew themselves throughout life to an extent previously thought not possible.--Michael S. Gazzaniga Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless).--Susannah Cahalan Where are the quotes for Neurogenesis? Like the quote I found from Dr. Perlmutter who said “We can regrow brain cells and retain this ability throughout our entire lifetime.” Is this only possible in our hippocampus? Or will science someday reveal that adult neurogenesis is possible like what Mark Walman mentioned with stem-cell adult neurogenesis that he thinks is far in the future? Until we know for sure, I'm going to stick with doing what I know helps my brain according to Dr. Perlmutter's work, and Sandrine Thuret's TEDTALK where she says by doing certain things like the words she's highlighted in her graphic, we can create neurogenesis that's important for learning and memory, and I'll avoid the non-highlighted words that she says prevents neurogenesis. And I'll come back to this episode at a future date to see what else we can add to accelerate our understanding of “Neuroplasticity vs Neurogenesis.” With that thought, I hope this episode has made you think deeper about your brain, especially when it comes to making choices that we know can improve our ability to build a stronger, more resilient brain by doing what helps it (and our brain cells) instead of what hurts it, and I'll see you next week.   REFERENCES:   [i] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-and-a-deeper-dive-into-applying-neuroplasticity-to-learn-something-new/ [ii] Neuroplasticity Published on YouTube November 6, 2012  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpfYCZa87g [iii] What is Neuroplasticity: A Psychologist Explains [14+ Tools] by Courtney E Ackerman, MA, Published July 25, 2018, Scientifically reviewed by Melissa Madeson, Ph.D. https://positivepsychology.com/neuroplasticity/#google_vignette [iv] Adult Neurogenesis in Human: A Review of Basic Concepts, History, Current Research, and Clinical Implications Published May 1, 2019 by Ashutosh Kumar, MD. et al.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6659986/ [v] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-neurogenesis-what-hurts-or-helps-your-brain-cells/ [vi] Dr. Andrew Huberman Lab Podcast EPISODE #6 “How to Focus to Change Your Brain” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG53Vxum0as [vii] IBID [viii] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-what-s-new-with-bdnf-building-a-faster-stronger-more-resilient-brain/ [ix] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE#116 with Dr. John Ratey on “The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain”  https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/best-selling-author-john-j-ratey-md-on-the-revolutionary-new-science-of-exercise-and-the-brain/ [x] Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey, MD (January 10, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D7GQ887/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 [xi] https://www.drperlmutter.com/neurogenesis-re-grow-new-brain-cells-exercise/ [xii]Is It Possible to Grow New Brain Cells by Sandrine Thuret published Dec. 8th, 2017  https://capture.dropbox.com/W0af55YnE3LhDb0M [xiii] https://www.drperlmutter.com/neurogenesis-re-grow-new-brain-cells-exercise/ [xiv] Dr. Andrew Huberman Lab Podcast EPISODE #6 “How to Focus to Change Your Brain” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG53Vxum0as [xv] Mark Waldman “What Neuroplasticity is and isn't” Published on Facebook Nov. 10, 2020 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1300824310263746&set=a.112516002427922 [xvi] Adult Neurogenesis in Human: A Review of Basic Concepts, History, Current Research, and Clinical Implications Published May 1, 2019 by Ashutosh Kumar, MD. et al.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6659986/ [xvii] Dr. Andrew Huberman Lab Podcast EPISODE #6 “How to Focus to Change Your Brain” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG53Vxum0as [xviii] What is Neuroplasticity: A Psychologist Explains [14+ Tools] by Courtney E Ackerman, MA, Published July 25, 2018, Scientifically reviewed by Melissa Madeson, Ph.D. https://positivepsychology.com/neuroplasticity/#google_vignette [xix] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/brain-fact-friday-on-a-deep-dive-into-dr-carolyn-leaf-s-5-scientifically-proven-steps-to-clean-up-our-mental-mess-so-we-can-help-our-children/ [xx] https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/ashok-gupta-on-heath-and-happiness-getting-to-the-root-of-chronic-pain-and-illness-long-covid-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue-and-others/  

After a damp and cool July, we look forward to a productive, colourful yet relaxed August. Dig It's Peter Brown and Chris Day provide a round-up of the month's gardening what's on's, a look at the stories making the gardening headlines and a round-up of those essential gardening tasks.What's on2 - 6th August: RHS Hyde Hall Flower Show, Chelmsford, Essex.4 - 13th August: Shropshire Petal Fields, Newport, Shropshire.11 – 12th August: Shrewsbury Flower Show, The Quarry Shrewsbury.12 – 13th August: The Great Comp Summer Show, Platt near Sevenoaks, Kent.17 – 20th August: Southport Flower Show, Victoria Park, Southport.18 – 20th August: RHS Garden Rosemoor Flower Show, Great Torrington, Devon.Until 13 September: RHS Garden Wisley. A new exhibition Growing Up in the Garden, showcasing the way children use gardens as a place to connect with and explore the natural world.NEWS First King's birthday honours for landscaper and designer Tom Stuart-Smith (OBE) and Kew's Director of Gardens Richard Barley (MBE).Renowned rosarian Michael Marriott awarded the Dean Hole Medal by Colin Squire, chairman of The Rose Society UK.Top accolade the Brickell Award went to Adrian Young's National Collection of 900 Saxifraga as part of Plant Heritage's Hampton Court display.Carol Klein named the RHS's 'Iconic Horticultural Hero' for 2023 and Carol's comments about the lack of female representation on Gardeners' World.Hemlock warning: the deadly plant found in UK gardens.Rare pink grasshopper spotted in North Wales.Use of peat is falling according to latest HTA report.Scottish farmers lead research to revive lost linen industry.Salisbury City Council scraps hanging baskets and sparks division.Top plants named at HTA Plant Show - Curcuma ‘Skyline' overall winner. Other winners include Agapanthus Orientalis ‘Black Jack,' Ball Colegrave Ltd's Dahlia ‘Dalina® Maxi Starburst Pink' and Fatsia Japonica ‘Camouflage.'Dig It Top Five Roses: 1. ‘The Queen Elizabeth II', 2. ‘With Love', 3. ‘Cutie Pie', 4. ‘Precious Ruby' and 5. ‘Mary Berry'.Plant mentions: Plant seed potatoes for Christmas, Leeks, Brassicas and Spinach. Sow Basil, Marjoram, Borage, Chives, Coriander, and Dill. Propagate lavender and rosemary. Divide Chives. Propagate and plant new strawberry runners including ‘Cambridge Favourite,' ‘Elsanta,' and ‘Honeoye.' Continue sowing early-flowering biennials - like honesty and wallflowers. Sow Cress and compact sunflowers with the children.Product mentions: Bamboo canes, Garden twine (Jute). Plant feeds - Tomorite, Doff fertilisers. Miracle Gro, Phostrogen, Seaweed Extract, Westland Tomato Food and Comfrey tea.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for providing the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Strauss burst on to the scene in the wildly popular 1976 miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" as successful entrepreneur Rudy Jordache, alongside Nick Nolte as the hard luck brother, Tom. He went to a prolific career on film, television and stage. His most recent role was headlining "Love Amid the Ruins" with JoBeth Williams at the Laguna Playhouse, and he also recently starred in "The Outgoing Tide" here for the Ojai Performing Arts Theater nonprofit group. He won an Emmy in 1979 for "The Jericho Mile" about a prison lifer who trains for the Olympics. It was Michael Mann's first directing credit. In a sign of his range, Strauss also played the President of the United States opposite Ice Cube in "XXX: State of the Union." We talk about his wide-ranging career with hundreds of acting credits. He has called Ojai home for more than 35 years and is deeply involved with horticulture, and was the spokesperson for Miracle-Gro for years. He travels widely collecting plants, specializing in succulents. We talk about Ojai and climate change, how the town has changed over the decades and what we need to do to secure the future. We did not talk about the transmigration of souls, Ernie Kovacs or summer homes in Nantucket.

In this episode, we're joined by Brian Godfrey, Brand Manager at Scott's Miracle-Gro Company, a leading lawn and garden product manufacturer. Brian shares his insights into the latest trends in the lawn and landscape industry, from the increasing popularity of sustainable gardening practices to the impact of climate change on plant growth. Throughout the conversation, Brian highlights the ways in which Scott's Miracle-Gro is staying ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation in the lawn and garden space. To purchase from Scott's, visit: https://scotts.com/en-us/home Stay tuned for Lawn Buddy and Scott's partnership, where we will be providing exclusive discounts for Scott's products starting April 1, 2023

A quiet day on the home front today! Some things to pick up at WallyWorld then spreading Milorganite across the yard.  Epsom salts to the Palm Trees and Miracle-Gro to the Ixora.  The Music Authority Podcast...listen, like, comment, download, share, repeat…heard daily on Podchaser, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Listen Notes, Google Podcast Manager, Mixcloud, Player FM, Stitcher, Tune In, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, Radio Public, and Pocket Cast, and APPLE iTunes!  Follow the show on TWITTER JimPrell@TMusicAuthority!  Please, are you listening? Please, are you sharing the podcast?  Please, has a podcast mention been placed into your social media?  How does and can one listen in? Let me list the ways...*Podcast - https://themusicauthority.transistor.fm/   The Music Authority Podcast!  Special Recorded Network Shows, too!  Different than my daily show! *Radio Candy Radio Monday Wednesday, & Friday 7PM ET, 4PM PT*Rockin' The KOR Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7PM UK time, 2PM ET, 11AM PT  www.koradio.rocks*Pop Radio UK Friday, Saturday, & Sunday 6PM UK, 1PM ET, 10AM PT!  March 22, 2023, Wednesday, volume two…The Sorels - Spring Break [Spring Break (Reta Records)Nelson Bragg - Tell Me I'm Wrong [IPO Vol 7]The New Yorkers - Seeds Of SpringDana Countryman - Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame [Come Into My Studio]The Four Freshmen - Love Turns Winter To SpringTimmy Sean - 12 This Ain't No Tragedy [Theme From A Tale From The Other Side]Kimberley Rew & Lee Cave-Berry - Simple Pleasures [Sunshine Walkers - The Best Of Kimberly Rew & Lee Cave-Berry]@The Lambrettas - Poison Ivy [Beat Boys In The Jet Age]Pamela Davis - Another Spring, Another Love [Marlene Rides Again]Pip Blom - 15 Skippy Still Remains [Singles] (Persona Non Grata)Marc Platt - Joe Strummer [Colors Of The Universe] (Rum Bar Records)Tim Anthony - Never EnoughThe Anderson Council - 15 – Mrs. Kirkby's Refrigerator (w @Peter Noone) [Worlds Collide] (Jem Records)Arvidson&Butterflies - 12 Spring Birds@Mark - 26  - Goodnight (It's Getting Late, You Know) [Bubblegum Favorites]Chuck Schiele Music - 02 Rise Up! [Chuck Schiele Love Letters - EP]The Glad Machine – TonightJohn Larson and the Silver Fields - 06 - Dig It Out [Mile A Minute]Grand Drifter – A Lost Spring Song [Lost Spring Songs]

In this month's Dig It podcast Peter Brown and Chris Day look at how the gradual change in seasons is beginning to affect what we plant, prune and plan ahead in our gardens.Thursday 2nd February Chasing Plants talk with Dr Chris Thorogood in Oxford, 7-8pm. Saturday 4th February, 10am-4pm. Our Graft & Grow Event at the Garden Centre with The Mid Shires Orchard Group and grafters Andy Howard and Steve Oram from PTESSaturday 4th February – Sunday 12th March Houseplant Takeover at RHS Gardens, Wisley Thursday 16 February: Winter and Snowdrops Walk from 9.30am. Breakfast and a Guided Walk with Nick Hamilton at Barnsdale Gardens in Rutland, created by his father Geoff. In the newsDavid Austin Roses retires three rose varieties.Redesign of the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother garden at Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. RHS partner garden numbers increase to 221, including Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Powis Castle and Bridgemere Show Gardens.The Windlesham Trophy awarded to the HM Prison Thorn Cross for its creative gardening efforts. Petal patterns found to attract bees, the latest from Cambridge University.New laws to help protect illegal landscape tree felling comes into force.Scottish tea grower success in London.Predictions of garden trends for 2023 from the RHS. Kew Science spotlights 10 species of plants and fungi that it has named as new to science in 2022.NGS biggest ever charity donation in 2022.Dig It Top 5 Potatoes: From 5 to the number 1 spot Potato ‘Arran Pilot' (1st early), ‘Desiree' (maincrop), ‘Rocket' (1st early), ‘Charlotte' (2nd early) and at number 1 ‘Kestrel' (2nd early).Plant mentions: Asparagus, Garlic, Onions, Grapes, Roses ‘Munstead Wood', ‘A Shropshire Lad' and ‘Lady Emma Hamilton', Phormium, Cordyline australis, Camellia sinensis (tea), cooler houseplants such Kentia palm, Fatsia japonica and Spathiphyllum; Snowdrops, Raspberries (‘Heritage', ‘Autumn Bliss'), Strawberries, date palm, hedging, ornamental trees and fruit trees.Product mentions: Swimming pond pumps from Oase, Secateurs, fleece, Baby Bio, Miracle-Gro feed, Phostrogen Plant Food, compost bins, and water butts.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we talk about working against nature and ask an important question: why? Today's Sponsor: Paul Wheaton of Wheaton Labs and Permies.com Paul Wheaton over at Wheaton Labs just released 16 hours of footage from his Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree innovators event. Using very little fuel, and producing next to no smoke, the folks down at the lab created a rocket sauna, cooktop, dehydrator, kiln, and a bunch of heater options for smaller spaces, and full-size homes.  Check it out here: https://permies.com/wiki/188928f495/Earth-Friendly-Heat-Full-Event This Week's Livestream Schedule Wednesday at 12:30pm - Live with John Willis: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-PX-bHfC3AEOUPWgJ5d40g Thursday at 7pm: Self Reliance Festival live Q and A: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-LthzEw9jFH_tKPhZLs_5Q Friday at 9:30AM CT: Homestead Happeningshttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-PX-bHfC3AEOUPWgJ5d40g Headed to Back to the Land Festival this weekend: Backtothelandfestival.com Tales From The Prepper Pantry Precooking for SRF & the Food Forest Event - Lots of MEAT Transitioning out of the canning kitchen and back to winter drying and freeze drying Assessing if there is enough tomato crop to do one more round of salsa Frugality Tip From Margo First tip when traveling, is bring your snacks and road food, sandwiches or whatever you eat.  This will save a lot of money on the road. I use re-usable ziploc bags to pack food up and I bring a half of a sponge and a small bottle of dish soap on the road to make sure I will be able to wash them no matter where we stay. We keep a cooler in the car, I pre-freeze filtered water in 1 liter club soda bottles and use them in the cooler.  All of the places we stayed have a refrigerator with freezer and the water bottles get re-frozen to use in the cooler, and we had filtered water as a back up if we needed to drink it. For two nights I had rented an air bnb way outside of any town (even further out than the holler) lol.  Once we got there the first night, we were not driving back 30 min to a store and then trying to find this place in the dark.  I had packed some shelf stable foods that I did not need any tools to open, just in case.  And I was able to make us dinner, saving time and money that night.  Shopping Report for 9/18/2022 We made five stops on our typical Saturday shopping trip. Traffic was light, and I only saw a few face-diapers. First stop was Dollar Tree. The store has a lot of inventory, but is beginning to look a little unkempt. The food aisles have a lot of viable stuff, but the health aisle has a lot of unusual things in place of some more typical items, that have not been restocked in some time. The drink coolers seem to have a better selection. Next was a Mexican store for a few specialty items like a vanilla flavoring and a few plantains. I've never seen their shelves not full. I've not done any real price comparison, but they have quite the variety. I've also never seen any kind of unpleasantness in there like arguing or rudeness. Hobby Lobby was next. Stock levels seemed good, with a lot of Fall junk in there now, but I did see a couple of empty islands; probably just re-organizing. Home Depot was #4. The price of a 2x4x8 has dropped again, to $3.98. We grabbed some Miracle Gro for next year; they had plenty of it. They also had a lot more sunflower seeds for birds than the last time we were there. They're more expensive, but there were at least three sizes, in big boxes. The quantities of common battery sizes like AA and AAA continue to drop. I'm glad I've switched to mostly rechargeable, but I'm going to order a few more. They have a LOT of solar lights in stock, much nicer than the cheap dollar store versions that are dim and barely make it through a season. They might be $6.xx, and I'm pretty sure they were at least twice if not three times that price earlier in the year. These make good guide lights; leave them outside during the day to charge, and bring them in at night. Aldi was last. I don't recall any notable changes from last week, in fact if anything, they were a little better stocked than they have been (this Aldi has never been bad). I even saw some frozen turkey breast, which has long been absent. They had plenty of flour, sugar, TP, and other staple items. At my last fill on Friday, untainted regular gasoline was still $4.199/gallon. Operation Independence Business Trips Main topic of today's show: Why Fight Nature? This morning while driving at 3:30am, I got to thinking about circadian rhythms. You see, with a very early flight ahead of me, I had to get up at 3 to be to the airport in time to depart. It is always an interesting thing to rise much earlier than usual - not the end of the world, but for me it leads to several days of recovery. Naturally, the next thought was Daylight Savings time as we are about to go back to normal time in a little while. Did you know that during the transition into and out of DST, there is a measurable increase in heart attacks and car crashes? This is because we are ripping our bodies out of their established circadian rhythm - going against nature if you will.  As I Look around, we are not very successful when we go against nature.  7 layers of a forest in Permaculture Training dogs Raising children Why then, do we think it is a good idea to :darken” the earth to fight climate change? How does trying to force the atmosphere into submission have a hope of being successful? Have we learned nothing? This fight against nature is something that technology-minded leaders come back to over and over. When we do it on a large scale, there are very real, negative impacts. Mao and the sparrows  So WHY go against nature in the environment, or in interactions with people around you. Would it not be better to seek to understand the realities of nature and go with those to impact better outcomes? Which brings me to politics: A big problem in how governments and policy works is that it often goes against human nature. >Humans rebel against being told what to do >Humans will act selfishly (and that is not a bad thing) >Humans are herd animals and flourish in communities (Like real ones) >And, yes, humans are violent - we are - our nature is not al poetry and roses How then would it look if we worked with nature in governing ourselves? >Rather than issue black and white edicts for great area “problems”, we would find ways to incentivize positive outcomes (Tapping into selfish, tapping into the herd mentality)  >>Point out that herd instincts make many of us get a selfish rush from helping our communities. >Set up our culture and educational effort to empower people to find their purpose so that there are more people pouring energy into that and fewer people focused on being dicks >Accept that there are a percentage of humans who are psychopaths and create system where they are disincentivized  to harm.  Accept that there is no perfect. With this mindset, working with nature, what else can we solve? What about environmental concerns? >Leaving the forest alone vs stewarding the forest (We are part of nature, therefore we are part of forests. We evolved together) >Discovering parts of nature that can help us: Ivermectin as an anti parasitic.  Some kid turned algae into some sort of plastic…? Which makes me want to start asking more what if questions. Let's talk about Chlorophyl. And batteries. What if we figured out how to tap into the energy created in turning the sun into green stuff? What is all the plant around us ARE batteries? I mean in some ways, burning firewood for heat is in fact tapping into an energy store in plants. But what if there is a low-impact, chemical way to harness the forest around us? What would that do to our dependence on fossil fuels? And how would the world change with such a discovery?  Think about it: our dollar is based on petroleum. In some ways, tapping into that energy store is tapping into nature - but is there a better way? Guys, I know this idea sounds crazy and sci fi. But if you think about it - there must be many discoveries of this scale to be made. But we miss them if we focus on how to control nature rather than to work with it. Which brings us full circle: working with nature is the whole foundation of permaculture as a design science. So much effort is put into mono cropping in the form of heavy equipment, and fighting pest pressure, and fungi, and so much more. The earth is poisoned in the interest of fighting the natural way things grow — in plant communities - almost as if diversity is part of nature's plans. And we accept the notion that we can only feed the world if we abuse the soil and interfere with nature. Yet is that really true? How come no one is challenging that notion? What would happen if we worked with nature to steward diversity of plants and animals, based on what is suited to different regions. And how should we measure success on such an undertaking? By pure number of calories produced, or by the quality of food outputs paired with building healthier soil? We have been programmed to see things that are grey in black and white terms. While this simplification of the world can make it easier to get things organized and rally people around projects and causes, it comes at a cost. And a very damaging one at that: We have developed some pretty big blinders. Why not find a way to see beyond them? Why not work with nature in our homestead designs, business set up, political efforts, environmental projects, cutting edge research, and, yes, in commercial food production? Why fight nature? Make it a great week! GUYS! Don't forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce.  Community Mewe Group: https://mewe.com/join/lftn Telegram Group: https://t.me/LFTNGroup Odysee: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@livingfree:b Advisory Board The Booze Whisperer The Tactical Redneck Chef Brett Samantha the Savings Ninja Resources Membership Sign Up Holler Roast Coffee Harvest Right Affiliate Link

Wildfire smoke can seriously impact humans' health, but scientists have discovered that it can also affect the health of ecosystems. On the Living With Fire Podcast, Professor Sudeep Chandra, director of the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, talks about how scientists have been working to understand these impacts on Lake Tahoe's aquatic ecosystem. Stakeholders in the Tahoe Basin have been working for decades to “Keep Tahoe Blue,” and have been trying to control algae growth in the lake. Chandra explains that one direct effect wildfire smoke can potentially have on the lake is stimulating algae growth.  "So just like Miracle-Gro has a nice combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to grow our garden plants, it turns out smoke has a ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus. Sometimes it's optimal, and sometimes it's not," explains Chandra. In addition to providing nutrients for fertilizing algae, Chandra explains that smoke can also affect the amount of light hitting the lake, potentially reducing the amount of ultraviolet light, which kills algae cells. With wildfires occurring more frequently and becoming more intense, Assistant Professor Christina Restaino, director of the Living With Fire program, explained what it's like for scientists working in fire right now. "We're entering this new era of no analog experiences, where these ecosystems are experiencing this smoke every single year or fire every single year. We don't have an analog from the past to understand that. So yeah, it's exciting, and it's really unknown."To learn more, check out the resources below: Caldor Fire impact on Lake Tahoe's clarity, ecology studied amidst ongoing wildfire seasonOzmen Institute for Global StudiesLiving With Fire 

The economist Raj Chetty has spent much of the last decade trying to answer a very big question: What happened to the American Dream? In 1940, a child born into the average American household had a 92 percent chance of making more money than his or her parents. But in the last half century, something has gone wrong. A child born in 1980 had just a 50 percent chance of surpassing her parents' income. So, in 40 years, earning more than your parents went from being a near certainty to no better than a coin flip. Marshaling enormous data sets in extremely creative ways, Chetty has shown that our chances of moving up in the world are exquisitely sensitive to where we grow up. In some cities, like Minneapolis, the American Dream seems to be very much alive. In other places, the poor are trapped in poverty for generations. So, the trillion-dollar question here is: If some neighborhoods in America are like Miracle-Gro for opportunity, what are the active ingredients? What makes a place special? In today's episode, Chetty gives listeners a new vocabulary to think about success and inequality in America, with ideas like "father presence," "friending bias," and "Lost Einsteins." If you'd like to see a literal map of American inequality built with Chetty's data, I would encourage you for this episode alone to go multi-media and visit www.socialcapital.org to see how your neighborhood fares as an engine of upward mobility. That way, you'll have a fuller sense of where the American Dream is dying—and what we have to do to bring it back. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. You can find us on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@plainenglish_ Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Raj Chetty Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MOJO Minute #149 brings us one of the most powerful insights we have covered from these books.    In 2008, Dr. John Ratey wrote Spark:  The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.   Thank you Dr.  Ratey for sharing these nuggets with us!It's pretty cool!!Key Points from the Episode:Recap of our earlier MM#54  on this very subject and book, Balancing of the brain is important and how to do it naturallyWhat is BDNF and why does it matter?Other resources:Get our top book recommendations listWant to leave a review? Click here, and if we earned a five-star review from you **high five and knuckle bumps**, we appreciate it greatly, thank you so much!Because we care what you think about what we think and our website, please email David@teammojoacademy.com, or if you want to leave us a quick FREE, painless voicemail, we would appreciate that as well.Be sure to check out our very affordable Academy Review membership program at http:www.teammojoacademy.com/support

Make sure you're ready for August in the garden with Dig It's round-up of garden news, events as well as a look at those essential tasks to be getting on with top advice from Buckingham Garden Centre's Peter Brown and Chris Day.What's on 3rd-7th August RHS Hyde Hall Flower Show, Chelmsford, Essex 4th August Summer Cycle at the Royal Botanic Kew Gardens, Richmond, 5.30-8.30pm Wednesday 17th at 4pm and repeated Saturday 20th August at 3pm at Buckingham Garden Centre FREE Masterclass talk: Growing Your Favourite Hobby plants12th and 13th August Shrewsbury Flower Show, Quarry Park, Shrewsbury19th - 21st August RHS Garden Rosemoor Flower Show, Torrington, DevonIn the newsCost and availability of allotmentsBall Colegrave Open day (garden trade only) highlighting the new double flowered impatiens walleriana 'Glimmer Appleblossom', recently recognised as Best in Show at the HTA's New Plant Award. The latest trend of using perennials to mix with seasonal bedding plants in displays, including containers.Peter Seabrook's Sweet PeaKew's giant waterlily news story in fullSpalding Flower parade set to return in 2023Anti-plastic lobby get turfed out. Plastic grass stays!Terry Walton's story on the safe use, storage and disposal of pesticides from PestSmartThis month's Dig It Top Five pest controls: At no5 Provanto Ultimate Fruit and Vegetable Killer, no4 Toprose Bug Killer, at no3 Bugclear Ultra Vine Weevil Killer, in 2nd place Provanto Ultimate Bug Killer and in top slot goes to Bugclear Ultra Gun! for edibles. Available at the Garden Centre.Plant mentioned: Maize (Zea mays), Taylors Summer Planting Seed Potatoes for Christmas new potatoes, seeds of Japanese onion ‘Senshyu Semi-Globe Yellow', spring cabbage, carrots – round varieties such as ‘Paris Market 5', Chinese cabbage, corn salad, winter lettuce and radish seeds can be sown this month. Summer-fruiting and autumn raspberry plants.Products mentioned: Bio-Bean, who manufacture Coffee logs, a popular product at the Garden Centre has been named a Best for the World ™ B Corp ™ . Miracle-Gro for higher nitrogen feeding and for encouraging improved flowering use Phostrogen or Tomato feed.Liquid lawn weedkillers such as Weedol Lawn WeedkillerComposts Westland New Horizon, Miracle Gro Peat Free,and Dalefoot Wool Compost for Potting. . Homebase Peat free Multi-Purpose Compost has fared well in our trials so far this season.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for providing the music See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

During today's conversation on Back Porch Theology, we're kicking off our “Sizzling Summer” series by getting up close and personal with an awesome chick whose job title is: biblical culturalist. Her training at Dallas Theological Seminary, coupled with her extensive boots-on-the-ground training in multiple Middle Eastern countries with world-renowned archeologists, historians and rabbis have honed her incredible gift of helping others better understand the historical, cultural and linguistic context of Scripture. Every single time I have the privilege of hanging out with this particular professor, I not only learn something new about God and His Word, I find myself falling even more in love with Jesus! Much like Miracle Gro accelerates the growth of tomatoes in my garden, I guarantee Kristi McLelland will accelerate your hunger for Holy Writ! So please grab a big cup of coffee, a notebook, your favorite pen and your Bible – unless you're driving or tweezing your brows, of course! – and come hang out on the porch with us. Back Porch Theology sponsored in part by Dwell Bible App. Save 30% off Dwell for Life at Dwellapp.io/LisaHarper

Miracle Gro has revealed that a huge 45% of the UK feel lonely. They have implemented a 'Friends over the Fence' campaign that encourages people to use gardening to overcome barriers and meet new people.Their research shows:45% of people often experience feelings of lonelinessOne-third of the UK admit they find it hard to talk to new people70% of people find gardening is good for their mental health48% agree that gardening and being outdoors is a great way to meet peopleWomen (50.5%) are more likely to feel lonely than men (40%) – those aged 25-34 are most affected (57%)If this affects you, make a plan to chat with the neighbours when you're next out planting and weeding, or maybe visit your local garden centre and share some gardening tips with your fellow shoppersTV presenter David Domoney, and psychologist & author of The Psychology of Gardening, Professor Harriet Gross are backing the campaign. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A new MP3 sermon from Grace Baptist Church, Woodhaven, NYC is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Miracle Gro Speaker: Dillon McKeon Broadcaster: Grace Baptist Church, Woodhaven, NYC Event: Sunday Service Date: 6/15/2022 Bible: Matthew 12:9-14 Length: 46 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Grace Baptist Church, Woodhaven, NYC is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Miracle Gro Speaker: Dillon McKeon Broadcaster: Grace Baptist Church, Woodhaven, NYC Event: Sunday Service Date: 6/15/2022 Bible: Matthew 12:9-14 Length: 46 min.

RIV Capital buys Etain Health for $247M as it bets on New York's cannabis scene. Mark Sims is the CEO of RIV Capital, formerly Canopy Rivers. RIV Capital is Scott's Miracle Gro's cannabis investment and acquisition firm whose mission is to acquire, invest in, launch, and/or develop U.S. operators and brands across financially and strategically attractive states to create a multistate platform.Summary:Scotts Miracle GroHome Grow revenueFederal Legalization & NY's EtainCA versus NYCannabis Investment Activity IPO (SPAC)Biggest impact to CNPOF's bottom lineCannabis investor sentimentEpisode 970 The #TalkingHedge chats with Mark Sims of Riv Capital...https://youtu.be/P_2KtafHf2g

SAFE banking, cannabis retailers slashing prices, and Cannabis Amnesty group launches "Legalize Us"! Welcome to another episode of "Cannabis Daily"! Here are today's stories:Cannabis banking reform before midterm elections according to Jeff Schultz - Proactive InvestorsDeeper discounts than ever on both sides of the border - MJBizDailyApproximately 500,000 Canadians still have criminal records associated with cannabis. - Cannabis AmnestySugar Cane Cannabis could be the first farmgate store in B.C. and on First Nations land - Global NewsAs mentioned in the episode - we'd love to get your take! Back to our second story -  what do you make of the discount data collected by Headset.Tweet us and let us know your thoughts, here.Huge thanks to Jarret in Rhode Island for his email about Miracle-Gro's transition into the cannabis market.Want to be like Jarret? Email us about our stories, here.Missed the previous episode? You can catch up with it here.  About Cannabis Daily.Cannabis Daily is a cannabis news and interview program from Business of Cannabis. We highlight the companies, brands, people and trends driving the cannabis industry.Business of Cannabis is a cannabis industry platform marrying cannabis news, video and podcast content, newsletters and online and real-world cannabis events.June 29-29 | Cannabis Europa in London is a two day event delivering cutting-edge knowledge from senior government officials, leading scientific experts and some of the most influential businesses in the industry - https://www.cannabis-europa.comVisit Business of Cannabis online:http://businessofcannabis.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/bofc_mediaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/businessofcannabisInstagram: https://instagram.com/businessofcannabisFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/bofcmediaSpotify: http://bofc.me/spotifyApple: http://bofc.me/applepodPodcasts Online: https://bofc.me/bofclive

Welcome to another episode of "Cannabis Daily"! Here are today's stories:NYT magazine profiled Tampa couple who rushed to get one of 60,000 cannabis jobs created from legalization in New York state - NYT Magazine (and here's the NBA PSA we mention in the episode!)Miracle-Gro garden company has become “quietly entrenched” in cannabis - CNNFormer SVP of operations at Alimentation Couche-Tard Stéphane Trudel has taken over the CEO role of cannabis retailer Fire & Flower. - MJBizDailyLatest retail cannabis sales data published by Statistics Canada shows cannabis sales increasing by 10.7% from February to March - Business of CannabisThe Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) needs to address its recent data leak head-on say insiders - MJBizDailyAs mentioned in the episode - we'd love to get your take! Back to that second story - what are your thoughts on Miracle-Gro garden company slowly moving into the cannabis space? Does that surprise you or is it an obvious transition?Tweet us and let us know your thoughts, here.Missed the previous episode? You can catch up with it here.  About Cannabis Daily.Cannabis Daily is a cannabis news and interview program from Business of Cannabis. We highlight the companies, brands, people and trends driving the cannabis industry.Business of Cannabis is a cannabis industry platform marrying cannabis news, video and podcast content, newsletters and online and real-world cannabis events.June 29-29 | Cannabis Europa in London is a two day event delivering cutting-edge knowledge from senior government officials, leading scientific experts and some of the most influential businesses in the industry - https://www.cannabis-europa.comVisit Business of Cannabis online:http://businessofcannabis.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/bofc_mediaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/businessofcannabisInstagram: https://instagram.com/businessofcannabisFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/bofcmediaSpotify: http://bofc.me/spotifyApple: http://bofc.me/applepodPodcasts Online: https://bofc.me/bofclive

The Dow Jones fell over 1,000 points after yesterday's rally, marking it as the worst single-day drop since 2020, and Jim Cramer's taking you through the market's sharp downturn and helping you find areas of opportunity. Then, Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield joins Cramer to talk about his company's first quarter numbers and the state of oil amid recent volatility. Next, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein discusses the company's plans for growth amid today's tech rout. Plus, Cramer's digging into Scott's Miracle-Gro and guiding investors on whether to be bullish or bearish on the stock.

Imagine having a job where your mission every day was to encourage people to GROW!  To go outside in the backyard, walk barefoot in the grass, and sink their hands in the soil to plant a garden.  That is exactly what John gets to do as VP, Chief Creative Officer for the incredible lawn and garden brands at Scotts Miracle-Gro. A 17-year veteran of SMG, John oversees the development, production and execution of all consumer facing messaging for the brands of Scotts, Miracle-Gro, Bonnie, Ortho, Tomcat and more.  Over the past couple years, the marketing world has taken notice of the campaigns and work coming out of SMG, recognized by AdAge in 2020 as one of America's Hottest Brands, taking top honors from iHeartMedia for the successful launch of a new gardening podcast (Humans Growing Stuff), and even stepped onto the world's biggest stage by airing the company's first ever Super Bowl commercial in February 2021. Outside of Scotts, John loves to volunteer his time to serve on the Board of The 2nd & 7 Foundation, and recently as a member of the Upper Arlington Civic Association.  In 2017, he was recognized by Columbus Business First as one of the Top 40 Under 40 honorees.

Jim White is the creator of Fishnure, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fishnure manufactures and markets organic fertilizer including both solid fertilizer and liquid. Checkout more about Fishnure's quality products and daily updates, please checkout their website and active twitter account, as listed below! Website - https://www.fishnure.com/ Twitter - @fishnure Show Notes Agricultural Background: Beginning of Fishnure Finding Our First Customers Natural vs. Chemical Fertilizer Different Types of Products We Offer Solid vs. Liquid Fertilizer How COVID Impacted Our Business Importance of Sustainability Why Just Labeling Fertilizer As “Organic” Doesn't Mean It's Good Fishnure's Future: Heading In The Right Direction Jim's Business Advice to Those Starting A Business Full Transcription Jim: We had a pepper grower up in Minnesota who grew his entire crop with Fishnure. And then he set up a control between one of the biggest sellers, Miracle-Gro and Fishnure. So we had one batch of plants that were fed Miracle-Gro the other batch was Fishnure. Miracle-Gro got two treatments during the year, Fishnure only one. Fishnure came out with 8% production. Podcast Intro: If you're someone who refuses to go along to get along, if you question whether the status quo was good enough for you and your family. If you want to leave this world better off than you found it and you consider independence a sacred thing. You may be a prepper, a gardener, a homesteader, a survivalist, or a farmer or rancher, an environmentalist or a rugged outdoorsman. We are here to celebrate you whether you're looking to improve your maverick business or to find out more about the latest products and services available to the weekend rebel. From selling chicken eggs online, to building up your food storage or collecting handmade soap.This show is for those who choose the road less traveled the road to self-reliance for those that are living a daring adventure, life off the grid. Brian: Jim White is the creator of Fishnure, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Fishnure manufactures and markets organic fertilizer including both solid fertilizer and liquid. Fishnure is made by composting solid fish manure is filtered to get solid manure free from unwanted materials and combined with the carbon source clay inoculants and then decomposed to form a humus compost. Jim is a serial entrepreneur who has created numerous computer software production management businesses. He also has a significant background in statistics and agriculture. Jim White, welcome to The Off-the-Grid Biz Podcast. Jim: Hey, thank you. Brian: So how did you get into Fishnure, tell us that story? Jim: Well, I created a company that monitors agricultural production. In other words, in the delta, catfish production is big and a farmer may have 100 ponds. And we developed a wireless solar power monitoring and control system that will control the environment and every pond. So that's how Fishnure came because I was interested in some of the customers were using the connection from the fish production to growing plants, which is what aquaponics is, and that's what started it. Brian: Oh, wow. So how did you find your first customers? Jim: We advertised I think it was on Craigslist. And that started then we sold a lot on our website, and then move to Amazon, which is the main seller right now. Brian: How long ago was that, when did you first start the whole process? Jim: It's been seven years. Brian: Excellent. Where are you finding most of your customers right now or via Amazon? Jim: Right. Brian: Great. Do you do any other sort of outreach or marketing to bring in? Jim: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we use Twitter. We tweet several 100 tweets a day. The website, I write a lot of articles and publish those and email marketing the whole bit.

There is something you eat, actually a non-food you may eat that is actually "Miracle Gro" -like fertilizer for cancer cells….. It is called sugar..

Ready to unleash your skills to make a massive impact? Let's get you on the F.A.S.T. Track. F.A.S.T. Track to Grant Writer is a VIP small group coaching experience where you'll learn how to be the go-to grant writer in your community. This is everything the books won't tell you. It's like Miracle Gro for grant writers. Fast Track your income and your impact. Join me today to start learning AND taking action  at teresahuff.com/vip. We Need Learning AND Action The last couple of weeks we've been talking about the importance of both learning AND action. They really go hand in hand. I challenged you to do this in Episode 71, and last week in Episode 72 Courtney Vrablik of The Store was a great example of this. At the end of the year I like to take some time to reflect and plan, although with people around the house, for me  it often spills over into January. In Episode 18 I gave you 6 questions to help you reflect on your year and look at your priorities for the new year. You can also download that worksheet in my Freebie Vault at teresahuff.com/free. 6 Questions to Reflect & Plan Go back and listen to Episode 18 after you're done here, but to quickly recap, those 6 questions were: What went well this year? What didn't go so well? What was draining? What was energizing? What do I want to do (or be) less of? What do I want to do (or be) more of? 6 Challenge Questions to Get You Thinking Today, in addition to those 6 questions, I want to issue some challenge questions. These will give you some food for thought as you consider your next steps. Was this a failure, or is it an opportunity to redirect my attention? What's not being said? In other words, where do I need to step back and read between the lines? What am I ignoring or overlooking?  Am I overthinking in proportion to the importance of this situation?  Is it time to learn, take action, or both? Where do I need to challenge myself?  Take some time to sit with these and reflect. Maybe even journal some notes and ideas as you think through the questions. Your year will be better for it! Grab the free worksheet: teresahuff.com/free Other Episodes Mentioned: Episode 18: Questions to Reflect & Plan + Free Download Episode 71: Success Leaves Clues: 2021 Nonprofit Book Roundup Episode 72: How The Store Is Changing the World with Love at the Core - Interview with Courtney Vrablik, Executive Director If you're ready to step up your nonprofit game in 2022, join me on the Fast Track to Grant Writer. The world needs you. Connect with Teresa Huff: Website: www.teresahuff.com Take the Quiz: Do you have what it takes to be a grant writer? Social: LinkedIn Community LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest Get on the Fast Track to Grant Writer:  www.teresahuff.com/vip Nonprofits, Gear Up For Grants with this free audio workshop: www.teresahuff.com/gearup  

(Take one day to ensure a stronger future for your ministry with VisionDay. Get all the details here!)We have to stop limiting the opportunities we have to connect with people because we don't know how to do it. This is something I firmly believe, especially for those of us in ministry.Today I'm excited to introduce you to Jesse Barnett, our newest member of the team and an Atlanta-based craftsman at heart who brings stories to life through writing, speaking, coaching, and teaching. Above all, his heart is to use his spiritual gifts and talents to serve those who have a message to share, and to help them multiply the reach, effectiveness, and power of that message. As Communications Coach with 95Network, he helps pastors get more mileage from their message by learning how to utilize the digital space to expand their church community.In this conversation, Jesse shares how to "take something you've already created and put a little Miracle-Gro on it," why learning how to update how we communicate leads to deeper relationships, the opportunities available for every pastor to repurpose the message they've already worked on, and, most importantly, how this all relates to the Gospel. Listen in!Show Notes: https://www.95network.org/jesse-barnett-106/Support the show

There are strategies for creating a plentiful and abundant garden. Some of those strategies apply to the garden of our life. What are you watering your garden with?

Jonathan Boyar stops by The Business Brew to discuss his investing philosophy.  Jonathan is the President of Boyar's Intrinsic Value Research LLC., an independent research boutique established in 1975 that counts some of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, mutual funds and family offices as subscribers. He is also a Principal of Boyar Asset Management, which has been managing money utilizing a value oriented strategy since 1983. He has been interviewed by Barron's, Welling on Wall Street and GuruFocus. He spoke at the 2017 London Value Investor Conference, the 2017 GuruFocus Value Conference and the 2017 International Value Investing Conference. He is also a contributor to the latest edition of Harriman's Book of Investing Rules: The Do's & Don'ts of the World's Best Investors. He is a senior contributor to Forbes as well as the host of The World According to Boyar podcast. We hope you enjoy the discussion.  Detailed show notes below the Stream by Mosiac sponsor copy and thank yous. Please leave us a rating in your favorite app store. This episode is brought to you by Stream by Mosaic, a product that is integral to any fundamental research process.  Stream has developed an extensive library of expert interviews that cover a variety of industries.  StreamRG.com features over 300 expert interviews.  70% of Stream's experts are found exclusively on StreamRG.com.  Visit StreamRG.com today for a 14 day trial.  Tell them The Business Brew sent you! Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.  Please see https://www.mikeando.com/ Thank you to @mathewpassy (on Twitter) for the show production. Youtube: 05:00 - What makes The Berkshire Weekend so great 10:00 - Finding value in non traditional companies/stocks 13:30 - Why there is an opportunity in microcaps sometimes 18:00 - Value + a catalyst vs. value traps 20:00 - Dead money as a mistake 22:30 - Holding on to winners 27:00 - Boyar's idea generation process and The Forgotten 40 31:00 - Scott's Miracle Gro 34:00 - Discussion about dogs then Seinfeld 41:30 - Discovery and how they are going to compete 46:52...Trinity Place Holdings 52:00 - How does Jonathan think about cash shells and being a minority shareholder in that instance 53:20 - What makes MSG a unique asset 58:00 - Assets creating nontraditional value 63:00 - Meme stocks and FOMO 66:00 - What is margin of safety 71:00 - How Jonathan's father taught him about investing

A paper just released in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition challenges, and I mean really challenges conventional thinking about nutrition, weight gain, and what has caused the very rapid and profound increase in obesity rates over the last 50 years. This is a landmark paper by any standard, and saying that it will raise eyebrows is an understatement. The paper is authored by a number of distinguished nutrition scientists. The lead author is Dr. David Ludwig from Harvard University. Interview   David Ludwig MD, PhD is Professor of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Pediatrics in the Harvard Medical School. He has published innumerable books and papers on nutrition, contributors to obesity and diabetes, and what might be done with both practice and policy to improve things. He has a real remarkable breadth and scope of his work. David, Time Magazine once named you a warrior in work on obesity. This is exactly how I see you as well. You're really challenging the traditional ways of thinking, and as I said, you've broken new ground. So I'm proud to say that you and I have been friends for a number of years, and I'm also proud to say that we've written a number of things together. So thanks so much for being with us today. It's a real honor to have you.   Thanks, Kelly. Great to be with you. And I'm sitting here in my office looking at a plaque I have on the wall of an op-ed we wrote for the Washington Post almost two decades ago, so it's been a real honor and productive pleasure to know you.   The pleasure has been mine. So let's talk about the paper. So in this paper, you and your co-authors challenged the widely-embraced energy balance model. So can you say what the energy balance model is?   Well, the notion of energy balance is really just a restatement of physics, the first law of physics that says, that speaks to energy conservation, and it's commonly interpreted that in order to gain weight, you have to have a positive energy balance, that is you have to consume more calories than you burn off, and that to lose weight, you have to reverse that. You have to have a negative energy balance. You have to consume fewer calories than you burn off. But we argue first off that this doesn't tell us anything about causality, cause and effect, what's actually driving obesity. We use the example of a fever. Of course, a fever can only happen if the body generates more heat than it dissipates, more heat into the body than heat out of the body. But that's obvious that's, it's, you know, we don't need to be emphasizing that in textbooks. We don't need to be teaching patients that notion. The question is what's cause and what's effect? And the conventional way of thinking is that the positive energy balance is driving weight gain, is causing obesity. So we're surrounded by all these convenient, inexpensive, energy-dense, hyper-palatable, highly tasty foods. We lose control. We overeat them. We don't burn off those excess calories with our modern lifestyle, and so those excess calories get forced into fat cells, and we gain weight. So ultimately this view considers all calories are alike to the body, and that we have to eat fewer calories, and ideally burn more of them off by exercise to address the problem. So that's the conventional way of thinking.   So you have a different, and very science-based explanation for all of this that I'll get to in a minute, but before we do that, why did the field come to adopt this energy balance model?   Well, it does seem to make sense, and certainly over the short term, we know that this way of viewing things applies. If you force feed an animal, or if we just intentionally overeat ourselves, we can gain weight, and conversely, if we put ourselves on a low calorie diet, we can lose weight for a while, but characteristically, we know the body isn't a, you know, an inert energy storage depot. The body fights back in a dynamic way against changes in body weight and in energy balance, and this is something that almost every dieter has experienced, right? If it were just a matter of eating less and moving more, 150 calories less a day, that's a serving of juice, 150 calories out more a day, that's walking moderately for half hour, then virtually every weight problem should be solved within, you know, months to at most, a few years, but that's not the case. Very few people can adhere to, can stay with low calorie diets for very clear reasons. The first thing that happens is we get hungry, and hunger isn't a fleeting feeling. It's a primary biological signal that the body wants more calories. And even if we could, those few of us who are highly-disciplined, and can resist hunger, the body fights back in other ways, most notably by slowing down metabolism, which means that to keep the weight coming off, even as we're getting hungrier. We have to keep eating less and less, because the body's getting more efficient. So the conventional way of thinking about things, all calories are alike, calorie in calorie out, just eat less and move more. Doesn't seem to address the difficulty that people are facing, and recognize that despite a lot of attention to calorie balance, the obesity epidemic is getting worse and worse every year. I mean, the data just from the last year suggests that the weight gain during the pandemic was even faster than it was just prior.   Well, let's talk for a minute about what's at stake here. So vast numbers of people in the United States, both adults and children are overweight. This is increasingly becoming true of essentially every country in the world. The amount of weight that people have been gaining seems to be going up over time, and people find it very difficult, perhaps for the reasons you mentioned, to lose weight and keep it off, so it's a pretty dire situation then, and given the health consequences of excess weight, and the psychosocial implications of things, there's really a lot at stake here, isn't there?   Certainly so. We know that in childhood, obesity can affect virtually every organ system in the body, and set the stage for a lifetime increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, even many cancers. Among adults, the majority, and in fact 70% of adults in the United States have at least overweight, if not obesity, and this is becoming a huge driver of the chronic health burden on the healthcare system, and which so many patients themselves experience, in terms of diabetes, risk for heart disease, fatty liver, orthopedic problems, sleep apnea. So we have a problem that has gotten so much attention, and yet keeps getting worse with every effort that we can bring to bear. My coauthors and I have this new paper in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, arguing it's time for new thinking. And the carbohydrate insulin model that we are proposing is perfectly consistent with the laws of physics around energy balance, but it suggests that we've been coming at the problem in exactly the opposite way than would be most effective.   So let's talk about that. So if you have a different explanation than the traditional energy balance model, what is it exactly?   So the usual way of thinking, as we considered earlier is that overeating causes weight gain, and that certainly happens in the short term, but that model has a hard time explaining why people are gaining weight year after year, and their bodies are wanting to hold onto those calories. So we argue that a metabolic perspective would better explain this continuing creep upward in the so-called body weight set point. So the carbohydrate insulin model suggests that we've had it backwards, that overeating is not the primary cause of weight gain, that the body's process of gaining weight, and storing too much fat is driving overeating. So overeating and a positive calorie balance certainly has to exist. That's a law of physics, but it's a downstream effect. It's not at the source of the problem. And so this may sound a little surprising. How could the body gaining weight cause us to overeat? Well, let's take the example of an adolescent during the growth spurt. We know a teenager might consume hundreds, or a thousand calories more than he or she might have a few years earlier, and that adolescent is growing really quickly, but which comes first? Is the overeating that that child is doing causing the growth, or is the rapid growth and the deposition of many calories into new body tissue causing that adolescent to get hungry and to eat more? Neither explanation violates any law of physics, but they have radically different implications to how we understand growth, and what we might do about growth disorders. In the case of the adolescent, it's clearly the other way. It's the growth that's driving the overeating, and how do we know that? Well, Kelly, neither you or I, no matter how much we're going to eat or overeat are going to grow any taller. So something in the body is regulating hunger, based on the needs of growth, and we argue that the same thing is happening in the case of obesity, that the aspects of our diet, importantly, including the processed carbohydrates that flooded our diet during the low fat years, that these are triggering fat cells in the body to hoard too many calories, to hold onto too many calories, so there are fewer calories available for the muscle, the liver, and the brain, and our body recognizes that. We get hungry, and we eat more as a consequence.   You mentioned the highly processed foods, especially carbohydrates that bombarded the American scene during the low fat craze. Explain more about that.   These processed carbohydrates, that at one point, just 20 to 30 years ago, people thought, and you can find many examples of this written in the literature. In fact, the first food guide pyramid is a clear illustration of the fact that all fats were considered unhealthy, because they have so many calories per bite, more than twice the calories per gram than carbohydrates. Whereas the bottom of the food guide pyramid, you know, we were supposed to eat six to 11 servings of grains, many of which were highly processed. Sugar was considered benign, and a good way to, and this is what they said, dilute out fat calories. The problem is that these processed carbohydrates, white bread, white rice, potato products, virtually all of the prepared breakfast cereals, and of course, concentrated sugars, and sugary beverages. So when you eat these foods in substantial amount, and it's worse if the meal is also low in fat and protein, because they tend to slow down digestion. So if you just eat a lot of these processed carbohydrates, the body digests it into glucose literally in minutes. So blood sugar shoots upwards 10, 20, 30 minutes later, and that causes a lot of the hormone insulin to be produced. I sometimes refer to insulin as the Miracle-Gro for your fat cells, just not the sort of miracle you want happening in your body. We know that when a person with diabetes gets started on insulin, they'll typically gain weight, and if insulin is given in excess dose, they'll gain a lot of weight. So insulin is the hormone that promotes fat storage, and we argue that basically just endocrinology 101, all these processed carbohydrates, by stimulating more insulin than we would normally make on a less processed, lower carbohydrate diet, are driving too many of the incoming calories from a meal into storage and fat cells, instead of into muscle where they can burn. And so when you store, all it takes us to store one gram of fat too much a day to explain basically the whole of obesity, if one looks from childhood to adulthood.   So David, provide some context for this, if you would. So what fraction of the American diet is comprised of these kinds of foods, and what would that number be if people followed the recommended dietary guidelines you suggested?   Well, back in the 1950s, it's not as if Americans were extremely healthy. We had much higher rates of heart disease, although much of that related to smoking, and we of course, had many fewer medications, and surgical procedures to help prevent or treat heart disease. But at that time, obesity rates were much, much lower, you know, about only one third of the rates they are today. And at that time in the 1950s, Americans ate about 40% of their calories as fat, and about 40% as carbohydrate, and maybe 15 to 20% as protein. Because of concerns around saturated fat and heart disease, which then got generalized to all fats being bad, well, we got the low fat diet of the 1980s, nineties, and the beginning of the century. Fat came down as a proportion of our diet. Carbs went up, but also the processing of those carbs. We got foods like the fat-free SnackWells cookies, a whole range of these fat-reduced products that simply took out fat, dumped in sugar and starch. These are after all processed foods, so they're not going to be putting in fruits and vegetables. And these products were considered healthy. We ate them as we were told to eat them, and at that time, obesity rates really exploded. And we're arguing that this is not just an association, that this change to our diet has played an important role in driving obesity, and that by bringing both the total amount of carbohydrates down, not necessarily a very low carb or ketogenic diet, but bringing them back down, maybe to what might oftentimes be characterized as a Mediterranean diet, focusing on getting rid of the processed carbs, eating more of the delicious and nutritious high fat foods, like nuts and nut butters, olive oil, avocado, even real dark chocolate. All of these high fat high, calorie foods look a whole lot healthier than the processed carbohydrates do in the best cohort studies.   You know, it's a somewhat hopeful message, isn't it? Because you're not just telling people you have to eat less of everything, but there are actually some things that are quite delicious where you can eat more, and maybe that hope will lead more people to try this sort of approach.   That is exactly the issue with the conventional approach. If all calories are alike, and overeating is the primary problem, then we really just have to control our appetites. We have to discipline ourselves. Yes, clearly the conventional thinking recognizes that environment has a lot to do with it, and psychology of behavior, but ultimately, one way or another, you have to cut back on calories, because overeating is driving the problem. But if the driver is at the fat cells, if the foods that we're eating are triggering our fat cells to store too many calories, and that's what's causing the hunger and the overeating, then just eating less doesn't solve the problem, and it actually could make it worse by slowing down your metabolism. So this model argues that a focus on what you eat, not how much is more effective. You focus on controlling the quality of the foods, importantly, the processed carbs, but there are other aspects that can help hormonal and metabolic response. That's what the person focuses on, and we let the body, based on our hunger levels, and satiety levels, determine how much we need to satisfy metabolic requirement.   So you've got what we call in the field a testable hypothesis, that people will do better if they follow the approach that you've mentioned, compared to the traditional approach. And you put that to a test in a study that we're going to be talking about in a second podcast. But before we get to that, what sort of pushback, if you had, as your paper has been published, are corporate interests involved in this picture at all?   Yeah, let me just say that we recognize that these ideas are not fully proven. There are animal studies, we've done one of them that provides what we could call a proof of concept, that when you give rodents, and this has been reproduced by many different groups. This is a very rigorous finding. When you give rodents high glycemic index, versus low-glycemic index starch, so that's fast-digesting, versus slow-digesting starch. You keep everything else the same, the ones that get the fast-digesting starch, that's like, all of those processed carbs we're eating that raise insulin a lot, well, they in fact show this whole sequence of events. Their insulin levels initially go up, they start getting fatter, and their energy expenditure goes down. They start moving less, and if you restrict their calories to that of the control animal, they're still fatter, because more calories wound up getting stored than burnt in muscle. So they wind up getting more fat tissue, and less lean tissue, even at the same total body weight when you prevent their weight from going up. So we argued that there's no way to explain that finding based on the conventional, calorie in, calorie out way of thinking. We need to examine whether this applies in humans, and to whom, you know? It may be that one model explains certain situations, or certain people better than the other, but it is a testable hypothesis. Unfortunately, this debate has become polarized, and we, in our article, specifically invite opponents to work with us on generating common ground. There's plenty of basis for common ground already, and in our article, which is freely available online at American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. We put out a diagrammatic model in which each step leads to another step, and each of these steps is testable. So we can figure out what we got right, what needs improvement, you know, and where common ground is. After all, this is what science is supposed to be about, to come up with new ways of thinking for intractable problems.   You know, you reminded me when you talked about the animal studies of work that occurred many decades ago on something that people in the field were referring to as the cafeteria diet. And I remember the slide that I used for years in my own talks that was given to me by Ted Van Itallie, one of the pioneers in the obesity field, that showed a rat sitting on top of basically a junk food diet, where they take animals, and in the cage, they would put Cheetos and Hershey bars, and marshmallows, and things like that. And the animals would eat a lot of those things, and gain an enormous amount of weight. But people were really attributing the weight gain to the fact that these were highly palatable foods. The animals would eat a lot of it just because it tasted really good, and that would bring a lot of calories, and that was the reason for the weight gain. And what you're saying is just, "Wait a minute, what happens to be that food that goes in there is a really important part of the picture," And that's been proven by controlling the calories in the experiment that you set.   Well, I think that's a really great point that you raised that it's easy to think in the cafeteria diet model, that the animals are getting fat because of the tastiness of the food, but these studies can't distinguish tastiness, and whatever that means, and we could come back to that point, because tastiness is elusive. It's a very squishy term to define, for reasons we can consider, but it's impossible in these studies to distinguish tastiness from the nutrient content of the foods, and they tend to be full of sugar and processed carbs. In fact, the few studies that have aimed to disentangle this provide clear support for the carbohydrate insulin model that tastiness by itself, when you control nutrients, does not result in obesity, but the nutrients, even in a bland or untasty diet does result in weight gain in animals.   Fascinating science. So, David, what do you think are some of the main policy implications of all this?   Well, there has been push back. Some of that relates to just the difficulty of paradigm change, amidst scientific uncertainty. You know, we need ultimately to be all working together on all sides of this. But in addition, there's resistance from the food industry that loves the notion that all calories are alike. All calories are alike, and there are no bad foods, and that you can drink a sugary beverage, have any kind of junk food, as long as you eat less of other things, or burn off those calories with physical activity. Whereas if this way of thinking, involving the carbohydrate insulin model, this opposite cause and effect conception is correct, then those foods have adverse effects on our metabolism above and beyond their calorie content. And that from that perspective, you really, can't just outrun a bad diet, that we really need to be thinking about how our food is influencing our hormones and metabolism, otherwise we're going to set ourselves up for failure, and that's not a message that many, although not all in the food industry like to hear, because it requires corporate responsibility for helping to create the nutritional nightmare that confronts so many of us, and especially children throughout so much of their days.   You reminded me about an interesting parallel with tobacco here, where the tobacco companies, you know, long after it was known that cigarettes were killing people, just said that it's not the tobacco that's killing the people, it's the fact that they're just consuming too much of it, and the food companies have made very much that same argument. And then the tobacco researchers said, "No, tobacco is bad in any amount, and even a little of it can be harmful." And that's not totally true of the processed foods you're talking about. I'm assuming people can have them in small amounts, but the parallel really kind of exists there, doesn't it? That these things are risky, and dangerous really, after you go beyond whatever that small amount is, and then you're going to have trouble, no matter what you're doing elsewhere in your diet?   The metaphor with tobacco is useful to a point, although it can also elicit some strong responses, because obviously, tobacco products aren't needed for survival, food clearly is. But I do think that there are some parallels that if these highly processed carbohydrates are undermining our metabolism, and also triggering, in part because of the metabolic changes. Fat cells communicate with the brain in many ways, including by releasing or withholding nutrients. If these foods are also triggering pathways in the brain that make managing calorie balance increasingly difficult, then we do really begin to need to think about food way beyond calorie issues, and that all calories aren't alike, and that the food industry may indeed have to manage the food supply in a way that makes weight control easier rather than harder.   The paper we were discussing today was published in September, 2021 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is publically available for free.   Bio: David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD is an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children's Hospital. He holds the rank of Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Ludwig is the founding director of the Optimal Wellness for Life (OWL) program, one of the country's oldest and largest clinics for the care of overweight children. For 25 years, Dr. Ludwig has studied the effects of diet on metabolism, body weight and risk for chronic disease – with a special focus on low glycemic index, low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets. He has made major contributions to development of the Carbohydrate-Insulin Model, a physiological perspective on the obesity pandemic. Described as an “obesity warrior” by Time Magazine, Dr. Ludwig has fought for fundamental policy changes to improve the food environment. He has been Principal Investigator on numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health and philanthropic organizations totaling over $50 million and has published over 200 scientific articles. Dr. Ludwig was a Contributing Writer at JAMA for 10 years and presently serves as an editor for American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He appears frequently in national media, including New York Times, NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. Dr. Ludwig has written 3 books for the public, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Always, Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently.  

Get on the Fast Track to Grant Writer at teresahuff.com/vip. The Art of Nonprofit Storytelling Today's guest is David Jasse from DMJ Studios. We first connected on LinkedIn. After following him for a while, I could tell that he really gets nonprofits. He knows how to pull out a compelling story and showcase it through video.    David has worked for some big-name TV networks, and since starting his own production company, his nonprofit films have helped raise over $20M for nonprofits.   There are so many great takeaways in this episode! If you're a nonprofit, be ready to take notes on how you can better tell your story. And if you're a grant writer, this might give you some ideas on how you can better help tell your nonprofit's story.   Telling Nonprofit Stories Through Video A few of the high points we discuss: The importance of telling your story in a high quality way How limiting beliefs hurt your nonprofit Using video storytelling to raise funding Applying smart business principles to running your nonprofit 80% of communication is nonverbal Asking the right questions to dig deeper Drawing out the emotional side of stories Meet David Jasse David M. Jasse opened DMJ Studios in 1992 after garnering network experience at CNN, MTV, CBS & FOX. Among his company's most recent achievements is editing & designing graphics for Emmy Award winning “Born to Explore with Richard Weise” as seen on ABC.  Previously, DMJ headed up the editorial team for “Cafe Digital”, 52 half hour shows on The Discovery Channel. David's specialty is directing video that engages audiences and touches hearts.  Mr. Jasse's nonprofit films have helped raise over 20 million dollars. In the last year since the pandemic, DMJ has successfully pivoted to producing virtual events for the nonprofit community. www.dmjstudios.net Connect with David Jasse on LinkedIn David says: Send your email to jasse@dmjstudios.net with "10 reasons" in the subject line and I'll send you my article on "Ten Reasons Why Most Videos Fail." Are You Telling Your Nonprofit Story?  If we don't tell the stories, people won't know there's a need. And if they don't know there's a need, they can't help meet that need. So tell your stories.   Remember, if you need a hand with your grant searches and ongoing tracking, go check out Instrumentl's free trial at teresahuff.com/Instrumentl and get $50 off your first month with the code GWSPOD.    If you're a nonprofit or a grant writer and you need help figuring out your next right step, I'd love to help you do just that in the Fast Track to Grant Writer program. Seriously, it's like Miracle Gro for grant writers. You can sign up and start learning today at teresahuff.com/vip. Resources Mentioned: Join me at the 2021 Drury Nonprofit Leadership Conference Episode 58: Are You Telling Your Nonprofit Story? How Coffee Mugs Are Like Grant Writing Book: Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen Connect with Teresa Huff: Website: www.teresahuff.com Take the Quiz: Do you have what it takes to be a grant writer? Social: LinkedIn Community LinkedIn Instagram Pinterest Get on the Fast Track to Grant Writer:  www.teresahuff.com/vip

Ferns are not only some of the oldest plants on the planet, but they're also some of the most interesting. The Staghorn Fern, named after its antler-like leaves, is no exception. In our final bonus episode of the summer, discover how it grows and works in colonies and its favorite kind of food.  For information on how to get your own garden growing this summer, check out the Miracle-Gro Website. Your friends at Miracle-Gro are collaboration partners with iHeart Radio for "Humans Growing Stuff."  Follow Humans Growing Stuff on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

As the summer begins to wind down, we're thinking about our favorite way to keep and preserve the garden's bounty: pickling! From fermentation methods that help your gut to Kool-Aid Pickle recipes, we're sharing some of our favorite facts about pickling and pickles themselves. It may even inspire you to try a peanut butter and pickle sandwich in the process.  For information on how to get your own garden growing this summer, check out the Miracle-Gro Website. Your friends at Miracle-Gro are collaboration partners with iHeart Radio for "Humans Growing Stuff."  Follow Humans Growing Stuff on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Breath is the organic 'miracle gro' for our brains and lungs! We'll explore ways to conquer the post-Covid vaccine tiredness using simple & powerful yogic processes in which the mind is renewed by BREATH & focused on by MUSIC. A tool that fosters MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS: at work, at home & within oneself. These programs draw on Dr. Igor's expertise in yogic meditation, Indian & Western classical music, psychoacoustics, Salsa dancing, hammock lounging & stargazing. Live call-in show: USA Callers:1-888-346-9141 International Callers: 001-480-553-5760. More about Dr. Igor: TEAM WORKSHOPS: https://www.drigorspeaks.com/ 1-on-1SESSIONS: https://soundmindcom.regfox.com/1-on-1-consultations

This episode is all about YOU!  You valuing you. You building you. You maximizing you. You understanding your uniqueness and allowing that to align you with the right audience...YOUR audience! My hope is that after listening to this episode you will be encouraged to live out your truth, evolve at your pace, and be GREAT! No elevator and no Miracle-Gro necessary. Wake up and get your day started with the Great Morningz Podcast! Subscribe, Rate and Review this podcast & Follow James Earl Cray: Instagram.com/j_earl_cray Twitter.com/j_earl_cray Facebook.com/james.e.cray YouTube.com/channel/UCFBWmS4vqWt_jbuDjZ4H3iA #GreatMorningzPodcast #WakeUpWakeUp

"Rob Black & Your Money" - Radio Show June 9 - KDOW 1220 AM (7a-9a) Rob Black talks about the Fed, Scott's Miracle-Gro, Boeing, Robinhood, and online streaming. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

9 AM - 1 - Joe's daughter is visiting colleges in Washington DC. 2 - Exercise helps your brain. 3 - The News with Marshall Phillips. 4 - Jack gets all eugenical talking kids karate; Final Thoughts.