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In this interview Lisa talks to Dr Tim Ewer an integrated medical practitioner about his approach to medicine some of the complementary therapies he uses besides conventional allopathic medicine and what exciting research is happening around the world - they get into everything from laser therapy to light therapy to hyperbaric oxygen therapy and beyond.   Dr Tim concentrates on individual and personalised  patient care and combines the best of current western medical practices with evidence-based traditional and complementary medicines and practices. Integrative medicine takes into account the physical, psychological, social and spiritual wellbeing of the person with the aim of using the most appropriate and safe evidence-based treatments.   Lisa sees this integrated approach and open minded attitude that is constantly looking at the latest research and technologies and that focuses on the root causes and on optimal health rather than disease as being the way of the future. Dr Tim's Bio in brief  Dr Tim Ewer (MB ChB, MMedSc, MRCP, FRACP, FRNZCGP, DCH, DRCOG, Dip Occ Med, FACNEM) is vocationally qualified as a physician and general practitioner. Tim has been working as a specialist in integrative medicine for the last 30 years, before which he was a hospital physician for 10 years after gaining his medical degree and specialist qualifications in the UK.   Dr Tim's website  https://teora.co.nz/   We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:   For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com   For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/running/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.   Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home   For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetu-mindset-university/   Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds" Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information   ABOUT THE BOOK: When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn. She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying. This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy. Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine. This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.   Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book: "There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us." —Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening. "A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path." —Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.   Transcript of the Podcast:   Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits. The show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:12) Well, hi everyone. And welcome back to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you this week. I have dr. Tim Ewer, who has an integrated medical practitioner and physician who is based on the beautiful region of in the South Island of New Zealand. And Dr. Tim came to my attention because he has a really an amazing hyperbaric facility in this area. He used to work at the Christchurch hospitals and he's a hyperbaric trying to doctor he's also does a lot of complimentary and integrated medical approaches. So looking at everything from Eastern medicine through to, you know, acupuncture through to laser therapy. And in this conversation today, we have a good real in depth. Talk about where, you know, things are going some of the greatest and latest research and technologies that are coming on stream and some of the exciting developments and his approach to healing people and helping people. Speaker 2: (01:09) I just like to remind you, before I hand over to Dr. Tim my book relentless is now available in stores right throughout New Zealand. It's also available worldwide on Amazon, on audio books. It's in my website at lisatamati.com. I'd love you to go and check that out. And the book is titled relentless. And as the story of bringing my mum back after a mess of aneurysm and being told that she would never do anything again, and this was our journey back, it's a really insightful book that looks at the mindset of overcoming massive challenges. And I really love you to go and read that and to share that with your networks as well. Lastly, before I go, I'd like you to also follow me on Instagram. I'm quite active on Instagram and on my YouTube channel as well. Have over 600 videos on the YouTube channel and including a whole lot of my documentaries that I made from my beaches around the world. If you want to have a look at the YouTube channel that's just it just search for Lisa Tamati on YouTube, and that will come up and on Instagram, it's @lisatamati right now over to Dr. Tim Ewer and of the mapper health center in mapper. Speaker 2: (02:23) Well, hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show this week, I have a special guest, dr. Tim Ewer, Dr. Tim is sitting down and mapper and the views of DePaul sort of Nelson area. How you doing dr. Tim Speaker 3: (02:36) Very well. Thank you strangely a rainy day to day, but that's probably the rest of New Zealand a bit rainy. And normally it's always sunny here. Speaker 2: (02:46) Very sunny place. I was just saying I used to live down there for a few months when I was picking apples back in my young years, and it was hard work, but I'm very a beautiful area to live in. So yeah, you live in a piece of paradise doctor you are as an integrated medical professional and has a hyperbaric clinic down down that way. I don't want it to get dr. tim To talk to, I don't know if we have a doctor, Tim doctor, you are, what would you prefer? I've got to go back to share a little bit about the work that you do and talk about traumatic brain injury in particular as an area that is obviously my interest with my mum's story. So can you give us a little bit of background, your background and how you got into doing what you're doing and the integrative and hyperbaric side of things? Speaker 3: (03:41) Sure. I guess my story from that point of view, start it off. I'm originally from England. So I trained in England at one of the English universities. And even when I finished my training and I'd come out with distinctions and all of those sorts of things I thought there must be more to what medicine's about or what health is about. Let's say than what I have been told. And ever since then, I've been looking to find other ways to, to improve people's wellbeing. So I continued on with my specialist training became what's called a specialist physician. But at the same time, I would sneak off at weekends and go to the London college of acupuncture and learned acupuncture. And I learned medical hypnosis, and I ended up studying nutrition and some homeopathy and a variety of different things, including bioenergetic medicines over the years, of course I spent a bit of time working in hospital as a specialist. Speaker 3: (04:45) And that's actually where I came across hyperbaric medicine. That was in Christchurch where they had a big hospital. I was working in the hospital as a specialist and they had a big hyperbaric chamber there. So I spent seven years helping to run that we did it free and we spent our weekends or nighttime sometimes helping people with the Benz and carbon monoxide poisoning and all sorts of things like that. And at that point, I had a little bit of an existential crisis and decided that I wanted to leave the hospital side and develop my own integrative clinic, which I did. So we're going back 20 or more years now. Wow. And I moved up to this beautiful area and now in, and found a little place to work from and thought, well, if everything goes well, people will eventually just come to me and find me. Speaker 3: (05:35) And that's really what's happened. I started off way back then with just myself and a wonderful Mary receptionist. And now we have 23 staff and that part of the clinic so much so that I've now moved across the road to have a separate integrative clinic so that I can continue to just doing what I like to do with a couple of nurses and myself and two other integrative doctors and an integrative psychologist and these sort of people. So it was a matter of pulling things together over time to, to have a variety of options for people, a variety of it in a way of languages, how to understand disease and wellness. And what I've found over all of those years is that there isn't necessarily, as, as the great sages have often said, there's many paths to the top of the mountain. So it's a matter of finding the right one for each person versus a lot of Western medicine, which is very much scripted in terms of you have this diagnosis, you have this treatment versus you are this person with this variety of different things going on in your life. Speaker 3: (06:54) How can we find ways of getting either balance or detoxed or whatever needs to happen in that process to get it back towards house. Speaker 2: (07:06) So it's sort of looking more towards the root causes and, and as opposed to dealing just with symptoms and looking a little bit outside the box, did you, did you cop a lot of flack for that in the early days with, you know, coming from their sort of allopathic, conventional medicine world and, and looking then at things like acupuncture and you know, things that are outside of the, the standard box, if you like, has it been a difficult road or a in, have you seen that change over the last few years? Speaker 3: (07:42) It's a good question. I think originally I had to do it secretly and it wasn't approved and it was separate too. And I had to, I had to have two different lives as sort of Jekyll and Hyde components going on and you can decide, which is which out of mainstream or holistic. And so that was kind of difficult. But over the years what I found is if I started applying some of these techniques and people simply started getting better my colleagues would say, well, what are you doing? You know, what's, what's happening to those people that don't normally get better and now they're getting better. So that started me, gave me the opportunity to start talking about some of the things I did, but to be honest, while working in the hospital environment, it was quite difficult. So it wasn't until I moved up and started my own separate clinic that it gave me much more space, if you like to practice other things. However, I will say that the conservative elements of the mainstream still quite antagonistic to some of the things that we like to do in integrative medicine. And so there is that sense of walking along the brief tight wire, some of the times and having to basically practice really good medicine in a mainstream way, plus all the other things of both sides. Speaker 2: (09:17) Yeah. Being brilliant in both sides of that. So yeah, I, I mean, I th I see as a, someone who's come, not from a medical background but had a few issues along the way, shall we say, and going, okay, this isn't working, I'm going to look outside the box for myself. And having, you know, a couple of, with my mum, with myself with my brothers some very great success in, in looking outside the box. And I see a a massive movement of, of change and change in mentality now because we have access via the internet and the, and the stuff that we have available by a pub med and all those sort of great places where you can go and do your own research, that it's no longer completely controllable what what we do. And we can take ownership more, and we have the ability to take more ownership that we didn't have when we didn't have the internet and the ability to access great minds and great people and great research and the information that's coming out, you know, on a daily basis. Speaker 2: (10:25) I mean, no person on earth can stay up with it all. It's just so much. So if you wanting to do your own deep dive into a certain area, you can certainly find yourself down some very deep rabbit holes and becoming quite expert in a, in a, in a narrow field that you're trying to research. And do you see that in the people that are coming to you, that there is a shift in the people that are starting to come to you and say, Hey, I've seen this, I've heard about this, I've read about this as this something that's gonna help me. And people taking more ownership in that, in the, in the clientele that you sort of have, Speaker 3: (10:59) I think you're right. I mean, we're part of a informational revolution that's going on at the moment. I did say it's escalating all the time and it's growing and growing, which is a wonderful thing. Most of the time, it's the song, which is either contused or fake news, as they say. And I think being well-informed as the main thing, a lot of this, it is about helping a person become informed about what's going on. And so they can then take more control over themselves because they understand what it's about. And so that's the journey in a sense, it's helping to understand the person to some extent, walking in their shoes a wee bit to see, okay, what's going on? How can I put this together and express it back in a way where that person can make the right changes to bring about what they need to do? Speaker 3: (11:51) That's an edge, a very general of looking at it. Sometimes I had a great example this week of a person who came in a woman who was in her forties. She was well educated, but she had a whole selection of what, in Western medicine, we might consider the bizarre symptoms from neurological ones to skin, to all sorts of things. And she'd seen urologists and various people, and they'd all been scratching their heads about what's going on. She's obviously not, well, we can't put it together. But I said, look, why don't we, why don't we try a different language for this? And I then talked about the whole concept of low kidney energy and how it related to her tinnitus to her lack of mental agility to all sorts of components. And it's not to say it was just a way of bringing a whole raft of things together in a way that had a sense to it, rather than a sort of chaos, that, that chaos can be very unsettling and you don't know how to make sense. And particularly the experts can't make sense of it. Then you're kind of stuck with what the heck's going on. I might just going mad and, and she wasn't, she was just having a whole series of different things, which we could start bringing together under an umbrella of understanding. And even though we didn't have to use TCM as part of the treatment necessarily it gave it, she felt so much more at ease by the end of that, with an explanation that seemed to bring things together. Speaker 2: (13:36) Yeah. And it enabled her to maybe take a new approach to the way, say if you're getting disparate sort of information. Cause it was really hard when you're looking at sometimes your, your symptoms and then trying to go, well, where is this coming from? And what is it, you know? And it could be a myriad of things and trying to piece it together. You must have an incredible brain to be able to hold all of these, facets it without any sort of contradicting you know, dogmas even with an, in the knowledge that you have. Do you find that a bit of a juggling act at times, Speaker 3: (14:14) Strangely enough, not much. There are various possibilities for that. One is if you're into astrology, I'm a Gemini. I'm not a great, astrologist mind you, but there's two of me. And so we can talk to each other. I was brought up in a way where I, interestingly I don't want to get into my personal background particularly, but at one point I was went to a very expensive English school, but I actually stayed with my mother in a council house in a really poor area. So I went from one group of, in the morning to another one in the evening. Wow. And you had to talk the language of both. Yeah, yeah. To work it through. And I think that a sense of dance of life is good because it makes one, I'm able to cope with lots of different things at the same time, try and bring them together Speaker 2: (15:15) And being able to relate to people. It was, it wouldn't be a brilliant training and being able to be on every level and, and talk to people and communicate and, you know having this wealth of knowledge from all of these different disciplines and science areas, it must be very, you know, like to have that broad spectrum integrated approach. I think, you know, I wish there were more doctors available in New Zealand. There was, you know, we were starting to see more functional and integrated practitioners coming out and then you've got, you know, your, your whole health coach coaching in different areas. But it's a, it's a, certainly a changing world. And I'm hoping that there was going to be some change hopefully in the mainstream. Speaker 3: (16:02) Yeah. I mean, I've put up a little plugin and I may about those an organization called Amer the Australasian integrative medicine association, which is a mix of both doctors who do integrative medicine and also other health practitioners. And so on their websites, you can often get information about integrated doctors around New Zealand and Australia. Speaker 2: (16:25) Fabulous. That's a really good tip. I'll put that in the, in the show, Speaker 3: (16:30) Dub, dub, dub, amer.net.edu, but New Zealand. Speaker 2: (16:35) Okay. Well, we'll check that out. Cause you're getting in all sorts of lists of people. Now let's go a little bit into hyperbaric and I wanted to sort of touch on today. Some of the possible treatments for brain injury whether that's, you know, from stroke or traumatic brain injury or you know, concussions or aneurysms, in my case with mum your, your experience with hyperbaric in the, the medical grave facilities, I've had a mild hyperbaric chamber. My mum who might listen, sort of know my story with my mum. Four years ago, we had this disaster after three months in hospital, we've told, you know, put her in a, in a hospital level care facility and she'll never do anything again, she's major brain damage. I found hyperbaric on the internet and I managed to get a a commercial dive company that let me have access for a while. Speaker 2: (17:38) And then I had such success there that I ended up buying a mild hyperbaric chamber and installing it and out in their home and put her through she's had over 250 sessions now at 1.5 atmospheres that combined, and that, wasn't the only thing I did. And it ended up being an eight hour protocol every day that I sort of put together from pieces from functional neurology and nootropics and epigenetics and functional genomics and really diving deep for the last four years into the science and doing what I could, you know, it was either do everything I can or lose my mom. Those were the two options. So I was desperate to get her back. And on that journey, I've, I've hyperbaric is so powerful. His has so many things that it can be really good for. What, what are your experiences where that and the work that you did in the hospital and what it's actually recognized for versus what it overseas, perhaps as being used for two different things, aren't they, what's your take on that Speaker 3: (18:51) Sort of conventional set of indications for using hyperbaric? We still hospitals use we only have two hospital hyperbarics in New Zealand and one in Christchurch and one in Devonport which is really the Navy one rusty open hospital used us. Other than that, they're all private ones. So the hospital ones really is the history they came from. They came from a Navy based history for treating the bins really, or in the ancient days, you go back a hundred years, a case, some workers, which of the people that put in pylons for building bridges on the go of the water, they had to put the pylons in and they would get the bins and the bins. It was because when they came up, they were in pain and they were bent over because they were having gobbles coming out into their spine and their muscles. Speaker 3: (19:49) So yeah, the hospital based ones are really a very strict set of criteria. Like as I said, the bins various forms of severe infection, gangrene infections a few other conditions like carbon monoxide poisoning, possibly cyanide poisoning. But there limited number of conditions. It doesn't include brain injury. It doesn't include strokes. It doesn't include neurodegenerative diseases. It doesn't, Incruse clued fibromyalgia, a whole raft of things where we now realize there's reasonable evidence that it has some impact. One of the troubles with medicine is you'll know, is that it relies on this gold standard thing called a randomized controlled trial, where you have to do a very difficult process of having a placebo group and a treatment group. And for doing that, the hyperbaric is a nightmare because to try and have a treatment that isn't a treatment that looks like a treatment is quite hard. Speaker 3: (20:59) A lot of the work that's been done is kind of on the edge of how good it is. So most of the research we tend to see about is where we've used it lots of times and have said, ah, this seems to be working it's anecdotal it's case series. And there are some great researchers used, you'll know, like poor hearts in the States and so on. And to give some credit, the Russians have been doing it for much longer, but a lot of this stuff is unpublished. So there's a huge amount of volume of work going on around the world. And now one of the best units is in Israel. They've got some great work going on there. So, but these are the kind of these are the people going outside, the normal bubble of what's accepted as, okay. And yet they're getting good results as far as we can tell until you get that ask TT of gold standard, the conventional systems unlikely to change, that's the problem. Speaker 2: (22:02) And the, the having, you know, the randomized control trials is just not going to happen. And something like hyperbaric that hasn't got a patentable drug, realistically, the costs are too high aren't, they, Speaker 3: (22:14) It is high and there have been some trials, but they nearly always stop at 20 treatments. That that's the number that they stop at. Yeah. That's, it's kinda like I'm saying you've been on a drug per month and let's see how it's worked is it's kind of that way of thinking Speaker 2: (22:35) The genetic shifts happening, right. Speaker 3: (22:37) 200 hours of training as a whole lot of things that aren't going to happen in that time period, or they are, it's going to be fairly mild, not, not as far as you could. And as you know, one of things with the poor hearts researchers, he kept doing spec scans and checking up on patients and he found that they were still improving at 80 treatments, still improving. I mean, Hey, so we stop at 20 with our RCTs. It's not a great place to design. Is this working or not? Speaker 2: (23:08) And, and, you know, I mean, I know with, with mom I've yeah. Like I said, put her through 250, you know and I still continue to see improvements and I do it in blocks now, and then I give her a break from it. And it's in those breaks when you often get the next level of, of improvement. Speaker 3: (23:27) I think that is the epigenetic effect probably saying, Speaker 2: (23:32) Yeah. You know, to fix apparently 8,000 genes that can be influenced by these epigenetic shifts. And it's, it's, it's I like going to the gym, you know, I'm not going to go to the gym and then three weeks time out looking like taught. So they got, or, you know, it doesn't happen that quickly, but the NGO Genesis the inflammation, the STEM cell production, certainly at the higher or lower pressures they happen over time. Do you see also a benefit and stacking it for the ones who have a better word with other protocols? So, so other things like ozone therapy, for example, or P myth therapy or anything else that you find beneficial combining? Speaker 3: (24:23) I think, I mean, I would say yes in a, in a clinical sense of experience, but I couldn't say that there are trials with trials to say, like to have only one or two variables. They don't want to throw a whole lot in at once. You agreed, I would start probably with nutrition and there are a number of nutrients, which you know about that you can throw into the equation. I think as auxiliary treatments my particular interest at the moment is photobiomodulation, it's using laser treatment. Speaker 2: (24:56) Oh, I would be very interested to hear what you have to say about photos. Speaker 3: (25:01) So I think this to me is an up and coming thing. I've spent the last two or three summers going to a conference in Germany, a laser conference where some of the, the experts get together from around the world. And they talk about these things. I've also been to one in Australia last October. What, what we're now what we've known about. Okay. Let me tell the curve. Speaker 4: (25:28) Okay. Speaker 3: (25:30) Phases. We're not talking about cutting lasers, which are where you focus the beam to a point. So drill holes and things like James Bond. You know, that's not one of those, okay. We're talking about parallel, light photons. That is they're going side by side. So they're not drilling holes in you. And what happens with that? And there's a lot of great research, and this is where there's far more research out there than most people know about, because unless you're interested in this field, you don't go looking for it. I've got quite a big database now looking at all this stuff. And what we w one of the things that, that does, it does a whole rock to things a bit like hyperbaric. But it particularly affects the mitochondria because your mitochondria are the little components in every cell of your body, pretty well, that produces energy in terms of ATP and NADH as well. Speaker 3: (26:27) And those mitochondria, well, if we go back a little bit in time, those mitochondria, I actually what's called proteobacteria in the ancient of days, they were bacteria that had been incorporated into you carry out excels and also the cells, because they needed a bigger energy source. These provided the energy. So we became part of the place, if you see what I mean. So the interesting thing about mitochondria in their rules are what we call chromophores, which are proteins that react to light because that's how the bacteria actually got their energy originally, like plants. They were converting sunlight into energy. Okay. So how about how mitochondria respond to light at different frequencies? So different frequencies do dislike your different chemical reactions in the mitochondria. What so that's one little pack to hold onto it. And when that happens, a number of things happen. Speaker 3: (27:31) One, you get obviously the ability to produce a whole lot of repair mechanisms get stimulated energy mechanisms get stimulated. You turn off excessive inflammation, a whole lot of things you want to happen happen by getting your mitochondria to work properly. And in fact, one of the concerns that even about getting older and aging is that our mitochondria are not functioning properly, or we have less salt. It is the basis of aging really isn't it? Mitochondrial dysfunction, certainly one of the big, big keys. So different frequencies will do different stimulate different components. So we now know with lasers, we use different colored blazers to get different effects. However, the big problem is that if you try and print, since you use blue or yellow, the penetration is very small. So, but as you go towards red, you get more and more penetration. Speaker 3: (28:30) And what most of us now use is infrared. Infrared is the most penetrating of all colors. And what you can now do is, is get lasers that will penetrate right through bone, even through the skull, into the brain very effectively. I can give you a story if you want a story. It depends on what, what got me really interested in this area was another bit of serendipity where a number of years ago a patient in Oakland well, it's man in Oakland phoned me. I said, look, my wife has got this terrible thoracic vertebrae, vertebral abscess. So several vertebrae and unless she has continuous antibiotics she gets very unwell and in a lot of pain. And so she'd been on antibiotics for 18 months and every time she stopped it, it flared up badly to the point that they said, look, the only next thing we can do is do an operation where they go in through the past the lungs, through the anterior approach, which is to scoop out the dead material and pass and try and rebuild the spine, which is a dangerous operation horrific. Speaker 3: (29:53) And so the husband who was not an entrepreneur, he had did some research. He's a very bright guy and he came across hyperbaric oxygen. And so he found me because I, at the time was the only person with a high pressure, private hospitals refuse to do anything. That's fine. When in doubt we started treatment and we were part way through the treatment. And he came in to me and he said, Hey, Hey Tim, what do you know about lasers? And I said, well, not a lot, really. And it's developed, have you seen these papers? How power lasers at certain frequencies will kill bacteria, including staphylococcus, which she had. Wow. I thought, wow, that's interesting. And I read up on some papers and I then researched more and I came back to him a day or so later and say, Hey, look, you're right. This looks quite promising. Speaker 3: (30:50) He then said to me, okay, look, you find me the right laser. And I'll get it here in three days from anywhere in the world. I thought, wow, that's a good, I haven't been asked to do that before. So I found this one in the States, which was 25,000 U S wow. He had it there in three days. Boom. Wow. And we just started treating with both. And the long and the short is after two sets for treatments, she has been able to stop all her antibiotics and has stayed role for the last 18 months, two years while having any problem, it's amazing basically, and the MRIs improved and everything's, you know, there's new bone growth and so forth. So it just gave me that insight of, wow, there's so much information out there. Why didn't I know about it. So I got to know about it. Speaker 3: (31:42) I've been to these conferences. So now I'm starting to use a similar laser to the one he got just by the way, anyone who wants to get one, I found that his was actually made in China and I got it for a third, the price, what was it called? Because I'd love to have a look into that myself. Yeah. So it's a, it's a nice, it's a classical advisor. So you don't want to play there ladies as have class one to four and four is the most powerful, so you've got to be married. Yeah. So you've just got to be careful. Don't China in people's eyes and things like that. But anyway, so I've been using this for a number of different situations and there's some great research, randomized control trials of various things. One of them, which I found quite amazing is using it to depression, where they showed that if you did the left frontal area that in a randomized controlled trial, they improved similar to drug treatment. So there we go. Speaker 2: (32:46) Is that something looking at the vitamin D pathways or something like that? Or is it, Speaker 3: (32:53) I don't think so. No. I think it's a separate effect on we know from, in terms of depression also that often it's, so their frontal area on a QEG that's the main area, or if you do a functional MRI. And so it's just that, that was the area of this one to work on, to improve its functioning. So the thing with the laser is it's simply trying to restore a normal cell function as best it can. Speaker 2: (33:18) Is that laser available? Like, can you as a nonmedical professional get one of these, I mean, this gentlemen Speaker 3: (33:27) Far Mark Palmer exciting because a lot of this work's been done with the sort of laser that I would have the cost for, but then I'm realizing that low level laser treatment, L L T low level laser treatment, which is class three, but even on art seems to work. And what, when I say that, believe it or not is that this is something that's in the usually 50 to 500 milliwatt versus I'm using 15 Watts or 15,000 milli Watts. So what we initially thought is Hey, how can that possibly get through the skin, the underlying tissue, the skull, and into the brain and that level of power. It just didn't make sense. And yet the trials showed that it does. And what we now realize is that the skull, when you look at it with very high powered electron microscopes sections actually has this lattice works of tubules going through it, which the light can probably pass through. Wow. Because otherwise it just didn't make sense that something could hit this solid bone and still get through when, if you did it on the, on something similar thickness without those channels, it wouldn't so that, but anyway, so low level lasers are looking very good at the moment and they're much cheaper and much easier to use different ones. Speaker 2: (35:06) Yeah. I've got I've I've got two from via light. The 16, yes. I've got the two ones that go up up the nostril at the nasal ones at the, what is it? The eight, eight 55 or something in him. Speaker 3: (35:21) That's the nanometers. So that's the actual wavelengths of which is infrared. But then they piggyback onto that they what they call modulator. So that I think the one I've got the neuro one as well, which is still the 40 Hertz one. I haven't got that one, but 10 Hertz one. Yeah. That's the one that goes across the skull. Is it doing that? It's the actual, so what, this gets much more kind of exciting in a way, from my point of view, if you get, if you're excited by tech technical things, is that they, the wavelength of the infrared, which is the 800 to 800 to a thousand nanometers, roughly yes. Infrared that wavelength is what is going through into, in this case, the brain what you can do is you can pulse that process and that then becomes a frequency that's received by the tissue. Speaker 3: (36:24) So to some extent, the wave length going in is doing one set of things. And then on top of that, you can what I call piggyback, but the correct name is modulating the, so that you get a frequency, which has different effects. Now I'll give you an example a year or two ago a patient who was a local barista fell off his mountain bike and did the usual over the handlebars, hit his head, got concussed and tried to go back to work, but he is it problem with it. He had a cognitive deficit where he couldn't tolerate much noise people or anything, as soon as there was a lot going on his brain sort of short circuited, he couldn't think. And as a barista, that didn't work, he couldn't interact with people. So he had to stop working and this went on for months and he wasn't recovering. Speaker 3: (37:24) So he came to steamy and I said, look, okay, we'll use the laser. And we did a few sessions without obviously much improvement at what we call a continuous rate where it's just the infrared process. But then I looked at some of the research and I thought, what I can do on my laser, I can actually put in any frequency I want, I can change it. It's a sort of fairly clever one. And I, so I put it at 10 Hertz frequency that session from then onwards, he just got better and better and better and went back to work and he knew it the next day. He'd said, look, I'm so much better just from that one session once we did the 10 Hertz. So what we're understanding now, there's a lot of research going on around the world here. The guy cut in the States called Michael Hamblin. Speaker 3: (38:15) Who's one of the sort of gurus of this, but also in Australia and in Tasmania, interesting enough, they're doing a whole load of research. Look at these frequencies, looking at what's bears, looking at what how much you need and what they're finding. It's a little bit like hyperbaric. When I started doing hyperbaric, we used very high pressure as well, partly because we're treating divers, but a lot of the therapy was based on two to 2.4 atmospheres treatment and everything, as you know, what, what requirement is actually, some of the lower pressures are better for certain situations restore brain function. And they're finding that with the lasers, you don't necessarily have to hammer it in hard with a very high level. It's more of about the subtleties of the right frequencies, the right dose, the right evidencing. So this is where a lot of work's going on. I don't think we've got all the answers by a long way, but I think it's a very exciting field risk, low risk, you know, very low risk. What we do know about, as you're saying these lays, this sort of laser is pretty well without risk providing you don't look at it. And with the sort of laser I've got that if you hold it in one place, it gets too hot. So there's a heat element. Whereas the low level that doesn't happen, they using led lights now instead of laser. So Speaker 2: (39:43) I saw one just yesterday when I was doing some research on tinnitus I've forgotten the name of it, Luma meat or something like that. Laser therapy that they're doing the doctor in Australia was doing it for the inner ear to regenerate the hears on the inner ear to help, you know, tonight as suburb sufferers and his disease suffers. And then we're getting lots of success with that. And I certainly, you know, when I heard about it and did some, some research on it for mum, I think it's been a part of her recovery as well. I only had internet-based the nasal ones and I had one at the 600, the 600 in him and the other one at the eight, eight 50. But I'd like to look into this more. It seems to be a lot going on around frequencies general, whether it's light frequencies or PEMF pulsed electromagnetic field. Do you know anything about the PE EMF at all? Speaker 3: (40:42) Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really exciting area. It's it's, to some extent it started off with someone called Royal rife in the, in the States. Do you know, do you know about him? He's a, he was a doctor back in the 1930s, forties, fifties. It was really quite a brilliant doctor, but actually ended up in a sad situation because, well, I'll come to that. So he started looking at how frequencies could be used in medicine. And what he found is that by using, he had a cathode Ray tube in those days to produce them. And he also developed at the time, the most powerful microscope light microscope that existed a very intricate complex microscope that allowed him to look at cells while they're alive. What's called dark microscopy, which was very new at the time. Speaker 3: (41:43) And what it could do is look at cells and then the mom with his catheter, gray different frequencies and see what happened to them. And what he found is that he retained some frequencies and see different things. So he kept saying, you know, if you're trying to kill this by this seems to be the right frequency or this cancer, this frequency seems to be the right frequency and did a of research over a years and started getting some really quite astounding success with these patients. And a number of his close friends started their colleagues. We started using similar instruments and again, started doing very well until the FDA got winded at all. And they came in and Congress skated every part of his equipment that he had, and he was left in ruins. But and yet there's a huge amount of information left behind about what he was doing. And so a lot of the ideas of different frequencies for different illnesses came from his early work. Speaker 2: (42:49) That's right. I do remember that story now. And there is a few of his machines that have been Speaker 3: (42:54) Absolutely. So there are some original ones possibly when they say original, it's really hard to know because we don't know really what the regional ones, cause there's some sort of stronghold by the FDA got rid of them, but there's also some very modern versions of them now, which are computerized, which obviously he couldn't do. But so just to say that I think the electromagnetic field concept I mean, we're, we're in a very low electromagnetic field when we're not around other gadgetry and we're inside the field of the earth, which, you know, the Schumann frequency, which are an important frequency that have been there since, you know, we evolved. So they are part of our evolution. So they're part of what is normal for us. And so those frequencies are quite important frequencies. When we start coming in with very set frequencies, like 50 Hertz for electricity and all these other things, we're actually interfering with a whole normal ability to stay in homeo homeostasis, to some extent. Speaker 2: (44:06) And this is where, yeah, the EMF side of the argument, or, you know, the, the problems that we're possibly facing with, with CMS, it's from all our devices and 5g coming, goodness knows what's X gonna do. And PEMF is very different though. It's using the right frequencies Speaker 3: (44:24) That's and it's also using the therapeutic way. And by and large, in, in at a low level, rather than a level, you don't necessarily, again, have to use these massive magnetic fields to get the effect that you want. You can use really very subtle ones. Speaker 2: (44:39) And again, it's working on the mitochondria, I believe from the research that I've done, it's actually having an effect on the mitochondrial health and function. And I, I just, I wish we had a, I wish everybody could have access to a place where we had all of these things lined up next to each other and, you know, the ones that are lower risk at least that we could all, you know, be able to use without huge costs involved in a utopia, perhaps something like that. Yeah. Speaker 3: (45:08) I think we're moving a little bit towards that and I expect, and maybe on another occasion, I'll talk about sound therapy and how the that's another component of frequency, but I, I agree you can use to CS, which is cranial electric stimulation very simple devices like the alpha STEM, very expensive, what it is that almost immediately induces a sleepy, relaxed state. Speaker 2: (45:40) Yes. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be in that one too. So yes, Speaker 3: (45:46) It's kind of bizarre that you can just put two clips. I kept on each year and start the machine. And within minutes you're feeling drowsy and very relaxed, Speaker 2: (45:57) But it's mentioned and Ben Greenfield, he's a famous biohacker and trainer out of the States and his new book boundless, which is quite an amazing book. It's got, you know, everything known to man, and then he mentions the CES and using that to, to go to sleep every night and how it's improved as her sleep. So there's just so much things that are coming. And I, and I find it really exciting if we can integrate the traditional medical model with some of these like you are doing. And it's a really exciting thing for me. And I just wish we had more access for more people. It is, you see, before I don't need any promotion because I have so many people wanting to come to me and I can, I can truly believe that because there's such a need out there. Speaker 3: (46:49) The wonderful, unfortunately there are a few old phrases in medicine. One is that medicine changes coding. When the previous generation dies. It tends to prove slowly Speaker 2: (47:04) It's hard, Speaker 3: (47:07) People vote with their feet. And I think that's what we're seeing. A lot of people are actually saying, I don't want this. I want that. Rather than just accepting what's there, that's very healthy on the whole saying, okay, I'm, I'm getting quite informed about what I think I need. I just need someone to guide me through that process and if necessary me with some of the resources. And so I think that's a very important thing. And I think by and large, it is being embraced a bit in general practice to some extent, but probably less so as you move up the ladder into secondary and tertiary care, which is a kind of specialist areas, Speaker 2: (47:48) And this is why I think it's important that you know, where, you know, want to be in the preventative space where possible, so that we, you know, are looking at things before it gets to the point where everything's taken out of your control, because you're now in the intensive care or in the hospital, some where it's actually impossible to get any of these things. And it's important that we take control and ownership. And this is what the show is really all about is, is educating people about the things that are out there and the things that they can do their own research is it's a curation. If you like of information from brilliant minds in different areas, so that we can have, these can have these conversations and open up these discussions so that we can start to realize that there is more than just a pharmaceutical model or a surgical model, which is mostly what we were offered. I mean, those are very important and very good, but Speaker 3: (48:44) Yeah, they're largely the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. To some extent they have much more difficulty dealing with chronic longterm problems. They're good for the acute and the end, if, you know, if I break my leg, I'm going straight to the hospital. Speaker 2: (49:00) Yeah. Yeah. And then you might come home and do a hyperbaric session on the way home. Speaker 3: (49:07) Most of my I'd live in it. Speaker 2: (49:09) Exactly. I would tell you if I have one that you've got, that's brilliant. Just coming back to hormone sorry. I wanted to talk about hormones in relation to brain injury. Is there something you're seeing yes, under diagnosed often with traumatic brain injuries, especially Speaker 3: (49:28) A very interesting point. You bring up in time. I should I have a whole presentation on all of this, but one of the papers I'm just kind of going to, Speaker 2: (49:38) I have to get you back on to, to take us through the whole presentation. Speaker 3: (49:43) Okay. So this is, I'm just reading from my slide now, the prevalence of hypo pituitary ism. So you put your three glands just behind your eyes and produce several homelands in mild, moderate, and severe brain injury was estimated at 16.8% for mild. So that's nearly 17% interesting, only 10.9 for moderate and 35% for severe TBI. But what that saying is that people can have interference with some of their hormone production or a relatively mild event. TBI is common. We now realize one of the big things that's only recently kind of come to is how frequent TBI and what we call MTBI mild, traumatic brain injury, and eh, from sports through to domestic violence, through to all sorts of things where people are getting minor injuries all the time. When I say all the time, several in a row or within a period of time. Speaker 3: (50:49) And it can be that I had a sort of patient just this week, for instance, had come up from Christchurch to see me who had had an injury a year ago, where he had walked into a metal bar, cause he was looking the wrong way and wasn't actually knocked out. Then when I started talking about it, he said, Oh, well, yeah. And the previous year I did that. And then I fell over and hit my head, did that. And before that, and we had this whole series of minor traumatic brain injuries, and this was a store on the camel's back because since his last one he's hardly been able to work. He can't concentrate all these things that are familiar to us with MTBI. And so it's often that kind of background of quite a few, and then something knocks you out when they're not bad words, but something pushes you over the edge. Speaker 2: (51:42) And then you start to have, well, actually a year, we he's had some consult consults with me as well. And I've it, it, I think people think that they have to have her knocked out, had a major car accident before anything is actually a real problem or if they had it. So in the case of my brother who was a professional rugby player some of the things that I'm seeing in him now, and I have permission to talk about us information are signs to me of a delayed response to brain injury and, you know, helping him work through all of those, but often you, you won't know that it was the thing that you did 10 years ago, perhaps that can still be affecting your brain or that your personality has changed because of a brain injury or your energy levels, your hormones and so on. And this is why it's really important. Speaker 3: (52:42) And I'd also add in there that that store on the camel's back of that minor injury may actually be because there are other things going on, like other toxins, whether they're heavy metals are related to what you're working and so forth. So there can be a variety of other things that was sitting there in the background and until really challenged, didn't seem to have a problem with them yet when you're challenged, you do, and you then have to deal with those as well, come right through a detox process quite often to deal with some of the oldest. Well, some of the background stuff I should say. Speaker 2: (53:26) Yeah. And so, you know, looking at like with brain injury and optimizing brain health, we need to be looking at foundational health issues as well as okay. For the fancier things like the hyperbaric and the laser and all of those, the hormone assessment and, and starting to, to educate people around, you know, systemic inflammation and the job of mitochondria and all of these aspects, which heavy metal detoxing, which is something that we should all probably be interested in. And then layering on top of it. Some of these other therapies and that multipronged approach is something that I think has been the reason that I think I've been successful with mom is that having those, those layers and then continuing to look, what is the next thing, what is the next area that I can explore to bring the next but back? And as you say, it can build on each other. And as we get older, we build more toxicity in our body from metals. Most of us have got some sort of, Speaker 3: (54:27) We don't have history. Speaker 2: (54:29) We do, and we collect it and then it starts to it's that bucket there's that we sort of manage it to here and then it overflows and then it's all sorts coming out. So let's, you know, being in that preventative mindset of, okay, I'm going to help my body detox before I perhaps get something else happen to me. You know, it can be a good, a good way of looking at it. W we've covered a whole lot of areas everywhere. Just one last question for me, an area that I'm interested in, I've just got a new kit, new ozone therapy kit. What's your take on ozone? This is something I've just been getting into the last couple of weeks and researching is it, you know, like it seems to have some of the same benefits as hyperbaric in, in a way a different process and delivery, but it seems to be quite similar in some aspects. Have you had any experience with those on, at all Speaker 3: (55:30) A bit? I'm not an expert on it, so I'll say that, but I've read a fair amount on it. And I have a colleague working for my clinic now who has a perfusion equipment, which kind of topics I think like many things, it's a double edged sword. So people, first of all, must never have agree. Those are toxic to the lungs. So the idea that, Oh, I'll just get a kit and breed. Some is the completely wrong thing to do. So it has to be introduced into the body. And that's where we run into problems. First of all, because you can put it in through various artifices yep. Other than the breathing one. And that makes it plain or it can be given and it can be given intravenously in two ways. One literally as a bonus ozone, which is somewhat, could be risky. Speaker 3: (56:36) And although those that use it say that it isn't or you can take some blood off, mix it with Arizona and reproduce it, which is the one in Germany has been done for many years now. So there's quite a lot of research from them about its use. And I think it, it has a definite role as a, as a strong antiseptic for the staff. So in terms of killing bugs within the organism it probably has an anti cancer component. The problem with when we say probably is actually getting the research done. So again, this is more anecdotal evidence but it, it has a way of re oxygen icing, very similar, I think, to hyperbaric, but also sterilizing as well, which is slightly different from hyperbaric to barricade. It has to be an anaerobic bug for that to work. So I think it does have some definite roles. I think if you're doing your run, you you're talking, it's going to be very careful Speaker 2: (57:46) The home therapy. Yeah. That's ear insufflation and rectal insufflation cupping, that type of thing. But yes. Yeah, I think, I think it's a good thing to have a few obviously need to be taught and doing some training in it this week how to, how to use it safely. Definitely don't want it anywhere near your lungs. But it, it, that dangerous side, as far as the lungs is concerned, a very good thing to have as a basic first aid for any infection that you get, you know, speak Corona even maybe they are looking into the research at the moment is if it can help with the coronavirus. And I've got a dr. Rowan coming on my show next week, who's one of the world's top experts and ozone therapies are really excited. He actually went to Africa and the Ebola crisis got shut down, unfortunately by, shall we say the mafia somewhere over the, there, when he was treating patients and treating in training the doctors and it, but it is a very, it seems to have a lot of research over a long period of time. Speaker 2: (58:56) And again I think a very interesting one to do more research on yourself and to maybe add into the, to the, to the list of things that you can do. Speaker 3: (59:08) I definitely think so. And of course, you know, for me, I would be probably if I was concerned about personally concerned about Kobe, be using high dose intravenous vitamin C, which we do here anyway. So that's part of the same. But you brought up than I did. One of the research the Germans had done in Africa on malaria was using one of the blue lasers intravenously or into the vein while taking one of the B vitamins, which so this is using PDT, which is photo dynamic therapy. So photo meaning the laser dynamic, meaning you give something which sensitizes, whatever the target is to the laser in this case, it's the bacteria, or at least in his, but it's actually the malaria parasite I should say. And they showed very definite success with doing this wow light and the vitamin B irradiation. Speaker 3: (01:00:18) I think they call that. Yeah, there's UV radiation too. So this is a this is using PDT, which is similar, but using, for instance, one of the things that I've been working with is PDT here, where we use the infrared laser with the sensitizing agent, which is called InDesign and green. It's a green dye that they eye specialists use to look at the back of your eye and cancer cells taken up preferentially to normal cells and hold on to it. Whereas normal cells pass it through within 30 minutes. Wow. So what you do is you give this an hour or two before your treatment and then shine the laser light at the cancer. And I've had one remarkable disappearance of a cancer just doing that. So again, for everybody, before I get too many times, this is an area of interest and it's cool PDT photo dynamics. Speaker 3: (01:01:25) So using light with an agent that don't and I also use an ultrasound machine and the thing that sensitizes you to Roxanne is curcumin. So and using ultrasound and because Tim was hold onto it for a long time, you can use that to, Hmm, goodness. Isn't that funny? That's without me now, they won't go SPD T so no photodynamic therapy, right? I'm going to have to look at that one. Now this is experimental. So it's research stuff. So that's not something that's out there for everyone to go and get it's something being looked at around the world. There's a huge amount of research going on in medical circles and sciences to find the right agents, the lights frequencies and so forth, but a promising area using nanotechnology to deliver the sensitizer to the cancer as well. There's a lot of very fancy stuff going on. Speaker 2: (01:02:34) Wow. This is very exciting. Well, I think we've covered a lot of ground today. Heaven. We thank you so much, dr. Tome. I really appreciate your time. And the fact that you, we, you know, we have such a great doctor in our midst and who is looking at all of these very exciting areas and integrating knowledge from all areas and having such an open approach to it. I think that's absolutely brilliant. I wish you were bit more local. It would be good. I would love to have you again on the show to talk about, maybe do a presentation and the, the the information that you were talking about the just earlier at some stage when you have time, but I'm super appreciative of your time. Did I know that you're an extremely busy man? Is there anything that you would like to say to wrap up the show or any, any final words? Speaker 3: (01:03:28) I think just I'd support the whole idea of, of integrative medicine as a. And I think that can involve a whole load of different health practitioners working together to get that model by the way, rather than just one person as the way forward to the future for getting, not just from disease to some degree of wellness, but getting to full wellbeing, the next layer up. And I think that's really where we're heading and a lot of ways through lifestyle, you know, diet, all of these different things. And to me, like you've been talking about today, what excites me particularly is the idea of using light color sound and vibration as part of that journey. I think it's fascinating. I think we're only partway there. We haven't mentioned sound yet. That's another whole area, so there's some interesting things going on to try to make that happen. Speaker 2: (01:04:21) Very exciting times ahead. I can't wait for a little bit more research to happen and to make it more less expensive in more doable for people so that they can actually get up. Dr. Tim, thank you so much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. And we hope to, Hey, hope to have you on again soon. Speaker 1: (01:04:42) That's it this week for pushing the limits, be sure to write review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

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Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) Hello, everyone. My name is Penny. I'm so glad you joined us today and welcome to this next session of Get Sellers Calling You with Beatty Carmichael. Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber, the creator of Agent Dominator and one of the top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I am super excited about this call with you today. What do you have for our listeners? [00:00:29] Well, I've got a really exciting call for today, and that is it may sound kind of boring, but when you really understand the impact, it's really exciting and is how to do marketing right. [00:00:41] Because, you know, in real estate, I love what Gary Keller says in all of his books -- millionaire real estate agent, Shift and others. He says the most important thing in real estate is lead generation. And then he says the second most. Would you like guess what? The second most important thing is in real estate. If the first generation was the second most important thing. [00:01:09] Has to be. If I were to guess something to obtain buyers. Almost, yes. [00:01:16] So it's tied to that second most important thing in real estate is lead generation. He says the third most important thing. Would you like to guess the third most important thing in real estate is. [00:01:28] Let me guess. [00:01:29] Lead generate lead generation. Right. In commercial real estate. Location, location. Location is very real estate business. Lead generation is everything. So we're going to talk about today is how do you generate leads not on a tactical process, but more a strategic process. [00:01:52] Does that make sense? Yeah, sure. [00:01:55] Okay, so let me give you a background on this. I was speaking just a couple weeks ago with a real estate agent named Mike. He's not the typical real estate agent. He also has his investment license and his primary business is a financial advisor. So he has a block of clients that he manages their assets on. He makes a lot of money from that, but he also works in the real estate world and helps buy and sell real estate because part of his financial advising is to purchase investment properties in real estate. Do you see the connection? Yeah, sure. Okay, so he had the perfect fit. He had this brilliant idea. And I want to share this idea because I know there is some real estate agents out there who may not be a series six. I think it is a financial adviser, but they are friends who are that they can partner with because this is a beautiful partnering opportunity. We're talking about lead generation. You typically think out of the box if you do what every real estate agent does to generate leads, you're going to be like every real estate agent, which is working 60, 70 hours a week, scrapping for every deal you get. And when a shift in the marketplace happens, like what's happened recently with Cobian 19 and the corona virus pandemic stuff, your business falls apart because you're doing what everyone else does. By the way, I've got I've got to make this one comment. We have a number of clients whose business has not faltered at all during this period of time. We have other clients whose business has fallen apart. And you know the difference between the two. [00:03:50] Personal connection with the agent. I was going to get personal connection with the agent and their client. [00:03:58] A little bit deeper than that. That is a tactical part. [00:04:01] But strategically, those whose businesses have not faltered, they've built their business on right principles that always drive in business. Those whose businesses have faltered are what I'm gonna call hacks at real estate. [00:04:19] They they just because the market was good, they were able to pick up business, but they really had no process in place, whether it's those personal contacts and relationships or whether it a strategic marketing plan. They just had nothing. They just kind of threw stuff out and it worked. But now that their shift has happened, or at least a shift in their business has fallen apart. So they had no foundation. They had no foundation. So I digress. But I want to bring it back to the comment of where I was going. And that is, if you do what all other agents do, your business is going to look like all other agents and all other agencies average. And if the definition of averages is the cream of the crop and the crap or the cream, I don't want to be there. If you want to if you want to have a above average business, you got to think outside of the box and do what others are not. So here's an idea. Thinking out of the box, it's this connection between you as a real estate agent and a financial adviser. And so let me share the story that this guy sharing. I thought it was brilliant. And then I want to use this to start to talk about the marketing topics, marketing concepts and understanding to really bring something like this together. [00:05:39] So Mike has a financial adviser. He's helped his clients buy investment property. So this is like duplexes, small apartments, retail stores and things of that sort. And so that's where he's used his his real estate license. And so he makes a commission off of the transaction. He also makes commission off of managing their assets. But he's kind of tapped out most of his clients on the things that he would honestly recommend for them. And he's looking to grow his business. He wants to grow his client base. So he had this brilliant idea. A lot of people have for one case, he wanted to market to people with one case, get them to convert it to a self directed irae. And then he could help advise them on their when they do that, he would become their financial adviser. So now he gets their assets and then he could advise them on investments that they can do to their self directed. Right. And if it's a real estate investment, he's going to be in the deal as well. So, first off, just make sure we're on the same page. Do you know what a self directed IRA is? [00:06:53] I believe that when you've got investments, you get to choose delegates, a percentage of the account or type of account that you put your your money into. [00:07:06] Very close. So it's a little bit different, but very close. So if you think about a faurot one K, you get to have some choice in what type of investments you do. Right. But someone else is managing the investment, meaning you buy a mutual fund or you buy or something like that in a self directed IRA. You get to manage the money yourself. So if you want to buy a piece of property or buy stock, you're actually directing it one hundred percent. And to a degree, you're managing it. There are some restrictions, but you're fully in charge of it. Okay. So it gives you much greater leeway on what you do. So brilliant note for professional real estate agent out there. This is a source of great money to then sell investment property. Okay, so this is the connection. So that's what he wanted to do. And then we started to talk about this and he said, I want to mail 10 or 15 thousand people and start generating more business. And so we started talking about it. I said, well, I'd probably I'd start something smaller than ten or fifteen thousand people. And he said, Why is that? He said, Because you don't really know what works. And he thought about that for a moment. I said, well, that's interesting. But I don't fully understand. He said, all you do is you put together a postcard and you put a call to action on it. I said, well, call the actions or know all that they're cracked up to be, say most agents. They hear these words. And the purpose of this call is, I want to get away from what you hear and you think, you know, to really helping you understand. Have you heard? Do you know what a call to a CPA or call to action is? Have you heard that term? [00:09:00] I've heard the term, but I honestly probably could not define it properly. [00:09:05] So let's define it because it's important. A CPA, as it's called, Call to Action, is simply a statement you make to call your prospect to action. Pick up the phone and call me thinking about selling your property. Call me now. That's a call to action. And what happens is most real estate agents, they pick up these terms, they see they see something. That's the secret. It's all about a call to action. And the people that are making money with their marketing because they have a call to action. I don't need to put a call to action there. And I was telling my ex said, call the actions are worthless unless you do it right. So now I caught him at this point that he's now ready to learn and understand what he has no clue in. [00:10:00] Now, remember the comment one of my friends was sharing? I went to a real estate training class that he did years back and he put up a slide for the realtors in the room. [00:10:11] And it basically said and he was talking about this is kind of how you approach when you're engaging a property owner to sell their property. The statement was, if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try hiring an amateur. And in marketing, that really applies because my mike was willing to go spend 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars his first year thinking all it was was a call to action and he would make money. So with that, let me get real this in and start talking a little bit about marketing. Does that work with you? [00:10:49] Yeah, absolutely. [00:10:52] So the first thing in marketing is you've got a test. And the reason why. Can you guess why you want to test? [00:11:03] You don't know what works. [00:11:04] That's right. That's right. Not everything works, okay, until you've tested it. You don't know if it works or not. [00:11:13] And so this is why a lot of times if we take postcards, for example, because this is a common thing, a lot of mail postcards and they don't work. No e-mail postcards. And what you put on the postcard did not work. Not the postcard postcard system. Delivery method. Oh, I did online advertising. It doesn't work. No online advertising works. What did you say? Okay, so the first step is you have to understand that marketing is two components. What you say and how you deliver what you say. A postcard. Pay per click and funnel sales funnel into ads that drive into that. All of that is just a delivery. It's the mechanics. But what you say is the most important, in essence, marketing, is salespeople. You've automated the sailing the selling process and you push it out in mass. And just like salespeople, one salesperson is going to get higher results than another salesperson, for one thing. Would you like to guess with that? [00:12:24] One thing is I'm scared to guess. [00:12:29] They say things differently. They say things differently. They know what to say and they know how to say it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So there's a lot behind what they say and how they say it. But ultimately it's what they say and how they say that causes a sale to happen or not. [00:12:48] And that's the same thing it is with your marketing. So the reason you want to test is not everything works. So you want to you want to test small. Okay. And then once you know something works, then you can scale it up with the delivery, the delivery. [00:13:06] I mean, I think about like when you said that, like, I went to buy a car, for instance, and I went to two different car lots and they both told me the same thing as one of them. The way they spoke, the message to me and gave me that information, their delivery was better and more convincing. Well, then I'm going to buy the car from them. [00:13:26] That's exactly right. If they're selling the same car, but you resonate with one person and the other person to finish you with what he says. There you go. It's what you say and how you say it. Okay. But then there's something else in there. So it's not just what you say and how you say it, what it is. But if you go if you dissect that a little bit further, is are you saying it in a positive format or negative format, meaning let's say if I wanted to focus on home sellers, I could say the same thing in a positive statement or a negative statement. The positive statement, if you're thinking about selling your home. Here are four things you can do that will get you a lot more money. I can make the same statement in a negative if you're thinking about selling your home. If you don't do these four things, you will lose a lot of money. [00:14:35] They're really the same things. It's just a matter of time. Does that make sense? [00:14:39] Yes. Yes, it does. [00:14:41] So here's one reason to test. If I come to you as a homeowner and I say if you're thinking about selling your home these four secrets. We'll get you 20 percent, more or less say that your three hundred thousand dollar home as much as 60 thousand dollars more for your home. Or I come to you and say, if you're thinking about selling your home, Veith, if you fail to do these four things, you will lose as much as 60 thousand dollars on your home. Are you going to respond the same way or do you think one generates a different response than the other? [00:15:25] I feel like one of those would be more convincing to me. [00:15:30] Okay, so for you. Which one would be more convincing? Which one would. If that's all you saw. And right now, we're just talking about the offer articulated as a headline. Okay. The positive offer or the negative offer? Which one motivates you more than the positive. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Interesting survey says when you survey we actually did this test. Okay. [00:15:56] We tested positive versus you're going to tell me that I don't fit in the box. Do I. [00:16:03] I'm not I haven't said anything yet. I'm just I'm just laying you up, okay. I'm just letting you off on this question. When we tested this, we tested thousands and thousands of postcards and what we call split a marketing test, which you take we would take a farm and we just randomize half the addresses would get a positive offer. Half the addresses would get a negative offer. And then we did that all across the country. And then we tabulated the results to see which offer positive or negative increased results and which ones decrease. [00:16:41] Would you like to guess what the offer? Produce more results. [00:16:49] Based on that, I'm going to go negative. [00:16:53] You don't have much confidence in yourself, any positive offer outperformed the negative, just like you said you would find it more positive. Okay. Now, here comes a big question. Okay. So positive Forfar outperforms negative. The question is by how much? What would you guess would be the difference? In other words, how much more likely are you to respond to that positive offer versus if it was a negative offer, just a little bit more or a lot more? [00:17:28] Yeah, it's really more like I feel like I would. Yeah. [00:17:33] And how much would you say would you think that would be for you? [00:17:38] Percentage wise, I would probably be 90 or more percent more likely to respond. [00:17:47] Okay, so here's the thing. Until you test it, you really don't know which way to go. And this is what I was telling Mike. He wants to spend a lot of money going after all of these strangers to try to get them to come to him. Give him all of their money and then invest in property. Okay. It makes a big impact if you spend forty thousand dollars in a year, whether you get if you've got one cell versus 400 cells, that would be a big impact difference. Okay, so what we found is the test and the homeowner market is eight hundred percent difference. In other words, we got eight times more people responding to the positive offer than the negative offer. But think about this. That's going to a homeowner. Now, if we're doing this for Mike and sharing this with Mike, I said someone with an investment. [00:18:47] Are they more interested in gaining money or or more interested in not losing money? We don't know. I know in business. More businesses are motivated by risk mitigation, which is not losing as opposed to opportunity to gain. So in a business environment, the negative offer would likely outperform positive offer. But in the homeowner market, the positive outperforms. So these are the things you have to test. Maybe it's another thing to test is the offer. Okay, so homeowners. [00:19:25] Is the offer these for seekers will get you more money? Or is the offer I can sell your home immediately. Or is the offer something different. Okay, so you test these different things, you start to figure out what it is that your market is going to be most likely to respond to. And then when you know what that is and you test it and you start to get results, then at that point you start to scale it up. [00:19:51] So that's why you test. That makes sense. Yes, it does. [00:19:55] And without testing, you really just don't. You're shooting in the dark. If you don't test, you're an amateur. [00:20:03] And that's a lot more expensive than hiring a professional. So then the second thing you want to do is, is how do you test? So it's easy to say let's test it. Next question is how? And this is what Mike was saying. How do you do it? And so what I was telling Mike is I said, look, you've got the budget to do 15000 homes. Then the best thing to do, because 15000 prospects for him said the best thing to do is let's maybe do a marketing test of 2000 people where we can do a thousand with one and a thousand with another and test two things. And he said, well, why do you want to test two things? I said, because if you test more than two, you don't know what's causing the difference. So think about this. If I if I test a if I test a positive offer. For secrets to make more money and I test a negative offer. The five biggest mistakes most people make when selling their home. I get different results. I don't know if it's the offer for secrets or mistakes or if it's the positive, make more money or the negative. Lose everything you have in your house and end up destitute so you can't test multiple variables at one time. You have to do a test. It has to be only one difference between the two so that if there is a change in results, you know, there is only one change in what you did and therefore you can tell which one produces more. Does that make sense or did I can you know, that makes perfect sense. [00:21:53] I mean, the more information that you're putting out there in order to test something, the harder it's going to be for you to come to conclusion. Like you said, which one was the actual one that worked or didn't work? [00:22:06] And so in the whole world of testing, you want to eliminate every opportunity for. An unknown variable to influence it. Let me give you a simple example of how this can be done wrong. So you have someone doing, let's say, geographic farming, for example. And they want to test two offers. So they test one offer to one farm and they test another offer to a different farm. And they get one offer, outperforms the other offer. Is that a valid test? Yes. Wait. Okay. All right. Different types of people live in each of those farms. Yes. Could it be that one type of person has an average income of 100000? The other type of farm has an average income of fifty thousand? Yes. Do you think that could make a difference in how they respond? Absolutely. Do you think if one neighborhood is black and the other neighborhood hood is white? Do you think that could make a difference? Yes. So what happens if you test one farm against another? By changing your offers, then you've mis unknowingly you've included another variable that you didn't know was there. And that is one farm is a different type of person than the other farm, potentially. So it could really skew your results. So if you wanted to. Good test. You want to either do one farm and randomize the addresses and then 10 one offer to one set of addresses, the other offer to the other set. [00:23:58] Or if you're going to do both farms you randomize each farm into individually and then you send it out. In other words, you have to eliminate every opportunity for another variable to accidently crop up. Then people ask, well, how do you how do you randomize? Really easy. This is the easiest part I found. The easiest way to randomize is if you've got first name, last name and address, sort by first name. [00:24:33] Totally randomise is everything. You take the first half of first names and you send them off for one in the second half of the first things and send them off or two. And now you have no variance in what is going on. So the first step is, is in testing, the best way to test is going to be the split test. We call it marketing A split a B test. Everything is totally the same except offer A versus offer B.. [00:25:05] This also means you have to have a simple way to track it. An easy way to track. Which one do you get the most phone calls from? Okay, you get that person's name and address and you look it up in your list and you figure out which offer they came from. Okay. [00:25:22] More sophisticated the way we track because we have more technology, as you know, we have a what we call stealth tracking technology. So we send into a Web site. And instantly when they go to the Web site, we're able to pinpoint the address that they responded to. So this is if we're doing a postcard that matches it back, if you're doing online advertising to do split marketing like PPC, paper, click type advertising, you can set all of those to do split tasks. You just have to have a little bit more difficult than just running an ad. You have to do a few things more. But they will actually alternate the ads for you, send them to a Web site. And there's code that you put on the Web site that goes back into, let's say, Google AdWords, and I'll let you know which offer is working better. So lots of ways to do it. There's another real simple way to testing. It's not as good as the split marketing test, but it's a lot less complicated to do that simply. This is why most people do it. They put a postcard or an ad together and they run it. [00:26:39] And if it gives good results and they just keep running, it doesn't get good results. They stop and say, well, that didn't work. So you can just do what I'll call it either worked or it didn't type of work. But if you can test it, test two different things, you'll find that one thing will always outperform. [00:26:56] The other thing I remember, this is real interesting. So one of the things that is important and testing is the offer. In fact, this is the most important thing. And they offer to see if I can clarify this for you and simplify it. It's the. What do you say that gets them to respond? Maybe this is an easy way to understand. Ghuneim Gary Helbert taught this to me not personally, but vicariously through his marketing training. And he was talking about the offer. Any expressed it this way. Imagine for a moment that your very best friend or your daughter, depending on how old you are and your very best friend is a woman and she's pregnant and she's really close to giving birth. [00:27:57] I mean, it's like any day now you're out shopping someplace. And this stranger comes up here in Birmingham. [00:28:11] You have the car, basically, you have the Americans and you have the car and the Mexicans. But basically the Spanish speaking Latinos, they come from south of the border. And there's a big group of Spanish speaking folks here. [00:28:30] So this stranger who doesn't speak any English, only speaks Spanish. He comes up to you and he points to his watch and he points way, a way somewhere else. And he puts this great big makes his ball over his tummy like a great big basketball. And he's pointing over in the direction of the hospital. What immediately comes to mind is. [00:28:55] His wife is about to have her Beatty. His wife. [00:29:00] Or maybe your best friend. My best friend. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay. So without saying any words, he's able to express an offer. Instantly. You know what it means. Instantly you have interest because it's important to you. Does that make sense? Okay, so that's the offer. Now, assume that the same person then says Penny, your best friend Suzy is in labor right now. The hospital get there immediately. Do you act faster if he's able to articulate it better? Yes. But it's the same offer said a different way. Okay, so you had the offer and you had the headline. The offer is what you're communicating. The headline is how you communicate it. So most important part is the offer. If we go back to Mike. With his prospects that he wants to target is the offer. I can get you a better return on your Faurot one K money. Or is the offer? How to protect your investment and your four one K. With a rock solid recession proof. Financial investment income stream. Do you see how those may be two different offers total? Because that was his whole approach. Hey, right now stock market is crazy. It's going nuts going down. People are losing money in there for one case. How do you protect that? How do you protect it in an investment that is recession proof? His ideas, you invest in multi-family housing. People are always going to pay their rent. And if they don't, they move out and someone's going to take their spot. So this is the that's the offer. And then the question is, how do you phrase it? So another guy was talking about how to write a headline. [00:31:05] And this is something that is important in your messaging. So in terms of what do you test, you're going to test the offer. So let's say if we go back to the fourth secrets, for example, for secrets, these four, if you're thinking about selling these secrets, we'll get you up to 18 percent more money on the sale of your home. So the offers for secrets that get you more money. [00:31:33] The headline, how you write the OP. Here's another way to write it. If you're planning to sell your home, these four secrets can get you as much as twenty eight thousand dollars more on your home. Or another way to write it. If you're planning to sell your home and normally sell for three hundred thousand dollars, these four secrets will get you as much as three hundred and thirty two thousand dollars for it. It's all the same offer expressed differently. Do you see how that works? [00:32:04] I sure do. [00:32:05] What do you want to do? You want to take that offer that you've tested. So when you're testing one offer against another, doesn't really matter how you write, you want to write it as well as you can. But generally, when you write out the copy for the offer. What I do is I'll write fifteen or 20 different ways of saying that same message. And then I'm going to analyze those and say which one articulates it better? It's just like that guy who comes up to you who can't speak English. [00:32:36] So he just kind of points that things and show you a sense of urgency vs. being able to better articulate it. So here's an idea. I want to just show you how this applies. Back in the 80s when we were having a major recession. Gold and silver were going through the roof financially. And so there was a company called Numismatic Company. They sell gold and silver as investment. [00:33:06] And they had relationships with some financial institutions that would actually loan investors up to two thirds of the purchase of gold and silver as an investment. [00:33:18] So they were running an ad in The Wall Street Journal and the ad said two thirds buying financing on gold and silver. And then they were making money, but then they hired a professional and that professional started testing different headlines because in your marketing, your headline is the most important part of your entire marketing piece, because if it doesn't grab their attention, they're not going to go any further. [00:33:48] Does that make sense? Yes. And also, by the way, in lead generation, because we started the most important thing in real estate is lead generation. Right. Lead generation is almost entirely headline based. The call to action only is effective once you grab their attention. Created interest and create an environment that they now want to respond. Then you give them a call to action. And that's where Mike was missing it. He'd heard this term call to action. Well, that's all it is. Those people making money have a call to action. Those people not making money. Don't need a call to action. No, there's a lot that goes before it. The call to action is the final stage. So this company hired a professional marketer. He tested different headlines and a headline that outperformed everything else, said this. Okay, first, let me give you the headline again. Two thirds financing on gold and silver. [00:34:48] The next headline that outperformed it by 20 times said this If gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce. Give us just one hundred dollars an ounce. We'll buy you all the gold you want. [00:35:03] Do you see the difference? So. [00:35:08] The differences. If your headline can more clearly articulate what the offer is, you grab a lot more interest. So this is when you start putting down what is my offer as a real estate agent? [00:35:24] Well, my offer what do I do? I sell a house. My offer is no different than anyone else. Well, then you're just going to be average. If you're offering, it is no different. You've got to come up with something that's different. You've got to think it through. [00:35:40] This is where you and I with our clients. We talk about what's called a USP, a unique selling proposition, which ultimately is a unique offer. Does that make sense to you? [00:35:52] You test the offer is most important. You figure out, okay, if I phrase this offer positively or negatively, which one is best, by the way? You don't have to do that test as a residential real estate agent. Positive always works best. So you don't have to do that. But then you have to test. Okay. How do I phrase that offer? Because phraseology determines how clear it is to the prospect, what the benefit of that offer is. Okay. What does that value to them? So two thirds financing on gold and silver that articulates very statically some sort of a value. But when I can say if gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce, give me just one hundred dollars. Now I'll buy you all the gold you want. Now, that creates an immediate understanding of the value. [00:36:47] Here's something else that's really interesting. What did those headlines is longer. [00:36:53] The second one. [00:36:56] I can't tell you how many real estate agents have told me. Oh, that's too much. That's too many words. [00:37:04] That's an amateur speaking right? Because that long headline was a lot more words, but more successfully convey the message. In fact, we actually tested this. Would you believe that? I tested short headline versus long headline. [00:37:22] You tested that? Yes. What were their results? [00:37:27] Long headline outperform, short headline if it better articulated the value. In fact, years back, we were doing some marketing for business opportunity companies. [00:37:40] Okay, so these are people trying to get people to respond on some sort of a business opportunity offer. And one of my clients came up with tired of living paycheck to paycheck. Question mark. And one more money question mark. OK, so one is negative, one is positive. [00:38:02] And that was a headline there, Mark. The marketing piece that they did wrote a copy underneath it. So he said, well, let's test that. Tired of living paycheck to paycheck versus are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? And we tested may make more money versus do you want to make more money? All we did is we added some words. And in both cases, those extra words increased results because they better articulated the full concept and therefore inferred the value of what we were doing. Does that does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So wordiness is bad, but clearly articulating the offer is good and it produces more results. [00:38:56] Here's something else you can test. This is real important. Using a photo. Now, in real estate, you always you're always using photos. But the question is, does your photo make an impact, your little stamp sized photo in the corner or full size photo? Maybe if you're doing farming, you do that played a test and you have to do it over period time. But maybe one set of postcards is going to have a full set of full sized photo of you. The other one's going to have a little thumb stamp size photo. Another thing may be family photo you and your family versus not. And here's what happens. A lot of agents say, well, I'm a professional real estate agent. I don't want to get my personal life involved. But here's what happens on the consumer side. The consumer says. I want to trust the person I do business with. Okay? And what we have done and we have been watching this, but we have not done a split test on this at this point. But we've been watching. And what we have found is when we send out postcards that have a personal photo. We tend to start to get more responses from that postcard than others. When I say personal photo, I'm talking about a family photo. [00:40:26] So think about this. You're a homeowner. You're getting postcard mailing from this real estate agent. And they're all very professional. I sold this house. I knew house listed, and it's all about their business. You know nothing about the person. But then you get a postcard and you see their family. See that real estate agent has some little kids. Five, six, eight years old. [00:40:50] They go to the local school. All of a sudden, now that real estate agent becomes a real person, not just a professional does that. And sometimes that real person is all it takes to kind of break through the ice and say, I want to call this person. I can trust. In fact, I was talking to one of our clients out in California. He got a phone call from this agent offering this homeowner who wanted to sell her house. And she said, I'm thinking about selling. I got your postcard a couple of months ago with your family. And I immediately thought, oh, that's a great, sweet family. I can trust this person. Now. Yes, it makes you relatable. Okay, so these are the things that you want to be testing. Okay. So back to the whole idea is how do you do marketing, right. Well, you got to test. Because not everything works. You can't just say, well, I tried pay per click advertising, it doesn't work. I tried postcard mailings and it doesn't work. You got to test it and say what does work? Because it's not the medium, it's the message. And when you test the message is first going to be your offer. [00:42:07] It's going to be obviously in this case is always going to be a positive offer in Mike's case, where we're dealing with investments. We don't know if his positive or negative. So we have to test that. Then once you find the offer, then you test different headlines. Two thirds buying financing on gold and silver versus gold is selling for three hundred dollars an ounce. Give us just one hundred dollars an ounce. We'll buy all the gold you want. Figure out a way to articulate your offer so clearly that it drives more of those prospects into you. And then test things like making it really personal. Put your family photo there. Show picture of you on you doing your normal stuff outside of outside of being a real estate. I remember this kind of inside, but long lines here in town. There is a federal judge named Dave and most people know him as judge. Okay, I won't use his last name, but he's been on the federal bench now for many years. And he's very good. And he wields a lot of power as a federal judge. People come before him and they respect him. [00:43:25] Judge So-and-so, may I have a moment of your time, please? I know him as Dave. He was in our Sunday school class. His kids were friends with our kids. And we grew up around the corner from each other. [00:43:40] And he's just Dave. Okay, so there's two sides to judge, Dave, the professional size side and the personal side. But, you know, on the personal side, I have no problem calling to say I have a friend that's going through some legal challenges. I was wondering if you could just kind of give me some guidance on how this how the process works. And I would never call up a federal judge just out of the blue and do that, I'd be intimidated. Dave is just a friend. And I think as one of the things the test is, do they want to deal with someone who strictly in only a very professional age or do they want to deal with something that they can trust as a friend? These are the things you test. And once you do that, then what happens is a positive versus negative eight hundred percent increase, one offer versus another might be another 10 percent. Another 10 times increase or three times increase. How you write the offer may increase it by another 50 percent. So when you start adding all these things out through your testing, then you have a really well honed system that consistently works. And as we talked about earlier, some of our real estate agents. Their business hasn't missed a beat. And others right now, their business has crumbled. And the difference is one was based on solid principles that the strategy of how to grow business. And the other was a hack. If you simply throw things out there and see if it works, that's a hack. This is helping. [00:45:16] Sure. And I was thinking, too, like on the positive and the negative side. For me personally, for a homeowner, I feel like if I get a message that's more on the negative side, let's say it's, say, a real estate agent that's trying to promote themselves to be a postcard. I feel like it almost gimmicky, if I can even use that word. Positive messages, a lot more appealing to me. And it doesn't feel as much of a gimmick. And I'm sure it's not either way. But there's something about that mental connection with that negative approach that makes it feel like it's a gimmick. [00:45:54] That's that's absolutely true in marketing and copywriting marketing. There is a term, I think they call him Saper words or power words. And what they have found is in different rooms, whether it's a consumer product, a pain relief product, financial product, that they're key words that resonate and drive people to a more sense of urgent action, revolutionary new scientific clinical studies, different things. And so within the realm, even in real estate, you'll find that the word choice you use is going to resonate with the type of response you get. That's part of what you're talking about with a negative versus positive. The response of the negative offer is generating a gimmickry approach. But you can even do a positive offer and it comes across the key word selections that kind of take those emotions. So all of this is fine tuning. It works. And once you find what works. I've got a friend. We put out a podcast recently by a guy named Stuart Sutton. And what was interesting is every time the market tanked, for most people, his business always grew. Every time the reason is he understands marketing. And he has written his own marketing content very specifically with his words, selection is very specific because he's determined what words resonate best and generate the best results. And his postcards and his marketing pieces and his Web sites and stuff look to be immaturely done. But they produce amazing results. So there's a whole science behind there. I hope this is helping our listeners to figure out to take your business to the next level and to protect yourself in downturns like what we've just come through and probably still are in this Crono via stuff. How do you do it? And this is the first step in doing it. [00:48:20] While this has been so great, Beatty, I do think that this has been super beneficial for our listeners and just really, like you said, maximizing their potential to capitalize on business growth and income growth during this time and not missing. I just keep seeing this as an opportunity for them to miss out on what they think could be downfall, but could actually be the opposite, can be a way for them to increase their business. [00:48:49] Yes, exactly. And can I put a plug in? I know I can't because I'm your boss and I control this fire. Right. All right. [00:48:59] The plug unashamedly is marketing is a science, and you can't just be an amateur and do it effectively. So if we have some listeners out there that want to really do something special in marketing in their business, check us out. You can go to Agent Dominator dot com and we will do geographic farming for residential agents. We have another service that is more advanced because we do a different have a different approach market and that's for past clients and sphere of influence. We actually guarantee some tremendous results in marketing to your past clients or sphere of influence, or we'll give your money back if you are in the commercial sector investment property. Okay. So that's going to be multi-family, small retail. Then we also do Legian ratio for generating listings. And we guarantee that result there. And if you're in property management and looking for more doors under management and primarily in the single family home and small multi-family, we do specialty work there as well. So love to serve you guys. Also, if you liked this podcast and you have not subscribe to our podcast channel, please do so. If you listen to your podcasts on your mobile phone, then chances are you have some sort of podcast service, like an Apple podcast or stitcher or something. Then just go in and look up. Get cellar's calling you and just subscribe to it. If you don't do that, you can go to YouTube and just go to our video and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I don't think it's called Get Cellar's calling you the YouTube channels, but not you. Just look up, get cellar's calling you on YouTube and subscribe there. Then that way you never miss an episode. [00:51:07] That's right. All the great ways to stay in touch. Thank you so much for putting your time and effort into this call today. I think we're about out of time for this podcast call. And I do wish all of our listeners tremendous success, Beatty and I both. And that if we can help you in any way, please reach out. And we wish you all a great day and we'll be catching up soon on the next one. [00:51:30] Great. You'll be blessed. Thank you. P065 [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Graham sat down next to his dad on the couch and sighed. "Is something bothering you?" Dad asked. "I had a bad day at school today," Graham replied quietly. "I'm sorry," said Dad. "Want to tell me about it?" "Well, on the way to school, a boy on the bus threw a wad of gum, and it got stuck in my hair," said Graham. "Our principle had to use an ice cube to unstick it!" "And I suppose that made you late for class," Dad said. Graham nodded. "Yeah, so before going to lunch, I had to finish the work I missed by coming in late and didn't get to the cafeteria in time to eat with my friends. So I sat at a table alone." "I'm sorry to hear that," Dad said. Graham shrugged. "After school, I just wanted to get home, so I grabbed my stuff and went out to the bus. But when I got home, I realized I left a homework assignment that's due tomorrow in my locker. Now I'll probably be marked down for turning it in late." Graham frowned. "It was an awful day." "Want to know what I do when I have a bad day?" Dad asked. Graham turned to his dad. "Tell Mom about it?" "Yes, that's one of the things I do, and it helps," Dad said. "Didn't sharing your day with me make you feel a little better?" "A little, but what else do you do?" Graham asked. "I also share my problems with someone else--I share them with Jesus," replied Dad. "He knows what it's like to have a bad day--He experienced the worst day of all when He suffered and died for our sins. But He was willing to do that so we could one day be free of bad days once and for all and live with Him forever. I always feel better when I talk to Him and am reminded of that." Dad smiled at Graham. "You can talk with Him too. He loves you and cares about what you're going through. Wouldn't you like to tell Him all the things that happened to you today?" Graham nodded. "I better start now--I have a lot to tell Him!" VERONICA R. GUERRIERO How About You? When you're having a bad day, do you talk to someone about it? It often helps to share your problems with a parent or a friend. Jesus wants to hear about what's bothering you too. You can talk to Him anytime, and He'll listen and help you with your problems. He won't always make them go away, but He'll remind you how much He loves you and help you know how to handle them. Today's Key Verse: IN THE DAY OF MY TROUBLE I WILL CALL UPON YOU, FOR YOU WILL ANSWER ME. (NKJV) (PSALM 86:7) Today's Key Thought: Talk to Jesus about problems

No Will, Moral Absolutism Is Not the Problem—We Could Easily Agree Without the Meddling of the Corporative Narrative Managers Howell Underground on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_ALrQNOIs04v_7y6yTAY6g/videos #Radicalism #Progressivism #FaceBookGroups Moral Absolutism Broke America https://democracyguardian.com/moral-absolutism-broke-america-6b5d92de10e9 New FB Protest Group--Burn the DNC! The Struggle Continues (Revenge of the Grassroots Operatives) https://www.facebook.com/groups/696476164443678/ USA Today Poll: 15% of Sanders supporters will vote for Trump if Biden is nominee; 80% would back Biden https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/03/29/bernie-sanders-supporters-vote-trump-over-biden-poll/2936124001/ There Can Be No Viable Progressive Movement Without Labor Strikes . . . https://medium.com/@allenkithowell/there-can-be-no-viable-progressive-movement-without-labor-strikes-fff299c4bee5 Vote for Bernie in the Primaries https://voteforbernie.org/ Howell Underground FaceBook Page https://www.facebook.com/Howell-Underground-103101477733312/ Revolt Against Plutocracy donation to help spread the word. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bernieorbust2020 Buy the Book! http://bernieorbust.info Contact me directly: https://www.facebook.com/allen.kit.howell https://twitter.com/HwlUnderground --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/allen-c-howell/support

I distracted myself by finding hit songs that were not song by the usual lead singers of groups. Now I'll distract you.

The idea is to improvise on the piano, and AFTERWARDS use the improvisation as a sketch for a composition. I think maybe transcribing it for a chamber ensemble, maybe a wind quintet... Next step is to try to make some kind of score.... I use noteflight.com I have been trying to compose directly in this app, but it becomes flat and lifeless. Now I'll try the other way around. Something with LIFE (ie. this improvisation), but without a distinct articulation, embryonic... The voice in the beginning of the recording is my wife's, who is wondering why I left the window in the bathroom open. And the rhythmic clicking sounds are from my dog, who entered the room at the same time, but without questions regarding the bathroom window. He simply smiled at me. Happy. I looked at his face, and I guess, the character of the improvisation in the beginning is owed to this spontaneous lightheartedness of my dog.... By the way, since my dog is present during the improvisation, I considered it appropriate to publish it on my podcast. I haven't been doing my MAN-DOG-EARTH walks for a long while. Maybe it has mutated into explorations on the piano....

Now I'll show you... our new episode! We gotta sort fast, so follow me, as well as our guest, Bryan as we sort Sonic the Hedgehog.Check out Bryan: http://twitter.com/BryanPWallisFind us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SortedPod and tell us if you agree or disagree with our choices!You can also find us individually on Twitter and elsewhere:JD - http://twitter.com/CodenameJDAlex - http://twitter.com/PtchewAnd check out the Pocket Podcast Network: http://www.pocketpodcastnetwork.com/

Join David, Will, Executive Producer Andy and Producer Lucy in the breaky studios for a post-show team debrief and behind-the-scenes look into the FIVEaa Breakfast program. Email us with your comments and questions at brunch@fiveaa.com.au No Will on the Brunch today so it's Dave, Lucy and Michaela talking about things we can think of that arent corona (hint: it's difficult). Hope this cheers up everyone's spirits! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

THE ORPHAN PART 1 TIDALWAVES Silent sound don't mean much to me Silent sound brings out the worst in me I wonder should I lock my door And hide away in my hideaway? Violence found don't mean much to me Violence found beings out the worst in me I wonder should I lock my door And hide away in my hideaway? Hideaways mean a lot to me Tidalwaves bring out the best in me I wonder should I lock my door And hide away in my hideaways? In my hideaway Tidalwaves Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass and production CJ - drums BRING THE MALL Bring the mall and crash it to it's knees Grow a dozen spineless wheezing trees Circumstance confronted for a buck Scream and rant and yell "what the fuck" Fourteen in a bottle raze it to the ground Laugh at evil sell it rich to keep you down Boil it up frustration with its sauce Arguments excelsior with the boss Trade a name and number and a look Fish a corpse out of the country brook Fourteen in a bottle raze it to the ground Laugh at evil sell it rich to keep you down Maybe, man, the world don't make no sense So a song reflects a vision that's all pretense In the meeting of the matter of a trillion minds That together all together go collectively blind In the bedrock formed a condo bath In a motion that gives man's epitaph To a surly motherfucker in construction boots With a fortune in his pocket from laundry chutes So gather 'round the stage to see Employment congregations in a word to be Exploited in a question of monopoly That never gives an answer of what's to be For a moment just a moment in a fashion craze And a trillion motherfuckers living in a daze Of a colony that's bitterest of them all In a sentence of an essence, man, bring the mall Bring the mall Dave - guitar and vocals APOCALYPSE TOMORROW Exploding erupting orgasmic and more See through the ceiling and punch through the floor Huff like a big bad wolf and kick down that door Blue like horizons on the oceanless shores Come on Blue is the color inevitably The blues is the core and the Earth is the sea Unkind unkempt ungainly Blue is the color the masses see Blue like the glass hewn desert Blue like the drugs of comfort Blue like the song of the used and oppressed Blue like the mood of the sad and depressed Apocalypse Tomorrow Do you have an armageddon I can borrow The waters rise and suffocate The air hangs burning concentrate Do you have an armageddon I can borrow Apocalypse tomorrow Come On! Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass and production Pork - drums SUICIDE NOTE My lips taste the gun and it tastes just like salvation Cold steel on my tongue and it's dogging my salivation Powder residue and an exit wound will be redemption Hemmingway, Cobain, and Hunter S the congregation I'm throwing in the towel, man, I can no longer fight Too many goddamned hardass days too many sleepless nights Just another suicide will be one in a million It doesn't matter anyway to the rotting vast cotillion chorus I'm writing this all down but no one will ever read it As soon as I'm all done I'm gonna motherfucking burn it That way it's a gift to all like Jimi's burning Strat Or maybe it's a gift to none I guess it could be that I'm sobbing uncontrollably scared shitless of this ending Just one twitch and soon enough there'll be no more pretending I can't stop the flow of life remembering through my soul Goddamn, make it stop, one twitch, oh shit I lost control chorus Click, combustion, bullet in the head Yes it is salvation time Suicide is no joke. If you're feeling like shit call the suicide prevention hotline 1-800-273-8255. Hang in there. Dave Dave Linantud - guitar and vocals Brian Lutz - bass, engineering, mixing C.J. Johnson - drums Ian Burke - mastering Recorded and mixed at Possum Studios FEVER DREAM Listen up gather 'round there's a new thing to be found All around everything you -n- me Have a care bout the things everyone get up and sing Bout the way you and me can be free I want a super new computer But no one can ever use her And the only one who knows her is me And if somebody tried to get her They couldn't even find her And the only one who knew her would be me Here's a joke or a screed to all the people now in need Find the truth if you want to be free Give a look or a wink don't care what anybody thinks If you blink then you will miss it to be free And if you think of even lying There's no point in even trying Cause then there ain't no meaning you see? And if that ship just sails away Just take the next ship the next day And say "I didn't think that last ship wanted me" Here's a look for the night when every other thing was right And the only thing that matters here is you Find a hope and a dream if you don't know what it means Well the only one who needs to know is you Come on Take a breath or a day play it every other way If you can't get back to zero then it's right On the beach in the sun in the mountains on the run Find the way to the day to fool the night Fever Dream Dave: guitar and vocals Brian: bass, engineering, mixing Ochster: drums and percussion Ian: mastering, mixing I GOTTA LEAVE The song was wrong all along ain't wrong It's gone just gone away The dream it seems it means to be Free and gone away The song was long the throng is gone Long gone with ease The crowd was loud but now out loud Announce to all I gotta leave Where is the sun to guide us through the dark? Has it begun to even touch the mark? How can it be when ours is just to question why? Where do you go when you never want to die? When the clock becomes the enemy and night time gets so cold Last call for something more than simply growing old How can Iive without that ragged company? It ain't for free Cause I gotta leave yeah yeah yeah I gotta leave 'Cause it ain't for free no no no Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass and production Andy - drums and percussion WHY Why me why you why try try to Why not why not you Why should I try to Why am I so blue Why can't I see through Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass, production, vocals Andy - drums and percussion THE DRIVER SAYS IT'S OVER, YES "I need to sleep" 's what she said Out loud to none when she bled Emotional projects of despair Wondrously woven through her silk hair Flowing freely like a winter sun That's setting 'fore its work is done It never settles in a sky That's wounded enough to try Conversely the arguments fly Evenly like sandless beaches Grasping at a butterfly that's Floating just outside of reachless Hands that grasp at everything To be or was or so it seems To blast off into evening streams Of sunlight shadow dusty seams Of reason Of treason Of poison Beholden Of superstitious portions of a Brew that's boiling patiently The driver says it's over, yes It's over Transparent transparency Trans piracy Piracy unbroken dreams Cascading falls of brawling emotions Pirated away Spirited away A way difference scorned Crisis crises Spices sailed from foreign lands landing Unhanded Mishandled 'Til the nothingness surrounds astounding Fractured like a broken heart Punctured but still beating Still beating Over and over Yes it's over and over "I need to sleep" 's what she said The moon lurked softly by and by Around the mourning of a sparrow Whistling Neil Young's "Broken Arrow" Harvesting a crop of memories That motion t'wards the center Of a universe that hangs a sign The sign reads "do not enter" The driver says it's over, yes It's over Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass and production Andy - drums I WAS BORN I was born in the night Sacrificed to the roving blight I'd welcome death if she'd only suck my breath My only pedigree Is this faceless madding sea Bodies surround me but not one can see me Isolation here for no one and not me My only lifelong quest is to have a painless death I only want to see Where do you run to when you ain't got no home Safely chewed off society's bone A young priest took me in She was bathed in earthly sin I have a pistol but I can't I can't read She gave me love unconditionally She kicked me in the teeth Turned my gun on me I only want to see Why she loves me *coproduced by Ian Burke Dave - guitars and singing Brian - bass, production and engineering CJ - drums Ian - production, mixing, mastering RUN THE FUCK AWAY You're a memory Far as I can see Priestly evil deeds to me Free as lusting chance Bathed in decadance Got it in my pants My pants I'm leaving here today Leaving anyway Gonna live today Today Run the fuck away Got an itch for a more evil dare I'm gone like a song in the air I'm gone like a song in the air I spent my young life running away The more I ran the more I stayed Motion is home to the restless And mad I'm gonna muse my dream Lead me where it leads Lead the voiceless away Leave me the fuck alone Leave me just the motherfuck alone Leave me the fuck alone Alone Pleased to be remembering me well Dave - vocals and guitar Brian - bass, engineering, mixing CJ - drums Ian - mastering FUCK THE HERD Break your back break your face Fall asleep miss the race Scared to be anything Scaredy scared of everything Go People suck people lie Just complain all the time Whine all day fall in line Just fit in it's lemming time So fuck the herd Fuck 'em Cattle sheep chew your cud Stupid and dumb as mud You don't care if it's true Or a lie so fuck you And fuck the herd Fuck 'em Dave - guitar and vocal Brian - bass, engineering, mixing C.J. Johnson - drums Ian Burke - mastering ALL FALL DOWN They tell you to walk before you run But me I want to fly Shake off that misanthropy And try and touch the sky A sky that's cold as winter icicles in May A rage that never really goes away Spend all your spare time looking back 'Cause memories never fade Everything I've seen just seems To be a grand charade Of faceless voices claiming to be the status quo But never let them show you where to go They tell you to think before you leap Lives they just fall down All these wasted people They just burrow in the ground That's hard as screaming arctic glaciers late in June Just another word for a cocoon And so I sit back and think a while Wondering what it's for This grand scheme that builds some dreams And thrashes others on the floor That's crowded by a billion entities and some Who never even heard the starting gun Dave - guitar and vocal Brian- bass, mix, engineer C.J. Johnson - drums Ian Burke - mastering HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT Life is useless so is love Blood is nothing done is done Take me backwards over there Once a lifetime never fair NO Will it ever end I wish it could Where's they sting like it should Life done broke me all fucked up Nothing's happening nothing's up Didn't ask to be here so Let's drop the curtain it's time to go see it said See where you're at How do you like that If I were Shakespeare I'd write a song Of romantic longings and soliloquies sung Death and carnage would not despair The choices made would cloud the air But I ain't Shakespeare I ain't a man I've taken it all I've bitten the hand I've stared at the abstract claiming it's truth I punctured the priest in the confessional booth Didn't care more yesterday How can it seem to be that way when you're dead So where you at How do you like that Dave - guitar and vocals Brian- bass and production Wil - drums HOMELESS I will work for food Often misconstrued Please don't think me rude Baseless, strained or crude Inside out they come I'm the chosen one Sleep with Jesus' son Be the lonely one I will do anything I'm the homeless one Terrorized for fun I'm the chosen one Lest we come undone I will do anything Let me have some food Please give me some food Can I have some food May I have some food Dave - guitars and vocals Brian - bass, engineering, mixing C.J. Johnson - drums Ian Burke - mastering

Remember that one game that despite how terrible it looked was one of your all time favs? How bout those games as beautiful as can be, yet somehow flaming trash heaps in gameplay. This episode we give our personal picks for best of the worst, and the worst of the best. Episode Transcription: The below is a machine based transcription of this episode. Sorta like Skynet if it was 2 years old, and wanted a cookie. Take it with a grain of salt. Jake 0:01 Episode 10 the good, the bad, and the ugly Today onWulff 0:07 peskiGP 0:28 Hello and welcome everyone to press B to cancel. My name is Guy friend. And with me today we have our usual days of rapscallions to my left is where we'll say hello werewolf. Hello werewolfGP 0:44 aptGP 0:47 also with me today sick JakeJake 0:49 here buddy glad to be hereGP 0:52 and of course, Polish 109Palsh 0:56 Whatever happened to polish runaway nevermindWulff 1:00 Yeah, we had to let him go.Palsh 1:03 Yeah, aGP 1:05 lot of turnover in the police departments, there can be only one. There can be only at pulse post is the equivalent title to Highlander if you're Canadian.Jake 1:16 Alright, so that's a worldwide sensation. I'm sorry, everybody in every country loves Highlander.GP 1:22 That's true. That's true. Okay. Alright, so today, we're going to be discussing kind of a variety. It's a little bit of a different show tonight. Typically, we just take one game or one series, and we discuss our experiences, our likes or dislikes. Tonight, we're going a little bit different. The title of the episode tentatively was called the good, the bad and the ugly. If you don't know what fugly means, have one of your ugly friends explain it to you. So essentially, the idea of this episode is that we can all acknowledge the great Games, they look good, they play good, the sound is great. And we can all acknowledge the crap games, they look horrible. They sound horrible. There are no redeeming qualities. So tonight we're discussing the ones the games in between games that either look gorgeous, but are otherwise devoid of anything meaningful. We will call those Travolta's or the ugly games that have a lot of heart. We're going to call those quasi motos. Okay, so those are the two categories today. I'm going to start us off and then we'll discuss and you know, go around the table as we always do, but we're going to start off with the ugly but great or quasi modo category. And I tell you what, guys, let's just go through different video game systems. We'll start with the eight minute video games. For me it's any s, which is going to be Bionic Commando. Okay, so I love this game. I played it on stream recently, and I'm always reminded about how much I love it but truly Fully the color palette is obnoxious. There's not the greatest animations between your character or the bad guys that you're trying to kill. And it's repetitive as hell. So that's kind of the idea here. Let's talk about Bionic Commando. And if you guys agree, let me know if you disagree. Let's have that conversation. werewolf. What do you think?Wulff 3:20 You know, I've actually not played a lot of Bionic Commando. I think the last time I played it was, gosh, I was seven years old. So almost 30 years ago. Good grief. So I can't say much to it. But I can say that from what I've seen people play on Twitter recently. It's not a pretty game. But I do see a lot of people playing it on Twitter recently. So that must be some somewhat test some testament to its quality.GP 3:51 Sure, yeah. Okay, so it's a popular enough game. It's not always the best to look. So if you're going to watch Bionic CommandoUnknown Speaker 4:00 A beer to firstGP 4:02 beer or do you first gotJake 4:04 Yep. enhancerGP 4:07 Okay, sick Jake. Paul What do you guys think about Bionic Commando?Palsh 4:12 We go I'm sick regoing sick Paul shirt Jake 109 Who's going first?Unknown Speaker 4:18 we merge together we are oneGP 4:21 yeah give us that sexy fusion voice yeahWulff 4:23 that trunks fusion voiceGP 4:31 Alright, so I guess we'll go with Jake first.Jake 4:34 What do you think about Bionic Commando supplying commando? I played this quite a bit as a kid. I'm just trying to struggle how much variety was there in the enemy'sGP 4:45 will as far as the enemy sprite goes? All of your entry level guys are pretty much the same. They were maybe one or two like older throwers or you know rocket launcher guys, but otherwise Yeah, all the same.Jake 4:56 Yeah, like none of them stand out to me. In hindsight when I kind of Going back to that game, I don't remember anything notable graphic wise, I remember that. I remember the back color palette like you mentioned, for sure. It's poor choice. They're all they really remember but graphics is the main character. As a kid, I thought he's got a doc rip off with that weird mechanical arm. That's all I got from the game graphic wise. Nothing memorable at all. I didn't care for Gameplay wise, it was actually quite fun. I mean, mechanics were solid.GP 5:27 Right? Yeah. And I think that's exactly right. I think the biggest mechanic or the biggest saving grace of this game would be the mechanics, no jumping, just extendo arm. And also I to me, I love the sound. This is for me one of the rare games where the not just the soundtrack. But the the, the noises of the game. Were so perfect. And for me they invoke such a strong nostalgia, but I mean yeah, that's I think that's exactly kind of the heart of what the category is. So post, what do you think about commandoPalsh 6:01 I, it's pretty much the same as Jake is like, I don't remember a lot. But the things I do remember that kind of stuck in my brain like I remember not being able to jump and always wanting to swing like Spider Man basically, ever since now I was like, Yeah, I want to do this I remember playing the game and I think this is so cool. But I never thought it was amazingly good luck and I just thought that was the coolest idea. So I think sure yet looks was no, but you know, gameplay was I thought it was fun. So I agree with you.GP 6:36 It's got that heart that addictive quality that after you leave the game, like if you haven't beaten it, you know you're wanting to go back and continue or you know, just pick up where you left off. Yeah. Now I'll say this. I don't have this for every category, but the eight bit ugly but great category. I have an alternate or an honorable mention. And I'll say this real quick, Final Fantasy the riginal a bit Final Fantasy not a pretty game, but damn it was amazing. I no no no you guys know I love Final Fantasy. And it was great for what it was and what it sparked. But going back it is it is dated.Wulff 7:16 Yeah those those tiny backgrounds and battle with just four characters in a box and a little background and then the rest of its blackGP 7:27 it's it's a sexy older sister, I guess technically the sexy younger sister of Oregon Trail,Jake 7:34 which,Wulff 7:35 I mean, the game was based on d&d, so it was leaps and bounds from pen and paper numbers, but they still hadn't found their visual groove yet by any means.Jake 7:51 Of course, but the enemy sprites and the boss sprites that game were extremely detailed and there's a lot of variety and the monsters you face because I thought about This game is well for my list. I didn't do it because of the variety of monsters on the graphics, the sprites.GP 8:05 Yeah. Okay. See, I could definitely concede to that. But you know, to the point of it was inspired by or trying to invoke d&d as a great point because d&d requires a lot of good imagination to fill in the gaps visually and I think that is the point to Final Fantasy that I'm trying to make is there's some cool ideas there. But with the limited motion and animation you really have to use your you know, theater of the mind as it were to to fill in those those gaps.Palsh 8:37 That's pixel or a nutshell for me, so I agree. But you can get some effing cool pixel art that said, Okay,GP 8:45 I don't know No, no, that's good. Actually polish. Let's go to your what's your quasi modo game, the uglyPalsh 8:52 but great game, this one stuck out to me and just because it I was felt like it looked like an entire game to me. Kind of That meant that made it with an any s game and it still had kind of elements of mostly Atari boys blob, because the graphics were really great. But the whole premise this game was hard, I still won't touch it because I'm just I don't have the fear of failure. But the fact that you could, you know, give them like 40 different jellybeans and have all these different things like you could turn your blog into a trampoline or a ladder or a friggin rocket you know, it's it's really cool but the graphics didn't keep up but I thought considering how ugly it was it still was pretty fun. And so that's that's just what stuck out for me.GP 9:44 Yeah, I I own a boy and his blog and I have started a boy this blob but I think the graphics and I hate to say it this way because it makes me sound so shallow. But I think the graphics is prevented me from really getting into it. So I think that It's a bit of a home run for choice there. But I can't speak to the greatness of the game just to the just to the ugliness as far as the sprite quality. And you know the image quality in general. Yeah, everything isWulff 10:15 the design choices as far as the characters, they're very ugly. Yeah, there's not a lot of detail. However, they're really smoothly animated for how ugly they are, which I always found kind of odd.Palsh 10:28 Yeah, and I think that's part of it, too, because they ended up it was so simplistic. I think they ended up getting a little bit more leeway when it came to animating them.Wulff 10:37 Yeah, but yeah, that that game is definitely a favorite of mine. I had that growing up. I don't know what happened to my copy. I don't remember getting rid of it. But I don't know if it got lost in a movie or I did eventually trade it in or something. That is a game I put far too many hours into as a child. Oh my goodness. Like, I can probably still remember What most of the jelly beans do. That's how much I played it. Catch up a catch a pole.Palsh 11:07 Yes.Wulff 11:09 That is licorice ladder root beer rocket.GP 11:13 I had a root beer rocket oneJake 11:17 I think I agree with GP on the terms of the graphics is what probably turned me off in the game as well. I didn't really finish it. I spent I made it to the offworld section and that was interesting. But you spend majority of your time on the ground and there's such a limited palette of colors down there. It's all brown and black. I found it extremely dull.Wulff 11:36 Yeah, they're their color choices definitely reflected what they went back to in the early 2000s just with less bloom. Right? Yeah.GP 11:44 Well, Jake, what What game do you have for us? Ugly but lovable for the eight bit?Jake 11:52 I mean, I mean, some guys know me. If I'm not complaining about a game on I don't like it. And they'll go on game I complain about all the time is our type for the master system this game is brutally hard for me. It took me forever to beat it and I had to use a continue code to do it. It's great The gameplay is classic to me the bosses are awesome. There's also mechanic where if you don't be the boss is fast enough to take away from you. There's you know, upgrades. It's a great game, poured it on literally everything. But the matches is the one is the one I played the most. But the thing that makes it ugly is there slow down constantly, there's flickering every other level. There's one level I want to say it's the third one where the background is this organic, pulsing like red color. But that's fine, but the enemy shots are also red. So because of the poor choice and colors of the background, the enemy bullets, you can't see where the bullets are half the time in addition to all the flickering. So like the graphics are just terrible, terrible. I've seen this game in arcades and it looks 10 times better. It's a shame because it's a fantastic game gameplay. It's plays well for me in any system. I know of the Master System and I love it there but the graphics on that system just can't keep up.GP 13:06 Gotcha. Okay, so I hear you saying that you've only beaten it with the continue code. So what you mean is you've never beaten it. Little bit of shady games each otherGP 13:30 sick burger.GP 13:33 Wolf, what do you got for us for ugly URL now? I'm sorry. Let's not do that yet. A portion where what do you guys think about our day?Wulff 13:40 Um, I've never been a fan of shoot 'em ups and bullet hills. So our type was one I didn't really get into. TheyPalsh 13:49 kind of blend together for me. Not that I'm saying it was a bad game or anything, but I can't tell the difference between archetype and Gradius. And anybody who's a shoot 'em up fan right? I was probably wanting to strangle me so I apologize but either way, honestly, you're not wrong. There are very few shooters that pull me in.GP 14:09 Yeah, I'm with you. I think the only one that really stood out for me was like life force. And that's that's really the only one I paid attention to. I'm kinda like you guys with that so I will have to take sick Jake's word on this one. Yeah, but I believe especially I mean, yeah, I've never heard of anything like that where the bullets are the same color as the background. Obviously that is a horrible designWulff 14:35 that's that's a controllers are are right there.GP 14:38 Yeah.Palsh 14:39 It ends up being any s heard.Jake 14:42 It belongs in any as hard but different system.Palsh 14:44 Yeah. Gotcha. Master Cisco. doesn't have the same ring to it.GP 14:49 doesn't roll off the tongue as much. Yeah.Wulff 14:53 Alright, so what do you got for us on your quasi game, the game that everybody is familiar with. The Ninja for Master System but this game, the gameplay is an absolute blast. You're running around you're throwing jerkins at people you get upgrades to your stuff like movement upgrades, weapon upgrades, special attacks, all sorts of crap the enemies there's all sorts of enemy types they have different a eyes the levels get mixed up summer like a lot of them are just you know, go from the bottom scroll upward. Occasionally it's like scroll from right to left but they've got like the river level where you're trying to move from log to log and kill enemies before they get you stuff like that. They did a lot of creative things with the game, but boy did it not look good at all. There were a lot of sprites and they were a lot of ugly pixels. That the colors like they use really bright colors, their eye catching colors. But there's so much of one color that covers the screen at a time that it just it fries your eyeballs a little bit. That that bright neon green grass.Palsh 16:11 Yeah, everything looks green afterwards. It's like you're wearing you must be wearing like some like tinted sunglasses afterwardsWulff 16:19 Yeah, there's there's almost there's really very little detail on any of the locations in the game. You got to use your imagination a lot. But that game is so much fun. And it's it's a hard one. So it's one of those ones that's like punishing and you want to go back.Palsh 16:38 I didn't even know that was for Master System. The first time I actually played was on like a bootleg 31 and one NAS card and I had no idea that this is bootleg up until like, a few years ago so I was like, This is amazing. Oh, nevermind.Jake 16:53 Spiders in that you also picked a Master System game. Do you think it's something to do with that system and that just couldn't put out The solid graphic power to handle those games because there's a few other games that are also not that great graphic wasWulff 17:05 no because there are some actually really pretty Master System games to the the Master System graphically had superior capabilities to the ns but you have to remember they were a lot more companies pumping games out on the IDS it's like it's it was the platform that was supported versus the platform that wasn't it doesn't matter how much power it has if people don't know how to make use of it.Jake 17:30 Like I'm just thinking of the Sonic games, and some of them are really terrible. The slowdown is ridiculous lots of flickering like it is. It's disappointing because there aren't great games on the system is one of my favorite systems.Wulff 17:41 Well the Master System. The Master System is just a Game Gear. It's it's a Game Gear Fit to TV resolution, or rather, at the Game Gear is a Master System fit to a smaller resolution. They're they're the exact same architecture. That's why all the emulators run both of them.Jake 18:00 Interesting. Okay,GP 18:01 okay, so that's our that's our time for a bit games. Let's move on to 16 bit if you guys are ready for that, is that good? Sure. Holy cow. Is that that claw?Palsh 18:14 Yeah, we'll call theWulff 18:17 next bitGP 18:22 is one of those rare occasions where I wish I had worn pants now? Well, I'll tell you what wolf blitzer with you 16 bit ugly but great. What do you think and start race effects?Palsh 18:34 Yeah.Wulff 18:36 Not absolutely good. It had a lot of character in the graphics, but it was not pretty at all. The, for whatever reason, I'm pretty sure those What is that? gas. That gas station with the chevron? Pretty sure those Ever on cars were inspired by this game.GP 19:03 Or vice versa. But it's a goodWulff 19:06 Yeah, I've I you know what, they dropped it on the switch this week. And I went back and played it. And I had so much fun with it. Oh my goodness. It was a lot of fun. And I used to play it a lot to player which I mean, you can play two player races against the AI as well. Which is pretty taxing on a Super Nintendo. Which I'm pretty sure that killed the frame rate big time, so it made it even uglier. It was still somehow playable. And it was a lot of fun. I really really enjoyed that one.Jake 19:41 Yeah, I was gonna say the only time I saw framerate that bad post mariokart the switch was after watching stunt racer x like, it's like three FPS. It'sGP 19:52 you know, that brings up I mean, we'll have to see how the rest of the show plays out but I've had in the back of my mind like that. This big question mark of the two categories today, how many sports games or how many racing games ultimately are going to be referenced? So we're going to chuck that down as you know, the first one I suppose for, for racing, but that's, that's interesting to me. I think that's a good pic. Absolutely. But I'm glad you chose that because, well, that was on my short list of like five games. I was so hesitant to pull out as a racing game or a sport themed game. Because those really didn't hit their stride until you know much later. But I like that one pulse. What do you got for usPalsh 20:34 on 16 bit mine is pretty much the 16 bit argument all over again from from a pit I've got a game that was hard that I loved, but the same kind of problem lemmings and I hate saying it because let me look terrible Lamine, but they're, you know, like they're like six pixels each. So you can't really complain too much, but the idea behind it again, was so cool like you could make one guy stop everybody else Another one would start digging and other woman started digging upwards and whatever. So game itself was just great. The music is probably one of the top five for like Super Nintendo for me for for soundtracks. But I just remember and it never bothered me about the graphics I'm just saying it's just that they don't look great.GP 21:26 I tell you what I appreciate here is Forgive me for saying it this way. This shame in your voice when you said lemmings? It's almost like you know, it's 3am I've had a few drinks I'm lonely. I'm going to call lemmings and not tell anybody about it the next day, so I love that See, that's why I love this. This idea for the for the episode. You sneak that Kelly? Yeah, you got me good. No, I love that. I think that's a great choice. And I think we've all done that with either lemmings or a game like lemmings were like ah I just want to want to save my appetite but I'm not proud of it let's let's play lemmingsWulff 22:05 yeah that's good. What do what do you guys think about lemmings? That's actually another game where despite the ugliness of the palette, and you know, the little tiny characters that you can barely make out, they were really smoothly animated and they can eat a lot of information with what 15 pixels.Palsh 22:22 Yeah, that here but what they were doingUnknown Speaker 22:26 that's pretty impressive.Palsh 22:28 Yeah. So they, they definitely went for function over form. And they I think they succeeded. So I mean, that's that's saying, Oh,GP 22:38 yeah, it's, it's a great game. It's that argument again, it's got a great personality.Jake 22:45 Okay, all right. The backgrounds, okay, granted, not all the backgrounds are your hot redhead, okay? But a lot of them look fine to me. There's one I played on the Genesis so 16 bit and the one level or there's couple levels with the forest theme. I thought that looked amazing. And the fact that you could dig through the leaves of the tree and everything looks great to me.Palsh 23:08 Yeah, I can see your point there.Jake 23:10 Plus the intro was funny. I thought the intro was well animated.Palsh 23:13 Yes, true.Jake 23:14 I like six pixels. What are you going to do, right? There's only so much you can do with six weeks one character.Palsh 23:19 And now you see why I feel guilty even saying it because it's like, there's so much charm to this game. And considering what they've done with it. SoGP 23:27 I think it's a great game that conveys exactly what it needed to but you're right. There's not much frill to it outside of like visually, it's not arresting in a positive way.Wulff 23:39 Yeah, it's not something that ever made me stop and look when I saw it on a screen anywhere. But playing it I could not put it down.GP 23:48 Yeah, it's a game you play in your own home. Like if you had gone to Walmart and got on the display, you'd be like not here lemmings. We can know each other but nobody can know I'm going to sound like a jerkPalsh 24:04 Just you wait I'll get you backGP 24:07 okay all right so polished one or nine with lemmings subject. What do you got for us? 16 bitJake 24:14 16 bit So you mentioned earlier about racing games and this is technically a racing game. It's unit racers for the snice Oh man, IPalsh 24:21 forgot about that.Jake 24:22 So I don't know if you guys have played this game before. cyclesPalsh 24:26 Yeah, I was like yeah, just cycles without right.GP 24:29 Yeah, I rememberJake 24:29 Yeah. It's the weirdest concept for a video game I've seen in a while. But I love the hell this game I got it at a US store for like 10 bucks. Graphic wise. Literally you do you guys said it. You're just a unicycle no writer. And the tracks are basically this candy stripe. You know line that loops around and goes left to right. There's not much going on graphic wise but Gameplay wise the tricks system in it. There's like a dozen different tricks you can do with your your bike. You know flips and cartwheels, all kinds of crazy stuff. And you need to do those tricks in order to build speed and momentum. And you kind of get tied up in the different modes. Like some of the modes are focused on doing the stunts, and the ones are about speed. Some are just like, you know, marathon and length. There's a lot of variety, and tracks in the game. The game plays outstanding. The only problem is, it's a lot of them with the same precursor to Tony Hawk'sPalsh 25:23 Pro Skater. And a lot of waysWulff 25:26 Yeah. Now that you mentioned it, yeah, that game did a ton of stuff for being a 2d side on racing game.GP 25:34 Yeah, but I think when you can make the argument that if Marble Madness makes you look like a chump, then Okay, you know, yeah. Well, they might be but you can't tell because there's there's just no way no, no, I think that's a good and you're right, like, that's that's their kind of racing thing as well. So that's, that's interesting. I remember the game I don't remember much of playing it though, but I can see it in my mind. And yeah, I agree. I think that's a good good entry. WhatWulff 26:06 do you guys think? I would agree that that game was not a whole lot to look at, like it was cleanly animated. But there was a is literally, you know, the track is just a candy striped bar on the ground that moves around. And then you're a unicycle no character on the unicycle. You're just a unicycle doing stunts and tricks and jumps and bouncing around and zooming along. So it was it was a limited presentation type of game. I wouldn't sayGP 26:38 yeah, but werewolf the way that you just described it, like the you're a unicycle going around doing tricks and bumps and jumps. I if you said that to me, I would actually I would want to pick that up the way you just presented that actually had me interested. I'm like, Oh shit, maybe I should play this again. It was an absolute blast. It really was. I played the crap out of it. Good. I mean, that's, that's the heart and soul of this, this category, so that's good. I'll jump in now with my 16. But I was torn between two. So I'm going to pick the little, the one that's a little bit more controversial, just because it'll be a better discussion, but I was thinking about doing Starfox but I think we can all agree it did not age well it was not great, but it's a fun game. I know. Jake loves it. But what I'm gonna I'm gonna, what I'm what I'm gonna officially state is the original Mortal Kombat. Now I love most Mortal Kombat. It's, you know, in the series, but if you look at the first Mortal Kombat, and when I first played that I played it around the same time as Street Fighter two. So comparatively Street Fighter two, crisper cleaner, brighter, smoother. And to me Mortal Kombat, though I enjoy it. The first one was very clunky you hear how stressingPalsh 27:56 though I enjoyed, you know, he's he Doing this rightGP 28:00 because I Well, there's there's points coming in later polish. Their Mortal Kombat will make other entries in the future. I you know, starting with Mortal Kombat two, great franchise. And if you look at this disparity between how poorly the first foot looks and plays, compared to MK two, that's kind of the crux of my argument for Mortal Kombat. If they ended the Mortal Kombat series with the first one, it wouldn't have made the list but out of all of it, yes, MK one. Not that great, in my opinion, fun to play, but just pretty ugly.Palsh 28:38 You know, I can get beyond that. I thought it was really cool to see Street Fighter two, and had all the way smoother animations and stuff but I mean, they weren't taking, you know, real life models and trying to digitize them. So the the motions and the animations were so much more fluid because you're working with the cartoon versus real life. So it was fun. Don't get me wrong, but, you know, I thought it looked pretty bad.GP 29:05 Yeah, it's the video game equivalent to spawn the live action movie. Yeah. Yeah, it didn't necessarily look that great. Also, some of the acting was hit or miss. But in the end, there's something about it that I still love. But yeah, well what do you think about that Mortal Kombat? Ugly but great or just a game? What do you think? I thinkWulff 29:25 it's just a game. I was never drawn into Mortal Kombat. Like all my friends were a I mean, I was in the initial rush of it. Yeah, it was like, Oh my gosh, they're just brutally bashing each other's skulls in and there's blood and Oh, man. But at the end of the day, I was still kind of like well, street fighters more fun and prettier. Pen over this. I granted my experience with it was a neighborhood full of kids who had the Genesis so it was even more limited than the Super Nintendo one. So I'm kind of colored by that memory. Everybody I knew had it for Genesis, because of course more blood.GP 30:04 Right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Jake, how about you?Jake 30:09 I've been I hate disagreeing with you guys on every game. It's not that but Okay, look, you're right Street Fighter is definitely notPalsh 30:16 garbage say it's a game.Jake 30:18 It's not it's not lukewarm garbage at best. Okay? You microwave me onWulff 30:25 the garbage?GP 30:27 If your argument against me here's it's not that bad. OkayUnknown Speaker 30:33 then it's kind of that bad.Jake 30:34 All right. The color palette is a bit limited, I give you that. But the digitized actors was revolutionary and they look pretty good. In fact, I wonder if you compare the frames of animation in Mortal Kombat vs. Street Fighter? I bet you they have the same frames. The only difference is not as colorful. And like you're right when you mentioned later entries, the series that kind of expand on that. Moral Kombat three is one of my favorite fighting games and the color Pelletier is amazing, but just watching Keno. That rapscallion thrusting his fist in somebody's chest and pulling out their beating heart. That looked great. I thought that was hilarious as it was good looking to me at the time. I like to look at the game I also love subzero team some zero I will be for life. I thought the sprites and the characters were well done. all agree Street Fighter looks better, but I think brutal combat is not as bad as you think it is. It's no clay fighter but that way. Okay,Palsh 31:30 basically, Jake feels like Cora when he got punched in the nuts in the first movie.Unknown Speaker 31:36 That's true.GP 31:38 And the rest of us feel like Johnny K. Yeah.Palsh 31:41 hundred dollar glasses, glasses. SoJake 31:45 last all this before or after the discectomy I'm leaving that one.GP 31:50 Yeah, glass, all for the wind. Okay, I like that. Okay, so um, next is going to be the 32 bit category. Let's start with Paul. Tell me Whoa, and let's, let's, let's clarify this. This tier is 3264 bit because we'reWulff 32:05 Yeah, it's the same generationPalsh 32:08 so we can switch it up. Okay. So I'm going to name a game. And I'm going to tell you guys what the game and I want you to tell me if you think that I think it's ugly but amazing, or if I think it's terrible, but beautiful.Palsh 32:22 Okay. Okay.Palsh 32:25 Castlevania Symphony of the Night.Jake 32:31 Okay, if you don't think that's a pretty game, there's something wrong with you.Palsh 32:33 Yeah, that was just trolling. I was hoping. For more.Wulff 32:38 See, I was in on that one. Otherwise, I probably would have laid into pause What the fuck is wrong with you?Palsh 32:46 Know, that one I can't say anything bad about so. That's the joke. So anyways, continue forward.GP 32:54 No, now you have to give us a real game. Yeah, I believe a beautiful 32 or 64 Doom 64 Okay, okay, tell us about that. Why why why do you hate that game so much?Palsh 33:06 It would look great. I remember seeing magazine ads, I remember playing it or not playing it wanting to play it. And then finally I went out on vacation, came back and had a copy of it my hand I was like it was this or Duke Nukem. 64 I was already playing Duke Nukem 64 I was like, okay, so I need something new for me, my friends. So we can just lay into this game. And I tried it. I was like, This looks so cool. And then I realized this, like, this game is crap. I was so disappointed with it. It moved well, like the graphics look great. But it other than that, it just felt like a little bit better version of doom to me like, and I can't play the original Doom anymore or give it headaches just from the motion. So it looked better. But I was disappointed because I thought it was, you know, the 64 and it just meant it was for 64 and I thought it was going to be the actual Doom with better ground. Fix. Now it was completely different. Like they made their own game and I was just I wasn't ready for that disappointment. You've you've given me a bit of a revelation here and agree or disagree but let me know. Would you say no?GP 34:16 Okay, moving on. No. Would you say that video game commercials and box art and descriptions? Were the back in the day preteen equivalent to Tinder profiles.Palsh 34:32 Never thought about it now.GP 34:33 Yeah, they show up and you're so excited because their profile and then they show up and you realize this is not what I thought it was going to bePalsh 34:40 at all. Man, sir.Jake 34:43 Well, you are thirsty and hell.GP 34:46 Oh, God, thirsty for that video game. Yeah.Palsh 34:51 I didn't care about girls back then. I just cared about more video games. Just thinking about that power ofGP 34:57 the power of what was your favorite position back then? 64 cut that out.Jake 35:05 Nope. Three hands on the stick.Palsh 35:08 That's my joke on you need three hands to play an M 64 controller.GP 35:13 Yeah, we saw that name then way nowhere. Okay, so Doom 64. werewolf. What do you what do you think? agree disagree?Wulff 35:22 That's one I don't know much about unfortunately. I thought it was just gonna be Doom for in 64 so I didn't bother with it.Palsh 35:34 PC Okay, shut up.Wulff 35:36 No literally like I thought it was Doom like because I played it on. I think I played it at a friend's house on PC and then I had played it on Super Nintendo. So I was like, well, I played it on a couple of platforms. I don't want to play it again. So I didn't play it for in 64Palsh 35:53 Yeah, well that's that's exactly why I bought it because they'll say Oh, man, like it's a better version. No.GP 35:58 Wrong That's brilliant wrong. Was that Charlie Murphy? Wrong?Wulff 36:05 Or the tigers in Wow, wrong? Yeah.GP 36:10 Okay, but see like how great of a pic was that pulse bought the game because of two words. Doom 64 did not buy that game because of two words. Doom 64 I swipe left soWulff 36:26 hard.Palsh 36:30 Man. I practically hit super like all right.GP 36:35 I don't get that reference. I don't know super late.Palsh 36:38 I'm very single. We'll put it that way.GP 36:44 Okay, so, Jake, what do you do? I'm 64Jake 36:49 I'm actually not a fan of doom. I actually don't like the series at all. Although the recent PC ones that came with the reboots, those are okay but the classic do my never really cared for and there's a series of games on the 60 That kind of tried to bring over to the PC stuff. There's Duke Nukem and hexen. And I think XM XM hex n. That's a word was the better of those type of games that 2d sprites in a 3d world? I didn't care for Doom 64 at all. I did rent it. I played a little bit. I couldn't care for it at all. It is ugly. I'll give you that. I just also think it's a bad game.GP 37:23 Yeah, and I think Doom 64 was one of those games, where I watched my cousins play it. And I loved watching them like I could keep up with it. If I was watching somebody else, but the first time I tried playing it, it was like I completely forgotten what it was like to look at the game and could no longer keep up with it. So I played maybe 30 minutes of it and realize this is not for me to play. But it was entertaining to watch other people run and gun and blow up stuff. So I like it and the visuals are okay so long as I am not guiding the visuals. But that's that's just me say Take what do you ever is for this category? Ugly but great 32 or 64 bit? Okay.Jake 38:07 Hear me you Final Fantasy seven. I love this game.GP 38:11 I think that's a great choice Yeah,Jake 38:13 everybody loves family seven or at least people who were in that generation love probably seven. Today it doesn't hold up for sure I mean the pre rendered backgrounds and in the CGI very pixelated very under rez for today's time but even back in high school I played this game originally, the sprites and the overworld and the exploration areas like cloud looks like some kind of peanuts character mutated into 3d polygon. And there's no textures anywhere to be found any of the enemies practically It is one of the ugliest first gen 3d games I've ever seen. Like I'm talking marrow 64 Meg's father's sevens cloud look like fucking the Mona Lisa. This game is the only reason people like this game. is because of the FMV The video is very cool. And I love that story. I love the music, and the gameplay is fun. But it's ugly as hell.GP 39:09 No, I think I think that's, that may be one of the best because that's exactly right. And I think part of the reason Personally, I was so let down by the graphics is because the commercials that came out back in 97 for the games pretty much only showed the FMV it's the one so your hype for this and you're like, Oh my god, considering the last Final Fantasy with six leaps and bounds and you play it and you're like you said you're just playing to get to the next video. But somewhere somewhere in there you fall in love with it. That's probably like the earliest version of you know, people getting mad because of, you know, not showing gameplay, you know, because that wasn't the practice back then. You know, everybody just played the game because there weren't cutscenes like that. And now it's like the cutscenes look awesome, but let's see what the gameplay looks like you know, so you have gameplay trailers besides you Know the actual trailer? Well yeah, it's the video you ever been catfished by a video game? That's the idea right? The whole dating thing around again? Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I think that's a great observation and that is the cultural and historical significance of the Final Fantasy seven commercials. But if you go back and still because I did this recently if you YouTube the original Final Fantasy seven TV commercials I still get the same feelsJake 40:28 Oh yeah, the atmosphere is amazing and and said jump from snez to PlayStation you just so hyped that the game is going to look amazing and that we all love family six I think of this podcast and just yeah the sprite work and there's great the bosses look I'm awesome. It's graph as graphics are amazing because 2d, so you just really hoping that for the jump to 3d would be something amazing. And what they show you the commercials. Looks great. But that's maybe about 10 minutes of FMV the entire game.Palsh 40:56 YeahWulff 40:58 that's true. Wolfie what do you what do you think? Final Fantasy seven okay I'm probably in the minority here to where I'm not a huge fan of Final Fantasy seven that's not to say I wasn't when it came out I played 200 hours probably in that first go through where I did just about everything I think except killing Ruby weapon I even made a second Knights of the Round soGP 41:25 so I'm hearing you say you never beat Final Fantasy I'm playing I'm playing I'm playingWulff 41:33 now I I even made like I I enjoyed that game so much that time that I even made a friggin anime music video and I am V out of it back in the day with VHS like that was time consuming first I was dedication.GP 41:49 Yeah,Wulff 41:51 I still that's the only one I did. Oh no, that's not true. I did one with Resident Evil as well, but I really enjoyed that game the first time and then every time I've tried to play since I can't put more than like three hours into it before I'm just bored and walk away the game. Like even when I tried to play it a second time back then I was just like, man, I can't. So, to me the game, it hits some notes the first time other than that, I can't agree with that. It's an amazing game. I feel like it's just been overhyped so much. And I think it's also the fact that it wasn't my first Final Fantasy, a lot of people who love it, it was their first Final Fantasy, and that's often the case, but I will agree the game didn't look quite as good as I was hoping. But then I had spent all summer plans so he could n and Wild Arms and compared to Wild Arms. It was damn gorgeous.Palsh 42:47 Wait, you mean it's not pronounced suikodenWulff 42:49 crap? No. But yeah,GP 42:53 it's pronounced Wild Arms thatWulff 42:57 that jump from sprites. It makes It with those backgrounds and everything it even though they weren't pretty polygons by any means for the characters, it was still an exciting change of presentation that let them tell the story in a different way.GP 43:12 And I feel like with Final Fantasy seven they overcorrected the ship when they came out with Final Fantasy eight, with seven, the backgrounds looked more lush and detailed than the characters. And then they came out with eight. And the background was kind of put on the backburner, so they could focus on the sprites and the overworld for the main characters. So at least they paid attention and corrected a lot of people's biggest complaints. But yeah, I think that was a good good entry there. Were all four do you have for us in this category? 32 to 64 bit ugly but lovable Bushido blade? Yeah, we couldn't Bushido blade.Wulff 43:53 I'm not gonna lie. I was kind of a square fanboy back in the PlayStation era. So I was getting all their stuff. Like it I had bought total number one nobody got total number one, but I got Bushido blade and it's it's not what I expected it to be and I had so much fun with it. And my friends and I we would just sit there and play Bushido blade for hours just because the combat it was so intricate for as limited as it was, I mean you injure your opponent, but if you got a killing stab that was it that that match was over with. There was no health bars, it was injury or death. And you can even mess up your opponent by like throwing sand in their fat face like a dirty rapscallion and then taking advantage of it. It it was it was so much fun and even just unlocking it. The the I think it had a couple of hidden characters. It was totally worth it. Just there was a lot of nuance to the game. Play that you don't see in a lot of fighting games.GP 45:03 I'm sitting here I'm trying to remember exactly which one Bushido blade was. So it was it was a fighting game.Wulff 45:09 Yeah, to a degree. It was a weapons fighting game. And I think you actually got to choose between a few weapons to if I remember correctly. Yeah, you're right. What the cover looks like I'm sorry, I'm trying to remember this one is black and white with I think a big big red splatter on it is like a black and white pencil drawing or ink drawing of somebody and then a big red blood splatter bladeGP 45:39 I'm also Yeah, I google image that endure. Yeah, I do remember now. I'm sorry. Thank you.Wulff 45:44 But yeah, the the character models were not pretty that the locations are not very pretty. They weren't even very detailed. It was like one of them was a big courtyard of cherry blossom trees. And it looked like they just copy pasted the same square aware of the arena over and over and over and over the lawn from one end to the other until they got to the opposite wall.Jake 46:05 There was a wonky camera and that came for sure used to zoom way out or like really get really closeWulff 46:11 yeah cuz it let you run away from the your opponent pretty far right? Which of course just made the characters even more unreadable?GP 46:21 Yeah, yeah more obscure. But yeah, I'll be honest that sounds like a piece of crap well done that's not a good entry sick Jake, what do you think about that one?Jake 46:33 I love the game to me. We talked about this before the podcast procedure plays one of my favorite games of the PlayStation because it's not that many I played on that. The combat that one on one combat. I just love how most weapons strikes will like outright kill your opponent if they connect but there's all about the Perry system. And that's pretty unique for its time and there's not many games these days that have that same you know, do or die combat system. But I just love it when you thank you Nick's amazed leg that dropped to the ground. But they weren't dead. They still kept fighting while they're on the floor. I thought was hilarious. I loveWulff 47:07 Yeah, they'll they'll like drag one leg while like trying to walk with the other leg with this horrible limp and it's great.Jake 47:15 It's like Black Knight fight, right? Yeah,Wulff 47:18 you break their arm and it just falls limp. They should have made theGP 47:23 Black Knight like an unlockable character.Jake 47:26 I'll know your polygons off. It's great. I love it.Jake 47:31 The backgrounds I agree are bad. But there was a style to it though. Like the bamboo forest, the cherry blossoms it kind of felt like that martial arts, you know trope that's set up in a deserted field. A courtyard has been cleared away to warriors that battle. It had the style, but yeah, you're right. It did not have the graphic power and the textures to back it out.GP 47:54 And then in the background, you see just the opening scene from Ninja Gaiden taking place.Palsh 48:00 As long as that music from ninja guidance playing I'm down for it. I love that game.GP 48:07 Okay, so Polish What was your? No You got us at the beginning. Sorry I got Castlevania joke. Yes. And the wolf goddess with Bushido blade. Jake What do you got?Jake 48:21 We went seven manGP 48:24 that's right that's how forgettable of a game that is.Wulff 48:28 Bomb.GP 48:30 I know I'm just I'm drinking drinking my haterade tonight No, I The reason I'm selling is because I've got so many honorable mentions for this category for 32 to 64 ultimately, I've settled on one but Metal Gear Solid has not aged well. This is not my These are my my honorable mentions. Such a great game, full of story and a lot of amazing twists and turns, but even playing that way came out. The graphics took me out of it. Mortal Kombat mythology sub zero. The fighting in that I don't know if you guys ever played that the graphics were bad. The fighting style was decent, but the platforming was abysmal, but it was still oddly charming because it's sub zero in an open world type setting. But ultimately, I think I have to settle for ugly but with a lot of heart, Nintendo 60 fours, GoldenEye. It was going to be that or Superman 64. And ultimately, I just don't care enough about Superman 64 so GoldenEye because I love that game. I don't know how much of the actual game or campaign I ever played through. I know I've watched it wire to wire with my older brother, but the four person you know, challenge mode was my entire experience pretty much with the 64 like that and Mario 64 and not much else. But he did great Yeah well but I mean even if you guys ever played like the giant head hack or you know code for golden it came on game was so yes DK mode so incredibly ugly but so much fun and it for me it was one of the first multiplayer you know games like that What do you guys think about golden I polished let's start with you know you summed it upPalsh 50:23 I really can't add to it because it's just I want to say I loved it when it first came out but at the same like for graphics was but I think it was more just how you could shoot people in the crotch and they grab their crops and then fall over dead you know or it would tell you like give you the tally of headshots arm shots leg shots torso other you know other was always the crotch shot so right yeah, but I mean the graphics as much as I want to admit I thought they were amazing. I think it was more the gameplay itself soGP 50:59 no slough Rizzoli. I'm still still playing that from an unfinished game that we started back then. That's impossible. Well, what do you think about GoldenEye? Ah,Wulff 51:11 yeah, a, it didn't have a whole lot of texturing I think the majority of the the texture quality went to the characters faces, but not their models. So the game itself though, was an absolute blast. It wasn't a whole lot to look at, which is probably for the best because it I think it helped it run a little smoother. There were a lot and 64 first person games that made me gave me headaches or made me dizzy, something like that. Man, I spent so many hours in that game with friends after school. We just go to somebody's house and play for like two three hours that day and then do it all over again. The next day. It was crazy.GP 51:54 Well, and it was just good enough of a game to make you want to hate your friends. Oh yeah, only for a short for short amount of time because like you said the next day, you're fine. Or if you were mad at somebody, you were only mad until you shot them in the crotch and then you were squareWulff 52:10 that that Mario Kart 64 games that end your friendship for the day. Yep. And but it's fine tomorrow.Palsh 52:18 Yeah. And then you started all over again with the next match.GP 52:20 Yeah, we should we should set up a multi person. tournament or like cast of if we can figure out a way to do that either like Mario Kart orGP 52:30 golden I think would be a blast. There's a PC version. I think actually, if GoldenEyeWulff 52:34 And isn't it awful?Jake 52:37 Okay, just likeGP 52:42 Okay, cool. So Jacob, what's your take on GoldenEyeJake 52:45 wolf said I pretty much nail on the head with the low character Polly's or low Polly's link character models, the triangle shaped heads, it reminds me of that music video Dire Straits money for nothing. We're just Bismillahi low polygon models and it's just terrible plusses against 64. And hey, I love the system. I love Nintendo but they had the fog problem like the jungle level and the Russian level it just the design to get around the graphic failures. They brought in more fog, just more fog. And they do that all these games and it's just does not work for the game at all. But it's a fun game. I used to play multiplayer like everybody else. Proximity mines is my favorite weapon. I love that. Yeah, I love the game and I love playing it but you're right. It's it's ugly as dirt.GP 53:31 Yeah. Do you know who I killed more with proximity mines than anybody else yourself? Yes, me. I find my short term memory man. I try.Palsh 53:40 I tried to lure people into it without setting it off myself. And was very unsuccessful.GP 53:46 Shit went to the to the point of the fog. And to kind of again, put this all in the same packaging as the Tinder and the dating things. They do the same thing in nightclubs. You know dim the lights a little bit and put into more fog, it'd be fine. So we've all fallen victim to that it's okay. Alright, so on to the other side of that coin. Let's now examine the beautiful games that are completely without any other merits. Next time, well maybe not next time but in the upcoming episodes on presby to cancel. Let's go around and restate our names a group of rapscallions and tell everybody where they can find us. Jake, you want to start us off?Jake 54:33 Sure I'm sick Jake, you can find me on Twitch and Twitter. And I guess hereGP 54:39 Wonderful. Thank youPalsh 54:41 push. You can find me here most of all, and I also stream very sparingly on Twitch as well under pulse 109 pls h 109.Wulff 54:52 Okay, very good. And well. You can find me streaming on Twitch or here or occasionally posting on Twitter. werewolf w ar EWLFFGP 55:04 awesome and I am guy prime. You can find me here on Twitch under the retro therapy or on YouTube, Instagram or Twitter as the retro therapy, everybody until next time, thank you so much for joining us.Jake 55:21 Special thanks for music go to Arthur, the ancient found on Soundcloud or the last ancient on YouTube. For more episodes, please visit our website presby to cancel.com as well Feel free to like or subscribe at Apple iTunes, Google podcasts or anywhere else you'd like to listen to your favorite shows. As always, thank you. This has beenWulff 55:42 a do againSpecial thanks to Arthur The Last Ancient on soundcloud for our podcast theme. For updates and more episodes please visit our website www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on Twitter @pressbtocancel and Instagram @pressbtocancel.

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Episode 88 of the EdTechLoop Weekly Podcast! After having our fill of caprese salads and grilled vegetarian kebabs it's finally time to whip up some #GoogleEdu marinade and slather it on this week's meat of the show, “We gave your kid a device...now what?”Additional Links:Parenting in the Digital Age PresentationParents - you can set limits and take the device awayFilter that home networkScreentime Rules From A TeacherGuide to Parental Controls Episode 88 Transcription:Stephie Luyt  0:00  Hey, they still have dot matrix printers over there. David Noller  0:05  Yes, they still have modems Larry Burden  0:15  Should I be recording, hold on. Stephie Luyt  0:15  You didn't save the day for them.  David Noller  0:16  I had a legitimate moral dilemma.  Larry Burden  0:19  I am recording by the way and you need to settle down. Larry Burden  0:28  it's Episode 88 of the EDtechLoop podcast My name is Larry Burden and ignoring the fire marshals maximum occupancy warnings. It's Danielle Brostrom, Stephie Luyt, and the TechNollerGist, David Noller. We've packed up the beach towels and the sunscreen in favor of backpacks, Chromebooks, and this week's moment of Zen.  Moment of Zen  0:47  What is art? It is when you have paper, and you don't know why it's paper.  Larry Burden  0:54  Thank you from one of the students from my wife's toddler classroom for that one.  David Noller  1:00  It's when you have paper,  Larry Burden  1:01  and you don't know why,  David Noller  1:03  and you don't know why  Larry Burden  1:03  it's paper  David Noller  1:04  it's paper. Yeah, I gotta go. David Noller  1:09  That, I want to think about that more than anything else right now. Larry Burden  1:12   I know, she said that this morning and I was like, yeah I need that. Larry Burden  1:19  We've lost the TechNollergist, after having our fill of caprese salads and grilled vegetarian kebabs it's finally time to whip up some Google Edu marinate and slather it on this week's meat of the show, we gave our kid a device...Now what. I love this topic and I think it's the perfect way to start the first pod of the year. Because really, we tend to focus on all these different things we can do with the device, the goals that we're trying to reach with the device. Let's, Let's start at the beginning, we've given them. This tool. Now, let's start looking at those transitional properties of what do you do with it to get to the goal. So what do you do, what do you supposed to do with the tool to reach your goal.  Danelle Brostrom  2:01  And I think this is where it becomes kind of becomes a thing because in our district we do give kids a device in sixth grade, and they get to take it home, and it's, it's, it's theirs to manage and the parents job to manage and I think that this is a great podcast for parents because we do need to give them some advice on what they can do to help manage this new media that's going to be in their home. Larry Burden  2:26  On Twitter. We had two comments, two comments that came through when I asked this question, and I thought they framed it in the two in two ways that maybe we should look at the first comment from and I'm gonna get his name wrong and he's all over Twitter, he's great follow Anthony Locricchio, maybe, I don't know, I apologize, his comment, it's a learning tool, and it's yours, so treated as if it's the last one in the world. I think that's a great way to look at it because it is it's a it's a tool it's one of the things we're trying to focus on this year. But, B, it is access to everything, and how important is that, as an educational tool if they know how, if they have the foundational skills to use it appropriately. The other one was from Danielle Brostrom, practice balance every day, shut the device down once in a while, and look your friends in the eye. I think that's great and really it comes down to thinking about those two, two comments. First one, what can it do? second comment. What should it not do? We're giving them this tool. What can it do? Danelle Brostrom  3:34  I think the first thing that parents do need to know is that all the Chromebooks that we send home are filtered. Schools are required by SEPA to filter, we filter all school loaned devices so they should be not able to access content that's inappropriate. I know that's a lot of parents concern, but I still think you should set up your home network and filters to do some filtering, on top of that. But, um, but we do have some filtering within so it is, it is open but how do you teach kids to use it for good and not evil I guess that's, that's another part of it.  Stephie Luyt  4:07  And how to kids learn that, like they, they're in charge of the device. The device is not in charge of them so that balance idea, how do they learn the skills and adults need those skills to making sure that you're not letting the distractions get to be too much and that you're limiting yourself on real life time and time on a device.  David Noller  4:28  So one of the things that we have thought about at home is that the device, whether it's the Chromebook that we give them or the smartphone. It all fits within and under the same umbrella family values so if something is something that we believe in for reading books or watching movies. The same is true of smart devices and computers. If having them access. something would, would go against what we think is right and good and just and true, it's that way, on, on a mobile device or on a Chromebook, as much as it is, anything else. So, I think, it was important for us to have that conversation early about what would mom or dad expect. And when I'm in the classroom and kids have choice reads where they get to pick a novel or pick a short story to read. I always have a line about, make sure that you're selecting something that fits your, your family's set of values. So that whoever you are responsible to will be okay with your choice.  Larry Burden  5:35  When they get the device and they bring the device home.That is the time to have that conversation.  David Noller  5:41  Sure, to have that intentional conversation about where does this fit within the context of everything else that makes up the family values and the family expectations. Danelle Brostrom  5:51  100% and I think the biggest thing that I would want parents to know too is that they can always take that device away. The school, gave it to you yes, so that your child could do homework and research and do other educational things, but you are, as a parent, you are in charge of what happens in the home. You want to take it away,  take it away if you feel like the amount of time that they're spending on it is too much, have a conversation with that child's teacher and see if the amount of time they're spending on is appropriate to the amount of homework that they're getting and blah blah blah but just as a parent parents sometimes don't they just need that permission to know that they can take that device away.  Larry Burden  6:29  We're kind of discussing specifically Chromebooks, but I think this is applicable to anytime you're introducing a digital device to a child. For us to presume that the first device that the child is getting is our Chromebook. I think would be disingenuous, or at least or at least. Yeah. So let's hope that the parent has already had that discussion with the child when they got their phone or they got their iPad or whatever device that they, you know, were first introduced to. What specifically about a TCAPS Chromebook, should they be discussing or doing. First thing, first thing that a parent should do when that  David Noller  7:11  After we've already had that discussion of values and all that from previous devices. You know you made a comment earlier about how you know treat this like it's an educational tool and it's the last one on earth, and I think that speaks back to the idea that, they're not ever going to think that way because they already have one probably in their hand. The current the smartphone or the tablet or whatever. They've been using those devices a long time and so I'm thinking about it from the instructional point of view about the management of the device as a learning tool. The first thing I did when my kids brought their son was charge it. Find a place every day that you're going to charge that thing and charges every night you're responsible for that. It's like taking care of a puppy. He give them the jobs that they have to do, and they have to do them every night, because if they don't, the puppy cries. We don't want the puppy to cry.  Danelle Brostrom  8:00  They don't charge the device the teacher cries.  David Noller  8:03  Well, again, you know, I've come from the high school perspective. And I kind of have this line about if you come with an uncharged device that's a you problem. That's one I'm not really probably going to solve for you. That's one that you're going to figure out how to navigate through that on your own. Now I'll help kids when they absolutely need it. But I like them to think of that as a responsibility that they have and if they create a roadblock for themselves they get to figure out the bridge to get over it, so.  Stephie Luyt  8:36  It is a device that is different from what they have at home, most likely because it has this extra layer of it's coming from school and it's being given to them to complete homework. And I think that is an extra discussion point for parents, and I think parents do sometimes feel like, okay the school gave this to them, I have less control over it as a device. But it's the same, it's, it's a device in the home and it has all these educational applications but there's also lots of distractions of course. So I think parents have to feel empowered that it's okay to manage it and help your child get those, you know, even the logistical steps in place of taking care of it like a device but also still has the power to...it still needs to be harnessed. And it, it's the parents still have that ultimate, that control over the device, even though it's coming from school.  David Noller  9:33  I wonder about the, the distractibility. We know that, you know, distractions are a click away. But, you know, I grew up with, with friends and and other people who: their note taking guide became a place to doodle on. You know, their, their book even became a place to draw pictures in, or whatever, and, and so the depth of distractibility is certainly increased because of the interactive nature of what they can access or videos or things that they can really sink themselves into. But in terms of the device itself being the main cause of that, I think it's more like the habits of the kids. And often what we see, is the kids that are, that tend towards distraction whether they have a device in front of them, or a blank sheet of paper, they're going to find a way to do something other than what they're supposed to. Whether it's watching YouTube, or writing their name and then outlining it in 95 different colors with magic markers or colored pencils. Danelle Brostrom  10:33  Haven't we all done that, though. I mean, haven't we all started watching.  David Noller  10:37  Yes,  Danelle Brostrom  10:38  Something that made sense to what you were doing and then eight YouTube videos later. David Noller  10:44  Uh-Huh,  Danelle Brostrom  10:44  We're watching videos and and yes I've done the same thing with doodling and then realize I missed half of the lecture. So how, I do think it's just important to be honest with kids about that that, hey, this happens to all of us when the tech is set up to keep us hooked and keep us down this rabbit hole.  David Noller  11:04  And I think it's important you said something about being honest and telling them that. To let them know, Look, I get caught down the rabbit hole to, once you recognize you're there, look for the light. Danelle Brostrom  11:14  It's a meditation thing isn's it Larry? Larry Burden  11:16  I was thinking that same thing, this is, this is mindfulness practice is really what we're talking about as far as this topics topics is concerned, and that there are kind of anti distraction tools out there I know there are different apps on phones to help, you know keep you on task. Timers that you can do. When a child is invested, if they're invested in what they're doing, they're going to be much less likely to want to be distracted. Now they're going to get distracted as we've all said. You wanted, you wanted to watch that the TED talk or, you know, a conference or whatever and you get distracted. It's if they're invested, they're going to be much more likely to recognize when they're distracted and then want to do something about it. So with that being said, What can we do as far as making the tool that it is, something that engages them. Okay, you have this device. Let's assume we're safe on it. Now what?  David Noller  12:16  Now I'm thinking of this from the teachers perspective.  Larry Burden  12:19  That's perfect.  David Noller  12:20  Okay, so I give my kids. Short deadlines like you have five minutes to do the following. If three minutes to do the following. I rarely give them something where they're on their device that takes longer than five to seven minutes. Because, and I, what I'll do with that is ask them some sort of interesting engaging question, at least I hope it is, right?  Danelle Brostrom  12:44  Yes, it is.  David Noller  12:45  And creative writing I'll give them a prompt that hopefully they've never thought of before, and I'll allow them to write for five to seven minutes, and then I give myself permission to cut them off. Who's still writing? Oh, you are okay, We'll wait. I give myself permission to cut these kids off to try to give them used to the sense of urgency when it comes to thinking and writing. So I think, asking interesting questions, providing short deadlines where there's no time to be distracted because if I give you three minutes. You're going to need all of it, for that question. And if you get done early. What are you going to do for 30 seconds that's going to get you down the rabbit hole. So that's one thing is that intentional planning with short deadlines. The other thing is that when I give them activities that take longer time. It's something kind of complex, or something where they're, they're doing the designing of the learning as they do it. So giving them lots of options in terms of what they're going to kind of collect as a resource, as they create the thing that they're, they're, they're doing.  Larry Burden  13:51  The exploration is built into the...  David Noller  13:53  It is, and it's guided so that it's not just go find, but it's, here's a set of resources, start here. So I've pre loaded a little bit with things that I know will work, so they don't get down the Google rabbit hole. But you know, preloaded with some things that work and then say if you've, if you've used these and you've gotten so far but you want to go further, then you can. But, but again, even those are, are steps in a way that. Here's the first task you about 10 minutes. Go. Okay, well let's see we got, okay. You never got there, okay i'll talk to you in just a second. Next thing is about seven minutes, 10 minutes, whatever, find this and do this thing, Go. And I use the expression on the mark, get set, go, a lot in class, because I want them to think of it, not like it's a race, but there's some urgency to the timeline.  Danelle Brostrom  14:42  So as a parent when you're at home and you don't have control over the task that the child has to do. You can do the same thing though with a simple kitchen kitchen timer like what we talked about earlier. You know, you, you work for 10 or seven minutes. Go. You're done. Take a break, shut it down, let's go do something else.  David Noller  14:59  Check in see where they're at.  Danelle Brostrom  15:01  Yeah,  David Noller  15:01  I intentionally structure my classes that way because, as much as we want to say get the kids up and moving around, there's not a ton of ways to do that authentically. It just feels like the amount of time we want to spend them moving will never reach. You know, there's gonna be some time in the seat that they're just gonna have to spend there. But if I can move it along with some energy and have them move, do different thing and different thing and different thing and step it in a way that keeps them interested and motivated.  Stephie Luyt  15:33  When I'm thinking about myself as a learner because I'm taking grad glasses. And the first time through when I was in school I was not distracted by having phones or having any of this. And so I resorted to using a timer. Like, if, and especially if it's something where I'm just consuming or reading or doing something I'm, not that, because I'm of course very engaged in reading, but if it's something that it might not be the most engaging that I'm working on I do have to set a timer so that I don't end up on my phone signing my kids up for soccer or doing whatever else is scheduling X, Y, or Z. You know, I'm not playing Crossy Road, but you're still distracted by what all those other things and you know when there's something that you're engaged in and you're doing the creation it's easier than being the consumer of the information in a lot of ways. And it's, but I, you know, same thing like I have to manage it in the same way as like little kiddos.  David Noller  16:26  I'll find, I'll start doing something on a short story and then learn something about an author, and then he was in a war, and then I have to go read up on that, and then oh wait, this was invented during that time, then I have to go read that thing. So I get stuck in those rabbit holes too and I do the same thing I set a timer on my watch. And I've got all these like preset little timers, and if I have a thing that I know I have to get done, I'll set a timer for 15 minutes from now and just let it buzz me. Am I still on track?  Larry Burden  16:51  It's so prevalent, it's not that any of us are more or less, though we are more or less distractible.  David Noller  16:58  Me,  Larry Burden  16:58  But everybody, especially for, for, for adults, I think it's almost more of an issue for adults. And we've talked about this in the past. Really for parents, one of the great things about what you were saying was that, that 10 minute period is then you're paying your attention to your kid every 10 minutes, which isn't necessarily happening and because, guess what, you're down the internet rabbit hole, you know, as well.  David Noller  17:26  There's so many things that, that our, that our adult lives are full with, but with the kids, their's to. It's not all necessarily YouTube and, and Instagram, it might be, you know, texting with their friend because they had a bad day and you're the one that's supposed to provide them comfort. I had to deal with that last year, there's so many things in their lives that are important to them that are part of that set of distractions, that I think we have to recognize that and give them a little bit of space to be able to encounter those things, like we do. But then teach them how to take a break from them and lets get done what we need to.  Larry Burden  18:03  Having that conversation early, having that when you introduce that digital device. Prior to them maybe becoming a little jaded, or already being down that rabbit hole, having that conversation. This will, it's not a question of, it might, this will be a distraction. Here are some tools.  David Noller  18:20  We always set a timer for our kids when they were in elementary school for their homework. And it was like 30 minutes. We just set the timer on the microwave and would have worked for 30 minutes and when the timer went off they could do whatever they wanted. We always did it in chunks like that. I didn't really think about that because it's been many, many years since they were in elementary school. That was the thing we did for our own kids just to give them a work time and then I go be a kid time, and then come back and finish your work time, and then you'll be a kid again.  Stephie Luyt  18:49  And that involves some hands on on your part, and I think really the best way to model and help kids to do that is to be hands on with them and, and, and manage you know okay, you're going to be on this, you're going to work on this for this amount of time and I'll check back with you. Unfortunately there is no easy way to set them up with the perfect, there's no perfect app that will do all that for you. And I think the perfect app is the parent or the caregiver who's involved in, and helping monitor, helping monitor and model.  Danelle Brostrom  19:20  That's what I was thinking too, is that parents too, I mean and me too, man. I'm working and trying to keep the house up and everything that has to be done when you're an adult, and managing your kids time on this device is a pain, and it's complicated and it's tricky and oh my gosh I just want to push a button and have it done for me because I don't have time to deal with it I mean that's the reality. But you have to do it. This isn't like something that you can opt out of really because the media will parent for you if you don't. This is something that you really have to do. And I think just the, I think we need to know too that everyone's kind of going through it together, you're not alone. Larry Burden  20:01  We're definitely talking about the same thing, we're all on the same rabbit hole so it's, it's, it's good. But we're talking about attention, really recognizing that attention on a task is what we're trying to get our students to be able to maintain. One of the neat things that David had said was pre device, building some, some skills. I think that's a really interesting way to look at this is there are, there are a lot of digital skills that can be pre built before they get the device. And having some mental discipline regarding attention before they get the device, you know, early, when they're when they're maybe a little more moldable, maybe not in eighth grade, turns out, might be good. It's not giving them the device, it's recognizing that they are going to be living in a digital world. There are some skills that we can develop before they get the device that would be really useful. So that when you hand it to them they're prepared. What would those skills be? just dropping that one, boom.  David Noller  21:10  Sure,  Larry Burden  21:10  go get 'em.  Stephie Luyt  21:11  Well, recognizing when they've gotten off task and having, having an idea of, Okay, how do I get myself back on task and it was it done I do need to set a timer, or I need to switch to a different activity that's away from whatever I've been distracted by. I think, I mean, to label okay right now I'm off task. Now what and have a plan.  Danelle Brostrom  21:32  I think working with your children and your family and being present, being focused on who you're with, when you're with them. Focused on, it's the same idea just really focusing on the idea of being present and not being distracted by 18 different things.  Larry Burden  21:49  We're getting right around that time for sure. I wanted to talk about when we had that device over to one of our students, what does that mean for staff? What responsibilities they have once they've given that tool to a student?  David Noller  22:05  I think it changes how you interact with students, and how you plan, and how you design your lesson. Because if you're not intentionally using the tool. Then you're just sort of randomly, hoping that whatever you're going to do works. You wouldn't come into a classroom and hand a kid a textbook and say, find some neat information that you want to report out. You'd build in some structure to that. You'd build in some parameters. You would give them a certain amount of time to get it done. You would suggest a manner in which they could report out. You would plan intentionally with your tools in mind. The devices shouldn't just be another way to fill out a worksheet. So I think one of the things is that we want teachers to think about intentionally planning, so that they know that they're about to hand their kid a task that's going to have them on this device for X amount of minutes. Are you okay with that? Can your kids handle that? Are they ready for that experience? And I think if they can ask those, themselves, those questions, and say yes to those, then okay, we're ready to go. If there's any trepidation then maybe we need to be a little bit more intentional about that planning and what it is we actually expect to happen once we engage the kids with that device. My other thing for teachers is this. It's okay, like you say, to take the device away. Get used to saying lids down place, or however you want to say that. And it's, it's not optional. This is a time when our lids are closed. I do it all the time. I use my devices with my kids all the time. And they, they know that when I say lids down they go down, then they come back up and Chromebooks are so fast in terms of starting and stopping and starting, and that's okay. But if you forget to say lids down, that's and the kid gets off task and that's when teachers get upset, well there's such a distraction.  Stephie Luyt  24:02  And I think if, if parents touch base and say, my kids spending X amount of time on this device, you know, all night. What, to be able to communicate what your expectations were with the tools that they can help gauge like okay they are way out of bounds for these reasons. You know, this is what the teacher is looking for. And, and be mindful of what the kids are getting from for our secondary from all their other classes? You know, what, what is a reasonable expectation for amount of use on this device. And do they have to, you know, what's that big picture going to look like? And for parents to understand and like all of our teachers are, are thinking through those ideas and how to communicate those if a parent asks.  Danelle Brostrom  24:43  In the classroom first half, I would just remind teachers that you don't have to use them. You know, goes back to the whole, Liz Kolb stuff, use it when it makes sense if it doesn't make sense just because the kids have them, doesn't mean they have to use them. They can pick up a real book. That's good for them.  David Noller  24:57  Sure. I have a metaphor I use pretty regularly. Where there's the movie, "Uncle Buck." And he's making pancakes. And normally, we use a spatula to make pancakes and you flip them over. So if you're going to use a spatula for pancakes, that's fine. If you need a snow shovel, because your Uncle Buck making it three foot wide pancake. Use a snow shovel. But if you're making little six inch pancakes like you normally would, snow shovels too much. So use the whatever tool makes sense for the tasks that you're trying to do. If it's a book and paper, use a book and paper, if it's the internet and Chromebooks, then grab the snow shovel.  Larry Burden  25:40  It's interesting, technology is no longer cool.  David Noller  25:45  Right,  Stephie Luyt  25:46  It's neutral, it just is.  Larry Burden  25:46  It's neutral, what you can do with technology as a tool can be cool.  David Noller  25:53  For these kids the Internet has always existed.  Larry Burden  25:56  Times be changing. Anything else, there's there's I mean, there's a ton more we're just out of time so.  Stephie Luyt  26:01  I think there's a lot more to talk about. To be continued.  Larry Burden  26:04  All right. Hey, Do we have a tech tool of the week? Tech Tool of the Week  26:09  REMC has this amazing course called, "21 Things for Students," and it is something that teachers can use in the classroom but I even think that this specific lesson is beneficial for parents. They just released a new quest five called, "Balancing My Media," and I love this especially in light of our discussion today because it has some great video resources, some great vocabulary, some great graphic organizers to help kids kind of organize their thoughts about their digital media balance, and there's just a lot here to help families and kids learn about how Tech has hooked and how we can try to break that. And I just think there's a lot here so I'll share that in the show notes.  Larry Burden  26:50  Tutorials and updates, not a whole lot. I did see a Chromebook Care and Management tutorial from from the TechNollerGist on YouTube so we'll definitely have that in the show notes. Just wanted to point out again it's, we have a we're hosted on a new site, podbean, podbean is the new podcast hoster so. You can find us now pretty much everywhere, and the podcast, podcast will now be transcribed so you can read the podcast. So very exciting there. In closing, follow us on Facebook and Twitter @TCAPSLoop,  Danelle Brostrom  27:21  @brostromda,  David Noller  27:22  @TechNollerGist,  Stephie Luyt  27:24  @StephieLuyt.  Larry Burden  27:25  Right, subscribe to the podcast on podbean iTunes, Stitcher, Tune-in, Downcast, Overcast, the Google Play Store, and Spotify. Leave a review, we love the feedback. We'd love your questions. Thanks for listening, and inspiring. Larry Burden  27:41  That was that was all over the map. Danelle Brostrom  27:43  That was a tricky one.  

Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Gold Rush, Seelbach, Pink Lady. These are all names we associate with standard cocktail menus. Today, we invite Molly Wellmann, owner of Japp's, and Bill Whitlow, owner of Rich's Proper, to look at the influence bourbon has had on the bartending culture and when should you use a particular bourbon in a staple cocktail. We then examine the changes of the season and how tastes change between having something refreshing to dark and oaky. It’s all about cocktails for the right occasion. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at UofL.me/pursuespirits. At Barrell Craft Spirits, they spend weeks choosing barrels to create a new batch. Joe and Tripp meticulously sample every barrel to make sure the blend is absolutely perfect. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. The 2019 Kentucky’s Edge Bourbon Conference & Festival pairs all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4th & 5th at venues throughout Covington and Newport, Kentucky. Find out more at KentuckysEdge.com. Show Notes: Tom Bulleit steps back: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article234080232.html, https://www.just-drinks.com/news/diageos-bulleit-bourbon-founder-steps-back-as-abuse-claims-intensify_id129116.aspx, https://www.hollisbofficial.com/ Castle and Key spillage: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article234080232.html Willett Distillery Barrel Pick: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29294662 This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about the news of the day. Tell us about your journey into spirits. Was there a moment when you saw bourbon become a staple behind the bar? How do you study the history of a cocktail? Tell us about the Gin Ricky. What are good cocktails for Summer? What are the ingredients in your favorite cocktails? What is a Clover Club? What is a Gold Rush and Brown Derby cocktail? What are good cocktails for Fall? What is a gateway cocktail to get someone into bourbon? What ingredients go in a Seelbach? Is it hard to go to other bars and witness bartenders making cocktails improperly? Let's talk about bourbon slushes. What do you think of barrel aged cocktails? What style of bourbon works well in certain cocktails? What's the ultimate mixing bourbon? What do you think about using allocated bourbon in a cocktail? Is there a cocktail to make lower end whiskey taste better? How do you coverup or reduce negative notes in younger bourbons? What do you think of Mint Juleps? What's a good Winter cocktail? What about vodka cocktails? How do you make an Old Fashioned? What proof bourbon do you use in your cocktails? 0:00 Everybody Are you interested in looking at the distilling process and pairing that with key business knowledge such as finance, marketing and operations, then you should check out the online distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville. It's an online program. It can be completed in as little as 15 weeks. It's taught by both of you have all business faculty and corporate fellows. So you're getting real experience from real experts at the most renowned distilleries, companies and startups in the distilling industry. And all that's required is a bachelor's degree. Go to business.louisville.edu slash online spirits. 0:35 Got all for being out of town. And then you know, my 30th anniversary of Booker's is like down here. It's like, you drink straight from the bottom right now I've been making whiskey sours with it. 0:48 Been there 1:01 Everyone it is Episode 215 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your host Kenny. And as usual, we've got a little bit of news to run through. For anyone that has been paying attention to the bourbon scene and social media for the past two years, you may have been seeing some turmoil within the bullet family. Tom bullets daughter Hollis b worth has made numerous public claims about her father being homophobic and it led to her separation with theology, where she felt she wasn't being compensated properly for helping build the brand. This week the Herald Leader at Kentucky com broke the news that Tom bullet has now taken a step back as the face the company and will not be representing the brand after New claims have emerged of sexual abuse and pedophilia by his daughter Hollis. On August 13. Paula's told her story on Hollis be official calm that her father has been protected from Dr. ZO for these crimes. A spokesperson for Dr. Joe said the company took worth his claims about her father very seriously and began an internal 1:59 investigation after receiving a letter stating all this from her attorney, the audio found no indication that anyone at the audio has been made previously aware of such claims. According to a spokesperson for the company. In an interview, Tom bulleit said the accusations are terrible, they're false and they need to be addressed and they are just drinks calm has reported a resolution was reached at the start of 2018, which saw worth receive a payment of around $1.2 million. corresponding the amount Dr. Sue says she would have received had her contract been renewed equal to the five year deal as well as unpaid overtime. You can read more about this story from the Herald Leader and just drink calm with the link in our show notes. Castle and key distillery has discharged an unknown quantity of untreated wastewater last Thursday August 15 into Glens Creek, killing an unknown number of fish and this was all reported by state environmental officials. Castle and key told the investigators 3:00 Its water treatment system had failed sending untreated oxygen depleting waste directly into the creek. The discharge was stopped around four o'clock pm, about two hours after the state officials received report. lab results are pending on the affected Creek water. Potential penalties could reach $25,000 per violation per day. But the state won't decide a penalty until the case can actually meet with the company and determine more about what happened. Castle and key confirm the incentive in a statement that they had issued. So those are kind of grim, but let's kind of switch it up a little bit and talk about something positive because this week's we selected not one but two barrels at will at distillery that will be bottled as well at family estate. And this is just on the heels of last week's announcement saying that we have two barrels that will be bottled as pursuit series. It was another hot Kentucky date reaching around 96 degrees but we powered through to select one bourbon and one ride. Central Kentucky tours was our ride and took us from 4:00 lovin to the Willett campus. The group asked to start off slow and build up during our tasting. So we tried 207 proof entry, high corn mash bills. Then this was a little bit lightened body the first one so drew tapped into a second barrel that was on the other side of the warehouse that had a lot more of the oak influence because it sat where the sun was just beating down on it. We then headed over to another floor to try the weeded mash bill. And the third barrel was something special because it didn't have a sweet taste that you would expect Instead, it was kind of spicy, come to find out that barrel used 25% of a ride back set to its sour mash process. We are unsure if we were able to find another barrel is unique is that but we pressed on, we headed out to the fifth floor where it was easily 110 degrees. We got a poor of the OG mash bill and then headed back down to the fourth floor to cool off. This bourbon just had the depth and the punch that you would expect from a Willett family state 125% 5:00 Entry just gave way to loads of flavors and oak tannins. It was a crowd favorite. After that was selected that we move on to the rise where we came away with a fantastic one after only trying three. It was a high rye rye mash bill and will be seven years old when bottle. These will all be available to our Patreon community here in just a few months. Thank you to Willett distillery and drew for hosting us. Thank you to Central Kentucky tours for hauling us around and big things to keg and bottle for making this barrel selection available to us. Learn more about Central Kentucky tours and keg and bottle with the links in our show notes. today's podcast is all about the cocktail. For myself. I love cocktails, especially when I go out to dinner because being a fluent bourbon drinker, you know what it costs for some basic Bourbons on that back wall. So instead, I like to take in the drink culture and try something new that may only be available to that particular restaurant. And the bourbon culture has been getting a big boost from bartenders. 5:59 Creating fantastic concoctions. And that's why we invited Molly Wellmann and Bill Whitlow to come on the show. As we start winding down summer and heading into fall, you're going to get a better understanding of a bartenders mindset and how cocktails change in the menu. And if you got a favorite cocktail during a specific season, let's hear the comments on YouTube or Facebook. Now, let's get on with the show. Here's Joe from barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 6:28 It's Joe from barrell bourbon, myself and our master distiller a trip Simpson spend weeks choosing barrels to create a new batch. We meticulously sample every barrel and make sure the blend is absolutely perfect. Find out more at barrel bourbon calm. I'm Fred Minnick, and this is above the char 2019 has been a very bad year for whiskey, not from a sales perspective or even a quality angle. Actually, domestic sales are nice, and I've tasted a lot of great new releases. I'm speaking about the news from the international terrorists crossing distillers. 6:59 Millions to the bulleit family drama that led to Tom bulleit stepping down whiskies been a daily soap opera this year finding itself trending for all the wrong reasons. For example, last week video surfaced of MMA star Conor McGregor pouring shots for folks at a Dublin bar. The crowd skewed older and didn't really seem to be into the celebrity when Connor offered shots of his proper 12 whiskey. One man hunkered over the bar didn't want one or said something to Connor. I don't know what really happened, but like a cobra striking McGregor's fist hit the side of the man's head. It happened so fast that I missed the punch and wouldn't have seen it if TMC didn't zoom in and slow motion it indeed. McGregor is a professional fighter and is lightning quick, but he punched an old man over a dispute with his whiskey. That's a true turd move. But for me, the story isn't just about McGregor. It's the fact somebody partnered with him knowing of the potential 8:00 consequences and put whiskey in the bottle he represented proper 12 is awful, by the way, and nobody really viewed McGregor's incident as a whiskey story. Rather, it's a celebrity story. But for those of us who cover whiskey professionally, we often get pulled into covering these things and it takes away the romance and the fun of a good drink. And I hate it. I can pinpoint the exact moment when my bourbon innocence was lost when covering the theft of the Pappy Van Winkle and wild turkey bottles and barrels. A few years ago, I studied the police reports and saw that one of the arrested persons was suspected of possessing child pornography. Up until that point, even covering the illegal activity surrounding whiskey was fun. After that, I realized that not even our beloved spirit is protected from shit bags. And I often finally look back to the moment just before I learned the evils of some when whiskey was just about the grains, water yeast stills barrels 9:00 warehouses. How great it would be where I was just talking about the whiskey. Instead, we have the news of the day. And that's this week's above the char. Hey, did you know i curated a super cool auction for the speed museum? It's September 19, and called the art of bourbon. Learn more at speed museum.org that's speed museum.org Until next week, cheers. 9:29 Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon for it and Kenny here making the trek to Northern Kentucky in the Covington area at a I don't know this is pretty fancy place. I'm surprised they haven't kicked us out yet. Yeah, this is like the the castle of the North for for Kentucky. So Northern Kentucky. We are with the queen of the North. So 9:52 it will introduce them in here in a second. But I mean, we're at the MIT club. I mean, I was just I was walking in I was like, usually kick people out like me in here. So it's 10:00 Well and normally I'm here routing Normally I'm dress for a place like this but not today. Not today no beach shirt hat and 10:09 socks I wore yesterday that you go on a vacation sometimes you kind of get into that mood you know actually no it's matter. 10:17 We had some some work done in the house today and I don't dress up for the repair man. 10:24 They don't get the they don't get the Sundays. They don't get the good Ascot. But today we're going to be talking about cocktails. And this is a really This was also a a listener inspired idea. Because bourbon is really starting to come in and be a big contributor to the cocktail culture. It You know, there's you talk to any distillery, they say, oh, like it's all about drinking a neat mixing of the cocktail. It's great for this and this and this. And it's also inspired, you know, a revolution of things that we've seen also with inside of pop culture with Manhattans and old fashions that have 11:00 Really kind of skyrocketed as some of the premier cocktails that are out there that are some are all whiskey focused. Yeah, I mean, this story is about, you know, 15 years old. But what it started to change in the evolution of bourbon cocktails is that people aren't trying to force it anymore in particular like ice for a long time. You saw people trying to create like a bourbon equivalent to the Margarita like that, you know, they don't have bourbon readers even had a bourbon Rita. It's it's not you can't 11:32 you know, so you're starting to see like true. 11:36 You know, people like focus more on bourbon that complements it that people are not trying to force it to be something it's not in bourbon and my opinion is not the most mixable spirit. You know, you definitely have some, you, you can't go everywhere with it. It's very finite. And that's one of the reasons why bourbon really struggled in the 60s was because they 12:00 We're trying to get people to mix it like they mix vodka. So they were they were promoting bourbon and orange juice, which did not really appeal to that audience. I don't think it appeals today now. So so the I think finally for the first time, 12:18 at least from what I've studied in the history of bourbon, I think we have finally found Bourbons place and the growth of the cocktail bar. And that's a great way to kind of introduce both our guests because both of our guests are really pioneering and spearheading a lot of the the cocktail culture around this area and around the United States as well. So today on the show, we have Molly Wellman. Molly is the owner of objects as well as Molly's brands and we've got bill Whitlow of riches proper in the cocktail creative consulting, so Molly and Bill, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. So before we kick it off and talk about cocktails, kind of talk about your journey into spirits. Like how did it happen? 13:00 Because I'm sure that there's always always some good story behind this. Take it away You go first. 13:06 It's mine. I feel like mine's a little typical. I've been bartending for around 20 years, but for the longest time I was swinging out by visors and mega bombs and ski with steak houses with muddled old fashions and shakin Manhattan's and it's kind of what we did. 13:24 What until behind the bar for about probably 10 years before I went to New Orleans and had a size rack at you know, down in New Orleans at their moms. We had a real cocktail down there for a music festival and kind of opened my eyes a bit. And then when I moved to Louisville and started managing the bar at the seal Bach hotel, really got the chance to play around with like a real chef. Bobby Benjamin was a chef Tom and really get to play around with flavors and actually have a whole bar full of anything we wanted. We were a hotel that did tons of money, they didn't care what I bought, and they did 14:00 care what I wasted. So that was the first time I really got a chance to do whatever I wanted and play around. And that gave me a chance to do a lot of self discovery as well as learning from an amazing chef. Then when I went over into managing over at crows and mobile, 14:17 worked with a guy named Jackie from old force or Jackie's I can never heard of her. She taught me a lot about technique because I never I didn't take you know, teach myself that. And she taught me really how to start how to shake your proper dilution, things like that. And then, when I went on with a company called Goodfellas, pizzeria for a number of years, they kind of gave me complete autonomy. Let me kind of just run with it. And we were able to set up some really cool things there and just have a lot of fun with a lot of cocktails and expand past just the bourbon that they're known for, but also play around in all kinds of different realms. And 14:53 now here, we're going our own restaurant, MIMO life and yeah, play around and have more fun. Well, that's awesome. So it was 15:00 I know you'd mentioned your time down on Bourbon Street. You know, we all love New Orleans, maybe for different reasons than just the cocktails, but it's on the moves. It's a 15:10 Party City. But it was there a pivotal moment when you started seeing like bourbon become a key staple behind the bar. 15:20 Yes, before North when I started bartending, we were pretty high volume restaurant and nicer restaurant in town in Lexington. And we had four Bourbons behind behind the bar. And then I remember when I was at another Steakhouse within the same company, we had like 10 Bourbons behind the bar that was like 2003. And then like a year or two later, we expanded to like 20 Bourbons behind the bar and we got this thing called a lot be and I couldn't understand why, you know, when we sold out of it, that we weren't allowed to get any more I was like, so I'm going to just order more. We just need more of it before drinking it order. It was it was coming awakening, as I saw that growth and then 16:00 grew exponentially from there. Absolutely. Molly, let's hear your your coming of age tale here. Now I, you know, it's funny, I worked in high end retail forever. I worked I lived in San Francisco. And then I got into the service industry, I got kind of thrown behind the bar. And the only thing I knew how to make was in Manhattan, because I drank them all the time, because I was in high end retail. And that's the only thing that I like, saved me. Anyway, when I throw it in, I was like, just push the Manhattans. It's the only thing I had to make. But I grew, you know, I learned how to make different drinks and stuff, not not to the craft and classic cocktails that 16:39 I've known for now. But 16:42 when I moved back to Cincinnati, in like, 10 years ago, I started this place called chalk. Right? Kind of like right over there. 16:50 And they were like, We need somebody who can do craft and classic cocktails. I'm like, Oh, I could totally do that. I had no idea. But I went home, googled it and I fell down the rabbit hole and that was it. 17:00 I loved every bit of it. I studied, I read every old cocktail book I get my hands on. I love the idea that I love the thing that every single drink seemed to have a story. And I loved that I could, you know, learn history through cocktails. I just loved it. So 17:19 I've I've never looked back. So it's been 11 years now that I've been doing craft and classic cocktails. And I love studying I'm still I love writing about them. I love 17:31 still entertaining people behind the bar. You know, they get a drink, they get a story with it. It's like my favorite thing. What kind of stuff can you study with a cocktail? I mean, you said you that you study me? Like what? What kind of, I mean, is it like a history based? Is it just kind of knowing where the origins of it like what kind of talk about that? Kind of the origins? It's kind of it's almost like a treasure hunt. So I find it you know, I looked through old cocktail books from over 100 years ago. I love to read the first part of there's something about like, how 17:59 Baraka 18:00 tenders really took this job so seriously, you know, it was such a 18:06 every aspect of the job is like laid out in the first, you know, folks the technique or the first part, you know, part of the cocktails, the techniques, the glassware, the ingredients that were used, you know, it's fascinating, you know, it really is, it's, it's the same but different than it is now, you know, and then going through some of the cocktail, some of them are boring. And you're like, well, that's exactly the same as this one except the Ito the measurements are a little different. 18:31 But then you come upon when you're like, Oh, that sounds so interesting. Why would I think about that, you know? And then I want to know everything about it, or it has a weird name and like, Well, why did they call it this? You know, I want to know, so then I start digging, and I start looking through your it's amazing, like all these different 18:48 resources, you can find that you can find the stories where this cocktail came from, or kind of get an idea of where in history and why they were drinking this certain cocktail. Does that make sense? Yeah, and one, one 19:00 story that we've we had a fun conversation about one time what was the Ricky yeah and like how that how the regular regularly this revived ever seen the movie get him to the creek Yes Yes What's a Jeffrey yeah 19:15 what's not going on that 19:18 share share with the audience this this is an example of of like how cool like cocktail history can be Molly share with us the story of the of the gin Ricky's and the Ricky. So the gin Ricky is really interesting one, there was a guy named Joe, Ricky, he was a veteran of the Civil War. And he was in Washington, you know, Washington DC, and he would go and he would drink every night at this bar called shoemakers, which isn't around anymore. But he had this idea like he had this idea of being healthy, you know, and he felt that sugar and sweet things would affect his his blood and make him sick, so he didn't like anything sweet. So the original 20:00 Ricky was not made with jet it was actually made with rye, rye and lime juice. He squeeze a half a lime in a glass drop in the Rhine, and then fill it with rye. It's kind of really disgusting with the right. Cassidy and then eventually it turned to, you know, to gin which is a lot better ice and then soda water on top and that's adyen Ricky and it has no sugar in it whatsoever. Now, the gin Ricky there's different kinds of gin. So the gin Ricky would usually always be made with an old Tom gin, which was sweetened gin, which is weird because he thought that sugar but I guess that didn't count with the old Thompson. But yeah, that's the Rickey pretty much in a nutshell. Let's see that see the the story there is 20:43 a bartender you know, was very focused on his health. And that, you know, he creates an entire style of cocktails. And oh, by the way, where he's, you know, his bar. He's probably influencing a lot of very important people for the time in DC. So yeah, 21:00 He actually wasn't a bartender. He was a he was a lobbyist. And he got the bartender at shoemakers to make this for him. So, I mean, but still to this day people in Washington DC drink gin Ricky's, it's like the best summer drink in Washington DC 21:14 kind of story. And we're already kind of leading on to the what we were talking about. It was like this is cocktails for the right occasion. And so you're talking about the summertime and having a gin Ricky and, and let's kind of hit some of those different seasons of the year. So you've already started off with summer. I think it's probably proved and we kind of just start there so we got gin Ricky, what other kind of cocktails are going to be good for an a just a little say a back porch drinking kinda kind of afternoon. How about that? You wake up. I'm pretty simple when it comes to summer cocktails. I love egg white cocktails. Yes. That know. My wife's language there. Yeah. And I'm, I'm trashed me. I have a sweet cocktail. 21:55 sweet wines. I'm not your normal. So I love sweet echo. 22:00 cocktails young whiskey hours. Yeah. I love biz's things like that. And then just, of course, whatever the bartender is going to come up with like, Pisco sours, I can show you one of my absolute favorite things in the world. Take Take one of your favorites right there and kind of kind of talk about some of the ingredients because I know a lot of our listeners are probably, they're curious, they hear that they hear the pisco sour. They hear some of these things with egg whites, but they kind of want to know like, what what what really entails into this that really like a craftsman such as you all could actually create. Welcome pisco sour. It's a classic from ru ga South America did simply uses simple syrup, lime juice, egg white and Pisco. Right now on our cocktail menu, we change it up just a little bit by throwing in a little bit of the Mexican side of the Doritos, the guava, and then throwing some real age tobacco and weather bitters on top and it changes the whole aspect that makes it slightly sweeter. We actually go to Apple in there as well to counterbalance 23:00 Some of the sweetness you're gonna put any CBD oil in there and, you know, I'll be honest, there's a there's a kind of a hippie Music Festival coming up in like a month. I know that's kind of how it is but we're thinking about making some CBD cocktail. 23:14 Going into that I got that hippie festival just why not? I haven't tried it before and I know it's a pretty upcoming thing. They were everywhere in Las Vegas and we went 23:24 sure of A is 23:26 like balloons filled with CBD air was like the world you know, you could do that, either. It's crazy. 23:35 actually had to like call the ABC office and make sure we are allowed to do that. No, and they're right. Yeah, we don't have anything against it. Yeah, yeah. They emphasized yet I could totally see you as a clever club guy. Ah, no, I think a good coworker. Yeah, I put that on the menu before just people didn't order so much. 23:58 Go for it. I love the clip. 24:00 I just had it on my menu. There you go. So the clover club is a classic from the night from 1900. And it was created for a gentleman's club that met every Thursday in Philadelphia at this hotel called the Stanford Bellevue hotel. Right? And like every one is like the last third has the third Thursday of every month they meet, and these guys would dress up to the nines and they would, you know, all have drinks before dinner. And then they would be led into this room that had this big table that was sheep in a clover clover, you know, set up you know, and they would have this like ceremony, you know, where the youngest member of the clover club would have to like, first sit in a baby chair is not a high chair. And until one of the members was like, okay, you can get up from the baby chair and this is it adults, you know, an adult man, and then he would have to go around with the clover club, sharing cup and then everyone would take a sip out of the 25:00 The clover club sharing cup. I still I have no idea what the drink is. But apparently the chef would come up with whatever concoction was in this like flowing cup, right? That would pass. I have no idea what it is. I can't find it. But then they sit down at dinner and through the courses, you know, it would be like, I think the second to last course they would have this cocktail or a punch. And in 1900 they had the clover club, which is a combination of gin, raspberry syrup, dry vermouth, and and then egg white. And it shaken, you know, so frothy, and it's this beautiful. It has like this beautiful, sweet flavor, but the driver who's kind of dries it out a bit. It's absolutely gorgeous. It really is. And I could totally see you. It's the it's one of my jams. Yeah. Now it evolved after prohibition, they kind of dropped the dry vermouth and then they put lemon with it so it kind of turned into a Pink Lady. So this cocktail it evolved, but it's fantastic. 25:55 We dug it I do both. So it depends on the 26:00 You know what's fancy? And yeah, I was like, it'd be hard to have Fred and I go to bar and order Pink Lady. I don't know. It's just, there's just something about the name. If you don't know anything about it, I think there's a I'm gonna drink a cocktail. It's gonna be a Pink Lady. 26:15 But if you did tell you that history of where it came from, you know, like, here's how this evolved. You know, it came from this gentleman's club. And but it goes for I mean, it wouldn't have it would have, it probably would have fizzled out if it wasn't for George Bush, who is the owner of that Stanford Bellevue hotel who went on to help open up that would have a story in New York and he brought that recipe with him making it popular. So really fascinating. That is fascinating. So that was summer we captured so are there a little bit. I got one more for summer because I'm a big fan of the gold rush. Are you what kind of workout kind of season Do you all see that? Any 26:54 say summer fall, but I mean, honey really falls anytime for me now. It's it's funny like I'm in a very 27:00 Similar favorite cocktails to brown derbies my favorite gold rush and brown Derby. kind of related. Can you all kind of talk about the the different components of each one of these as well as so our listeners understand that they're not sitting there googling like Oh crap, I don't know. I don't know what a because I'm not sure what a brown Derby is and I couldn't tell you everything that goes inside of a gold rush either. So so the brown Derby is bourbon, grapefruit juice and honey, it's really simple. But when you use the honey, you have to make sure that you water it down make the honey syrup because otherwise you will put honey into this drink and it will turn into a glob of a ball in the bottom of your drink because you're adding ice to it. So one part honey one part sugar, make a syrup or honey syrup and then it's about two ounces of bourbon. I put an ounce of 27:47 grapefruit and then half ounce of honey that's how I make my nice Yeah, yeah and you might have a history or better than this summer here a little bit on history but I mean honey sir win that. 27:58 fight about that like back in the day like 28:00 During the Tiki wars and we're trying to figure out how to recreate each other's cocktails and it was so simple as one person couldn't figure out how he was making that money nightclub open and a drink. Yeah, I had the formula. Yeah. It was Yeah, it was between I believe it was between Don the Beachcomber and 28:18 it was in all they had to do is add hot water 28:22 silly stupid little things that are so obvious and then you figure it out in your like your face palming because she figured out a long time ago so for Katie, you know, I know he's gonna follow up with this the Gold Rush, break that down. I mean, gold rush is just as simple as that three part lemon, honey, Jen, I, 28:41 a lot of these cocktails, all these classes, all these things are easy, you know, renditions of each other, just replacing one ingredient with another. You can go to the Daiquiri, which is another three part, you know, just some sort by rum game. What's Gen line? Yeah, it's, it's all these different ways of just doing your two, three 29:00 Quarter three quarter kind of sour recipes and tart recipes. Okay, okay so Fred already kind of alluded to it let's kind of move on to the next season let's let's enter the the fallen winter time because it's a little little darker a little warmer kind of kind of talk about what are your favorites during those those periods? Well, I mean for false, I mean, everything bourbon, I think a dark rum. 29:23 Rum cocktail. What I get into something warm and cozy. I mean, I get into the warm I know it's more 29:30 more winter. I think I get really excited in the fall when that you know, first colbrie starts to come in that first leaf falls. I want to start making tardies all over the place. I mean, already, I don't I do. ciders also. 29:45 That's kind of grabs my jam. Yeah, we get all season local cider and put it like heated up and then we add, you know, whatever, whatever. Like it usually is bourbon or around 29:57 the cider and it's like everybody's favorite. It's awesome. 30:00 So yeah, and people really start grabbing on like heavy hitters cocktails more so even in the fall than in the winter, because I think in the winter they're used to getting cold that point use once third boozy bourbon cocktails but I can use a lot of crazy bitters cocktails in the fall. 30:17 turning 30:18 things like I have a one I do like bourbon and apple and ginger beer, but then a ton of barely bitters and it almost tastes like an apple cider and you just kind of get into those really 30:31 jagged, not like Irby. Yeah, 30:34 like those coffee, you know that the whole tomorrow thing. It's not my jam. I have a lot of bartenders who are like lava Mars and Mars are Italian bitter spirits pretty much in the right way. In the right way. I hate shooting and I got shoot me down probably will get shot for being a bartender who's not a big fan of for net. 30:57 Goodbye for me. It's not like 31:00 rumble that I'll just throw away but you'll never ever see me order a shot for net and that's what every bartender out a kiddie that just so you know this is a this is an industry thing like the bar like you go out with a bunch of bartenders somebody inevitably gets a round of for net and I think it's like someone you know for net has, 31:21 you know as you know putting little envelopes all over the country 31:27 or something but it's like who in the right mind would order it? It kind of reminds me of I saw I saw a picture the other day on the internet that said there's a secret society of people living among those that are still keeping long john Silver's and business. 31:40 So this is probably like that same, that same analogy. So true that places grow. 31:46 Like this. 31:49 And I gotta say, Molly, you know, went to fall cocktails. I was kind of shocked that you didn't talk about a punch. Well, yeah, well, I was getting there. 31:58 I know how much you love. 32:00 I do I love punch. I think it's, first of all, it saves every party. It saves every host hostess at a party, you know, but the history behind the punches are, 32:12 are the best, the best. I mean, there's one it's more of a, I think a Christmas punch, but I started serving in the fall, the admiral Russell's 32:21 punch is so great. I mean it has its its brandy and Sherry. And those are the two main things and then lemon and and then there's a sweet to it as well. So punch means five in Hindi. So five different components or another spirit sweet, sour water and spice that is a template for a really good punch and punches date back almost 500 years, you know, it started when you know Europeans started, you know, traveling all over the world, you know, putting merchant companies into different parts. 33:00 The world the English pretty much in, in India, and then once they get to this, you know this country, you know, the native people trying to make sure that everybody's refreshed. You guys think like people just didn't get off the boat and like, give me water, you know, they absolutely they're like, I need a drink, you know, and usually it was liquor or something that was some kind of alcohol and they couldn't trust the water, they drink the water, they get sick. Yeah. So it was very a lot of people didn't drink water, you know, they drink, you know, ale or wine, you know, or spirits. So, making sure that everybody got refreshed in this hot country, you know, pulling all their resources together and mixing it all together in a big bowl to make it palatable punch bill. 33:46 It sounds like it was just like a means to survive and what punch really became well think about this. So the admin Russell's so I'm gonna tell you the story. There was a guy named Errol Russell. He was in the English army 1600s and he was traveling of the 34:00 coast to Spain. And he decided on Christmas day to get off and throw a party in the city of cookies. And in CODIS, they had this huge fountain in the middle of like the governor's courtyard or something like that or the town. And he's like, well, we're going to use that as a punch bowl. So they poured in, you know, these big you know, barrels of brandy and Sherry spit a Sherry and then added limes and added everything and they It was so big and there's so many there's like 600 people there. They had to get the cabin boy from the boat in a little lifeboat to serve the punch. Everybody got naked, they drink the place dry and then everybody had a great hangover the next day. I always think how cool it would be if I could do this at Fountain Square in Cincinnati. If I get the mayor to let me like use Fountain Square it as a drinking fountain. You know, I could use it as punishable. Would you recommend everyone getting naked? Yeah. I 34:54 mean, gosh, we're not that conservative in Cincinnati. 35:00 Naked fun run around there somewhere anybody's gonna like break that conservative you know boat it's gonna be me 35:09 to all our listeners out there start petitioning Cincinnati mer for Molly's naked fountain party party love me oh god 35:21 well and maybe that could happen to at the party. Yeah You never 35:27 know blushing or anything No, it sounds awesome. I want I want the invite to this party. Yeah, it'll be epic. 35:35 Yes, punch is great. It really is so easy to do. That's good. I mean, that's that's a history of punches that that I had never known about. Seriously up until now. But you know, the other thing that we want to kind of talk about too is 35:48 you know, I guess we'll stay on the cocktails the right occasion kind of part kind of talk about, say, say Fred and I were you know, we're taking our wives out. what's what's that kind of cocktail bourbon kind of cocktail at that. 36:00 Somebody could go out on a date with their wife, nice romantic place and maybe kind of maybe guide her in a way to say like, you need to try this other kind of good bourbon cocktail. Because my wife isn't Are you asking how to man's playing to her? 36:14 I'm just trying to figure out like, how can I get my wife to drink more bourbon cocktails? Right? I know I know this is a Ryan Brian property because his wife is only only drinks wine and she she probably knows is I don't got that problem with Jacqueline and I got the opposite problem. I got home from being out of town. And then you know, my 30th anniversary of Booker's is like down here. It's like, straight straight from the bottom right now. I was rapping making whiskey sours with it. 36:43 Been there. 36:46 We were finishing up a new year's eve one evening, we got home late night from the bar and we had a couple friends over and I was like, hey, let me push out a bourbon for everybody. Let's celebrate as I can just go grab a bottle for some shots. She comes back and 37:00 I'll take a shot all kind of wins and it was a I was it was definitely a barrel proof. Okay, I 12 years. 37:07 You know, they're like the 120s and 30s or whatever and I was like, well, that happened 37:13 a little shorter. But 37:16 my husband doesn't drink bourbon which I married. That's the reason why I married him because you always need a driver. Yeah, that will. Not that much but he doesn't get into my bourbon collection. Except if he has like a tattoo guy because he's a tattoo. When somebody is visiting and they're in the bourbon. He'll open up my, you know, my pantry which used to have all my bourbon in it. I'll be like, pick one. 37:39 world is yours. Yeah. He got in one time to my 2013 Elmer Tilly that was given to me by Omer TVO you know while ago sign and it was like cherished, you know, drank the whole thing. I was so mad. I was divorced and I was like 37:57 you like 38:00 How 38:01 high is like models that you cannot touch is like, she can't even reach it. And I think she knows at that point she can't reach it. Don't touch it. My wife, my wife will climb the shell to get it. Oh, he wants me not to have that one. So she ended up she ended up having a bourbon that I couldn't touch. She got a bourbon women barrel pig. Oh, and, like, Peggy is the one who gifted it to her. She's like, Fred can't have any of this. And so, you know, I couldn't have any until I eventually got permission and when I got permission, I drained that. 38:38 Anyway, I know he's gonna I know. 38:42 We 38:43 got to figure out like how, you know, I think what Kenny's looking for, like the gateway, what is it? What is a gateway cocktail to get people into bourbon? I know. It's a seal buck. I know. It's like, whatever cocktail. You know if you have those. Yeah, I mean, it works. 39:00 It works. The robot cocktail is a champagne cocktail. And it had a story that a lot of people thought was true. And then we found out it wasn't true. I worked at that I was the bar manager at the CEO bar before the, you know, huge wall street journal article that kind of threw out the old historic story of the cocktail. And it hurt me a ton because I use it even after I left the seal Bach to introduce people to bourbon and I've still got people that come see me to drink the COI cocktail. I had a couple who came in for their anniversary the other night and they've been drinking from me for years. And it just hurt my soul When I 39:37 see her. We're just like, fraudulent. 39:40 Oh my god. Well, I think it's safe to say that everything in the spirits business is bullshit. You know, JN true. Your your book. What does it bourbon cure? Yeah, I read that a few times. Thank you bit about that. Yeah, just you can't trust anything. 40:00 Ricky stories is pretty legit because the guy wasn't really in the business. You know the real guy well back in the day before smartphones, 40:09 shit to 40:13 throw anything at you is fantastic but you know a great story is a great story and it does create an experience No matter if it's true or not. So I say Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. That's right. So tell us about the seal Bach what's the best bourbon to use there? What's the best champagne? How do you make it work? I like First of all, I like to use a sugar cube. I don't know if he's a sugar cube use sugar. I don't know I use just a splash of simple syrup about consistency. And I like I like the sugar cube because I love the little crystals that go through it. So sugar cube, I douse it with both Angostura and patient bitters. I'm heavier on the patient with an iron Angostura. Yeah, a little more citrus for Yeah, it makes it a little more crowd pleasing. Yeah. The CEO box even at the hotel, I had it sent back 41:00 When I would do super heavy on both yeah started bringing down the Angostura a little bit yeah back OD became more palatable for the masses so that and then I like to use just for your for roses yellow label for sale bought because it seems to be a little lighter you know worse there for me I leveled for sure but there's something about I don't know the when I like when I make 41:23 for some reason for roses yellow label has a lighter 41:29 lighter something about it for these lighter cocktails I use that another one my cocktails it's one of the most popular on our menu. I actually like the the old force you can still a little bit of spice it has yet to go against the champagne and a little bit of sweetness in there. So well and then I top it off usually with a dredge Prosecco and then the champagne does any dry but we have used Prosecco or dry champagne. And you do use terms like or do you use like in my strike here, I use I make my own Triple Sec. So I triple sec, just a little 42:00 Orange look for so that brings it all together and there's something about this so you still can taste the bourbon but it's not overpowering because it's lightened up with the champagne. 42:12 So any any not just bourbon, but you don't use a little ins and outs of bourbon and when I make so it's not like overpowering people and a half 42:22 and half the triple. Yeah, there's been a lot of differences between these. It's really good. Just a simple cocktail. Yes, it's fascinating. Oh, I don't think it's the right answer. That's why that's why MIMO we've been friends for a long time. It's because we understand that it's the great thing if you know there's there's certain cocktails, you know, everybody like little fashion for instance, everybody makes their own fashion different. They really do. I don't I don't think I've ever had unless it's a bartender that I trained on how I make my old fashions. I don't think I've ever had an old fashioned same hopefully they're making it the same way. 42:58 Yeah, I've done that before. 43:00 Hear that before where people like know we're going to model this I'm like no not in my bar we're not doing Have you seen the YouTube video? The woman Oh talk 43:11 last night yeah 715 43:15 army we used to talk them with soda. Like I used to call that the steak house old fashioned. Yeah, that's how I learned it. Back in the early 2000s. We were you know, we were modeling orange and cherry and throwing a couple sugar packets in there. soda water and it was and this is a white tablecloth Steakhouse that Yang $10 a cocktail, at least you didn't like just take a thing of simple stare and go, you know, like this. I've been a bourbon police, a bourbon place downtown August they were and the guy was making these old fashions. He's just like, it was like probably like a full house and half a simple syrup in the glass, and then bourbon on top and then and then he just threw a cherry and an orange in there. I was like, oh my god. It's like we both know some places around here that we might not go to and go back 44:00 Drink bourbon. No, no, no. Is it hard for you to go places when you see when you see other people like creating cocktails and you're kind of like, send it back like every day? do you do that? I mean, what's your there? I have I mean not not because I will spin people who don't who didn't understand the egg white thing that you have to actually shake it a lot. And he got outlawed in some areas. So there are some cities that have outlawed horrible things back. I mean, it was slimy still, it wasn't it didn't have the aeration of the A. And I've said back old fashions because they were just so sweet. Like it just was disgusting. So usually though, I don't do that. I just ordered a bourbon on the rock. 44:39 I don't drink cocktails, the whole I drink more cocktails and I'm out of town. Yeah, for some reason. When I'm out of town in a different city. It's kind of inspirational. It's kind of like getting a feel for where you're at to drink more cocktails. Or if I'm at a, you know, a new restaurant or bar in town that I haven't had cocktails at, but if I'm going to visit my friends at their bar, I'm not ordering cocktails from them hardly ever 45:00 They might make me something they want me to try, but I'm drinking a beer bourbon. Yeah. Yeah. I don't drink beer so I drink a lot. OJ go Martini. I drink Beefeater martinis or Plymouth martinis depending on my jam. Good. Yeah. Jim. 45:15 So let's go back to like the the entry level kind of cocktails. 45:22 Hey, it's Kenny here and I want to tell you about the Commonwealth premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. It will be happening on August 24. In Frankfort, Kentucky. It's called bourbon on the banks. You get to enjoy bourbon beer and wine from regional and national distilleries while you stroll things along the scenic Kentucky River. There's also going to be food vendors from regional award winning chefs. Plus you get to meet the master distillers and brand ambassadors you've heard on the show, but the kicker is bourbon pursuit. We're going to be there in our very own booth as well. Your $65 ticket includes everything all food and beverage on Saturday. 46:00 Plus you can come on Friday for the free Bourbon Street on Broadway event. Don't wait, go and buy your tickets now at bourbon on the banks.org. 46:10 You've probably heard of finishing beer using whiskey barrels, but a Michigan distillery is doing the opposite. They're using beer barrels to finish their whiskey. New Holland spirits claims to be the first distillery to stout a whiskey. The folks at Rock house whiskey club heard that claim and had to visit the banks of Lake Michigan to check it out. That all began when New Holland brewing launched in 97. Their Dragon's milk beer is America's number one selling bourbon barrel aged out in 2005. They apply their expertise from brewing and began distilling a beer barrel finished whiskey began production 2012 and rock house was the club is featuring it in their next box. The barrels come from Tennessee get filled with Dragon's milk beer twice, the mature bourbon is finished in those very same barrels. RackHouse whiskey club is a whiskey the Month Club on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories from craft distillers across the US along with two bottles. 47:00 hard to find whiskey rackhouse's boxes are full of cool merchandise that they ship out every two months to members in over 40 states. Go to rock house whiskey club com to check it out and try a bottle of beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel ride. Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. The 2019 Kentucky's edge bourbon conference and festival pairs all things Kentucky with bourbon. It takes place October 4 and fifth at venues throughout Covington in Newport Kentucky, Kentucky's edge features of bourbon conference music tastings pairings tours and in artists and market Kentucky's edge 2019 is where bourbon begins. Tickets and information can be found online at Kentucky's edge.com. 47:45 So let's go back to like the the entry level kind of cocktails. One that I have found is almost a surefire winners not really a lot of people's radars. And that's bourbon slushies, huh? Oh, yeah, I mean, I have yet to find someone who didn't like bourbon. 48:00 But I introduced them to like a really nice bourbon slushy recipe and they were just wow, do you guys do anything with slushies? I have I have snow could thing. 48:10 It's not Snoopy either. 48:13 I have it's like it's harder for me. Um, it's kind of breaking the law to do those. And I'm pretty stickler for those things. A lot of the people that pre mold it's against the law to have a slushy machine as a as with drinks in it in Kentucky. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, 48:35 hi. Oh, that's completely legal. No, I'm not doing that in Ohio. But man, I was going to open a slushy liquor bar in Kentucky and now it's all 48:42 right now as it stands right now in Kentucky and I had to check this recently. Because we wanted to do so she's a 48:50 spirit has to be served from its original container last being consumed immediately. So by their iteration and Kentucky, if it sits and 49:00 mixture of less than 24 hours then you can serve it out of a machine or a pre mixer things like that. If it sits over 24 hours it's no longer legal. So interesting right so yeah so no barrel aged. I we when I was at my old Goodfellas we got rid of our house michelman show we got rid of our barrel aged cocktails all because there were some a couple people that got hit by the ABC on that Eric Gregory if you're listening to this with this on the Kentucky distillers associations I don't mean to throw it out there sorry. We saw 49:35 hillbilly Eric not who he was up nobility Yeah, but he got hit hard on that and it shut him down. Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, I watched a restaurant go down in flames because of something simple like that. And I don't I'm not gonna risk the entire business doing that we got a few emails will send after this one to some friends who 49:54 I had no idea but I mean, you say things like, okay, like more beverages wine that's not 100 50:00 Spirit you can do like local things like that. No saucy vermouth cocktails. Well you said you actually brought something up that that I always love going places and I've had good ones I've had bad ones that barrel aged cocktails kind of talk about your we got a yes and a no 50:17 go yeah it's very age who we send out in we did right across up I love that one. So I don't I love I love to use, you know, aged products to make a fresh cocktail. I don't think it doesn't taste fresh and it comes out of like, if you read if you make a cocktail, you may begin to granny or Manhattan and he put it into a barrel. 50:41 I hate that. I mean it kind of rounded out the rough edges you had to do it correctly like we would do two barrels. We took one barrel was our serving beer and we put paraffin wax on the inside so it's no longer reactive because people will keep it in a fresh barrel where it becomes over age and many tannic rough on your palate. If you get it to the right point and then change it over to an honorary 51:00 barrel that's where I think you you keep it is so you would age yours to a certain time age it to what we thought was right and every time you use the barrel it changes a little differently tasteful different so you're tasting and every couple days a week or so and then you bottle it yeah cabin and then you have you're serving in st you're you're serving barrel that we paraffin wax and you would fill that up and serve it from there. Yeah. Oh 51:28 I love Sam fights breakout 51:32 no I don't like oh, no, no, we've had differences opinion before so 51:38 I'm just not really drink is barely, you know, making them anytime soon. So I gotta tell you I kind of lean with Molly on my opinion of barrel aged cocktails. Like I have found them to be over tannic way battery the essence of the spirit is often lost. And if there is any kind of citrus in it, I 52:00 Swear to God I said wait hold on so I put sisters in a bed so you can put sisters in a very shocking that's just 52:06 I think that's the thing is like people think that they can just like make a cocktail and throw it into a barrel anything you know, and they don't realize there's some oxidation that goes on is very unsafe. I think it just you got to know what you're doing it's like Molly knows what she's doing what she's making tobacco bitters, but tobacco bitters are dangerous part to me. margins are playing around with activated charcoal they're out there playing around with things that they don't know fully about. And there it's not exactly Well, the the nitrogen one there's been a couple cases of customers are having burning their throat or having their stomach. Huge lawsuit with George Clooney, his old brand new they sold Castillo because of ego. They were having a party like even after he sold it or whatever. And somebody like Woody was out of work for eight months because they destroyed their esophagus on dry ice stupid. Well, yeah, don't use dry ice at home now. 53:00 There's so many things you show me that I'm dumb down. Well, let's keep the the disagreements going here because 53:09 so this is this is another one where I think our listeners would be interested to kind of see what is the right bourbon for the right type of cocktail, because you've got, you've got your weeded, you've got your high rise, you've got your low rise, you've got your craft that has sort of a more of a grainy flavor to it. So with these four, like where did they fit in inside and there's one other kind, the kind where they're paying you to put it in the cocktail? 53:37 competition competitions and things. I guess this will work. 53:42 I don't know if you agree, but I rarely and this is gonna be a kind of a blanket statement. I rarely find that we did Bourbons go into cocktails for me. Like a smash. Yeah. But not too often do I use a weighted bourbon and cocktails? Yeah, don't use a lot of we I mean unless I have to for like makers or something. 54:00 Right What do you mean less I have to well like you said like like if they're you know paying for it like 54:09 a lot of makers things and I you know I usually will like figure out the the cocktail for that you know it really well I mean 54:18 makers find to be a little sweeter so not 54:26 and not as complex as a lot of the other Bourbons I love makers don't don't think that I'm like putting it down no telling telling you like what I think I just gotta like you gotta figure out like what to put in it so that he doesn't like Lakers in a smash right it's about the only thing I put it I love smashes that was like one of my favorite like a Bramble even Rambo works I mean, I've made Maker's Mark brambles All right, y'all gotta remember 54:51 talking other languages fruit, smashed fruit and 54:57 and then your spirits and sometimes I put citrus in 55:00 Bramble and then top it off with spotlight club soda. Very simple, easy to make it home and bright cocktail. Yeah. 55:09 Like switching up the Bourbons there's lots of times where like a competition is happening and you make it with the bourbon gives you have to but you know it tastes better with a different burger. Yeah, that's how I've done that plenty of times. I'll just switch it up and put it on the menu with a different bourbon even though the competition required this and that. What's the ultimate bourbon mixing? cocktail? My what's the what's the cocktail mixing bourbon? I love old forester January. I mean, even my bar uses a lot. I will say there's bourbon. I'm gonna hate me for saying this. I'm not a big fan of Woodford straight. 55:45 Yeah, 55:47 straight out my favorite 55:50 other products but then like we said, we both love old forester. Yeah, if somebody buys me a word for it, I'm going to drink it, but you know, but I'd rather drink old Forester, the old forester signatures. 56:00 jam you know I say go for some signature all the time and it's not on the label anymore and 56:06 I go give me a bottle versus signature well 56:09 I noticed both of you all mentioned four roses yellow label to time to update. 56:15 Yeah 56:17 I love you been around the block you reference I brands I love using 56:23 in my well use I use Ancient Egypt 10 star for can get it if not benchmark. Ancient ages are well yeah. 56:34 And then sometimes sometimes Evan Williams if I can't find those other two that's how it goes in Ohio though. So there's a great for mixing if I make an old fashioned I use old granddad 100 or bonded if I making a Manhattan usually it's old forester. You know, or you know man, maker smart makes a great old fashioned 56:59 way 57:00 Deal force arrived 57:02 in Ohio know when I started using that all my Manhattans so 57:08 I like right in my man hands too but I think in this area there's something about a bourbon man and I don't know maybe it just goes back to that me working in high end retail and it was always with a bourbon. That's what I always did it with and I kind of gone back to using rye because we use it also in black Manhattan's which we serve a ton of and the rye helps cut through that tomorrow a bit. Have you ever made white Manhattan's Have you ever used a nice whiskey and made man? 57:34 I feel like I probably have at some point but I can't wait good. Yeah, yeah, shame on HH whiskey. I got white dog. Yeah, us especially that. What is it the OMG the 57:46 What is it? What is it out in Utah? What are they? 57:51 totally blank. And yeah, they're OMZ is this still called that? I can't get in Ohio. This what I used in Kentucky, but that with orange bitters, and then 58:00 dry vermouth instead. Holy moly you're a bigger fan of white dog and I know we discussed this before I I enjoy it but you like to sit around just sip on it I like the Buffalo Trace mash one. She's, she's old school. Love it. So when we look at you know bourbon cocktails we tend to look at it from like it's it's a price thing. It's usually the $30 and under. But there are some bartenders who will slap you know, slap a little Pappy in, in a cocktail shaker. Do you guys ever go crazy and put like an alley or super allocated? 58:36 bourbon or rye in a cocktail? Yes. 58:40 I got two ways of saying it. One is you're paying me the money. You're the one paying for the whiskey. I'll do it. Do you enjoy your way but anytime anyone's ever ordered a patented coke for me. My way of serving it has been I give him a glass of Pappy I give him a glass of coke and I give him ice and tell them with it being such a nice bourbon. I wanted to give you the component 59:00 You can mix it yourself to the appropriate mix. I've never mixed the coke not once so I try to not be offensive by Tom mirror. Wow fucking idiot 59:12 my bartenders always say I'm good at saying fuck you with a smile. 59:18 Like, my husband's always like you really good being like fuck you but your hair looks really nice. 59:28 Now I'll just say I, I feel like 59:32 I'm at my bar I'm there I'm I control the bar and I am there to educate people on what they're drinking, how they're drinking it. And so I will not serve them a copy of coke. I will educate them on why they shouldn't drink this with Coke. If it's really it's, I mean, they push it then I probably do the same thing but I have never had do that. It's happened me a few times that actually add a few bars. had to do that a couple times. But like I said, it's never gotten mixed. They've always thank 1:00:00 Me In the end I appreciate you not letting me ruin that that 1:00:05 you know the best thing out there and you know that's what obviously we go into it to our walk on this you probably don't need it I did you set up the next podcast. My sister took her to wild turkey though, you know Lawrenceburg and we did the high end tasting and right in the middle of it she cracks open a diet coke was died like my sister of all people. You can't do that. Like you cannot mix that with the diamond. 1:00:31 Yeah. 1:00:33 So sorry. 1:00:35 It's apologize to our family wild turkey too for that. 1:00:40 So another question I kind of had for you. You know, we've all at least in the bourbon world, we see stuff on the shelf, we buy it, we all make mistakes. It's it might be like I said it could be craft and a little bit too green forward. We're just not a big fan of drinking it neat. Is there a cocktail that you can use to make these a little bit more palatable? 1:01:00 Absolutely yes so kind of kind of talk about where ginger ale and 1:01:09 fancy it up a little bit rather than just adding ginger ale but you can always play around on something and doing something that is really going to cover flavors Manhattan's and no passions more enhance and you can do some stuff and a heavy smash or do a bird a sour even that I help cover it. Still I've had some I had to come through bed but yeah, let me let me I'm sure you guys get stuff sent to you sometimes from yesterday. Just show up. Yeah, yeah, twice, not mad about it. But sometimes it's usually from a newer distillery or a craft distiller and it's not that their products. It's not bad. It's just different than what you're used to, you know, no. 1:01:54 Bad. I've had some stuff where I'm like, Oh, this isn't bad. It's just it's just different. Yeah. 1:02:00 dozy Tyler yet have you all for God's sake. 1:02:04 Shit. Bad. So 1:02:07 one of the few that I've it spit out I've had, you know, he's like drywall. Yeah, got 1:02:14 some I poured me one recently to that I had to spit out it was out of a tin can. I can still 1:02:21 Yeah. 1:02:24 So there there's a 1:02:27 you know, I write reviews I score whiskeys and people started pointing out you know if you really don't like something you say would make a great cocktail bourbon and I didn't I really did not realize I was doing that. I'll be honest, I did not realize I was doing that. But I was passing it on to like, yeah, you know what it's drinking need. It's cocktail bourbon, but I have found that there is one note and some of these, these Bourbons that you cannot get out if it's a bad one. And it's that over charcoal Lee woody know, it's like there 1:03:00 Nothing that I've been able to find that can cut that Do you have any recommendations for like how to cut cut that charcoal that over woody note that you find a lot of two year old craft bourbon because like what I call it is that new bourbon tastes like this the big green exactly No. I mean, I just did I just had a bourbon and I it wasn't that was bad. It was really good. It was different. And by a very really respected new distiller new distiller who I have a lot of respect for. 1:03:34 And I couldn't figure out what to do with it but final

Summary: On today's podcast, we welcome Joe Skorupa, editorial director and feature blogger for RIS News and Ensemble IQ Media Portfolio. Recently RIS News released a targeted research study and article on streamlining the store to simplify shopping. Today, we  discuss this research and some of the main challenges retailers are dealing with in their shopping journey's. Resources: Infographic RIS News Targeted Research: Streamlining the Store to Simplify Shopping Blog: Retail Self-Service: Today, its WAY More than Self-Checkout Relevant Retail: The new Norm Scan, Bag and Go - Self-Scanning Technology Empowers Consumers to Shop with Ease COMMERCE NOW Site Transcription: Jerry Langfitt:                    Hello, I'm Jerry Langfitt and I'm your host for this episode of COMMERCE NOW. On today's podcast, we'll welcome Joe Skorupa, editorial director and featured blogger for RIS News and Ensemble IQ Media Portfolio. Joe is frequently named as one of the top influencers in retail and technology and is also frequent speaker at conferences such as NRF, Big Show, amongst others. Welcome to COMMERCE NOW, Joe. Joe  Skorupa:                     Hey there, Jerry. Glad to be here and I'm looking forward to our discussion. Jerry Langfitt:                    I am too. Joe, you recently did a [00:00:30] study and article on streamlining the store to simplify shopping. We're excited to listen about this research, but let's start at a higher level and talk about the trends affecting the industry right now. What are the main challenges retailers are dealing with? Joe  Skorupa:                     Yeah, Jerry, the study touched upon the fact that shopping is really a journey for consumers and honestly any friction they feel, anything that doesn't smooth things along and speed things up and make things more convenient for them [00:01:00] is not going to provide high customer satisfaction levels, and we know that retailers are searching for that. So from a macro level, this study, I believe, resonated with two big challenges that retailers are facing today. And the first is fast moving consumers and rapid fire changes in shopping behavior. And by that what I mean is that shoppers move onto the next viral trend or the next influencer or tech innovation before retailers can catch up. And essentially the pace of change is accelerating. [00:01:30] And this has significant consequences, especially for slow moving retailers who are dealing with falling foot traffic in stores, empty malls, and of course they're dealing with Amazon and Walmart growing ever larger. Joe  Skorupa:                     I mean these are giants to begin with and they're not catching up to the giants. In fact, the giants are growing bigger. And I have nothing against Amazon or Walmart. I think they are outstanding retailers and exemplaries of what to do and how to change. But it is effecting [00:02:00] all the rest of the retail industry. Joe  Skorupa:                     Now the second big challenge for retailers, I believe, is that they must recognize that they have to continually make investments in their businesses to keep up with consumers. Just because you have a brand and it's working, and it worked for a long time. The challenge is that you have to continually reinvest in your business. And if a retailer can't implement new innovations and new technologies and do them profitably [00:02:30] ... See that's the key. It's not investing, it's investing efficiently and profitably. And if retailers can't do it efficiently and profitably, then they're just increasing their debt, increasing their risk and squandering precious resources. Joe  Skorupa:                     So to sum up, my two main points are, it's a fast moving, accelerating consumer marketplace. And secondly, the challenge is finding the right way to do investment to reimagine your business. Jerry Langfitt:                    It's interesting that you that, because this kind of [00:03:00] leads right into one of the first questions I had where one of your first figures, key findings in the study is that retailers are split on the topic of self-service technologies. The ratings of the question gave everybody a five out of 10 then it would almost make you think that self-service technologies is not very important, but underneath the data, that kind of, it kind of told a different story, didn't it? Joe  Skorupa:                     Yeah, it did. And Jerry, I do data analysis all of the time. And I also [00:03:30] believe that the RIS news readership represents the entire retail industry. So when I pull data points together, I look at it as a retail industry. And you're right, the average score came out kind of a middle of the road score on the level of importance. But then I looked into it and there are patterns that you can find when you dive into the data and filter it. And when I filtered this data point by [00:04:00] revenue size, I've found that there were two large camps, two blocks of retailers. And retailers with less than a billion dollars in revenue were more likely to rate self-service in stores lower than tier one retailers, the bigger retailers. And so the question then becomes why. And because every net new technology requires net new investment, well that represents a challenge in itself, especially to slower moving and conservative retailers who [00:04:30] are established in their ways. Joe  Skorupa:                     Now, larger retailers have to support the vast size of their enterprise in a different way. They need constant reinvestment and innovation and and just moving forward. Because if they lose their momentum and lose their relevancy with a large part of the population, which is their shopper base, they're going to fade in the shopper's mind and the shoppers will move elsewhere. So large retailers have to stay relevant on a broad national [00:05:00] level. So they're constantly testing, developing and researching new technologies. Joe  Skorupa:                     And during this process they have learned about the value that self service technology offers to shoppers and to their stores financial performance. Now are those same things at the large retailers learned also true for smaller retailers? Yes, there are, there is value to self service technology and it does provide shoppers with a streamlined experience and it does help the store's financial performance. But the smaller retailers are not doing [00:05:30] all the due diligence that the larger retailers are doing. Jerry Langfitt:                    That's really interesting. It would almost seem to think that the larger retailers would also drag the industry in a certain direction and- Joe  Skorupa:                     Absolutely true. Jerry Langfitt:                    Almost force, or at least make it hard not to change, to go in that same direction. I mean we see that right now with with McDonald's, installing kiosks across their entire footprint. It's kind of a watershed moment where then other retailers, QSRs mainly would have to say, okay, if I want [00:06:00] to compete I have to do, not just a me too, but I have to do something. I can no longer sit on the fence or it's gonna affect my revenue stream. Joe  Skorupa:                     Absolutely. Yes. So talk about having it your way and maybe that's the theme of a different QSR, but nevertheless it fits our discussion here. Having the ability to do self service is the ultimate have it your way experience. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now, so look forward. Let's split this into two groups then. The two groups you pretty much indicated. What are the benefits [00:06:30] they are getting from more self service? Joe  Skorupa:                     Well our study found that the primary benefits delivered to shoppers. And we asked about benefits to shoppers and benefits to retailers and they are different questions and they got different answers. So the primary benefits, I'll start with shoppers. There are three primary benefits and they are checkout, payment and price checking. Joe  Skorupa:                     Now each of these things makes a shopper experience quicker and easier and [00:07:00] also it has to be said that shoppers feel like they are in control of the experience and all of these things are very positive for the shopper in any sort of consumer experience in a store. Joe  Skorupa:                     Now the benefits are different for a retailer but possibly even more important. For a retailer, there is an improved level of customer service. Let's face it, this is something that a customer might need, might want, [00:07:30] and there it is. They're able to use it. That is customer service and also when that happens, customer satisfaction metrics are going to be increased for this store. All of these certainly stimulate return visits and that is a key to success for retailers. Joe  Skorupa:                     And speaking of metrics, by the way, I mentioned customer satisfaction metrics. Another big benefit that retailers get is the ability to gather in store customer data through these touch points. Now self service devices are interactive [00:08:00] touch points. The consumer is actually giving the retailer information by the behaviors that are occurring on the self service device. Now this behavior can be examined and tell a retailer about something about how the store operates, about how the shopper's responding to promotions. It tells retailers, you know, what the impact of technologies are in the stores and potentially all of this information can be delivered to headquarters [00:08:30] in a real time or near real time. Joe  Skorupa:                     And you know that's just the beginning. Many other data points can be gathered and just leave it to your imagination. You can add them to the self service process or not. But the choice is up to you. Really, it's an infinite horizon for retailers. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now, I kind of see it as a couple different ways of why they're getting a benefit too and moving in this direction. One, technology advancement. To name the McDonald's story, again, everyone has iPads. Even my mother has an iPad, so it's a [00:09:00] much more approachable device at this point. And then cost points have come down that I can take it across 14,000 locations and it's no longer cost prohibitive. Jerry Langfitt:                    And then the second is people are more used to this kind of technology as well. So cost of technology is coming down and everyone is a bit more adaptive to it. And a lot of people talk about the Amazon effect, and I don't want to talk about Amazon Go, but it's more about going on Amazon or going online and being able to [00:09:30] do what I want and do what I need when I want it. And it seems like self-service and ... a colleague of mine said the psychology of self service is, it just empowers you. Jerry Langfitt:                    And if I'm standing in line and I can just do it myself, it's better than standing in a line. So that again I think ties back to the customer satisfaction as well. It's like if you're giving me a path to take care of myself, I'm going to be more apt to come because I want control of my life more than I normally have [00:10:00] it. Are those two points something you could agree with and think the data kind of points in that direction? Joe  Skorupa:                     You know, empowering the consumer is definitely a sure way to increasing their return visits. And that is clearly what is happening with this technology. And the other point you made is that the general population is tech savvy at this point. And I think that's absolutely true. I mean, I think we probably won't even have this discussion much anymore. [00:10:30] And honestly, if a retailer even brings up that point in a board meeting or in any interdepartmental meeting and saying, well, you know, my customers, they won't, they don't even know how to use technology. Well, I think pretty soon that retailer is going to get laughed out of the room because we've just crossed that line. We are tech savvy. Tech is embedded into everything part of our lives, homes, and work. So I don't think that's going to be a much of an issue. Jerry Langfitt:                    Well, [00:11:00] and I always use my mother as a great example because when she can text me a cat video or send me an Amazon gift card electronically, I'm like, oh, we're definitely in a new age. Joe  Skorupa:                     Absolutely. My mother's playing games all day long on the computer. So it's just amazing. Of course she's retired so she can do that. Jerry Langfitt:                    All of our goals. So we talked about those moving ahead. Let's talk about those dragging their feet or just aren't ready for it yet. What do you think some of the challenges they're looking at to move forward with technology that can help? Joe  Skorupa:                     [00:11:30] Well yeah, you know the study shows that there are foot draggers out there or feet draggers, as the word may be. Almost 50% of the retailers in our study show that they have change management issues. Joe  Skorupa:                     And what does change management resistance mean? Well I think that in many cases it starts at the top. I think that there are C level executives that are not [00:12:00] green lighting some of these capital investments projects. But I don't think it's just that. I think that the other points in the study data show that some of the resistance is found in the stores. Joe  Skorupa:                     And two of the points that store operators bring up where we find this resistance are due to operational requirements such as re-engineering store formats to accommodate the self-service technology and re-engineering associate processes as well. But I don't ... Even [00:12:30] though this is a large group of retailers, you know, a little less than than half in our study, I just think this is an old story in retail. Joe  Skorupa:                     In other words, this resistance to something that is, you know, net new and how they've always had their stores. And this resistance shows up so frequently that that's the reason that many of us in the industry, many who are looking ahead at where retail is heading, we follow the trends and the leaders. They're usually a couple of years ahead [00:13:00] of the rest of the industry and the rest of the industry follows. Joe  Skorupa:                     And as you pointed out, there are leaders in retail right now that are deploying self-service technologies. That is increasing. And the numbers that we show here, where the resistance is strong, is certainly going to be that resistance is going to be a broken and the barrier will come down. And this will happen in the next year or two and we'll see a different number then. Jerry Langfitt:                    I wonder what they need to convince leaders. I wonder if their back [00:13:30] office systems can support it. Are we dealing with antiquated technologies and system processes? You know the old way of retailing. Because we're seeing at Diebold Nixdorf, we're seeing self-service going into areas that we never would have dreamed of five, 10 years ago. I think people still have an idea of self service, self checkout is the grocery store and that's it. And we're seeing it in fashion. We're seeing it in convenience stores and we're seeing, even in groceries, many different ways self-Service [00:14:00] comes out. Curbside pickup, order online, order on my phone, delivery, scan and go. Walk through the store and scan myself. It feels like the industry is still now much more flexible in saying, okay, I'm going to separate my consumer base out and take care of each journey and find out what technology can serve them better rather than one self checkout is a one size fits all. Joe  Skorupa:                     You know I have a, a story that I can quickly go over. I've been covering technology [00:14:30] a long time. And one of the areas that I was covering for awhile, a while ago, you mentioned quick service restaurants, and there was a time when, it's hard to believe, but zero quick service restaurants ... I'm talking about the McDonald's and Burger kings and Taco bells of the world could take credit cards. I mean it's hard to believe, but this is only like 17, 18 years ago. None of them [00:15:00] anything but cash. And to be honest with you, there was tremendous resistance for being able to take credit cards for two big reasons. One, it required technology in the store, not that much, but nevertheless. And then the other thing was that it costs them money. It wasn't cash. There's a cost to it, to accepting credit cards. Joe  Skorupa:                     And that industry went from zero to 100% in just a few years. So that's what happens with resistance. You know, Jerry, [00:15:30] it's there, it's there, it's there. And then suddenly it's gone. And I think that's what we'll probably see. Jerry Langfitt:                    Oh, fantastic. So one of the questions I've had and that I get from a lot of people is, well self-service is taking jobs away and all this is is one large labor play, for large industries. Now I will say there is a labor savings with self-service. I can now do more, but that's the difference. I can now do more with the same people. It's not something that I'm going to suddenly slash everything in half and I'm [00:16:00] going to go to the cashier-less, attendant-less store. Because I think as we march towards more self service, more personal service becomes even more critical. That you don't want to just go into a store and not have a chance to talk to anyone or feel that you're all alone. At least a theory of mine is always self service allows retailers to redistribute their employees and I've always felt that more employee customer interaction [00:16:30] creates better customer satisfaction. Is that something over the years you've seen that if we can increase the human interaction with self service that we'll get better footfall and more repeat visits? Joe  Skorupa:                     Yeah, absolutely. Honestly, I've always saw the ability for retailers to deliver better service through self-service work. In a practical way. When I often go to a Home Depot, not to single that out, it could be Lowe's or anyone else, and there is a person, [00:17:00] a employee that's at the point where there are the self service technologies. And that person becomes a service person, particularly with home improvement goods. Joe  Skorupa:                     I mean there is a lot of little things and a lot of SKUs that aren't easy and tricky for people to manage through the self service. So that's one level of service. But the other level of service is, the person is just there. I can't tell you how many times I've done it or I've seen other people do it. Just simply go up to the [00:17:30] person and ask them a question because they're there and they get ... Solving a customer's problems is usually not something retailers think a lot about. And I wish they would, but I don't hear people talking about it. Just think about that when a shopper needs a problem solved in the moment that they're there to shop and buy something, that is a critical piece of information they're seeking. And if you can't provide it and solve their problem, then you're certainly going [00:18:00] to be missing sales. So I think that they can be problem solvers and provide better service. Joe  Skorupa:                     Now let me get toss in something else on this topic. It's a tight labor market right now. I think where the national level, you know well below 3% unemployment and I think it's closer to two and a half percent. And retailers simply can't hire the way they used to and there's a lot of turnover and they don't want to deliver a shopping experience [00:18:30] that has less customer service and is less efficient. And they're looking to do that. And they can do that with self-service technology. Joe  Skorupa:                     And the final point I want to make is the loss of business. And you know, a retail day as you go through it, has peaks and valleys. And during the valleys, everything works smoothly, there's enough staff, there's enough service. But during the peaks you just have no idea what you're losing. I mean you [00:19:00] might say to yourself, you know, I hit my target that day, but during the peak you might have had 10, 15, 20% people walk out without buying because they couldn't get through. They could, they couldn't meet their timeframe. Their quick timeframe for how they have to buy. Joe  Skorupa:                     So this gives you the ability, self-service technologies, gives you the ability to accommodate those peak timeframes and get business that you're actually losing. And you have no idea how much that is until you put it in. Jerry Langfitt:                    That's an interesting point. I mean, you [00:19:30] unpack a lot here with what you've said and I've noticed that in the convenience stores and in the grocery stores, everything gets hyper busy too fast for a store to react. Jerry Langfitt:                    Because all of us has been in this situation. You either walk into a gas station and I need a quick soda and I need a quick snack. And suddenly six other people had that same idea and the store has a single tenant working and they just can't react quick enough. Joe  Skorupa:                     Yes. Jerry Langfitt:                    For my own tastes and I think for a lot of people because then all of a sudden the five of us [00:20:00] finally check out and it's done. It's gone. Whereas self-service allows, an always on checkout experience to where it's like okay that can kind of take care of that. Joe  Skorupa:                     Yep. Jerry Langfitt:                    And that's your peak and valley. That peaks happens so rapid and customer satisfaction can drop like a stone if I'm sitting in a line. I've watched my wife do this, I've watched her do abandonment's as well where it's just like we go up to the line and she just, "Never mind. None of this stuff in my car is worth that line." To experience that, it's funny to see that. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now the other thing I was kind of curious what [00:20:30] you had said is with staff in the store, employees in the store. I come from a point of purchase background. I design a lot of point of purchase displays and we always used moment of truth as very, very important. The decision time when you make your purchase decision, it's not at the checkout, it's already passed at the checkout. Jerry Langfitt:                    So I can check myself out and I just want a good clean experience. But the staff can actually influence those moment [00:21:00] of truths and they cannot influence at the checkout. So I just feel like a self service can enable more customer staff interaction and that's going to give you a much greater hit rate, conversion rate at those moments of truths. Joe  Skorupa:                     Right. I've seen that many times. Jerry Langfitt:                    I won't look for somebody if I have a question, but if you're there, the convenience is okay, since you're there, I'll ask you. Jerry Langfitt:                    So let's talk for a second. Lets go future state. We're talking self-service. There's a lot [00:21:30] more things that everyone's trying to come up with to make it even smoother, frictionless. If we want to use that word. Where do you think they're going to find the biggest improvement in the self checkout experience? Is it with the Amazon Go video analytics? Is it with video analytics just on a self checkout that helps you decide on your purchase what you purchased with cameras? Is it facial recognition? I mean what is your experience been in a direction of the trends? Joe  Skorupa:                     [00:22:00] Well all of those are in play, but if I were to pick one that is the most practical and certainly the shortest horizon line, and I do have some study evidence showing this, is that a checkout on the customer's own device is something that is not really that far away. I mean, I think that my internal data shows that retailers have placed that on a two year horizon line that that is actually relatively [00:22:30] short for a net new technology. And so I'm guessing that we're going to see checkout on a customers own device very shortly. Joe  Skorupa:                     I don't think we're going to see the Amazon Go experience outside of Amazon and a few others. And that's, as you indicated, that has to do with several technologies. One of the main ones is video and image recognition. There are others associated [00:23:00] with it. It's really a cluster of technologies honestly including product recognition, but you can't really ... you have product recognition with that facial recognition as well and those technologies are actually templated and available. So that's part of it. Joe  Skorupa:                     So I think facial recognition checkout is actually possible. I just don't think that customers are going to be comfortable with it. But I do think yeah that checkout on their own mobile device, you know if you [00:23:30] go into a Whole Foods and you want to use the Amazon checkout capability, I think that's going to be something that we're going to see a lot of. And then of course retailers are going to have checkout on their own mobile devices and that's going to be a big one as well. Jerry Langfitt:                    Do you think taking the self checkout lane that we would consider traditional and enhancing it with ... I know Ikea's testing this, where I just slide my stuff [00:24:00] across ... and kind of taking what a more controlled Amazon Go look ... and it's just like I'm just going to set my stuff on this basket and it's going to then scan everything for me, either with image recognition or RFID. Two things that seem to have been in the industry for a couple years now, but you think that will reach a tipping point sort of like iPads and McDonald's. Do you think that would be a stepping stone to making self-checkout more efficient? Joe  Skorupa:                     You know, I have to smile when I hear about that image [00:24:30] recognition. I went to an IBM, who was no longer really in this space, a lab, back in more than 15 years ago when they had image recognition checkout. But of course it wasn't ready for prime time, but it's certainly a technology that is really on the cusp today. Joe  Skorupa:                     So yes, I do see image recognition in many ways being a major component of the retail shopping experience and checkout [00:25:00] is definitely one of them. I also think that that there's a lot of benefit to image recognition there a way for shoppers to actually have a better shopping experience with doing their research, doing their comparisons, in a way that is kind of better than barcodes in some way areas. Particularly in fashion, there's a way for image recognition to really to improve the shopping experience by getting recommendations [00:25:30] based on color, based on the style, and things like that. Right in the store that could come either on a customer's device or on a self service device. And so image recognition is going to open up a big area for retailers to get interactivity with their shoppers and shoppers feel like they're getting a better shopping experience. Jerry Langfitt:                    So, only a couple more questions. I was curious, I was looking at your report and again looking at the laggards and the people ahead and everyone [00:26:00] seems to be installing something. I wonder if the retailers are using all of the data they have at their own hands. You had said the data collection and analytics is very important and this enables that. I wonder if they're truly looking at their transaction data and saying, okay, what should I do next? How do I follow my consumer? Jerry Langfitt:                    Do you feel like the analytics realm is ripe for retailers to be leveraging more of that? This is data they've always had. It just doesn't seem like they are leveraging it to make their store as efficient [00:26:30] as possible. Especially with the changing in the 70s ... 60s and 70s and 80s was all about cookie cutter pattern and making sure I can go across the country with the exact same store. Jerry Langfitt:                    It feels like that I need to follow the consumer within regionalities as well, both from a card and cash usage and the types of journeys. Do you think that's something that we'll start exploring more and more to try and make better decisions and less risky technology decisions? Joe  Skorupa:                     Well, I think [00:27:00] data is an asset and I think that it's an asset that in some instances, and I can point out a couple of segments in retail where it is underused and under utilized. And I think the the reason for that ... Now I'll name one segment. I just did a in depth analysis of of grocers and the grocery industry and investing in analytics is one of the things that they are behind the curve with other retail segments [00:27:30] and retail industry in general. Joe  Skorupa:                     If you looked at, as I frequently do, just the average of all the respondents without filtering out what segment they're in, grocers are definitely behind in investment in analytics. Now why is that? It's there, it's data they already have. But when you think about the self service capabilities of self service technologies and touch points in the stores, there's more data that they already have. Joe  Skorupa:                     So why would it be that they're not optimizing that and maximizing [00:28:00] the use of it? And I think it's just that they're racing, grosses in particular, are racing ahead at full speed. They have so many competitive challenges to deal with. And they have a consumer that is basically shopping them because of a necessity, but then the consumer has the ultimate wide choice. So I think they're keeping up with the consumer but they're not looking ahead using the data. And I think that's the big, critical issue that they're missing. And certainly, [00:28:30] when they take advantage of that data through the self service touchpoints and through other areas that they have data coming in, I think that you're going to find that their 1% margins and their growth rate, which is well below the rest of the industry, will actually increase. Jerry Langfitt:                    How interesting. So just to kind of wrap up a little bit, I was reading your article and you close with the most successful retailers design their stores to strike a balance between full service function and self service options. If you had [00:29:00] to sum up your research in a couple of sentences, how do you think you would say what you most learned with this study? Joe  Skorupa:                     Well, let me sum up by giving a couple of key recommendations that I believe emerge from this study. And one is that a recommendation to deploy self-service kiosks now, to think about it now. And this is for those retailers who don't actually have them. More for retailers who have them and are considering adding them to their store camp. And the reason [00:29:30] I am recommending it is because 48% of retailers in our study are actually in a preliminary phase of deployment now. So this shows that in next year or two a huge number of retailers is going to come online and making this a race toward mainstream adoption for self service technologies in the stores. And I call this a recommendation because if you are behind that curve, and this curve is coming, this is something that I'm recommending you [00:30:00] think about and actually consider adding it to your one year plan or two year plan or two years to do list. Joe  Skorupa:                     And I also am recommending that you focus on checkout and that sounds pretty obvious, but if you're going to be building a business case, focus on checkout. And as I pointed out, not only does that help the shopper, but it helps the retailer gain potentially lost business. As I mentioned, the thing that a self service technology will do in [00:30:30] your store is to make sure you are fully manned at every throughout the day. In other words, the peaks and valleys that service is there when your peak hits and when you're stressed. Every one of your staff and associates operating at full speed and perhaps not operating as efficiently as they can. Well this helps make sure that any overflow is not lost and that your shoppers aren't walking out [00:31:00] of this store unhappy. And as you indicated, Jerry, that sort of this increases your conversion. Joe  Skorupa:                     And then the final recommendation I would say is build your business case on improving customer service and satisfaction. This is going to help your loyalty. This is going to help your return visits. And what we find is that 76% of retailers feel that customer service and customer satisfaction are the primary benefits of self service. [00:31:30] And if that is the case, then I recommend that you use self-service to increase those. And also, as we just talked about a minute ago, gathering that customer data which you can use to help improve your store operations and increase again, customer service satisfaction. Joe  Skorupa:                     So those are kind of recommendations I would end with. And then one final comment, Jerry, is that as you indicated, I believe the most successful retailers designed their stores to strike a balance [00:32:00] between full service functions and self service options. Self service is not going away. It is only going to increase. So retailers have to decide, what's the balance they're going to choose. And while the line will differ for each retail segment and customer base, I believe there is no doubt that balance is shifting toward an increase in self service capabilities in today's stores to stay relevant with consumers. Jerry Langfitt:                    I think this is a great place to wrap up. Thanks again Joe. This [00:32:30] has been incredibly enlightening. Some great data points that you've provided and some great insights. To learn more about retail topics like these, log on a dieboldnixdorf.com or click on the link in the podcast show notes. Until next time, keep checking back on iTunes or however you listen to your podcasts for new topics on Commerce Now.  

Let's Talk about Stress... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry we have Dr. Michelle Clay, an empowering speaker, two-time best-selling author and holistic physician who specializes in the release and management of stress and its associated symptoms simply and naturally. Her life mission is to empower people experiencing challenging life circumstances that do not change with tools to transform their lives from stressful, unbalanced, and unhealthy to happy, harmonious, and purposeful. As we continue the theme of personal growth, self-reflection and mental clarity the Lunch and Learn community is blessed to have Dr. Michelle educate us on the subject of stress. Most importantly we tackle the problem head-on and learn some amazing tangible ways to make sure that we turn our stressors into success. On the show, we will learn just what got Dr. Michelle started in the field and how she has been able to help others break the cycle of misery that their personal stressors have caused. Also, listen out as we talk about a future even Dr. Michelle is hosting and how you can be apart of the festivities. If you haven't already check out episode 116 so you are aware of all of the slate of episodes coming this month. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources – These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media My Amazon Store – Check out all of the book recommendations you heard in the episode Links/Resources: Instagram - Instagram.com/drmichelleclay LinkedIn - Dr. Michelle Clay Website - www.freelife7le.com The R and R experience - www.releaserechargeexperience.com Book Recommendation: Conquering the Chaos by Dr. Michelle Clay Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 117 Transcript   Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I'm your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com. CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting, helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy here with the Lunch and Learn. This week we bring you an amazing guest. We have Dr. Michelle Clay who's an empowering speaker, two time bestselling author and holistic physician who specializes in the release and management of stress and associated symptoms simply and naturally. Her life mission is to empower people experiencing challenging life. With tools to transform their lives from stressful, unbalanced and unhealthy to happy, harmonious and purposeful. Dr. Michelle is frequently called upon to give her a refreshing perspective on ways to really stress and recharge health, enabling clients to live a free life of purpose with passion.  Through her company, FreeLife7, her work and enhances people's lives by harmonizing all dimensions of wellness through coaching programs, retreats and seminars to help burnt out and busy professionals and high stress and high strong, high performers. You guys know who you are. Create their sense of calm, clarity and confidence, a mindset for success. And guys, I’ll be honest with you, I listened to Episode 116 where we talked about the self-reflection and the importance of self-reflection. I thought it was extremely important to really talk about why a lot of people need that self-reflection, right? Because the everyday stresses of life is kicking a lot of you guys’ butt, truly and honestly. And when we talk with Dr. Michelle today, you'll hear instances where the mental stress is causing physical manifestations and we talked about how the physical stress can cause mental ramifications, right? So it's definitely a relationship that if it's not in tune, if you are not ready to not only accept stress, because stress is coming, there's no way you can avoid it. But when it does come, be able to manage it. And I think as a keyword, we don't deal with stress, we manage stress, right? So it'd be able to manage that stress and then use it for your betterment. We're going to be in trouble, right? And unfortunately I take care of a lot of patients who the stressors of life - job, work, family relationships has beat them down to the point that they're physically sick and we don't want that. So again Episode 117, we have Dr. Michelle Clay. We're going to be talking about stress all throughout this episode. I want you guys to really pay attention and really get some tips to learn how to de-stress and declutter your life for the better. So like always, if you had not had a chance, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. If you're on apple podcasts, leave with five star review and let me know what'd you think about Dr. Michelle’s episode. You guys have a great and blessed day. Main Episode Dr. Berry: Alright, Lunch and Learn community. So you just heard another amazing introduction from a guest that I've been waiting in the background to get onto the show for quite a while and I just felt this was a time this was right. And when you listen to this, you know, National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. When did we talk about the mental health and talk about what makes it so that you can actually have good mental health, right? Like this is one of the key factors that will determine whether you have good mental health or not, right? Which is stress. But lo and behold, Dr. Michelle again, thank you for coming onto the show for the Lunch and Learn community and educating us and gracing us with your presence. Dr. Michelle Clay: Thank you Dr. Berry for having me. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so excited. This is such an honor. Dr. Berry: Dr. Michelle, I gave introduction and other intro. I do, I already know I got some people who like to skip to introduction and come right to the main story. So for the people who do that, because we know we got those people who like to skip the line, tell them something about you who they may not be able to read this off, getting off your bio, right? Who is Dr. Michelle?  Dr. Michelle Clay: So, I think since people really want to know about stress and what they can do about it, because stress is such a problem. I'll tell you something about me that people might not know what led me to talk about stress and focus on that, in mindset so much. So many people have had struggles just like I have in this new day and time. There are a lot of blended families. There are very few traditional, what we call traditional families whereas the mother, the father, and they have their kids and they live happily ever after in one house. Until death do us part with the husband and wife. But that wasn't my story. That isn't my story. So you meet someone, you fall in love, but when you fall in love with them, everything else follows that. Past relationships, unforgiveness, past hurt, past wrongs. And this is if I inherited that, which was not even mine. So the next thing I know there's a tug-of-war of back and forth with my honeybun’s child and co-parenting was nonexistent. It's still non-existent. I'm in the middle of trying to support my mate and also act as if I'm kind of like a surrogate mother for lack of better terminology. And the moms, I do not want you to fuss at me. It was a lot of struggle. There was jealousy. There was anger. There was rage. There was constant court dates. There were constant motions filed. There was the police called. It was all of that. And though I consider myself a super wonder woman, and I know some of my sister's super wonder women are listening, you just can't juggle it all. You cannot carry all that, is your responsibility as well as be supportive for somebody else. And I began to buckle - my health deteriorated.  And I'm very, very health conscious. I'm a vegetarian. I eat a lot of raw foods. I juice a lot. But even in that, I was still experiencing the symptoms of stress such as gallstones, chronic tension in my neck and in my shoulders where I could not even turn my neck all the way over, all the way to the left, rather. Lower back pain, hair thinning and falling out. And it didn't make any sense to me at all. So I really encouraged people to follow my story and really get in tune to what is going on with them. This chronic stress can lead to or worsen present medical conditions. Maybe everybody knows that and maybe they don't. I don't know. But I hadn't been diagnosed with anything and even I had uterine fibroids and they grew, (wow). Yes, I have been keeping my uterine fibroids at bay for like 14 years, doing a lot of natural therapies. But when that stress came down on me, then I could feel them growing where my acupuncturist said, “oh no, you need surgery”. Yes. And I had surgery and guess how many I had? Dr. Berry: I heard stories of women with multiple fibroids. How much? Dr. Michelle Clay: I had 20 fibroids. Dr. Berry: Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. Dr. Michelle Clay: 20 fibroids. Yes. Dr. Berry: I don't know if people realize, especially when it comes to fibroids, it is a hormonal component associated with the growth of fibroids and obviously stress being in a situation you're in, definitely didn't help those hormones, I'm assuming. Dr. Michelle Clay: Absolutely. Chronic stress will affect your estrogen, your testosterone. It will affect the entire endocrine system to include insulin, which is a hormone. So absolutely. Dr. Berry: Now when you were going through this time period, where kind of distress was just kind of being put on top of you and day after day, week after week, did you feel a lot of these other medical conditions that kind of rolls up, kinda ashes or were they always there and stress just kind of made it worse? What would you say one way or the other? Dr. Michelle Clay: The fibroids had been there, but my fibroids, they would shrink and come back, shrink and come back. But never that large. But the gallstones I never had before, I never had that. And the muscle tension where I couldn't turn my neck all the way to the left that had never been there before. My hair thinning and falling out - I had that before, but only when I had a perm. But I have been the natural system now for, let me see for 17 years (Alright.) So wasn’t it either. But especially at the time when I developed the gallstones, I was only eating raw at that time. I wasn't even eating any cooked foods. Dr. Berry: That might precipitated those gallstones. Wow. Okay. Dr. Michelle Clay: Exactly. So you know, they say that there's an increase incidents and gallstones with the F's. If you're fat forty and female. I have the 40 and the female together. But the fat, no.  Dr. Berry: And I can tell you Lunch and Learn community, definitely, Dr. Michelle is a tall lanky, tall lanky individuals. So yeah. Dr. Michelle Clay: That's funny.  Dr. Berry: You know and what's interesting, especially in when we talk about stress and obviously we're going to get into it, seeing that the stress that unfortunately you weren't even directly responsible for. Unfortunately, was being thrust upon you, was causing a lot of undue aspects of you're just a medical and health and well-being. Is that something that you seem to be pretty common? Like a lot of times it's not even something that we're directly doing that's kind of resulting in all of the issues that stress is causing upon us? Dr. Michelle Clay: Absolutely. Because according to the American Institute of Stress, the number one cause of stress in America is job-related. And so that's definitely a place where you don't have any control, especially if you aren't the boss. But even if you are the boss and you have employees, you don't have control over what your employees do or what they don't do or how they respond to situations. So what's really important about to me about stress management, is that you manage it. You tell your mind what to think and don't allow whatever situations are going on around you to dictate how you feel and how you respond. We always have a choice. Now, trust me, I did not come to this overnight because still in my mind I would kind of position myself like the victim, like, “oh my goodness, if this weren't happening then I wouldn't feel like this.If this situation weren't present, I wouldn't feel like this.” You know, all these, what if’s. But when I eliminated the language and the perspective of the what if and looked at my hand and my head and my heart of what I did have, then that gave me the power to take control back of my emotions and my response. And so I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you a brace report. I just went to my massage therapist on Sunday and she said, oh, Dr. Michelle, what have you been doing? Your muscles are so pliable, I can get my fingers in deep, doing my work. Dr. Berry: Yes. I love it. I love it. Dr. Michelle for the Lunch and Learn community members who, you know, obviously heard your story and I'm pretty sure a lot of them would probably like, like myself, kind of shaking my head like, yeah, she's so right. Yep. I know exactly what she's feeling. When we talk about just stress in general, right? What do you tell the person when they say, Dr. Michelle, what is stress? What does that even mean in the grand scheme of things? Dr. Michelle Clay: So let's be clear about something. Number one, a lot of us have grown up with the idea that stress is a bad thing and that is a sign of weakness. You're not strong, you can't handle things, you can't handle life. First of all, stress is a positive thing when it comes in spurts. Is not an emotional response. It is actually a physiological response that is built in for our survival. So for instance, if you have a presentation that's due, if you are driving on the road and someone suddenly slams their foot on the brakes and you have to react very quickly for your survival, then your stress response is going to be activated. And that starts in the brain. And in the brain there are many parts of the brain, but one part in particular, the hypothalamus is activated, which then activates the pituitary gland, which then sends out hormone to activate the adrenal glands to produce more of the hormone which people know as our stress hormone - Cortisol. So Cortisol will then in turn activate things where digestion won't be taking place. Because if you're trying to survive, you're trying to run away from someone robbing you. You're trying to avoid life accident, you don't have time to digest foods. And then it'll also cause more blood to flow in the larger muscles of your body, like our size and that type of thing. Getting ready to run. So when they say fight or flight, it's for our survival. But the problem becomes when that response is activated constantly on a chronic basis. So those body processes that we don't really need in the moment for our survival, guess what? Those things have decreased activity on a chronic basis and that's what causes the problems that we have. Dr. Berry: So in the short run, you know, you need to stop those breaks, you need to run away. You need to do something. It's a good thing. (Absolutely.) But unfortunately you said in the long run is where we get in trouble. Consistent aspect of like, okay, this has happened. Like, like you said, when we talk about the jobs, like every day I go to a job, every day I want to deal with the same stress over and over and over again. And that's when we kind of run into trouble. Dr. Michelle Clay: Correct. That's correct. Dr. Berry: So I guess the question is why, and I hear this all the time, I hear it was a lot of my patients, they always say, well, I could just deal with stress better. Right? Like what does that even mean? Are some people more affected by the quote unquote everyday stressors of life and can some people handle it better than the others? Or is that just been like innate within them? How does one be able to deal with stress?  Dr. Michelle Clay: So studies have shown that people who went when they were in utero, their mothers experience a lot of stress, then they have a different type of stress response. However, with that being said, that is something that you can manage and overcome. For instance, with therapy, with counseling, learning how to read, just different types of coping techniques and strategies. Now, I'm not a therapist, but I have some stress-releasing strategies on my own. But I always believe that what is necessary to do is get to the root of a problem. So while you may need some strategies for the day to day, if you know that you have come from an abusive household or that your mother experienced some kind of trauma when she was pregnant with you, then I definitely recommend therapy. Dr. Berry: Interesting. And I'm definitely that strategy kind of touched on that because I think a lot of times when we hear these people talk about, well I can deal with stress, you know better. And you know, this stress is worse than others that we do have to kind of look within. Right? It's usually some intrinsic reason why you yourself is able to deal with stress, but maybe your brother can't. Maybe your sister, like even people within the same kind of household can sometimes deal with stress on a better level than others, right? And it's weird to say deal with stress, because I'm not even sure if that's the correct way we should be saying it, but I guess you'd be better off to tell it. Is it a good thing that you can deal with stress, especially on a chronic basis? That's something that you've seen that helps people in the long run better? Dr. Michelle Clay: I wouldn't say deal. I would say manage because every day you can be triggered by something and you made a good point there, Dr. Berry, as far as people can live in the same household and maybe a sibling reacts to the same situation in a different manner. Now, that can go back to what was happening in utero. It can also lend to what is happening in the brain because chronic stress affects your brain, different areas of your brain. For instance, especially the prefrontal cortex. I really love to talk about that one right there, because that particular… Dr. Berry: Educators, that's why you're here because we need the education. So please, please go ahead. Dr. Michelle Clay: Yes. The prefrontal cortex, which is the front part of your brain, like where your forehead is. So that deals with higher cognitive functioning. So that's going to be long-term planning, perception, executive functioning, things like that. So chronic stress really affects that area of the brain, decreasing the activities. So let's say that you're in the same household, the same situations are happening, but the brother activity isn't responding in the prefrontal cortex the same way that yours. So that's something that you have to consider. But I always feel like this, that anything can be managed. I don't like to use the terminology deal because it says if you kind of just live in and they ignore it. (Right, right.) And accept what is happening to you even though it's not optimal for your wellness and well-being. So I really, words mean a lot words mean a lot because we can give life to whatever it is that we speak. So that's why I say manage and then you come up with a plan and a strategy, then you will be able to manage better and better until the next thing you know you're like, “that thing that used to set me off, I'm good. I feel calm. It doesn't affect me like that. It doesn't shift me. It doesn't shift me from my position.” When you know who you are, you know your position. Then whatever anyone else is doing, it doesn't shake you or shifts you. Dr. Berry: I love it and I know we talked about especially like with whatever that thing is, right? We talked about the job being a big contributor to a lot of people's stress, right, but the people that you've worked with and taking care of, what had been some of the common reasons that they say stress them, right? Like, you know, I got some off the top. I always, I'm thinking money, right? But what are some of the things that you run into that say, “Oh yeah, a lot of my clients usually have this issue and that issue “as far as what's the initial cause of such stress? Dr. Michelle Clay: Number one is going to be the job. They either feel like they don't make enough money. They may experience micro aggression on their job. I've known a few people where it was so severe they had to file a complaint with EEOC. (Ok.) Yes, yes, yes. It can get very serious and very deep. The other things: feeling unfulfilled. Especially most of my clients are 40+, like between the 40 and 55-year-old range. And you get to a point in your life then when you look around and you're like, “okay, am I doing what it is that I plan to do? And if I'm not, is it fulfilling me? Do I feel like I'm on the right track? Do I feel that I'm working in my purpose? Do I even know what my purpose is?” Then in that 40 to 55 range, a lot of times we're talking about divorce. So job, then money and then relationships. (Wow, ok.) Yeah. Dr. Berry: Now that age, especially very interesting that you kind of mentioned that age. Is that where the typical quote-unquote midlife crisis, if that's, and again, I don't know if, is that an actual thing? Is that where that kind of comes about when we talk about the quote-unquote midlife crisis where people are starting to evaluate their life? Dr. Michelle Clay: Yes. But in my experience, in my personal experience, I feel that men and women respond to that differently. Now I had a little moment, I'm going to own it because I think it's important. Yes. I feel it's important to be very transparent with people because often when people are going through things, they feel alone and they isolate themselves and therefore they cannot get the help and support that they need. But I did have a moment where I felt like, I feel a little bit down. I wasn't clinically depressed, but I did have somewhat of a depressed mood where I felt like I should be further along than where I am now. This is not how I envisioned my life to look when I was 25. Actually, there's nothing in my life that looks like what I envisioned. Dr. Berry: So you were batting like zero at this point and you're looking around your life. Like, “hold on, I thought this was going to be completely different. Okay. Alright.” Dr. Michelle Clay: Exactly. And especially when you come to a point when you're struggling financially or you're struggling in your relationship and you feel like it's not supposed to be like this. But what I decided to do to pull myself out of that was I created, people do vision boards all the time, but I can't carry a board around. So I got a notebook, I've got a notebook, and I put in their affirmations. I put in exactly what I wanted. I put in pictures and when I would go to my job, which was stressful, I carried my little notebook with me and I would just look inside my notebook. And then it helped me remember who I am and what my goals were. Dr. Berry: I love it. So how has and how does the stressors that we've faced with, whichever realm we face it in, how does it, and have you seen it affect people's bodies and their health or their wellness, just like as a whole? Especially when it's, again, it's not the every now and then, but now it's every week, every day. Like how have you seen that over the years affect people‘s health and wellness kind of associated along with it? Dr. Michelle Clay: Probably one of the number one things that I constantly see is high blood pressure because yes, chronic stress definitely affects your cardiovascular system. So that stress hormone, Cortisol I was speaking of, it causes vasoconstriction and vasoconstriction. Of course, I know, you know before the audience, nasal constriction is when the vessels tighten up. So the analogy I like to use is when you think about a garden hose, so if you're watering your lawn and there aren't any kinks in the hose, that water's going to flow out right. But if something gets in there or somebody bins, then the water is not going to flow so nicely. It might trickle a little bit. So that's the same kind of concept that's occurring and people's blood vessels as well as increased heart rates. So I'd say blood pressure's the number one. Muscle tension, muscle tightness. That's the number two thing that I see most commonly. Sleep disturbances will probably be the third thing that I see most commonly. Either they cannot sleep or they sleep too much or when they fall asleep they cannot stay asleep. Dr. Berry: And what I love about what you're doing is that, because I think a lot of times when people think of stress and a lot of times we do this backward, right? Where we talk about how the physical ailments that we're dealing with affects our mental. But here you are kind of really, you know, really educating Lunch and Learn community anyway. Hey, like you see these mental transgressions that you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. This is how it shows up on the physical side, right? So it is like a two-way street. Like yeah, some physical stuff could definitely mess your mental up. But if you're mental, especially when we talk about stress, because that's the thing, this is how stress can affect you in the doctor's office, right? This is what we, I may not be able to see the macroaggressions’ that your job is doing to you, but I do see it when you come and get your checkup and your blood pressure still can be controlled. Dr. Michelle Clay: Absolutely. And mind and body go hand in hand. It's just like which came first, the chicken or the egg? So it's not like a first, is the cycle. It's a circle. So even with chronic stress you may have decreased pleasure and that can affect your relationship if you don't feel like being intimate with your partner. Okay. Even though intimacy is a great stress reliever but you don't feel like doing it. Dr. Berry: So the stress is beating you up on a day to day basis. That even though you know that, like, that's a good thing that's happening over there. I can't even get the mental fortitude to get on that area because I'm just not ready for it. Dr. Michelle Clay: Correct. And it can affect men, especially because with chronic stress it can decrease testosterone level. Dr. Berry: Okay. Alright men of Lunch and Learn community and I hope you listening. We've talked about this before on a previous podcast with a guests or we were talking about this masculinity and you know how we as men allow masculinity to really got a lot of problems in our relationships, social relationships. And again, this is where we're getting, we're this tying in to say like, hey, yes it can cause some problems if you're not ready, if you're not managing it the way you need to manage it. So this is the end results that can occur. So I’m definitely loving that. (Correct.)  So we talked about some of the kind of the physical ailments to health and wellness, but what about the, and you talked a little bit when you alluded to just the thought process and the mindset that chronicity of stress plays on people and has even played on you. What were some of the ways that you see that, you said like, wow, you know, this is, and I know one was it taking me out physically, but like I'm not even thinking straight. My mindset even there. What have been some of the ways that you've seen that come into play? Dr. Michelle Clay: People come to me and they feel stuck. That's what they feel stuck. Sometimes when they come, they don't say I'm stressed. They'll say things like, I need a change, but I don't know how to get there. Okay. They just feel stuck. They cannot move forward past unforgiveness. They cannot move to make a plan. They know they want something better and sometimes they don't even have clarity as to what. So exactly your thought process is you're not thinking clearly. It's difficult to focus. You may even have problems with your memory with chronic stress. Not to the extent of like Alzheimer's or anything like that, but you understand what I'm saying? For instance, I don't remember where I put my wallet. Okay. I even had an incident the other day in my personal home where my housemate was so stressed out, he walked out the door and didn't realize he didn't close it. So I come home in the door is wide open. Dr. Berry: Oh, I bet that conversation must, nah. I'm just mad at that conversation. If I leave the door and I come home, I'm like, oh, what the hell are you doing buddy? Dr. Michelle Clay: But see, the thing is when you use your stress release and strategies, then I'm able to manage that. First of all, I need to know is everything safe, safe to walk in the house? Do I need to call the police? Is anything missing? The only thing that was missing was the cats. And then once I find the cat, then I just have a very calm conversation. Just like this tone of voice. Just don't forget to put on the deadbolt. That's it. If I get my, if I get all hyper and I'm stressed out, well that's going to affect the rest of my day. And I have things to do. I need to focus. I need to be clear. I need to manage my time well. So there's ways to manage and see that's an example of you taking control and not allowing anything or anyone to shift you from your position. Dr. Berry: And it was interesting, especially because when you talk about just even the memory, because I'm a program director, so I got residents around me and you know, we work in a hospital setting. So you know, when we hear like rapid response or cold blue and all of a sudden, you know, those same residents who are calm and collective and they get into that emergent mode, they forget the stethoscope, they forget that white coat. They forget where they need to. Like your memory just isn't as sharp as it needs to be. And that's those only in a short instance. So I can only imagine if chronically you're dealing with something over and over and over again, what that would do over a longer span. Dr. Michelle Clay: Absolutely. I feel for the residents because I remember that time and actually there are moments in my life that I will never remember, not just because I was stressed, but also sleep deprivation. Dr. Berry: Oh yes. Oh, okay. Yeah. You bring back the, hey, so bad we don't, we forget about some of the things we went through as a resident because you're like, oh yeah. Dr. Michelle Clay: I don't mean to trigger anything, Dr. Berry. I don’t want to trigger something. Dr. Berry: I'm just thinking about it now. Oh yeah. Really? Yeah, the tough times as a resident. Tough time as a resident for sure. Talk to us about some of the ways that you've helped guide people to help manage and even release their stress. Which is a very interesting concept when we talk about the releasing of the stress, right? Like what are some of the ways that you've been able to educate and coach some of your clients to, to kind of get them over the hump, I guess, if there is a hump to get over? Dr. Michelle Clay: Well, first of all, I helped them, number one to turn off the autopilot in the racing thoughts and get some of that stuff out of your head out. And sometimes that can be as simple as journaling. Now I meet people where they are. Some people like, “Dr. Michelle, I am not going to journal.” Okay. Dr. Berry: They're honest with you. Dr. Michelle Clay: They are honest with me and I appreciate that because then I can meet you where you are and we can work together. From my perspective, my responsibility as a physician is not to heal you but to guide you and give you tools that you can activate your own healing power and heal yourself. So first of all, depending on what they are dealing with, I just write it out on paper. I'm like, okay, what's the first thing that you feel you need to conquer or you need to manage to get to your next step? And they'll tell me whatever that is. And they said, oh, but that seems so big. I said, well wait a minute, let's break it down. Let's break it down. So then, once I help them break it down piece by piece, just as if you're building a house, if you're going to build a house, well I'm not going to say a house, let's just say a shed because that can be a weekend project. People can relate to that. You're going to go to home depot or Lowe's and you're going to get the supplies that you need. You're going to map out how you're going to do this as an architect - you're going to have a blueprint and then you're going to follow that blueprint. But sometimes let's say that piece of wood that you need to have a splints are in it and the nail goes through where you're not going to wig out. What are you going to do? You go and pick up another piece of wood and put it in place. So I break it down with them like that, step by step, piece by piece. And then I also get them to commit, not a “someday” or “I'm going to try”, what is it that you're going to do? And okay, Dr. Michelle, I'm going to do this. Okay, so you're going to do this by what day? Now I'm going to call you, I'm going to check in. So if you know, especially if you have somewhat of a competitive spirit, if you know someone is looking over you, but more importantly looking out for you, think you're more apt to do that. And then I'm like you know what, I'm so glad that you told me to do that because it wasn't as hard as I thought. Dr. Berry: I love it and that's so correctly, and I'm laughing because I, you're not going to tell we known each other for about three years now. A little bit, give or take. She really does this, like this is it, just like she really would be like, no, no, no, no, no. I need like the date and time that you said this project is going to be completed so I can reach out to you on that time just to make sure we're all on the same page. So she really does this. It's not just for the show. Dr. Michelle Clay: It’s not just for the show. This is real. This is definitely real. So that's one thing. And then another powerful thing that I have them do that I do every day are affirmation. So affirmations are really about saying I am, and then whatever is after that, you're creating that in your life. So some people, I have them simply say every day I am calm, I love myself, or whatever it is. A lot of people deal with self-image issues where they feel that they're not worthy. They devalue themselves by the words they say to themselves and that creates their reality. And then they act that out in real life. And even if someone says, oh no honey, I love myself, but I'm watching what you're doing. I'm watching how you treat yourself. I'm watching what you're eating, I'm watching how you're sleeping and watching who you allow around you. If there are people who will bring you down or discourage you, or if there are people who will lift you up. So it doesn't matter what you say in that instance, it matters what you do. What I get people to do is say and then also act what they say. Dr. Berry: I love it. Do you find a lot of people will do the form of the ladder? They'll say all the stuff that I'm going to do this, I want to do that. But when it comes to actually putting, you know, the pen to the paper, taking that next step, you find l that's where a lot of people kind of falter when it comes to managing and releasing of set stress?   Dr. Michelle Clay: They do, but it's a process because just like riding a bike, when we first got on the bike, well some of us had training wheels. I had training wheels. Some people just immediately got on the bike and there were times when you fell down, but even though you fell down, you've got that up and got back on the bike and they may have put a helmet on you and some knee pads and some elbow pads just to protect you a little bit. But at the end of the day, you still got back up on the bike. Now you may have paused because you got a little nervous and said, oh well I'm afraid to try right now. I'm gonna wait until next week and try again. But the point is that you tried again and so it's a process that's the same way with my clients. Some people when I tell them things and we come up with a plan together, then they take action and full, they're good. Some people they kind of wax and wane and oh well I don't know, blah blah, blah. Oh Dr. Michelle I didn’t do what I wanna, still don't leave me though. Don't leave me Dr. Michelle. I'm like, I'm not going to leave. (I'm not going nowhere).  Dr. Berry: Do you find that, and especially because I'm thinking about the whole manage releasing stress, when clients come to you, do you find that they're holding in a lot of stuff that has to be like let out first before they can actually start like no prioritizing and you know, doing the steps and actions I need to actually be able to manage it? Do find a lot of people are holding onto stuff that they shouldn’t? Dr. Michelle Clay: Hecky yeah they are. But I'm releasing that is part of releasing the stress. A lot of times if I'm having a session with a client and they start crying, that's already started the process. So for a little science there are different types of tears. So we have some tears, for instance, where you get something in your eye and tears form because it's trying to cleanse that particle, that foreign agent out of your eyes. When you cry because you are emotional, you're experienced sadness or something like that. Then there's actually some of the stress hormones in those tears. So even with the crying to release, so like I said, it's a process. It's a process. You have to crawl before you walk and many things go hand in hand. It's not an either or. Then than this. When this, then this. Is hand in hand. (Okay). One thing that I find people are holding onto a lot is unforgiveness and anger. Dr. Berry: Is that okay when you run into these people who have this level of forgiveness for whatever reason, how do you kind of go about saying like, okay, educated and say like I know it's tough, I know it's hard but you're going to have to, you know, release this if you want to move on. Right? Like is that an easy conversation? And then part B is, and I always ask this cause I was asked, cause I feel like from a male standpoint where we always fall behind, do you find that most of your clients, women or men, do you find that men are receptive to this level of education we're in, because I feel like men have a lot of stress because they are masculine and we don't call it stress? Dr. Michelle Clay: That's correct. Okay. So let me go to a Part A of the question first. Let me go in order. So usually when I have a client and I'm talking to people, there's a wisdom that comes with age. So I have gray hair, but I cover it up there. Am I being transparent? But with that gray hair comes wisdom and wisdom is knowledge with experience and I couple that together to help people. Right? So there's just some things that you get like a sense about and you sense the type of personality that the person has and how they will receive things that you say. With some people I can just cut straight to the chase and say it, but other people have to be soft and Shinto and puts some onions and then they feel better about disclosing information. Now I'll give you an example. I had a particular client that was holding on to unforgiveness. And the person that they unforgiveness toward had already died, like years ago. This happens all the time, like years ago. So what I had her do was write a letter to this person and they expressing everything to them that they never had the courage or opportunity to say let out all the anger with that. And then if you really wanted that person to forgive you then just envisioned that once they read it they said, I'm sorry or I forgive you or please forgive me. And that really helped her release. It really, really did. So I have all kinds of tips and tricks and strategies up my sleeve. Dr. Berry: I love that. So they know they're like, oh yeah, we we're going to be ready for whatever ever problem you bring Dr. Michelle, she is ready for set problems. Dr. Michelle Clay: And if I don't have, if I'm not the right person or that's not my area of expertise, because there's some people they really need to go to a therapist. So I will refer them to a psychiatrist or therapist or somebody because anytime you're trying to heal is not a one man show or one woman show. You need a team. Now who was that that just won the championship? The Raptors. Did you see one person on the court? No, it was a whole team. And then sometimes what happens is you have to rotate. Some might has to sit on the bench and take a rest and put another player in. So that's the same concept for people who are really trying to take it to the next level with their health or wellness or reclaim the person that they used to be long ago but has been burdened down with stress and burnout and just life and health issues and this, that and the third. Now Part B of your question, most of my clients are women. That's just who I attract. I do have some man. I'm open to all because one thing that my godmother told me, she was like a natural healer was that you should have the ability from a natural standpoint. You should have the ability to help anybody but you're not supposed to help everybody. Translation, some people you are meant to connect with and some people you were not, but you still have the expertise and the skills to help anybody. Dr. Berry: I love it. Now for the men that you do have, do you find it to be harder? Do you find that your work's cut out for you? Or by the time they come to see you, whatever barriers that would have been there that made it difficult for him to open up have kind of been disintegrated, quote unquote? Dr. Michelle Clay: So it depends on the man. So for the men who already knew me, then by the time they come to me, they're ready and they're committed. For the men who didn't know me, let's say they did a Google search or something and they called and made an appointment and we started working together. Sometimes they have ulterior motives or they may be attracted to me. They don't call… bullying page. Like I have someone right now who is not my client, but I feel like he has an ulterior motive. So I just keep it professional. And if you're not serious, I'm not going to take you as a client because you a disservice. And I'm just honoring myself. Dr. Berry: I love it. I always find, it's funny because what you're saying definitely kinda hits home because there are a lot of my male patients who say that part of the reason why they can't go to, you know, women who are physicians, right? Or who are healers right, is because they feel like they can't open up, right? They're like, oh my God, I can't open up this person here. Right? The person gonna look at me different. All of a sudden, you know that meant. You know we're terrible, right? We get there. We just started questioning ourselves and saying like, Oh man, if I open up with her and this person, like the whole world's going to know, and I don't want to be quote unquote less of a man. And you know, it's definitely a struggle that even though I as a male physician, I see that. I can only imagine, what you guys go through. Dr. Michelle Clay: Well, let me speak to the men's directly. Gentlemen, please hear me. Please hear me. First of all, I want you to know that I'm gonna speak for the women regardless of what they say or do. We love you and we need you. And when you tap into your power and your strength to show your vulnerability, we actually view that as a power and a strength, not a weakness. So yes, I want to tell you that directly. Dr. Berry: I love it. I love it. Alright. We hype now. We’re ready. Go for it. We like it. Dr. Michelle, before, I didn't talk to your head off, right? But before I let you go, I always call this kind of like the period of promotion. Because I'm very fortunate enough to have, you know, guests who such amazing things that yes, they're physicians. Yes, they're in the health field, but like they do so much more. So obviously, you know, we've been talking and like, I want you to kind of tell people, what are some of the things that you do kind of outside, right? And most importantly, I want to talk about this RNR Experience, right? I want you to kind of, let's start there. And then we can talk about all of the books that you have because Lunch and Learn community, she's got plenty of products and we're going to get all of that. And trust me, depending on wherever you listen to that, I would make sure you have direct links to all of that as well. But let's talk about the RNR Experience. Let's talk about the why, what is it, how did it come to fruition? And you know, like who's it for? Dr. Michelle Clay: So the RNR Experience is a freelife because that's the name of my company. Freelife seven is a free life retreat and it occurs in the big easy New Orleans. So many people who are experiencing stress come to the big easy and be easy. And it occurs November 1st and second. So as a VIP registrants, then you will get two days as general registrant, you will only get the one day. But that one day is power packs. I'm gonna go into that in a minute. Your question, how did it come to fruition? Because people asked me for it. I'm gonna be honest with you. Putting on an event that you know will make a great impact on people and help transform their lives, not just for them, but for whoever else that they touch. So you want it to be quality, it has to be quality. You have to put forth and have the vision of being an excellence. You have to move in excellence. That's a huge undertaking. The only reason I'm doing this is because people would come up to me randomly and say, oh, Dr. Michelle, I'm going to come to your retreat.  Dr. Berry: Right like hey, I'm coming to your tree. I don't even know when it's scheduled, but I'm there. Dr. Michelle Clay: Yes. I hadn't said anything about a retreat, but they come telling me they're going to come to my retreat. And so if that's the case, then there must be a need. And so I'm giving you what you need. I'm giving you what you want. I'm giving you what you asked for. So what the RNR Experience, and it's not just a retreat, it's an experience. (Not just a retreat, it's an experience. I'll listen). Release and recharge. We've been talking about release this entire podcast about releasing stress, but once you release that, you need to recharge some things. And we are so caught up and focus on recharging our laptop, recharging our cell phone. But we do not recharge our bodies, our minds, our spirits. So we know what our purpose is and we can go forth and be brilliant. Dr. Berry: Oh, talk to them. Some of us won't leave the house if our phone wouldn’t charge. Talk to them, talk to them please.  Dr. Michelle Clay: Exactly. So for my VIP, our first day, I have a wonderful fun experience for you. And then later that evening will have culinary cures and coaching with Dr. Michelle, a private dining experience. Now the reason I call it culinary cures in coaching is because you are able to use certain food items, certain nutritional elements to help with your stress. And because I know that I have created certain herbal teas to help with that, so that's one of the products, but as a VIP we're going to have a specialty tea, T-teeny, incorporates all of that.  Then on the main day, a lot of my super friends are coming in to share with you. And we have Dr. Carol. She's going to be doing movement and meditation. She has a book Meditation in the Time of Madness. We have Dr. Sam, one of my super friends who's going to be coming in and talking to you about sleep. Remember I told you chronic stress can affect your sleep and she also, she knows some great trigger points to help with your stress and your sleep. Then we have Dr. Mia coming up who is the B3 specialist. She's going to be talking about your beauty, how you see yourself beautiful. How to maintain, achieve balance and your belief about yourself in the world around you. Then I also have a super friend who is an artist. She has her own gallery here and one of her pieces is actually in the national African American museum and she's going to be guiding us through an exercise that you can incorporate once you get home on how to use art and creativity to release the stress and recharge your creativity. Creativity is not just about art pieces, painting, drawings, sculptor, but about what you are creating in your life, the footprint that you leave on the world. Dr. Berry: Oh, that's an amazing day. Yes. Okay. You know what, this will, we're going to do. Let's do this. Let's do this for Dr. Michelle. Obviously with Lunch and Learn community and you know, amazing information as you gave today. Let's list this podcast. This podcast will sponsor a general membership or General Day, right? Whatever that general ticket is, right? I don't know how you, I'll let you decide how you want to give it away, but you give a ticket away on behalf of the Lunch and Learn community, on behalf of the Lunch and Learn podcast with Dr. Berry because I think people need to experience that, right? (Yhey!)  Because as I'm thinking, I'm trying to think the last time I left this house and didn't have my phone charged or last time I like I would skip sleep even if it was for a few seconds to make sure my phone was charged. But we're walking around on a daily basis, not recharging our mind, not recharging mental or spiritual and all of these things that really keep us going and we're not doing it. And I'd so I want to sponsor someone to, to get themselves recharged and getting themselves ready to take on, especially this last quarter of the year. Dr. Michelle Clay: Yhey! Thank you Dr. Berry. Thank you Lunch and Learn community. There is, I don't know who was going to go to, but I'm going to donate that ticket to a woman who, or man, we're going to see, because I love the men. They struggling. They really feel stuck and they do not have the means to get there on their own. That's who was going to go to. Dr. Berry: Let's do it. Let's do it. Now, so that's the RNR Experience, which is big. But honestly you've been in so much big things, even up until that, right when it comes to books and the teas and everything else, and just give them a laundry list of the stuff that you got right? Just so they know that Dr. Michelle ain't playing out here.  Dr. Michelle Clay: I am not playing in these streets. First of all. Well let me tell you this, RNR Experience. You can get your ticket at releaserechargeexperience.com and its Christmas in July. So you can get the early bird pricing in the month of July. But if you wait too long, they said you think long, you think wrong. So the price is going up.  Dr. Berry: So the price is going up. Y'all know y'all going to New Orleans anyways, right? Y'all gonna be there. It makes them get recharged. You just self-ready right and of course link we'll definitely be in the show notes to make sure you have a direct link to that. Dr. Michelle Clay: So the other things that are going on, I have my best selling book, Conquering the Chaos, The Super Wonder Woman's 12 Step Strategy for a Stress Free Life. I also have the companion journal with that, the Stress Release Journal. So in the book, in the 12 steps it goes through, we talked a little bit about it today. It goes through the 12th systems of the body, how they function, because I think that you need to empower people with information to activate their transformation. And then how stress affects that system in the body of culinary cure for that and mindset. Something for your mindset with that system, the stress Release Journal, the Companion Journal for that is a deeper dive into that. So you're reading and educating yourself in the conquering the chaos book, the now you need to get to work. Then I also have my stress free life, self-care kids. Oh my goodness. This thing right here just keeps exploding. So people, they want stuff. So in there there's a tea and this gonna be four different one per quarter. So one is going to be the release recharge box with the signature release, recharge herbal tea, which is specially formulated to give you a sense of calm and ease is how this is base. And then you also have the semi-precious stone bracelets, agate bracelets with lava beads on them and I'm mixed up a special essential oil aroma therapy oil to go on the braces. So anytime you know, you feeling some just instantly calm you down, just smell your wrist, just smell your wrist, and aroma therapy at the same time. And then I've also created the relaxation remedy, herbal bath. And you can put that, either do a full bath or just do a foot bath. I'm going to do a foot bath this evening. We also have the Free Life Candle because people love to smell things. (People love candles). Yes, the Free Life Candle.  And we also have shower steamers. These things are amazing. So have you ever heard of shower steamers? (Oh No. Wow.) Let me tell you about it. So the shower steamers, they're a little square made out of like baking soda and some other things infuse with certain essential oils so you can put it on the bottom of the tub while you're taking the shower and having aroma therapy experience. Because some people they like, girl, I haven't had time to take a bath, but you still need to have a moment for yourself. Self-care to stress less. You can have your me time create a me time moments in the shower. Dr. Berry: Oh, that's nice. Okay. I'll tell you Lunch and Learn community see doing it, that line. See, that's a problem. I love it. That's a good problem though. That's a good problem because again, we're trying to stress less, right? We're trying to find my free life like that. That's really the name of the game and that's again, that's why I love and respect everything that Dr. Michelle does because the amazing work that she puts in and the effort that she puts in shows you how much she cares. Right? And you know, we're running to, unfortunately there's, there's a lot of physicians who have infiltrated our system who don't really care as much. Right? And you know, so when you find someone who does, you try to make sure you amplify everything that they do so others can know like how amazing this person is. Dr. Michelle Clay: Thank you. Yes, this is definitely my purpose and I'm so very passionate about it because everything that I'm telling you, I've done all of that. My affirmations, every day I wear my bracelets, I'm sniffing all day, I use my shower, steamers, light my candle, meditate, pray. I do all of that. Dr. Berry: Practice what we preach, practicing what we preach. (Yes). Before I let you go, like I always ask this question like how can what you do empower others to take better control of their health? Because it's obvious, but you know, in case for some reason someone that skipped and miss all of this greatness and wanting to go towards the end, right? And this is all they listen to too, right? Like how is what you do empowering others to take medic control of their health? Dr. Michelle Clay: First about you have to know that you know that you know that you are worthy and you are deserving. It's not about being here for somebody else is about being here and showing up for you. And the goal is not to survive, but it is to thrive. Know that you are never stuck. As long as there is breath in your body, you can always decides to choose you and to do better so you'll have better and be better. So I want you to know that you're never stuck and also that you're never alone. Whether it's me, whether it's Dr. Berry, whether someone else that can help you get to the next level. If you don't have people around you that support you, honey, you can create another circle. (Yes). You can another create circle which you're never stuck. You are never stuck and you always deserve them. Dr. Berry: I love it. I can show before we let you go, but where can others find you? Again, all of these links, remember Lunch and Learn community, you know the drill. We'll have all these links in the show notes but I want to make sure that they can follow you. We lead and you know, be able to kind of just absorb this greatness that I'm able to absorb at a daily basis what I love to see. Dr. Michelle Clay: You can find me on all social media at Dr. Michelle Clay. My website is drmichelleclay.com and for the Lunch and Learn community, then I would love to offer you my special recipe for the stress free life smoothie and you can get that as stressfreesmoothie.com Dr. Berry: I love it. I love it and I appreciate it. Based on behalf of the Lunch and Learn community, we want to thank you, Dr. Michelle for just an amazing experience. Like I said, I say this like on a week to week basis, but like I'd be learning just as much as the Lunch and Learn community from my guests. Like I'm either like, if y'all can see my face, I'm glued in. Like, okay, got it. Got To lose this,, got to manage it. Cant be dealing with it, got to manage that. That's the goal. Changed the words. Words are powerful. That's the way to go. They don't wanna show you have a great, and again, like I said, remember we want to sponsor who, I don't know who you choose, who we're sponsoring. But we've got, we need to get someone to get that experience at the RNR Experience, Release and Recharge. When is it happening again? Let us know. Dr. Michelle Clay: It's November 2nd. Dr. Berry: Okay. November 2nd for the general, you want that VIP, you come in on the first, right? So if yall big ballers want to VIP, go in on the first, right? Then you get a T-teeny, is that what we called it? Yup. Dr. Michelle Clay: Yeah. Make that up. Good. T-teeny is by experience. Dr. Berry: I love it. Thank you, Dr. Michelle.   Dr. Michelle Clay: Thank you for having me. Everyone have a positive and stress-free day.     Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

No Will this week but Alan Camacho steps in to discuss the rest of the VRs from Aeiral Steed Liberation. Also, don't cheat with Tsukyomi please. Kay thanks. E-mail: drivecheckpodcast@gmail.com Twitter: @drive_check @washinthesink @cole_mccune Patreon link: patreon.com/drivecheck For singles, check out badmonstergames.com Special Thanks to our Patreon backers: Wesley Welch Alan Camacho Nick Gidillini Curtis McNeill Geoffrey Butler Kay William Anderson Collin Hawken pkmncast.com Alec Manke Skyridge Games Alex Cajka Alex Stewart James Zuniga Mew Will Matthew Odom

All right guys, this week is another one of the more exciting weeks for us here on JRP DAILY as we get to interview Dave Meltzer, the CEO of Sports 1 Marketing! If you are not already familiar with David, he is one of the top executives in sports today and runs his company Sports 1 Marketing along with Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon. In this episode David walks us through exactly how he went from growing up in a poorer family with all of his siblings, to becoming one of the top names in sports. This guy has spoken at many events, been interviewed on countless podcasts (including shows like "Impact Theory" and "The Ed Mylett Show") and has run multiple businesses throughout his career. We truly think that if there is one guy out there that could give you advice in just about any aspect of life... It's Dave. Now I'll leave you with all of the links you should need below. ---------- Dave Meltzer: Website: https://www.davemeltzer.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidmeltzer/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCflt1OopRWIApMOjVgZyJ6Q Sports 1 Marketing: Website: https://sports1marketing.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sports1mktg/ Justin Phillips: Instagram: https://instagram.com/jjustinrp Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjustinrp Facebook: https://facebook.com/jrpbusiness Website: https://justinrp.net/

This episode is the second part of a three-part series on “Homelands and Histories.” Dr. Elizabeth Castle discusses her documentary film “Warrior Woman,” which follows generations of activism among Native American women, culminating in the recent Standing Rock Resistance Movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Dr. Castle is a scholar, activist, community organizer, and documentary film maker, whose work considers land use, indigenous activism, and cultural memory. Transcript: Jolie Sheffer:                          Welcome to the BG Ideas podcast, a collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies, and the director of ICS. This is the second episode of a three part series on homelands and histories, in which we talk to people making big impacts on local communities through their work on land use and cultural heritage. Jolie Sheffer:                          The word "homeland" evokes for some people comforting feelings of patriotism or shared cultural identity, but it has also been used to justify expulsion or even genocide. For this series, we deliberately use the plural word histories in order to call attention to the many points of conflict, debate, erasure, violence, and silencing that accompany efforts to describe and interpret the past. Jolie Sheffer:                          Today we're joined by Dr Elizabeth (Beth) Castle, a scholar, community organizer and documentary filmmaker. She is from Mansfield, Ohio and is currently teaching at Denison University. Dr Castle is completing her film Warrior Women, which traces the history of women's activism in the red power and American Indian movements beginning in the 1970s up to the recent and widely publicized protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Dr Castle has been researching and recording oral histories of Standing Rock community activists for almost 20 years. Her work has led to meaningful collaboration with Madonna Thunder Hawk, a Lakota community organizer, and cofounder of Women of All Red Nations. Jolie Sheffer:                          Dr Castle's goal in this and other work is to facilitate a reciprocal flow of knowledge and resources intended to empower, liberate, and maintain indigenous communities. I'm very pleased to welcome Dr Beth Castle to BGSU as part of ICS's 2018 spring speaker series. Thanks for being here, Beth. Dr. Beth Castle:                    Thank you. Jolie Sheffer:                          One of the things that we are interested in discussing is the relationship between different kinds of knowledge and different modes of activism such as scholarship, art, grassroots organizing. Can you begin by telling us a little bit about your particular path to becoming both a scholar and a filmmaker? Did these start at the same time or did one lead to another? Dr. Beth Castle:                    I would say that my path has been absolutely one that I have made up as I go along, and I'm still making it up, and I'm still trying to determine where I'm most effective and have a hard time maybe taking on particular descriptions of the things that I do. Working as a scholar, that's something that happened because I wanted to pursue the story and the stories of activists who changed the world for us in the sixties and seventies. And in the process of pursuing that story, in wanting know it, thinking about how I was going to be sort of a conduit, or an arbitrator, or one that could help then have other people learn from that story. I could amplify it. So it was that path that led me to be a scholar in as much that ... so I wanted to have people experience the feeling of seeing the ways in which their story can interrupt, intervene and reshape that master historical narrative that they feel erased by, and are erased by. Dr. Beth Castle:                    Because our collective histories are typically erased by historical propaganda information, either that we don't know, or information that we've been given to support a certain sense of the state. As a filmmaker, it's still a word that is hard for me to connect to, but once you start to make a film you just have to own the fact that you are a filmmaker, which is something I'm working on doing. And you know the film Warrior Women is a collaboration between a lot of folks, but specifically between me and the co-director of the film, Christina D. King, who is a native filmmaker from Oklahoma. Jolie Sheffer:                          One of the things you've talked about is disrupting the master narratives and you've done that in your approach to scholarship. You do that in your approach to the film. Could you talk a bit about how you have thought about audience, particularly for the film, and what types of audiences are you hoping to reach with the film and what do you want them to come away thinking or learning or understanding? Dr. Beth Castle:                    I started all this as a an oral history project and it sort of became a project because I started to interview people for a dissertation. As I was doing it, I was sitting down with folks with questions or expectations of, Well, how are you going to go take this and make it something that helps you. And with some anger, understandably. So it was very early on that I understood a sense of accountability to the folks who I was interviewing and working with. We all have better hindsight than we do often decision making in the moment. So at that time I was just a dissertation student. I was young, and I was able to at least fight for that as I went along in terms of wanting people to understand that I have this legitimacy that comes from being associated with a fancy university and I have certain access, but this was a collective process as much as I had it in my power to make it that way. Dr. Beth Castle:                    So the Warrior Women project, first off and early on for this first couple of years was a collective indigenous run oral history project. And now the film is a little bit of a different articulation of that because it's specifically a film, but all of it feeds and flows together into an idea where we are trying to disrupt the dominant narrative but keep our focus as an audience on the women who are in the film and the women who were originally interviewed, do they recognize what they're seeing about themselves in what we're producing? But ultimately the idea of folks who care about change to me are the idealized audience. And if folks who care about social change and justice and equality watch the film and are moved by it, that is the single most important audience for the film. Jolie Sheffer:                          Could you talk about how over the course of this long project you've seen the technologies you use really change and develop from film to digital, the rise of social media? How have some of those changes maybe made it easier to take a stand to make a difference, to communicate one's vision? Dr. Beth Castle:                    There are changes in technology that have potentially made things easier for folks. But one thing's consistent is that we have to spend more time letting young folks know, Y'all have it and y'all can do it. And I know that we're all telling you that there's so many lessons you need to learn first, but if there's one overwhelming lesson to pass on it is actually a quote from the film where Madonna Thunder Hawk and her daughter Marcella, Marcy Gilbert, are sitting in the audience waiting to run a session at the United Nations as part of an indigenous gathering. And Marcy says to Madonna, she's like, "Well, you all didn't know what you were doing, but you did it anyway." And Madonna's like, "That's right. We just did it anyway." And that's part of it, is just this emphasis of not sort of burdening you with all this idea of like there's a certain way to do it. Dr. Beth Castle:                    You don't have to sweat that so much because you just have to stand up right now, whatever it is. And everybody's waiting for other folks to do it. Everybody, you know, there's this just this tendency and this feeling of helplessness and, you know, half the time these folks who have this legacy of social change, how they started out was it was just a couple of them that stood up in a room and said or did something. Or a couple of them who put out. Now your version of that could also be you put something out that went viral. You know, you put something out there that changed everything. And I think that aspect of social media, that does make certain things easier. But like the core need for this current generation to like truly understand and feel their power. Dr. Beth Castle:                    I guess that's the analysis I would make is that the very thing that might make certain things easier, this greater flow of knowledge and information through social media, can also make it seem like you're not as connected, and you're maybe not getting your message out there. And you know, that's just something I feel it so strongly when I've talked to all these folks were like, "We didn't have a plan. We just did it." And don't you freak out about the fact that you're just ... when young people are on the move things change, period. And you might be right on the precipice of something that like right now, is the threat of gun violence enough to cross cut the differences so that you have something that's somewhat similar to the way in which everybody came together to stop the war in Vietnam. Dr. Beth Castle:                    You know, whatever motivates you the most is the thing to connect to and do it without apology. Jolie Sheffer:                          I think that's something we've been thinking and talking about is there may be a lot of things that concern you. But you only have to throw your energies into one. Do something rather than being paralyzed and not doing anything. Jolie Sheffer:                          The film kind of culminates with the Dakota Access Pipelines, right? And this being the most recent moment that's gotten a lot of attention. But your work goes back many, many years and Madonna Thunder Hawk and the other women you are talking about. This is a organizing work that's decades in the making and that builds on another, you know, more decades, centuries of activism. Could you talk about some of the longer arc that interests you and the stories you're following in the film? And how your relationship has changed from when you first met them to now? Dr. Beth Castle:                    My relationship with Madonna and Marcy and other women in the community, it spans almost 20 years. You know, when we talk about this idea of homelands and histories, that's the subject of the theme for the Institute this year. There's a way in which a sense of connection in a Homeland that's not mine and the space where I'm actually from. So you know, I'm from Mansfield, Ohio, and my histories are from this area, but I'm connected with a group of people in this other geographic space. Their histories extend back through generations of activists and resistors. Because for most folks to continue to live a cultural, political and social life as a native person is an act of resistance in and of itself. I may be the person who came in with scholarly questions, but my question was really what's your story, and how do you want to share it? Dr. Beth Castle:                    And I think that's what I've learned from Madonna, is she appreciates working together because of the way in which I am willing to not be an academic robot. She supports my need to work on making the experience of learning and school and who has control of knowledge, to blow that up and make it more accessible and make it something that's empowering. We just continue to do presentations and collaborations and normally we'd probably be talking together right now. So, you know, often folks will say, Well are you being accountable and should you speak for and about this community? And the only thing I will really say I can speak about is just for example the collaborative work that I've done with certain activists over time, where if I weren't representing and standing strong and saying that this flow of knowledge has to go back to folks and be meaningful to them, then I would be letting down the part, my part, in the responsibility of that relationship. Jolie Sheffer:                          Well that leads to another question which is, you know, it's so easy, whether it's scholarship or traditional filmmaking, for there to be an imbalance of power where the person telling the story, right?, is really the one in control. So can you talk about some of the sort of smaller decisions along the way, or in the film itself, that show how you've worked to center the experiences and perspectives of the women activists themselves rather than the audiences or even necessarily your own. Dr. Beth Castle:                    That comes into play almost every scene in the film. And one of the greater challenges I'll just say, and this is something that folks probably feel similarly about, communities they're connected to, is that there's so much unlearning and relearning that has to go on to start any conversation. And because we did such a crazy excellent job of practicing genocide and then pretending that we haven't in the United States, that there's all this unpacking that has to happen to understand the basic issues of anything tied to Indian country or native issues. So boarding school is a good example where when we use the phrase boarding school, depending upon what you know, you might think of an elite academic opportunity, or you will think of a place of torture and cruelty where some of the greatest, most hypocritical and twisted stuff happened as part of government policy to eradicate Indian culture by forcing kids into Indian boarding schools. Dr. Beth Castle:                    This is both Christina King and I thinking about this where, Well what happens if we just don't even call them schools because we are tired of even like evoking it and then having to debunk it. Can we take that action? And what would that look like? How would we put it in? Do we get someone to say it because we can't say it? So someone has to narrate it in the film itself. So all of those things come into play. And then to answer that, we never did end up reframing boarding schools as much as we wanted to. But then the is how much information do we put in there? Does it become a general primer or can we just jump into the stories that are most relevant to Madonna and her sister Mabel Ann? And how basically we ended up with the idea that we wanted people to understand, as much as we could convey, what intergenerational trauma really looks like. Dr. Beth Castle:                    It's not this abstract thing. It's not an excuse. It's, Imagine what it's like when you hear about how your grandmother may have literally never said to her daughter that she loved her or hugged her. And I'm not saying this is what happened in the case, but this is the sort of things that we wanted to convey that went beyond even the basic understandings. So yeah, those are great because it's just a tiny drop that has tons and tons of ripples and that probably we spent months constructing and reconstructing that and then still going, Is that good enough? Jolie Sheffer:                          I don't want to leave this open ended. But you know, how has working with these women shaped how you've gone on to do scholarship and filmmaking? How have they influenced your process? Dr. Beth Castle:                    That actually gets back to the very notion of how something changes based on like a discipline or a profession. Because we use the word audience as though there's something being performed for an audience that's taking it in. But to me, I think of audience as these women and their families taking in these stories as sort of told back to them. Because one of the reasons why folks were initially willing to even sort of spend their time talking to me, after they have experienced a lot of ways in which their stories are exploited, was this idea that they were watching their grandkids turn to the television, or turn to whatever you know the screen was, and only pay attention to the screen. And it was actually just a really brilliant move. So they're like, you're filming this put the family story, put these stories and these cultural stories on camera so that my grandchildren will watch them and learn from them. Dr. Beth Castle:                    So it was a really smart way to think about cultural intergenerational preservation of knowledge, which may not have been expressed in that lovely academic terminology, but was exactly what they were saying. The other thing that we usually experience as we're young, we're young, we don't pay attention to a lot of things that we then regret when we get older. And you know, as elders, they were thinking about future generations and thinking about ancestors. And those phrases get thrown around sometimes, but you can see how they're active motivating factors in people's life. Even if they don't proclaim it in a sacred moment, they're motivated. And I realize, you know, especially as I say when I was younger it was more just like social change at any costs. I'm going to run here, I'm going to flow there, I'm going to do whatever. And now it's a little more focused on future generations and those who came before us. Jolie Sheffer:                          You know, you talked about how the process with getting to know Madonna Thunder Hawk began with asking what's your story? And I think that it's important to underscore that that simple thing is actually a really radically different way of approaching a subject, because we're trained to sort of come in, you've got your hypothesis and now you have to go in and try and prove it. And instead you open it up to truly a collaboration. And that, in this case, has lasted almost 20 years. Do you have any advice for students thinking about embarking on their own projects? About how to enter into that spirit of collaboration most productively? Dr. Beth Castle:                    It is hard to collaborate if you're trying to produce something and you're doing it because it's a requirement for a class and you have to please a professor. But if we look at it on the level of doing that type of scholarship as you move forward, maybe in graduate school, you can still do it in undergrad, but the challenge there is the belief in yourself and your ability to do it. We often frame that the classroom or the college experience where it's sort of like, I was about to use a hand gesture but, so I'm making a hand gesture where it's like a really high expectation level and the expectations for you as students is maybe much lower than what the desired goal is. And you'd be lucky if you can get there. But just really believing in the fact that you have the tools and if you don't, you're going to be able to figure it out. Dr. Beth Castle:                    And in this case it can be really, I guess it can be very daunting to go in and basically open something up, to be like, What's your story? But realizing at the end of the day, if you're doing your job as an accountable academic or person who wants to know more about this subject, you're going to shift anyway. It's going to reframe. It's just going to do the thing where it reframes your thesis question, and you're going to realize that at the end of the day it just becomes richer for it. Dr. Beth Castle:                    And so it's sort of actually all works out in the end. It's just a struggle and a challenge along the way. It's always going to be way more interesting than being like, I have this thesis and I'm just going to try and squeeze all these data points into it, and all these data points happen to be people. You're going to go on a much more interesting ride if you realize that we all have a little potential for scholarship in us. Like we all have some thoughts about our own lives. And those are valid and should be part of the people's history or people's story. Jolie Sheffer:                          Some questions from our students. Student 1:                               How do you think indigenous issues can get the media coverage that they advocate for if their concerns are misrepresented? Dr. Beth Castle:                    I mean the thing that has happened and is continuing to happen more since the Standing Rock resistance movement is there is more indigenous media than there ever has been and that is the great flow of digital communication and social media, is that people can do podcasts pretty easily and folks can do a live stream of an event and it just goes viral. So there's so many ways in which that level of mediation, which results in that misrepresentation that you're referring to can be removed. And so that is one of the most positive steps. And then the flip side are all the things that like we're doing right here and having conversations and raising awareness and, you know, each one teach one. Dr. Beth Castle:                    And doing the unlearning. Because that's the thing in general is that I do think once we sort of point out a few things that are so normalized in our behavior about, you know, accepting the Cleveland baseball team's logo and mascot and things that we have to start pushing back and saying this is part of a colonial process that erases people who are still here with us, who's children need to survive and thrive. You know, sort of pushing back against that. But I think that supporting the type of media that you are going to find probably based in in social media as its home is getting more at the heart of what either indigenous media makers or those who are accountable to indigenous communities are doing. Student 1:                               How can those communities engage with institutions that they may be at odds with while asserting their own concerns for that interaction? Jolie Sheffer:                          You know that's like one of the oldest challenges that we have is, is like are you going to try to change an institution who's almost whole goal is to eviscerate you or make you invisible? Some of it is strategic. At the end of the day the more native folks we have coming into, like if we're looking at an academic institution and more people who are doing research that's accountable to native people, that is already going to start to change that process. But overall, understanding that indigenous issues are everywhere and indigenous people are everywhere. And that's one of the things again that we don't typically know or see because, if we believe our K through 12 education and the general propaganda, people are going to think that native people have been erased. And you know at an institutional level, you need folks, it's not just indigenous folks, but you need allies who are also going to advocate. Student 2:                               I have a question. Can you speak of the aboriginal comparison and contrast between community organizers and nonprofit community organizations? Can you offer your thoughts on the way community organizers operate outside the capitalist neoliberal market structure? Dr. Beth Castle:                    So community organizing is like anything else. It's really tricky where at the moment most of you are asking, How can I do social change and survive in a hyper-capitalist economy that is destroying all of us? Well, you can't all that much. You're going to have to commit to sort of trying to destroy what you can in the process, because it has to change. Or this model right now, that everybody's coming into college and trying to figure out how you're going to get a job is sort of not fair to you. Because unfortunately all of us need to take some role and responsibility in figuring out how we're going to crack open some of these systems so that we can survive, so that we can have healthcare and all the things that we need to survive as a society. Now the challenge with the nonprofit structuring is that it often takes the move out of movement. Dr. Beth Castle:                    It often ends up being that a lot of your efforts are going to go towards just trying to keep an organization functioning. So the idea that, or the first thing that people would do is say, Okay, well we need to get a 501(c)(3), or we need to figure out who our fiscal sponsor is. And that's one of the things I've learned from people I've worked with, where you may need to do that at certain points to have donation and certain money coming in. But don't spend your time there, because once you've spent your time there, then the revolution will not be funded, right?, and it will not go on because you are spending all your time performing all these details of infrastructure that aren't helpful. But it's a real challenge where I think part of it is we have to maybe think more collectively and more in line with the forms of socialism, which I'm not saying are synonymous with indigenous value systems, but they definitely share a common ideology of you share it. Dr. Beth Castle:                    And so, you know, we're trying to do like small bits of fundraising that provide gas money so that organizers can get where they need to. Of course these are organizers who would love to transform the transportation system so they don't have to, but in the meantime you have to meet people where you are and where they are. So you know, that's a very good question that you need to ask when you're going into a space about, where is, where is this community? What do they need? And what do I need to survive? Student 3:                               So my question is in keeping one foot in the community, one of the panelists, Lakota, begins to illustrate a key difference between the indigenous folk who stick with land and tradition and those who haven't. She says, "So there are a lot of us who have had different experiences and each experience is very valid, is a very valid American Indian experience." She then goes on to say in reference to those who have been married into other people or other cultures, "They are the ones that are doing the blessing of everything representing us. And they know nothing about us. They know nothing about what is the true struggle of the people still on land still with tradition." Do you find issue between this like gathering, separating of the indigenous community, and as someone who exists outside of this tradition adoption dichotomy, but who's sort of framing this, how do you think it affects indigenous activist practice and its ability to connect or divide? Dr. Beth Castle:                    So at the core of what you're describing or what I'm hearing, is one of the greatest challenges of working in indigenous issues and communities has a lot to do with how you maintain identity and who has the right to speak than who, and that's a very contested thing. So I would start by saying I really don't have ... I'm not the most appropriate person to answer that question. But with that parameter I would say that if we keep at least asking ourselves and qualifying and understanding the fact that we may not always be the right person to answer that question, that's part of what Lakota Harden, the woman that you referenced who is a long time community organizer, activist, and facilitator, is referencing. Is just the challenges of, you know, as you are trying to revitalize, resurrect and maintain a cultural identity that was and is the target of a cultural genocidal practice, that we need to erase it. Dr. Beth Castle:                    Part of it is like erasing the evidence of a colonial settler, the colonial settler past of the United States. That this didn't happen. So in the process of trying to revitalize or reconnect, it can be difficult because then a lot of folks are asked for you speak for your people, you're that voice and you know it's hard when somebody asks you to do that and you want to be like, Well, I don't really know. I know I'm just trying to reconnect with or that. So it is a major issue in Indian country and I want to be careful about saying things that aren't mine to say. And that's a crazy notion for sort of a mainstream framing where we think we're told often that we have the right to do everything and the right to say everything. And no one can tell us otherwise. Dr. Beth Castle:                    But that's not what the motivations and the value systems are that drive indigenous folks. So it's needs to be an ongoing discussion and it does just root down to this idea of still just being accountable to communities that you are speaking for/speaking about or representing. And if I go through a day without using the phrase, I'm going to say "accountable" literally 20 times a day, and it never gets old because it's the thing that I think that at least keeps you in check knowing that still it might go wrong, but at least you're in the practice of thinking about it. Student 4:                               In your own opinion, what things need to happen or what can people do in order to have and maintain a more mutually beneficial and respectful relationship between those who are trying to learn and those who are trying to teach? How can this relationship become an even plane for learning, especially with advice for building relationships for activist work? Dr. Beth Castle:                    So the last part of that question, trying to learn and the mutually beneficial relationships between trying to learn and trying to teach? Student 4:                               Yes. Like without having that, without establishing a power dynamic while coming into these spaces trying to learn, but also trying to be the one that's going to be the one that's divulging this information elsewhere. Dr. Beth Castle:                    I would connect to the feeling of humility and being humble. Also recognizing that that's difficult because there are times when you have to literally take the microphone and say and do and speak. But by and large thinking about the collective we. And you'll find that, at least in my experience, when you try, when you do take the hierarchy out of it and you try to make it a shared experience, the folks who really do have the knowledge and the advice to share will have the space to share it, and you'll be able to listen and take it in, and hopefully it'll be done in a way that still recognizes the folks who do have experience to share. Dr. Beth Castle:                    And I think that part of it is just reframing, is like if somebody has the experience, you want that experience and you want them to have a chance to share it with you. And I just think about it with a little bit of an indigenous community model where, you know, you give the space for elders to share. And they're going to take it, and that's what's going to happen. But as young people, it's your obligation and responsibility to a certain degree to push back when necessary. And that's part of what happens from generation to generation. Jolie Sheffer:                          Thank you very much, Beth. Jolie Sheffer:                          Now I'll do our credits. Our producer today is Chris Cavera. Special thanks to our co-sponsors, the Ethnic Cultural Arts Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at the School of Earth, Environment and Society, and the Departments of Communication, Media Production and Studies, and Theater and Film. Thank you very much.

Today's tip is number 11 have the seller pay all closing costs. All right, so I have a contract that I've spent many years putting together in my career. There's 40 plus years now. I've been buying, selling and holding property and a I created something called the standard real estate purchase and sale agreement. Now I'll just take this one clause and focus on it because I talked about the agreement in tip number 10 so let me tell you about this particular clause. Now this is our standard real estate purchase and sale agreement. It is loaded with profit centers protection and negotiation for you. And this particular one says seller will pay all closing costs in to include recording fees to intangibles, tax credit report funding, fee, loan origination fee, document preparation fee, loan insurance, premium loan discount, title insurance policy, attorneys' fees, courier fees, overnight fees, appraisal fee, survey transfer, tax satisfaction, recording fees, wood destroying organism report in any other costs and fees associated with funding or closing.This agreement, buyer will pay all additional monies. Isn't that fantastic? I'll taxes rentals, condominium or association fees, monthly mortgage insurance premiums and interest on loans will be prorated as of the date of closing. So what happens is that this clause is already in the agreement and many times our clients don't negotiate. They just simply go along with it. Now of course it's negotiable. So you could strike out cellar and put buyer. The other way you could fix it is actually say, well, you will pay the first $500 or seller will pay the first $500 of any closing costs and then you'll pay the difference. So of course everything in the agreement is negotiable. But if it's already built that way, many times people don't negotiate. I'd love to share more of my profitable tips with you. I hope you've enjoyed this one and you will use it. I know it will make a difference in your profits.101 Street Smart Cash Flow AcceleratorsLou Brown has been buying, selling and holding property for 40 years and you are about to discover what a lot of so called gurus are missing.* How to buy all the property you want without ever visiting a single bank or needing to qualify for a loan…* How to have a buyer or renter before you even buy property…* How to have them already pay you money before you sold them anything…These are exactly the kinds of deals he does day in and day out. Most 'investors' are getting it wrong. It's not about the property, it's about the buyer. Buying right and buying cheap is what you'll do after you have the buyer.Media Sites:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StreetSmartInvestorPodcast: http://Streetsmart.mypodcastworld.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StreetSmartInvestor/Web Site:https://millionairejumpstart.com/ and https://streetsmartinvestor.com/Real Estate investors in all fifty states across Canada and fifteen foreign countries including as far away as Australia and New Zealand, have long regarded the training, systems and forms created by Louis Brown as the best in the industry, Quoted as an expert by many publications and authors, “Lou” draws from a wide and varied background as a real estate investor having been buying property since 1976.He's invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and built and renovated homes and apartments. Each of these experiences has given him a proving ground for the most cutting edge concepts in real estate today. He's widely known as a creative financing genius with his deal structuring concepts.Being a teacher at heart he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has served the industry in many volunteer positions such as past President and designated lifetime member of the Georgia Real Estate Investors Association, the world's largest real estate investor group.He is also founding President of the National Real Estate Investors Association, which serves as the umbrella association of local investor groups.You can also watch and listen to this from: https://youtu.be/qScWKVFmMug

Today's tip is number seven, use signs to direct incoming seller leads to your investor websites or your telephone system. Now I'll tell you that signs have been amazing in my career and when I got started in this business there was a lot of competition and let me tell you, people used to put a lot of signs on telephone poles, so you heard or seen signs on telephone poles.I buy houses, I buy houses, I buy houses and they'd say, I buy houses, I buy houses, I buy houses. And then it's like I buy houses, I buy houses.I threatened to get assigned says me too. And my telephone number and I'll tell you what, it is so wonderful because that does work. Now in your area, you may have some problems with that. I call him the sign Nazis. The sign Nazis might come after you and say, don't do that anymore. Well no where you put your signs. That's an important tip as well. So that if you ever have to remove your signs because the uh, the city is not so crazy about what you did, at least you know where to go to get those and you won't be fined. They usually give you a warning first and once you get your warning, okay, move on to another of my many. I've got over 200 different ways to s to find deals, so that's just one of them. To find out more and to see some of Our signs that we use.You can go to street smart Wiz wic.com forward slash sign wiz s, I, g, N, W, I, z. And take a look at the layouts for the signs that we've got for you. I hope that this has been valuable for you today. I hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope you will use it. I know it will make a difference in your life and in your profits. I'd love to share more of my profitable free tips with you. 101 Street Smart Cash Flow AcceleratorsLou Brown has been buying, selling and holding property for 40 years and you are about to discover what a lot of so called gurus are missing.* How to buy all the property you want without ever visiting a single bank or needing to qualify for a loan…* How to have a buyer or renter before you even buy property…* How to have them already pay you money before you sold them anything…These are exactly the kinds of deals he does day in and day out. Most 'investors' are getting it wrong. It's not about the property, it's about the buyer. Buying right and buying cheap is what you'll do after you have the buyer.Media Sites:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StreetSmartInvestorPodcast: http://Streetsmart.mypodcastworld.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StreetSmartInvestor/Web Site:https://millionairejumpstart.com/ and https://streetsmartinvestor.com/Real Estate investors in all fifty states across Canada and fifteen foreign countries including as far away as Australia and New Zealand, have long regarded the training, systems and forms created by Louis Brown as the best in the industry, Quoted as an expert by many publications and authors, “Lou” draws from a wide and varied background as a real estate investor having been buying property since 1976.He's invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and built and renovated homes and apartments. Each of these experiences has given him a proving ground for the most cutting edge concepts in real estate today. He's widely known as a creative financing genius with his deal structuring concepts.Being a teacher at heart he enjoys sharing his discoveries with others. He has served the industry in many volunteer positions such as past President and designated lifetime member of the Georgia Real Estate Investors Association, the world's largest real estate investor group.He is also founding President of the National Real Estate Investors Association, which serves as the umbrella association of local investor groups.You can also watch and listen to this from: https://youtu.be/finHtw49BAA

Welcome to the 5th episode, covering general info on the islands of Hawaii. Now I'll start off by saying I've done a specific podcast to each island, so if you're after more precise information check those out. I've created this episode to give you a quick overview of the food situation. So I'll begin with saying that self contained apartments I 100% recommend, because you can get amazing fresh fruit and veg here, so if you like creating you're own dishes, this is the way for you. Price wise, it's standard, so from Mainland USA or Canada, expect that. But if you're coming from Europe, I would add about 20% to the local prices over there. As for Australians, we are currently getting a bit screwed over in the exchange rate, but not by much, I would add about $1 to everything on average. With the food, across all the islands, really get into what they're actually known for, like the Acai Bowl culture,  Golden Maui Pineapples, Kona Coffee, and Apple Bananas, which are those smaller bananas that are nice and sweet. Really look for markets, you can barter here, and get bulk for great prices, but also really supporting the locals, I found markets like that on every island except Oahu, but I would assume they also have some. For Aussies, keep in mind tipping is needed, so having making your own meals as apposed to going out for each meal will save you a lot if you're on a budget. Places like Walmart and Longs Drug store stock a lot of vegan food, so you're never going to be backed into a corner without any options, so keep in mind that big franchises like that will always accommodate for you. Also smoothies on each island are huge, so give them all a try, as well as shaved ice you'll see everywhere. And that's literally shaved ice with flavouring, I would just double check at the stall. And if you're doing a lot of driving and touring around the islands get snacks, healthy or otherwise. Whether you stock up on fruit, or on snacks like cliff bars, muesli, pop tarts, I always made sure I had something. If you're doing tours always make sure you let them know you're vegan, because they are usually full days, and they are very accommodating in my experience. That's my main tips in the nut shell. And wow, can't believe we're 5 episodes in already. I do want to mention I've actually launched an Instagram for this Podcast, so please go support me over there @howtotravelvegan . Any questions you have please shoot them at me over there, and as always any feedback on Itunes is much appreciated. Much love, Peace   Hawaii Travel Videos; Adventure Maui and Lanai Molokai The Big Island of Hawai'i Kauai

Does property pass to your husband/wife/kids? Find out in this episode of the Elder Law Report.

Janelle Hardy is a dancer, artist, and writer who teaches the Art of Personal Mythmaking, a transformational memoir-writing program. She loves weaving embodiment prompts together with creativity and ancient tales (like fairytales/ myths/ folklore/ etc) as a way of supporting growth and healing. This interview features a 7-minute guided visualization to unblock creativity by tapping into the body. GUEST LINKS - JANELLE HARDY janellehardy.com The Art of Personal Mythmaking Outline Your Memoir free workshop HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition FACEBOOK GROUP Shift Your Spirits Community BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Janelle: So this is a really round-about sort of story because I didn't really know when I started teaching the work that I do, that it was actually about memoir-writing. I'll leave you with that statement and then circle back to it again. Slade: Okay. Janelle: I'm from the far north of Canada. The far north-west, which is the Yukon Territory, and for context for people that aren't Canadian (even some Canadians don't know where I'm from). It's beside Alaska and above British Columbia. It's beautiful. It's so wild. I'm not living there now, but I talk about it because I feel so connected to that place. I'm also from a family... I think I have a common experience to a lot of people in North America and in colonized countries where my ancestry, you know, I'd be considered white, but my ancestry is varied and mostly unknown. There were some family secrets that were whispered as I was growing up. That experience of growing up really attached to a landscape. And then learning that my roots in that landscape are only as deep as my grandparents having moved up there and met each other and settled down there, and wondering, Who am I? Where did I come from? And then struggling with some health challenges that didn't feel like they belonged to me really kind of pitched me on this path of curiosity and inquiry and kind of roaming all over the place in terms of what I studied and where I lived. So... See, this is the trouble with collecting my thoughts around all of my offshoots of interest, which, for a long time, really mystified me. I was really into painting. I was also really into writing. I was also really into dance. I wanted to be a dancer. I also wanted to live in other cultures, so I was an exchange student to Japan and to Russia and to another part of Canada, Ontario, which doesn't really sound like being an exchange student, but the Yukon is really different than southern Canada, in terms of lifestyle and how people think about themselves and their relation to the country that they're in. For example, in the Yukon, we refer to 'going outside' as leaving the Yukon to the rest of Canada, or outsiders coming to the Yukon, right? So there's a real strong identity wrapped up in being a Yukoner. And then, the other part of my realization was, I feel this intense claim to being a Yukoner to being part of this world, and it actually doesn't belong to me. There's a history of First Nations people there that is thousands of years old and is being erased and denied. So how can I reconcile my love and longing for this place with the understanding that my roots don't originate there and I don't get to claim it as only my own. All of these curiosities and wonderings pushed me out to study and travel and do all sorts of things, including becoming a single mother at 23 and having chronic fatigue. Throughout all that time, the one thing that kept me steady was a creative practice. And it didn't matter what the creative practice was. I'm a really big believer in creative energy and the life force, that kind of erotic creative life force that's in all of us. When it's in flow, we get to choose the medium that suits what we're trying to express best. And for some people, they just latch on to the one medium and they're a writer and that's all they are. Entirely. For other people, it's kind of peripatetic and maybe a bit dilettantish. Sometimes I've labelled myself as not being able to commit to something, but I've let go of that label and realized that I have the ability and desire to use different mediums to explore different facets of my creative energy, depending on what it is that's wanting to come through. So I might go through a phase of dance and choreography, which happened a lot in my mid-20s. That's a time when I earned a masters degree in dance. And then I really got into painting. And then I got a horrible creative block for years, where I had all the ideas and I actually couldn't write. I couldn't paint. I couldn't... It was so painful. It was so painful, this state. But it also taught me a lot. So I felt the bubbling force of my creative desiring, creative energy, and I had all the ideas and I encountered my own resistance and procrastination, no matter where I went. During that time, some of the jobs I was doing involved writing for a local coming events magazine and a couple of national magazines. What I noticed was, while I really enjoyed it, and for some reason was able to write about things when I was being paid, although the pay was terrible, but I was able to do the task when I set the intention outside of myself. And then I also became really angry that I couldn't prioritize my own desire for creative expression enough that I could work on my own projects during that time. I was only able to do it if it had a functional function in society, which was making some money and being of service to an employer. So all of that to say, most of my writing has always been creative non-fiction. It's almost never fiction or fantasy or imagined stories in that way. It's always been about finding a way to share an experience I've had in the world, either my own personal experience in order to understand myself, or, in the case of when I was writing these profiles on artists that were coming to perform in the Yukon, interviewing them and being able to describe their personality, physicality, art and the venue in a way that would invite people in. Slade: It's kind of freaking me out how much you're really speaking to me in this moment. I've been working a lot with issues around the struggle that I have, writing fiction, versus all of the prolific amount of stuff that I put out into the world around my paranormal memoirs, and Shift Your Spirits, and these interviews. And I can write articles. I can write blog posts. I can write for this audience because, like you said, it's sort of my job and there's something very liberating, weirdly, about, it's an official thing and I have to do it every week. I didn't even really think of it in terms of the blocks that I have around my novels as being particularly about something attached to, Oh it's just this thing that I'm making for myself that doesn't have this official, sanctioned place to be in the world. It's not being asked for by other people. It's something that I'm bringing through for myself. And it was really interesting. I don't remember the exact words of how you said that, but I thought, Oh! I get that. I understand that. That's a piece of the puzzle for me. So the wild synchronicity is that you and I are here, speaking for the very first time ever, and we're having this conversation. And I had just told you before we started recording that I have had an energy healing session, a clearing, around creative blocks. And I've also been to a chiropractor and a massage therapist yesterday, because there's a physical manifestation in my neck, like nerve impingement and my spine and neck. You... Something I want to say really quick and then I want to bring you back to this idea of blocks and how they're related to the body, but I wanted to say, when you were talking about your journey and how hard it was for you to sort of justify the idea of committing to one form of creative expression, one of the things that was a real turning point for me in my life was when I accepted the fact that I couldn't choose and I didn't have to. And that I would be all of those things together, and that's just what my path was. That, you know, I am an intuitive, and a novelist, and a interviewer voice talent. You know? Whatever! I am all of those things and I think most creative people are really eclectic. And sometimes the things that... And this is something I've been talking about a lot with clearing creative blocks. There is a purpose that you choose for yourself and then there's sometimes a purpose that's chosen for you by the world. And I feel like, as creative people, sometimes it's that hit song, it's that one performance that you did. It's that one job that you landed that just was the right place at the right time. And maybe you become known for that one thing. And people ask that and expect that of you. It becomes this identifying thing that YOU didn't necessarily choose as much as IT chose YOU. So it makes perfect sense to me why you're all those things. And knowing that you work with creativity and writing and mythmaking, and that you talk to me about how you work through creative blocks through the body, makes complete sense to me. That you're a dancer. It really is the intersection of all those things, right? It's you being a little bit of everything that you are. At least to me, in this moment, it's what you represent. To get back to this idea of the creative block and how it's connected to the body, talk to me about, first of all, when you were really blocked, what you discovered set you free. And then how you've learned to guide other people through that. Janelle: Okay. That's a really good question. My answer won't apply to everyone, but I think there's a lot of useful tools people listening can get out of my misery. Slade: Yeah! Absolutely. Janelle: Being creatively blocked as a creative person, number one, I think it actually makes us sick. Because it takes a lot of effort to shut the flow down. Being in the flow and having energetic as well as physical movement as a constant experience is actually our natural state. But we live in cultures, and by saying 'we', I'm kind of speaking to the experience I grew up in, being in North America, in an English-speaking culture colonized originally by England, and Canada, still being governed by England, tenuously. So we have a cultural inheritance that is really damaging. And the cultural inheritance is the idea of productivity being important in service of capitalism, of making money, of being an employee to someone else, having skills that someone else wants to pay to make money off of you for. We also have an inheritance of domination and we carry with us... And this is most intensely felt for people of European white ancestry, but anyone of colour growing up in a culture like this also receives these unspoken rules and values as well. We grow up learning that self-control involves contraction, tightening and dominating. Ownership of our body and our emotions and our inner state. We grow up understanding that what is considered attractive and valuable and wonderful in our culture is really limited. And if we don't fit, we need to feel shame and try to improve ourselves. Can you kind of get a sense that all of these non-verbal values that we grow up with involves tightening and shrinking and contracting and shutting down, in order to be okay, or be acceptable? Slade: Umhmm. Janelle: So with this kind of cultural inheritance, as well as a lack of deep grounding and roots, most of the cultures living in the Americas of all backgrounds no longer speak their indigenous languages. My ancestry's not English. It's quite a mix, but Scottish people never spoke English. Welsh people never spoke English. Arcadians never spoke English. There's a small bit of First Nations in my ancestry from Quebec and Canada. They were not English-speaking cultures. When language is lost, we also lose a great deal. We lose music, we lose language. We lose a connection to our roots. And then all we have to grasp onto, and we lose our stories. All we have to grasp onto is this very one-dimensional colonizer culture that really profits a lot off of teaching shame and shrinking us. The way that that relates to creative blocks, I think, is that it's really hard to be in flow if you feel like you're not good enough in any way. What some people do is, they figure out compensations around the tightening and the contracting and the shrinking. But then what happens is the creative flow comes and goes in 'bursts of inspiration' and flashes of insight and really intense, forceful rush of creativity that people get, afraid of not jumping in and staying up all night, buzzing away with it, because if it goes away, when will it come back? It might be three more years, right? We have all these ideas about our inherent creative flow that are warped by a constant experience of being taught to shut down and contract and deny that flow. In our bodies, we really feel it through tightening, through physical tension, even though most people in North America live very sedentary lives, there's actually no reason, if someone is doing a lot of sitting or desk work, to feel as tense as they do. As a bodyworker, I've spent 12 years working on peoples' bodies hands-on, it's astonishing how much tension there is in people that actually don't use their bodies. Part of it is related to this idea that we need to make an effort. We have to be appearing to be working hard. We have to be tightening up just in case... It becomes internalized. 'If anyone looks at me, I'm clearly a hard worker because I appear that way because my brows are furrowed while I tense my shoulders and type.' Or whatever it is. Slade: Right. Look busy. Janelle: Yeah. Looking busy. Busy making... That's a whole other tangent of how much energy gets devoted to making ourselves appear to be busy rather than just using our precious energy to create and do the work with ease, right? Back to getting creatively blocked, these are all things I've figured out as I've done a lot of healing work, offered it as well as received it. And had the excruciating experience of being blocked. Being blocked, the flow was locked up but it's like it's boiling away inside. The other things that really stopped me from just creating were perfectionism, this idea that it has to be brilliant and wonderful or it's shameful. Which, again, goes back to the cultural ideas of, it's not okay to just play. It's not okay to experiment. We have to have an idea and execute it as if it's the greatest thing ever. And how is that even possible when we're stumbling along learning a process, right? I got trapped in perfectionism for quite awhile. I also got trapped in being too serious. So being serious. I'm an empath and a highly sensitive person and introvert, so seriousness comes quite easily to me. Actually, one of the best antidotes came from a mutual friend, Anna Holden, who said, 'Cultivate a sense of amusement.' Being serious is not a good thing when you already tend to be on that side. But there I was stuck, well before I met Anna, being too serious. So I would have these light-hearted happy ideas and then I'd crush them because they weren't serious enough, they weren't... It's not really art if it's not serious! So I crushed those impulses and I just got caught in this spinning circle of contraction and perfectionism and seriousness. The thing that really helped, receiving bodywork really helps. Loosening up the physical restrictions helps with the energetic flow as well. I can't remember how many years ago, I had a summer up in the Yukon. I was still living up there. It's so beautiful up there. It never gets dark. It's just incredible. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a lot of work going on. I was also solo-mothering my daughter but I had time and I had art supplies! I didn't have money for extra art supplies but I had these watercolours. I had a whole bunch of watercolour paper, because my other problem was, I would collect things for the ideas. So I was always collecting stuff to collage with but then not collaging. I was always buying bits and pieces of art supplies but never allowing myself to have the pleasure of making art. I hit this point of deep frustration and fury and irritation with myself and I was like, 'UGH. I'm just gonna sit outside in the sun this afternoon with my paper and my pen and my paint brushes and my watercolours and a jar of water and I don't fucking care what comes out. I'm just gonna sit out there with my stuff and see.' And then, this is the liberating experience was, I started drawing feathers, and colourful circles and balls. I just let it flow. The nasty, critical perfectionist mind, of course, was still hanging out in there. That little eyeball's watching when I'm creating, saying things like, 'What the hell, Janelle? Feathers? Circles? Happy colours?? This isn't you. This is so... This is stupid! Stop it right now!' The part of me that was so tired of that mean, vicious voice shutting me down, it's like, 'I don't care. I don't care. I'm just letting things come out and I'm as surprised as you are that I'm drawing pretty, colourful feathers. But I don't care. I'm just gonna let it go.' I had to let go of my egotistical ideas about my fancy, serious artist creative projects that were gonna wow everyone, and just be okay with making pretty pictures for awhile, you know? Slade: I can so relate. I mean, I've had a lot of conversations this week with me as the patient, you know? Me as the client, talking about this issue with perfectionism and the paralysis that comes along with that. The desperate need that you... It's not like you're not aware that you're doing that to yourself. You KNOW that you are and that's what's so frustrating is that, like, 'Oh! How to make this shut up??' I think it's interesting that you said, really early on in our conversation, we literally make ourselves sick. Because when I was at the chiropractor yesterday with my neck locked up, which is still, it's still sore to turn my head and all that. And that's a common thing that happens to me. That's a place in my body where anxiety tends to go. Some people have stomach stuff. Some people are like neck and shoulders people, or back or head. There's different places in the body that tends to manifest, but mine is always that spot. My first instinct to explain what had happened was to be like, 'Oh, I hurt myself working out.' Because I do work out a lot and I can overdo it or do something with bad form and get a little bit of an issue or something. And that was the first place that I wanted to blame it. It wasn't until I talked to the energy worker, and again when I was talking to the body worker last night who was adjusting me, they were both challenging me that the blocks contracted muscle. The issue was that, like you said, everything was clenched. I was being challenged to accept the fact that this may not be a sports-repetitive-motion injury at all. This is stress induced. This is psychic. And when I say psychic, I mean that in a big term. I mean that in the fact that we can tie ourselves up in knots, whether you believe in psychic abilities at all, you're still capable of mentally, like you said, shrinking yourself. The issue of making yourself small so that you are more acceptable in some way... Janelle: Mmhmm. Slade: It's like all those themes are playing out for me. So I'm sitting here listening to you talk about that and I'm thinking, What a beautiful synchronicity for me to be having this conversation with you right now. I'm really curious. You talked to me about a kind of guided visualization that you do when you first start working with a group of people or some clients before doing a workshop or something like that. Is that something you'd be interested in kind of walking us through right now? Janelle: Yes! Slade: Let's do it! Janelle: I love doing this. I'll give just a little bit of context first... Slade: Okay. Janelle: ...about why I think it's so important to include the body in everything. Slade: Yes. Janelle: Number one is, our body is our ONLY home in this world and we seem to forget that a lot. Number two, back to the cultural stew that we're growing up in, we also inherited these ideas that rational intellectualizing and the thinking functions of ourselves is more important and more valuable than the body-based knowledge and experiences that we also have. So I feel like, bringing the body in is simply reminding people that I work with, and myself, because I can fall off of remembering this easily as well, but the body is JUST as important. If we include our body, the body's psyche, rather than being floating heads and thinking brains, forgetting about the body, we just feel so much better and also intuitively, gut-feelings wise, clairsentience, these are ways of knowing that come through the body first. And if we don't learn how to tune in to the body, we miss out. So for this visualization, first off, are you sitting? Slade: I am. Janelle: Okay so we'll do it from a seated position, because I'm sitting as well. You mentioned that your neck and your upper back often gets uncomfortable. Can you describe just a little more about what's going on? Slade: There's a tension between the shoulder blades and up into the neck. You probably have experienced where you wake up one morning and you can't turn your head all the way to one side or the other without experiencing it being like locked, you know? Having a crick in your neck is how we say it around here. Janelle: Yeah. Slade: Yeah. I asked the body worker last night, I said, 'What's the technical term for that?' She said, 'I think it's nerve impingement.' Yeah, does that help? Janelle: Yeah, it does. So one of the premises of the kind of bodywork that I'm trained in, which is Hellerwork Structural Integration, also known as 'rolfing', is that everything is connected to everything else. So it's never just where the issue is that needs attention. This may or may not help with the crick in your neck, but I know it'll help loosen things up and for everyone that's listening, if you're seated, that's the place to be for playing along with us. Because I'm going to describe this visualization from a seated position. Slade, I'll get you to notice where your sit bones are in relation to the chair. It's easier to tune in if you're sitting on a hard chair, but it's okay if your chair is soft. What you want to do is really have your whole body stacked over your sit bones, so that you're at the highest point. If you're not sure where that is, all you do is let yourself roll back on your pelvis so that you're sinking onto the fleshy part of your bum. You'll notice that your whole body starts to sink and your back rounds forward as you do that. So just take in a nice breath. Actually, if you let your head hang forward, you get to experience a lovely little stretch down your neck and all the way down your spine and through your shoulders. It's kind of a luscious thing to do. What we're doing is a pelvic rock. And then you're going to start rolling forward, tipping your belly forward, and you'll notice, slowly is better, you'll notice as you roll forward you start to get taller. This is how you know where your sit bones are and whether you're on top of them or not. Because when you're on top of them, you're at your high point, the tallest point. Just for contrast, you keep rolling your pelvis forward. You're kind of tightening your lower back and pressing your belly towards your thighs. You'll notice they start to sink a little. Your belly feels like it's spilling out onto your thighs. I'll get you to just tilt that pelvis back until you reach that high point again. And then you're just gonna do another pelvic tilt, rolling back, this time keeping your attention really in your spine. So noticing all the incredible possibilities for movement. Often our spine gets viewed as a one-unit rigid sort of thing but the reason we have so many vertebrae is because we want to have so many options for movement, so many joints to be able to turn and twist and arch and contract. So just notice the incredible ability for your spine to move, and also, really noticing those frozen stuck spots too. And then bringing yourself back on top of your sit bones again. I'll get you to draw your attention down into the soles of your feet. You're just going to press one foot into the ground. Let it go. Press the other foot into the ground. What I want you to notice is how pushing into your foot starts to move your pelvis which starts to move your spine, if you let it. So remember this: a lot of embodiment work and connecting to the body is learning how to let go of all of the layers of tightening and contractions. It's never actually about adding more effort. It's always about noticing sensation and movement, and where you can let go of armouring and tightening and efforting to hold yourself together. Get yourself together. That's a really common thing people say. And that involves a lot of tightness in the body. So as you're just pulsing from foot to foot and noticing the very subtle ways in which your spine is moved by what you're doing in your feet. What I'm going to get you to do now is bring your inner eye right into your tailbone. You're going to notice the tailbone hovering under the sacrum as the bottom of your spine. Draw that inner eye up into the sacrum, which is part of your spine that is fused to your pelvis, right? This is why when you're rocking your pelvis back and forth your spine goes along with it, because it has no choice. If we don't have movement in our pelvis, we don't have a lot of movement in our spine. So hips that are a little more wiggly than our current culture finds acceptable is actually ideal. Draw your attention from your sacrum up through your lumbar vertebrae, which is your lower back. These are big bulky ones. Just, in your mind's eye, picture, even if you don't really know what they look like, just picture these great big bones with these amazing cushions in between them. The joints have a sponge that is designed so that it absorbs pressure and a downward movement compression. And then it has the ability and leads the release of an upward lift. You can move your back as well as you're doing this pressing down, and picturing every single little disc between your vertebrae all the way up your spine, squishing down on them. Lift, an upward movement and so much spaciousness, right? Now I'll get you to bring your attention up your spine to where your ribs join your spine. The really beautiful thing to imagine is that your rib cage is not a big block. It's more like a bellows, an accordion. If you slowly twist from side to side through your shoulders, what you'll notice is, your rib cage basically goes along for the ride. And as you're twisting, allow your head to keep reaching back so you get a little bit of a stretch. You might also notice where you're a little limited in motion. As you're just doing a gentle rotation, a twist from side to side through your rib cage, keep your attention in your spine. Imagine that the twist is only happening from your spine. And then the ribs, as they're attaching to your spine, they kind of fan out. They have a capacity for way more movement than we allow. They fan out as we twist away to the side and then they come back in. There's also muscles between every rib that has the capacity to expand and contract. So if you take a really big breath in, and really breathe and notice what's happening in your ribs, but also send that breath into your spine where your ribs attach. And just notice. It's all about noticing, and then exhaling. Just do your breathing at your own pace. And then just doing a little rotation in your spine between your ribs. Noticing the movement in your ribs from your spine. Drawing your attention up to your neck and to your head, floating on top of your neck. We often separate the neck from the rest of the spine by naming it the neck, and having the idea of a stopping point at the top of the shoulders and a stopping point at the base of the skull. For this exercise, I'll just get you to imagine there are no stopping points. So when the neck is moving, it is in response to the movement in your mid-back and your mid-spine. See if you can draw in this elegant idea of capacity for movement as well as compression and release in the cushions between the vertebrae. Invite a little more freedom in. So most of this is slow, steady and gentle. And it's all about bringing your attention inside your body. Do one little last scan of your spine. Just noticing, and then opening your eyes if they're closed. If they're open, just kind of sharpening the focus. Letting your eyes land on some sort of tangible object in the room, and just noticing three details about it. And then letting your eyes land somewhere else, noticing another three details, specific details. And then bringing that attention that you're sending out through your eyes back to your ears, into this conversation and the more mundane regular world way of connecting. Slade: Lovely! That was wonderful. Thank you! relaxing sigh Now I have to remember I'm in the middle of an interview, right?? That's so cool. Too bad it's not on video. It would be quite an interesting thing for people to have witnessed. That is very cool. I'll put something in the introduction to prompt people who might be driving that that's coming up and that way, if they want to wait and do it. OR if you're driving and you just listen to that, and you're like, Oh that was really cool, go back later when you're home and do that as a guided visualization. There is a guided visualization in the middle of this episode! That's so cool! So how does that help with the creativity? Janelle: It just does. That's my fastest answer. More specifically, if you think of creativity as being a state of flow, unblocking flow in the body unblocks flow creatively. The other really cool thing is that, especially if your creative energy and output has been generated more through thinking and through head-based processes, it's like we just opened a few doors and windows to give you a better view, give you better access to your creative energy so you're getting more of it. Slade: Ooo I just saw this cool image in my mind's eye of like, when you have a door window open at one end of a space, and you go and open a door window in the other, you create this draft. You create literal flow. Like, it will slam the doors closed. Janelle: Yes! That's perfect. Slade: Very cool. You talked about somewhere in some of the material I was reading of yours, you have this phrase, 'letting the body lead you towards your stories'. What does that mean? How do we do that? Janelle: Okay. You can actually, what I just walked you through, that visualization, this is fun. You do something physical. You have a pen and paper and a timer. Right after that, you're in a bit of a different state, right? You do some flow writing. And if you keep your brainy brain part of things out of it, the part that wants to figure it out and is dreaming of writing awards already, if you keep that out, you do some sort of physical exercise and then you go straight into flow writing. It's like unwrapping a present, because something will show up. And if you stay open to not-knowing, it's really thrilling what will bubble up and come out. Actually, you mentioned you work out a lot. You can actually play with doing that after a workout. Or if, I don't know how you work out, but if, say, one day it's a legs day or something, you can very explicitly have the intention that you're gonna really tax your legs, you're gonna focus on that part of your body, and then you're gonna let your body write through you. You're gonna let those legs tell you something about them, or let them release a memory or story. It's pretty fun. The delight is just in the utter magic of what happens when we let ourselves be led and guided by our body, instead of trying to force it. Slade: Those of you listening who do my energy reboot are probably noticing the similarities. One of the things that I recommend to people to do to reconnect to their creativity, it's not so much about being blocked. Because obviously I can't be giving advice about that just yet. But as far as reconnecting to the creativity, or reconnecting to your sense of your Higher Self speaking to you, I recommend a combination of walking meditation with timed proprioceptive writing. Janelle: Yeah! Slade: Those two things in tandem, and I say, don't overthink it, just do it. It may not happen the first time, but what will emerge is through that grounding exercise, being in the body, you actually reconnect your antenna, so to speak. And then the writing allows you to start to translate that, to give a voice to record it and let it through. One thing attaches the hose and the other thing sort of turns the knob and lets it flow out. Does that make sense? Janelle: Oh yeah, total sense. I'll add a clarification to writing and staying in the body, rather than kind of tapping into a more unseen sort of energy or force that's more outside of the body. I totally agree with you. The body grounds us and you can be a more clear channel for that kind of guidance. And if you want to really specifically stay with the body, in your writing, and really tune into the body's psyche's stories, guidance, etc., it helps to just focus your attention in sensation and then be really specific with details when you're writing sensory details. So whatever's coming up, always asking the question, so allowing the flow to come out, but having a, in the back of your mind, just this reminder of, Oh, it was a beautiful day, so what are the specifics? What tells me it's a beautiful day? And what will tell the people reading this, if they ever do, it's a beautiful day? Or, Oh, my leg was sore. Okay. Let's get waaaay more specific. What part of the leg? What does sore mean? What's the sensation? Finding words to describe the physical experience. That will help to contain that kind of flow writing within the body. Slade: Well it's interesting too because for story telling, I mean, if you were editing a piece of fiction, one of the things you would look to make sure that you're doing is giving your reader multiple sensory information, so you know, to ground them in the story, to make sure that you're introducing smells and touch. And that everything isn't just always somebody looking at someone else, or thinking. You have to be really conscious to put that in. And I know everybody thinks that this magically happens, but sometimes you do have to consciously remind yourself to insert that. We have a tendency to focus on one clair sometimes, more than the other. We're either very visual or very feeling, sensory. And sometimes you have to balance those out with whichever one you don't see showing up. Does that make sense? Janelle: Yeah. It just makes it richer. Slade: Yeah. It's gonna be better for both you, as the person creating it, and if it finds its way to an audience, then they're going to be able to inhabit your experience that much more easily as well. Oh gosh, I love talking nerdtalk about writing. Janelle: It's fun. Slade: You're hitting all the buttons because you've got the psychic and the bodywork and the intuition, all the stuff, so we're loving this. Tell me about this transformational memoir writing process that you do, called The Art of Personal Mythmaking. I know you have a workshop that's kind of specific to a time of year and everything, so tell us about that and when you're doing it. Janelle: Okay. This is kind of a fun story too. So for a long time, doing all these different things, I thought, What the heck? This doesn't make sense. When are the threads gonna cross? And then about three or four years ago, this process showed up to me. I can't really claim credit for the personal mythmaking process. It just showed up to me as it's own entity. I offered it in person as a workshop for eight weeks. It was not about memoir writing at that time. I didn't think it was anyways. There was a really great response and I thought, I could teach this online! So then I kind of revamped it. I offered it again. I still didn't know it was about memoir writing. Everything was about writing your life story, healing through examining life's story, tapping into the body and using creative writing and I have a bachelor's degree in anthropology, so I love being an anthropology nerd and bringing in culture and all of that stuff. I was still confused. And then, I think just over a year ago, I realized that if someone really committed themselves to the full process, they have the rough draft of their memoir written based on how I was taking them through the process and the creative writing prompts. So I went, AHA! This is amazing! People asked me what I was doing, I said, I'm teaching this process and you actually get the rough draft of your memoir written by the end. And everyone's eyes would start to shine. And they go, Oooo! And I thought, Oh wow, that's what this is about! It's healing but it's also actually a very practical outcome as well of getting to the point of getting it out of yourself, onto paper, to rough draft stage. So all the process work, which, you know, it is amazing how many people have been dreaming about working with their life story and writing their memoirs for decades. Slade: Yes. Janelle: And either haven't started or they just have a bunch of overwhelming snippets of writing here, there and everywhere that they've tucked away in a metaphorical drawer or file on their computer and it's just eating at them. So I thought, this is not good. This is creative blocks where you start to get sick. If there's a story dying to be born, and we close the doors and shut it down out of overwhelm and fear, two common reasons people don't dive in, even though they have the desire, that's not good! We're making ourselves sick if we have stories to tell and we're not telling them. So The Art of Personal Mythmaking is a transformational memoir writing e-course and writing circle. I teach it online. Each week has its theme. I use fairytales, well more specifically, ancient tales. So any kind of tale that has lasted more than a generation basically, as a guide and a structure for outlining memoir, but also... I don't know. I feel like fairytales are like having a pretty wise grandma or grandpa, helping us out, to understand being human. And they can actually really help us with working through our life story. So I combine working with ancient tales with working with the body and creative writing and creativity. A lot of people, you know, they're just stuck in creative block or a fear of not being good enough. A desire to write but being so afraid of being a bad writer that they don't try. So getting past those things is really crucial to actually getting the writing out. And then coming together in a discussion and circle every week is so rich and so beautiful for people to be working through these themes in a supportive environment and be witness to the incredible richness of every single person's different way of understanding and writing about the same prompt is so beautiful. I don't know if I've described it very well. I get so excited about my students. Slade: You do it twice a year? Janelle: Yeah. Slade: And when's the next one? Janelle: August and February. So right now, we're looking at February coming up. Slade: Okay. So February 2019. We're recording this in September 2018 if anybody is listening from the future. They can go find out if you're still doing this workshop. And you may be doing it still in August and February. Or it may have evolved into something else! I suppose if we're on your mailing list, you'll remind us that this is coming up and one of the gifts that you have for people who subscribe is a two hour Outline Your Memoir workshop that you offer. Janelle: Yes. Slade: Okay. Tell us a little about that. Janelle: Actually it's a little different... It is free. It's a little different than a gift that just shows in your inbox. It's actually a live two-hour workshop. The way I work with people is really connected and relational and productive. Don't know if that's the wrong word but ... So I actually walk people through the process. So although it's a free workshop, it's not a workshop that I record. I have a couple free writing courses that do just show up in your inbox, but Outline Your Memoir is actually, you show up with your pen and paper and I offer it every two months or so. I walk you through the process of getting some structure to what you want to look at and work on and finish the two hours feeling really resourced to keep going. Slade: That is really cool! First of all, let me just say, Janelle, thank you for taking time today to speak with us and walk us through that process. Make sure everyone knows where they can go to find you online. Janelle: Right. I'm JanelleHardy.com You can probably also google 'Personal Mythmaking'. I don't think anyone else is really describing their work that way, so Janelle and Personal Mythmaking will get you there too. Slade: Wonderful. That was great. Janelle, thank you for coming on the show. Janelle: Thank you! Such a pleasure.

Episode 30 of The Teaching Space Podcast explores the benefits of using Google Calendar for teachers. Podcast Episode 30 Transcript Welcome to The Teaching Space Podcast. Coming to you from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Hello, it's Martine here and welcome to Episode 30 of The Teaching Space Podcast. Today I will be sharing with you Seven Reasons Why All Teachers Should Use Google Calendar. If you've been using Google Calendar for a while, you'll be aware that this year, it's had a bit of a makeover. I found a really good walk-through video on YouTube that I'll make sure I share in the show notes.  Actually if you don't normally look at the show notes, I'm going to really recommend you do it for this episode because I'm going to share lots of videos to help you understand the seven reasons I'm going to tell you in a second, a little better. So do hop over to theteachingspace.com/30, it will be worth it, I promise. 1. Co-ordinating with Your Family/Partner Let's get started then. Number one, an amazing reason for using Google Calendar is to coordinate lives with your partner/family. Because of the way Google shared calendars work, it is really easy for you to keep an eye on what your ... in my case husband, is up to. I mean that in a very positive, healthy way incidentally. We both have really busy lives so it's really important that we know who's home in the evening, who's looking after the dog at lunchtime. All those sorts of household things. So one of the best reasons to use Google Calendar and this applies to anyone, teacher or not, is to coordinate with your partner or family, whatever suits your specific arrangement. 2. Arranging Appointments with Parents Number two, something a bit more teaching oriented now. Arranging appointments with parents. So a good example is a parents evening. If you are a G-Suite for Education user, you will have access to a function called Appointment Slots. So you are able to offer up a number of slots to your parents and when one person takes a slot then it disappears so you can't end up double booking yourself. Which is so handy. I don't know about you but in the past parents evenings have taken an age to organise. So this is a fantastic function. I found a great video on YouTube showing you how to use it, so please check out the show notes for that. Just to reiterate, if you aren't a G-Suite for Education or indeed G-Suite for Business user, you will not have access to this tool. 3. Encouraging Speedy Meetings Number three, encouraging speedy meetings. What you can do is if you go into your settings in Google Calendar you can tick 'Speedy Meetings'. And what this is is ... for example if your default meeting length is 30 minutes and you set up a 30 minute meeting, it will automatically adjust it to finish five minutes early. For longer meetings it will adjust your meeting length to finish 10 minutes early. And over previous podcasts I've mentioned something called Parkinson's Law, in relation to meetings, that they expand to fill the time allotted to them. Well if you allot a little bit less than you think you need, this has got to be a good thing. So I really like Speedy Meetings. 4. Colour Coding Number four, colour coding, because well, colour coding, come on, we've known each other a while now, you know how I feel about colour coding. I find colour coding really useful. In Google Calendar you can colour code various calendars, so for example shared calendars you have access to. But also events. So I really recommend that you setup some sort of key ... I'll give you an example, any red events in my calendar are urgent, they will get my attention straight away, that's just a small example. If you perhaps teach different groups you might have one colour for group one, one colour for group two, one colour for group three, something like that. So at a glance, it makes it a lot easier for you to see what's going on on your calendar. 5. Automatically Adding Events From Gmail Number five, automatically adding events from Gmail. This is something you can adjust under settings. What this means is if you use Gmail as your email provider and for example you book a flight, your Google Calendar will notice this and take the details from your email and put the flights in your Google Calendar. Isn't that amazing! It doesn't just work for flights, it works for other events as well. So Google Calendar takes the info from Gmail and it adds what you've been talking about event wise to your calendar. I find that a bit scary, but I tell you what, it is so handy. So definitely have a go with that. Obviously it only works if you use Google Calendar and Gmail. 6. Adding Hangouts to Appointments Number six, adding hangouts to appointments. Google Hangouts are brilliant, but sometimes they're a little bit complicated to arrange. I get a bit confused sometimes, which link I need to share with the person joining the hangout and all that sort of thing. Now, you can add a hangout to a calendar appointment. So if you go into your Google Calendar and you setup an appointment and you invite someone to the appointment, you can add a Google Hangout directly to that appointment. So rather than sharing a link just before the hangout's about to start, as long as you invited that person and they have accepted via their Google Calendar, both parties can go into the calendar, their Google Calendar, open the appointment and access the Google Hangout from in the appointment. This is so useful, I use this all the time and I really recommend you give it a go. Again I found a great YouTube video you can watch below. 7. Organising Session Plans Number seven, organising session plans. Now I'll be honest, this reason wasn't on my original list, but while I was mooching around YouTube to find videos to illustrate the other six reasons, I came across this idea of using your Google Calendar to organise your session plans. And it was largely down to Alice Keeler, who's a brilliant Google Certified Innovator I think and she shares loads of Google resources. There are two videos from Alice, part one and part two. And it demonstrates how if you create your session plans in Google Drive, you can attach your session plans to appointments in your Google Calendar. And it's a really nice visual, chronological way to stay organised. This isn't something I've done before, but I am really tempted to do it because what you can do, is setup a separate calendar for each group that you teach and work like that. So I'm kind of excited about it and really interested in giving it a go when I get my next new group.  Are You Convinced? Have I convinced you yet, are you still not sure? If you're on the fence then why not try using a Google Calendar for your own personal diary commitments. The app for IOS is excellent. I can't speak for the Android version as I don't have it, but the IOS app is brilliant. It's really easy to share your calendars with your partner, your family, that sort of thing. Give it a go, maybe do some meal planning on your Google Calendar. Hold that thought because that's what I'm talking about next week. I thought this was a teaching podcast, I hear you shout. Do bear with me, next weeks podcast is going to be a good one. Wrap Up Okay, I think that's it for me today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to hop over to Facebook and join our closed Facebook group, The Teaching Space Staffroom. It will be really nice to chat to you in there. Also, if you are enjoying the podcast, then please consider leaving a positive iTunes review because it helps other teachers find The Teaching Space. I'd be really grateful too. Thanks so much for tuning in, see you next week.

H2S1 8/25/18 The post No WIll appeared first on Paul Winkler, Inc.

Tammy Gretz and Wendy Jacobs discuss their talk "From Self Obsession to Self Selection: A Scaled Org's Journey to Value Reorganization" at Agile2018.   Transcript Tammy Gretz Wendy Jacobs ‑ Agile2018   Bob Payne:  "The Agile toolkit." [music] Bob:  Hi. I'm your host, Bob Payne. I'm here with Tammy Gretz of [inaudible 0:25] ... [laughter] Bob:  ...and Wendy Jacobs. We've chatted a bit before this, but this is the first time you guys are doing a podcast, I think. Wendy Jacobs:  A live podcast, yes. Bob:  A live podcast. Wendy:  Correct. Bob:  This is recorded. [laughter] Bob:  You still have had to come. Wendy:  This is the first live or recorded podcast for me. There you go. [laughter] Bob:  You are doing a talk and it's related to team self‑selection, From Self‑Obsession to Self‑Selection. What's that all about? How do you two work together? What's your back story? What's the talk? Wendy:  I work at AEP, American Electric Power ‑‑ this is Wendy ‑‑ and Tammy and I work together there. She is a Scrum master on one of the teams working through our Agile partner, Cardinal Solutions. We started working together when she joined the team that we actually talk about. Tammy Gretz:  I was coming from it from a prospective of, it was a new team and I was there to teach them Scrum. They had never done it before. Bob:  Is this new to the whole organization or just to this team? Wendy:  We are in a multi‑year Agile transformation. The self‑selection and scaling, which is another aspect of the talk that we're doing, is new to the organization. This was the experiment. Bob:  How long have you been running Agile teams before you hit scaling and self‑selection? Tammy:  Before I came to AEP, I had been working about two or three years in an Agile environment. The AEP transformation, I believe, has been between seven and nine years. Bob:  Usually teams don't get to self‑selection until they've been doing it for a while. Wendy:  The group of teams that we're talking about, one of them was new when Tammy came in, newly into Scrum. The other two had been Scrum teams for a couple of years. Bob:  What was the self‑obsession portion of the program? Tammy:  [laughs] My team specifically was new to Scrum. The intention wasn't to go to scaling or do this whole self‑selection when I first started. It was teach this team Scrum and figure out how to get them working with the other two teams. We quickly realized that there were a lot of moving parts that need to have some kind of an organization or some framework to work with. Wendy:  The self‑obsession aspect is just human. We're worried about ourselves. When we're talking about having to all come together and do self‑selection event that involves trying to figure out how to deliver the most value to the company, you have to shed that self‑obsession, that selfishness and become selfless, because you have to see, where can I help most? This was a journey to take the individuals into teaming, into the ability to do self‑selection. That's where the... Bob:  Also, there's team identity, which you blow up with self‑selection. What is the event that caused you to say, "Hey, we need to kind of shake the snow globe here?" [laughs] Wendy:  We took a scaling class with a very experiment‑tolerant manager, we like to call her Andrea. Bob:  Because that's her name. [laughter] Wendy:  Protecting the innocent, whatever. Anyway, there was a kernel of it in there. One of the gentlemen on my team, he had a white paper on self‑selection for teams. We had begun talking about it. He sent her the white paper. We like to call him Greg. He sent her the white paper to just wet the whistle. Get the juices flowing about what does it really mean to do that, and she loved it. She loved the empowerment to the teams to be able... Bob:  It wasn't by Amber King was it? Wendy:  I don't recall. We can check. [laughter] Bob:  That would be interesting. She's a good friend of ours and she did a white paper on self‑selection at Cap One. It's possible. Wendy:  Very well possible. That was the kernel of it. She got a hold of that and really embraced it, and thought, "This could..." We were in a scenario where we wanted to make sure that the teams were formed in a way that delivered the value best. We were focusing on the value delivery. She worked with her business partners to define what those value streams were. Instead of just saying, "OK, you're on this team, and you're on this team, and you're on this team," she decided to let the teams decide, "Where does your value heart sing? Where do you want to put your focus?" thus lead us to self‑selection event. Bob:  How many people? Tammy:  Thirty‑four. Bob:  How many teams did you end up with? Wendy:  Six squads. That was a very critical word in this. We went from three teams to six squads because we're all part of one team. In a scaling event, you're really part of one team. She was really very specific about wanting to call these squads up to the general team. Bob:  How did it go? I'm sure some people were the Cookie Monster characters for the self‑selection. Some people... Wendy:  People were people. [laughs] Bob:  ...wanted to be told where go. "Tell me where to sit." [laughs] Wendy:  Exactly. It's all human. Think about being here at this conference. This is something we're going to talk about tomorrow, is that, how do you even select what session to go to? How do you figure out where you're going to sit? There's all sorts of reasons in your head. Tammy:  Nobody has the same two reasons. People pick things for weird reasons. They pick them for very specific, concrete reasons. You can't plan for that. Wendy:  The event went well. It was a two‑day event. The self‑selection took place the first day. We had some teaming main events on the second day to try to make sure that they were ready to go. Team agreements and let's talk about the definitions. During the actual self‑selection event, Andrea took care to really plan this. We helped her. We met for a couple months to plan this event. She made it fun. She made it seasonal. [laughs] It was right near Valentine's Day. There was a Valentine's Day theme to the whole thing. I was very impressed with what she came up with. Just the creativity that came out of her. Tammy:  For me, I was more of a participant during this. I was embedded in the team and Wendy was a coach with the team. She was working with the manager. It was very interesting to experience what maybe my other coworkers on the team, my other teammates, what they were experiencing, even though I knew what was coming. I still had that knee‑jerk reaction to be a human, and be like, "Oh, you want me to...? Oh, I got to do this? I don't care. Just put me wherever." [laughs] Bob:  Did you end up with any value streams that were starved of folks and then have to re‑negotiate? Wendy:  Interesting you ask. [laughter] Wendy:  Have you seen our talk? No. [laughter] Bob:  I've seen self‑selection events. Wendy:  That was actually the exciting moment. One of the exciting moments of this experience is that there were five total iterations to get to our final teams. It was after iteration four, and we had a starved squad. There wasn't anyone on one of the value streams. The managers stood up and said, "Hey, how are we going to deliver this? How are we going to deliver this value?" It was there that the Scrum value, courage, popped up its head. A couple of people were like, "We want that. We can take that on," and got up from where their friends were, where they felt comfortable, walked over that table and planted themselves, and said, "We got it." It was awesome. Bob:  Was it just Andrea? Wendy:  Yeah. [laughs] Bob:  Was she the advocate for each of them, or were there value stream owners that were...? Wendy:  The product owners were there and they come from the business. They were participating in this. Their management was there, too, watching, helping, and answering any questions if we had any, but Andrea was the manager of most of the people in the room. The answer is she advocated for all the teams and wanted to make sure that we came out with something that would benefit the company overall. Bob:  Is this a one‑time event or are you periodically revisiting as the demands on value streams change? [laughter] Tammy:  Actually, part of the agreement was that if they didn't like where they were, they had a chance to do it again in six months. We're right about at six months right now. They have come back and said, "Maybe we didn't think about this in the right way, necessarily, and we were still self‑obsessed a little bit." Now they're starting to see where, "Oh, maybe it might have been better if these two people were flopped," or, "This value stream might be a little better tweaked." They're learning from it. We're hopeful that they'll get to do that again here shortly. Interestingly enough, we have another group here that is going to be talking about another way that they did it. I've moved on to a different team and I've just completed another self‑selection there [laughs] with that team because they were growing. They were a smaller team and they realized that they needed to hire more. They hired four more people, which made them a massive team. We had to have discussions around the same kind of thing. We learned a lot from the first one, [laughs] applied it to this one. This one went really smoothly. It didn't take quite as long, but it was... Wendy:  The whole company's very supportive of continuous improvement. That's part of our culture, we're a continuous improvement company. I've helped with another self‑selection event not long after the one we did in February, and it was different. We've done it a couple different ways and we're learning each time from it. Tammy has the benefit in her current team to apply all the learnings we had and munge some of that together so they would have a very smooth event. Bob:  One of the things that I've seen in some places, as the business demands change, certain value streams will become higher in priority, where more work needs to flow through them. Have you guys experienced that yet or is that a future event? Tammy:  We might be going through it pretty soon. [laughs] Wendy:  With the current team you're on? Tammy:  Yeah. Wendy:  The current team that she's on, they are going to be sized a little differently based on the amount of stuff that's going to come through them. It is possible that that team may split again, the larger team. We're really looking at what makes the most sense. We're doing these experiments to try to understand what's working, what's not working, how can we tweak it? The managers are just very open and very wanting to try these things to make it the best place that they can. Bob:  One of the things that I saw one client do is quarterly, when they would do the equivalent of a cross‑program planning event, would then allow people to swap chairs, or they would shuffle demand, and say, "We need more folks over here, who would like to come join?" Then people would come, and they were like, "Oh shoot, we're too short over here." I don't know if they did five rounds. I don't remember exactly, but some number of... Tammy:  It's funny you said shuffle chairs, because that was almost more important than which team they were on, is where they were going to sit. Bob:  Oh yeah? [laughter] Wendy:  "I want the window. No, I want the window." They're, again, human. [laughter] Tammy:  It's all about the humans. It wasn't about the work. It was... Bob:  The soft stuff is the hard stuff. [laughs] Agile's easy, people are hard. [laughter] Tammy:  It's especially the different personality types. Even if we go really high‑level, introvert, extrovert, some of these things could be very hard for introverts, I think. You're speaking up and saying, "I want to go there." There's that shyness that they don't want to ruffle any...make any waves or do anything like that. All of these events, we've been very purposeful in thinking about that, making sure that there's no one really uncomfortable to a point where... Bob:  They could be uncomfortable, but not really. Wendy:  Self‑selection is uncomfortable. [laughter] Wendy:  We don't want to push them so far. Bob:  I wouldn't pick me. [laughter] Tammy:  You should always pick yourself. [laughter] Bob:  That's really exciting. Hoping that you'll get a good run of folks at that talk. It'll be very interesting. What else has been exciting about the conference? I know it's only day two. I believe you were at the Women in Agile. Did you do any of the camp before that, or just the Women in Agile? Wendy:  I actually didn't know about the camp before. Now that I know that they happen... [laughter] Bob:  They don't always happen. Wendy:  I know there's one happening, I believe, in Chicago in October or something like that, I was told. Now I'll be looking into this because it sounds like an interesting place to share ideas, get some new thoughts about how to do some things. Improve the toolkit. Tammy:  I'm really enjoying the Audacious Salons. Bob:  Good. Tammy:  Really enjoying them, a lot. [laughs] Bob:  Were you there yesterday? Tammy:  I was there for the leadership one, Agile Leadership. Today is The Next Big Idea. Wendy:  We did hear the afternoon session was quite interesting. Quite charged. Tammy:  I missed that. [laughs] Bob:  George said they went hours over the slot. I know Lisa and George very well. George has been on the podcast many, many times. [laughter] Wendy:  We are in good company. [laughter] Bob:  We have the "Tips and Advice" series on Agile Toolkit Podcast. How was the Women in Agile event? I know you met Amanda there, my colleague. Wendy:  Yes. Bob:  Big Pete was there. I don't know if you met him? Wendy:  I did not meet Pete. Did you meet Pete? Tammy:  No. Wendy:  Women in Agile, I enjoyed it. I like meeting people. I like meeting all kinds... Bob:  You seem very shy. [laughter] Wendy:  Believe it or not. [laughs] Tammy:  She's the connector. She knows people, and she's like, "Hey, you guys should know each other." [laughs] Wendy:  I do. I make sure everybody meets each other. I liked hearing people's stories about where they were in their Agile journey. The table I was at was a table that had no question to answer. We got to make up our own question that we wanted to answer, which was nice. We had a couple of folks at the table that weren't very far in their journey at all, and wanted to understand, what's the benefit of Agile over Waterfall? Those types of things. It was really very enjoyable to hear their perspectives on where they are and to try to share where I've been and where my enterprise is. It was a good event. I really loved hearing the new voices. There were two speakers that came in. They were reasonably new speakers. They had such wonderful stories. Tammy:  They were really great. The two new speakers, the new voices, that was a great element to that conference piece of it, is having these new people get up and speak. Bob:  Do you remember who they were? I wasn't there. No? Tammy:  I talked to them last night. Bob:  [laughs] They're super new voices. Real super nice people as well. [laughs] Wendy:  Their story was really great. Tammy:  Their stories were amazing. The things that they went through and now the places they've been, it's inspiring. I wish them all the best of luck and hope to get to do some of the...they've gone internationally and spoken, and that just sounds really cool and really fun. Just listening to how they did that was neat. Bob:  There's a decent conference ‑‑ Agile India is quite good. The European conferences, I've not actually gone to those either. I'm looking forward to going internationally. Wendy:  Maybe we should all go. Tammy:  Yeah, let's go. [laughter] Tammy:  What time does the plane leave? [laughs] Wendy:  Let's do it. Bob:  It's a red‑eye. [laughter] Tammy:  That's what she's on tomorrow. Wendy:  Yeah, I've got to take a red‑eye back. Bob:  I'm sorry to hear that. I can't do it. I'm staying till Friday morning. Tammy:  I'm staying the weekend. I wanted to get a couple extra days in just to enjoy the beautiful weather. Bob:  The farmer's markets are actually fantastic if you like that sort of thing. Tammy:  Absolutely. Bob:  We had the Scrum gathering out here. I had my favorite breakfast ever, which was a sea urchin shell that had been cleaned out with micro‑greens, tuna pokÈ, more micro‑greens, and then the sea urchin laid out. Tammy:  That is a very specific breakfast. Bob:  Yeah. [laughter] Tammy:  It's not waffles. Bob:  It's not waffles. I had an iced coffee with it so that made it breakfast. Tammy:  She wants waffles. Wendy:  I'm obsessed with waffles right now. Tammy:  She is, yes. Bob:  I don't know that they make sea urchin waffles, but they might someplace. Wendy:  I'm not sure that they should. [laughter] Wendy:  Just saying. Bob:  They should. Wendy:  You do? Bob:  Maybe a keto egg waffle with some sea urchin on would be good. What else are you looking forward to at this conference? Wendy:  Speaking. [laughs] [crosstalk] Wendy:  Actually getting through that. [laughs] Yes, the speaking would be a number high on the list. Honestly, I'm just looking for new ideas. I'm focusing more into the product space, the talks that are going on. I'm looking for some of those new things that I can take back. In my role, I am the product owner coach and I focus on the business side of things. I look for new tools I can use with them to help them understand why to do some of the things that we do, or just ways that they can do it better. Bob:  The product discovery space, it takes almost a completely different tool set. The mechanics are relatively straightforward, but it is the divergent thinking. How do we winnow down these many ideas? How do we get it into that convergent process? Agile is a delivery process and it's a convergent one. I love that interplay of when you can get it going. A little bit of experimentation, divergent thinking. Let's build it, test it. Let's get some data out. Let's have that drive our next set off experiments or experiences. I'm assuming you've looked at Business Model Canvas and stuff. Wendy:  Yep. [laughs] Tammy:  Yep. Bob:  Impact mapping. Wendy:  Yep. [laughter] Tammy:  It's all good. When I approach the coaching of product owners, I don't just dump, "Here. Here's all the tools. Try all of this at once." I layer it in, where, "Hey, I'm having a real problem with trying to figure out how to prioritize. Hey, I'm having a real problem deciding what should be our far‑afield thing? Where should we be heading towards? How do I lay it out for my stakeholders?" Things that people are probably listening to this and saying, "Well, duh." When you're new you don't know about this stuff. You can't overwhelm. Trying to find new tools that make it easier to embrace it and understand it, and may play on things they've done before, that's the things I look for to help them out. Bob:  I'm sorry, you were... Wendy:  No, go ahead. [laughs] Bob:  Do you guys have user experience embedded in with your product teams or are they a separate agency kind of model, or a little bit of both? Wendy:  A little bit of both. I'll say a little bit of both. Bob:  That's great. Tammy:  I was just going to say that I really like the Audacious Salon stuff because it's talking about a lot of the things we've already talked about in a new way or in a new light. I appreciate that. For me, working with the teams that I'm working with, I think they have been inundated with Agile and Scrum. How do we talk about it in a way that they can hear it, and not that stance of, "This is the only way." Bob:  I've always thought that was a ridiculous notion that Agile was a thing to concentrate on. It's a tool. Toyota Production System wouldn't have rested on a single process for very long without changing itself. [laughs] It's a means to great product outcomes. Tammy:  I try to break it down for them as much as possible. Obviously, we care about the frameworks that we're using, but I try to break it down into simple questions. Answer these simple questions and that will help you get to that thing you're trying to produce, your vision. That'll help you develop that vision. That'll help you develop that, "what's the next big thing?" I look for trying to, using Agile principles, break it down as small as possible to help them break through. Bob:  Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys coming in and chatting. I hope you have a great talk. Wendy:  Thank you for asking us on the show. Tammy:  Thank you. Bob:  Although I think it's right at the same time as mine. Wendy:  It is exactly the same time. [laughs] Bob:  I hope it is not terribly well‑attended. [laughter] Tammy:  Wow, I was going to say I hope you have a full house. [laughter] Bob:  Thank you. Me, too. [laughs] No, I'm sure there are so many folks. We've got 2,300 people at this conference. We're both going to have the right...whoever shows are the right people. Wendy:  Are the right people. Tammy:  Exactly. Bob:  It's open space principle. Tammy:  Thanks for inviting us. Bob:  Yeah, no problem. Wendy:  Thank you very much. Bob:  The Agile Toolkit Podcast is brought to you by Lithespeed. Thanks for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed today's show. If you'd like to give feedback or be on the show, you can ping me on Twitter. I am @AgileToolkit. You can also reach me at bob.payne@lithespeed.com. For more free resources, transcripts of the show, and information about our services, head over to lithespeed.com. Thanks for listening. [music]

What's up, Facebook? Okay. I was just ... I think it's pretty obvious where I just was. Sweaty as a motherfucker. I was just ... Hello Susanne. I was just up on that roof there, you see up that roof there? See that? That's a pub. On the top of the pub is a gym, it is the best sweatbox gym in Bali. No air con, all open windows, top of a pub, sweating like a motherfucker, and I was just smashing a bunch of stuff around and I ripped my entire fucking nail off. I literally ripped the whole nail right off the top of the nail and it went flying across the room and landed at the feet of a pretty hot looking guy, actually, who looked a little taken aback at having a flying white nail, one of these ones from my other hand that's holding the phone. Behind this phone is a fuck load of blood on top of my nail. Well, there's several band aids on it, plasters, whatever they're called, but they're not working, 'cause I'm sweating like a bitch. And right now I'm in super fucking adrenaline flow. Anyone on my team, I don't know if Mim saw my WhatsApp, somebody needs to drop the details in right away for breaktheinternet.com. I am okay, I'm always okay. I nearly said I'm not okay. Wait. Why would I not be okay? I'm gonna hold it with the other hand, though, this broken hand is not wanting to work as well. It fucking hurts. You ripped the whole nail off and I was like, "Motherfucker!" But I forgot I had my headphones on and I was listening to my tunes, I was listening to Metallica, Sandman, which by the way, is a song that was definitely written from super flow. Am I freezing or am I working right now? Is this working? It says poor connection. I was listening to Sandman and if you listen to the lyrics, if you listen to the lyrics of any song, and then ... Okay, I feel like this is probably frozen, 'cause I don't see any comments coming up. If you listen to the lyrics of any song, and then you're feeling like, "Holy fuck, they're saying exactly what I'm thinking," then what it means is that the songs gone into ... The song's actually coming from your own reality. You're creating that song. Okay. Come on, bitches, let's get this connection back. Hey, [Ladrina 00:02:43]. Hey, Karen. Brooke has frozen, connection's back now. We're coming back. We're back, we're back. Manifest that shit back. [inaudible 00:02:52] like the ninjas they are. Hello. Hello, world, we're still working. Okay, I'm not in my right mind, that's for sure. So I was in super flow anyway, I've been in the super flow, I'm going, "Holy shit, I did some crazy things in some other lands this morning." You'll see when I post my blog, which I've already written, I just haven't posted it yet. I'll do it after this. It came from another world, in another place. So then I went straight to the gym and I was so in fucking in super flow in the gym and I was listening to Metallica, I was listening to a tonne of stuff, but when I was listening to Sandman ... Hang on. I'm a change. When I was listening to Sandman, I was like, what does it say? Something never, never land, whatever it says about never, never land, and I'm like, "Well, that's fucking exactly what's up." I was in never, never land all morning. And then I realised, of course, because I'm still in a never, never land and I created the fucking song. I made this song, I wrote this song, and that's why the lyrics are speaking to me, and by the way, for those people who are like, "She's gone next level batshit crazy," you should probably just leave now, 'cause you're never gonna come into this world and space with us, and for the ones who get it, the sweat dripping off my chin honours the sweat inside of your soul. I don't know what that means, it sounds good, though! So, I was in the fucking super flow, I was creating entire other realms and universes. I was downloading from the deep, deep collective unconscious, 'cause it's a little what my blog's about, and then all of a sudden, some young German dude stole my dumbbell. Well, he didn't realise it was mine, so he was using it. So then he was done, so I went to get it back, in which tore the entire fucking nail off. It just flew off and it went flying across the room, landed at the feet of some young hottie who looked at me a little shocked and appalled, but concerned as well, which was nice. So, I just calmly shouted, "Motherfucker!" Across the entire gym, forgetting how my headphones were on and that I was a lot louder than I thought I was. Everyone stopped and looked at me, and then I just, sashayed over, picked up my nail. I was like, "I'm fine, I'm good," 'cause I'm charged with adrenaline. So I felt fine, I didn't feel hurt, and then I went and picked up my dumbbells again and then I looked down at my hand and there was fucking blood everywhere. That's what happens when you rip an entire nail off, by the way. So, I went and got some plasters from reception and then I continued my workout, but it hurts like a little bitch, but not really, 'cause I guess the best way to deal with that and to heal myself is just to go back to another world for the rest of the day and heal it inside of that world while I'm there, so then when I come back, it'll be fixed, which by the way, by the way, is the exact fucking way when I talk about ... Have you heard me talk about manifesting abs in 20 minutes? Like anytime I get a little puff puff going on down there ... It's pretty good right now, didn't have to do it today. If I, I don't know, whatever, I woke up a little less ripped than I want to be, then I just ... I use my 20, 30, 40 minutes, whatever it is in the gym, to just go into another realm, into another world ... I'm not kidding, obviously, why would I be kidding? And then I just carve out the abs that I want when I'm in that other world, while I'm in super flow, while I'm in the gym, and then when I get back ... Come on connection, stay with us. Guys, can you just help me out with the manifestation? Can we do a team prayer? We pray to the internet gods of Seminyak that my internet works for the next three minutes until I get back to my villa. Check out this pretty-pretty. It's super pretty over there! So, I'll be back home in two minutes, anyway, three minutes. And yes, okay, so that's what I do. I only fully realised how to explain this this morning, though. By the way, did you check out the comment? You gotta read that comment. It's time to get fucking angry. The first module of my new training is about getting angry. Getting angry with yourself for being such a boring little bitch. Go read that and make sure ... Internet gods, pray harder. They're just testing us. They're laughing at us, laughing hilariously. Come on let's go, let's go, let's go. Connection. I'm looking at you, connection. Figure your shit out. Turn yourself back on. Work, work, work. Come on, you can do it. You guys need to pray harder. All right, you're gonna watch this on the replay and you'll be like, "God damn it, now I have to listen to her saying work, work, work like Britney Spears in Work, Bitch, until the connection worked." I'm gonna keep talking anyway, I'm gonna trust that it's just coming back to me at any moment in time. So, maybe I'll sing. (singing). Okay, I don't know if the singing's going to show up on the replay or not, 'cause I'm just kind of killing time while I wait for my connection. All right, we're nearly there. Okay, maybe I can go use the Sea Circus connection. Oh. It's gonna work any second. Man. All right. Okay, we got it back, we got it back, we got it back, we got it back. You missed me singing Wiz ... Is it even Wiz Khalifa who even sings this? I was singing Go Hard or Go Home while the connection was off. I don't know if you got to hear it. I don't even know whose song it is. One second, I'm gonna go inside now. I'm home. So now it's all a little calmer and saner. I think I have five minutes. I gotta do a high vibe mastermind Q&A. All right. Here we are. Home sweet home. I'm so not sitting out there. It's sweaty as fuck. Okay, so I was singing Go Hard or Go Home while I waited for the connection to become good. Fuck, oh my god, there's so much blood on my hand right now. Okay, and then what else was I telling you? I don't even know why I got off this livestream, I was charged with super flow on the livestream off it, I was charged with fucking super flow, I was in the best place in space, ever, I was creating worlds and other realms, I was thinking about how I finally figured out how to explain to you the thing about where I manifest abs or hundreds of thousands of dollars or whatever it is you need or desire, in like 20 minutes, or a minute. Why do I even need 20? I really just use the 20 minutes to do a workout or meditation or something, or whatever it is that I desire. I finally realised how I can explain why this works to my own self, nevermind to you. I now know how it works, and how it works is, you're literally leaving the Earth, you guys, you're literally leaving and going to another planet. Okay, who wants to post in the high vibe mastermind and share this livestream to high vibe and say, "Kat's gone to some other realm right now and she's vaguely aware that she's supposed to be on members Q&A at 12, noon," which I think it might be right now, "But clearly she's off spinning with the fairies and we should all go and watch her on this livestream right now for a few more minutes." Who wants to do that? Is somebody on my team there and can do that? I'm sure they are, somebody will do it for me. Probably 10 people. Yes, does that make sense? Are you understanding me? Are you picking up what I'm putting down? Do I still look like I'm fucked up from the gym? Well, the blood's mainly stopping now. Okay, don't worry. I'm under control. It's just that ... Thanks, Sage. It's just when I go to another world, you guys, I go a little crazy and I can't really logically try and explain any of that shit, but you know it has to be. I don't know why they come in here and shut all my blinds. Why do I need my blinds shut? Do you think I should sit on the bed, 'cause it might calm me down, except I'm literally dripping Bali sweat, so then I'd have to sleep in it later, so we won't do that. I feel like I could even go in the bath. I feel like I could go any place. So, basically, does it make sense to you? Oh, my ass is so sweaty. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? Breathe through it. Do you understand what I'm saying? So, if I go to another place and I carve out my entire abs ... What the fuck? Is this connection still not working? All right, we should've had the last of the connection issues. It says connection's bad still, it's being a fucker. I don't know what's happening. Maybe it's because I'm in another world and I'm not really here, so then the Bali WiFi's like, "Why the fuck do you need me?" I'm not here. Look at the site of me. God damn it. Okay. I'm gonna be super zen as fuck in as much as that's humanly possible. So, the bullet point version of how to change your abs in 20 minutes ... Oh, I just got, I got an interesting message just pop up. Why is my notifications on for that? My god, another one. Go away. I'll be with you when I'm back in the world. I can't answer messages when I'm in another world, you guys. I can only answer DMs that are straight to my soul. If you want to get my attention and I'm not answering you in a message, it's more than likely that I'm in another world, in another realm, and instead of fucking DM'ing me on Facebook or Instagram like a weirdo, you could just DM me straight to my soul, and if you think I'm kidding, then you need to practise going to other realms more frequently, but don't worry, 'cause I've written a 2,000 word blog post already that tells you how to go to other realms, and I wrote that this morning, and I'll post it shortly. It just seems very logical to me, 'cause often when I'm kind of travelling in between worlds, going into the deep collective unconscious or the freaking crazy fucked up psyche that's inside of me, or you, wherever it is I'm going, I'll DM people soul to soul, and then some of them DM me back. You know who you are. Sometimes in a slightly intrusive manner where I'm like, "Hello, I'm over here writing, you don't need to be constantly knocking on the door of my soul," but at the end of the day, if you get in, if your DM arrives into my soul, it's actually automatic transmission and automatic acceptance. I was just like, shit, how much of me showing down there. I think we're good. So, that's a real thing that I do all the time. I frequently talk to people just via soul DM. It's a lot easier, 'cause you can be doing things at the same time, it just kind of happens automatically, but oftentimes I'll journal it. There's some things written in this journal right here from other people's souls. They're just in here. It's like, I could sell this shit for a lot of money, 'cause I'm journaling some freaking badass people in here. They're speaking straight to me, right in there. Happened this morning quite a lot. And so the thing with manifesting abs instantly or an extra 100K in a day instantly, or whatever it might be, is maybe a product of some sort of work you do in the physical world, whatever. I really think that's got little to do with anything, 'cause the physical world is only a reflection of the internal one anyway. So really how I do it, and I couldn't figure this the fuck out for some time. I was like, I know I do it instantly, I have literally watched my body change in like 20 minutes to where it's quite shocking and even one time one of my clients ... Fuck. Okay. The phone just exploded out of the tripod. Even one of my clients and friends, Amanda, was with me one time in the gym and she had me talking about it many times, and she was working out with me in Del Mar a month or two back, and she was like, "Holy shit, I just saw that happen. You didn't have abs at the start of this workout, now you do." Like, carved out as well, so we did an Insta story about it, obviously. We looked fabulous anyway, so it was required. But I couldn't figure out, how do I do that? I just knew that I do and I knew that if I got into super flow and into another realm, I kind of just decide if I want whatever crazy amount of money that comes through or some next level epi-connection with somebody or some new clients, whatever it is. Anything and everything. I'm like, well, I know 100% that I do this and I'm confident that I do it, I've seen it over and over again ... And now I've got full on sweat that is drying on me and I'm becoming super clammy. I'm probably reabsorbing it all, so I'll have to go lay naked in the sun after this and get it all back out again, except I've gotta do a high vibe training. We'll figure it out. When I'm doing my client calls, for those of you that I'm speaking with in an hour or two, there's a high chance I'm gonna be naked on the deck on that call, just to warn you, 'cause I need to sweat it out and tan it up. Okay, and so this morning it finally came to me in a vision, in a dream, in a download from another realm where it always is, I was like, "Oh my god, it's so fucking obvious!" Of course how I do it is because I'm in another world, I've travelled to the world in between worlds, slipping between the cracks, the river beneath the river, the world beneath the world. Those of you who go there and know of this, know exactly what I mean, and those of you who are like, "What in the fuck is she on?" I'm on another dimension and I went there purely on and of my own accord with no additional substances, except for these amino acids and a fuck load of inner work over the past 30 years. And so, you know what I mean. And those of you who are kind of fascinated and intrigued and slightly scared, but you don't have any clue what I'm doing, this is for you and you need to join breaktheinternet.com and you all need to join breaktheinternet.com, it's in the pinned comment, because I will explain and teach it to you. Largely via soul transmission, but also in the format of some video and audio trainings and worksheets and whatnot and several ounces of shenanigans in whatever format they come out. Oh my god, that training's going to be amazing. That training, breaktheinternet.com, my new programme, was pure soul download, but it was fire and brimstone download. You read it, you saw it, you're in it, those of you that are in it. Danny Alor is in, who else is in? Give me the shout out. I'm sorry, high vibers, I'm not sure when I'm gonna get there, but this is exactly what you need and I'll get there after this. We were just doing Q&A anyway, so you might have a fuck load more questions after this. So, next was ... What was next? So yes, yes, what I was saying, if you're fascinated and intrigued and slightly terrified, you definitely need to keep listening, 'cause you know I'm speaking to your soul when you joined, of course you did. Hey, Mandy. Julie joined, of course she did. So many badass people have joined. Sage is in, yes. That makes total sense to me. I know the soul people ... This might be the most powerful thing I've ever unleashed. You can feel it just by reading the description there and then your soul will fucking kick you up the nether regions if you don't join, I would imagine. Barron, of course you're in. Like, every person who's in, I'm like, of course, of course, because they're all, whatever you want to call us, indigo children. I don't know. That expression's not that exciting for me, but it's kind of what it is. They're all dialled up individuals, dialled in individuals who are operating between worlds and between realms, and I see that even in the ones who I don't know who they are, I just read the energy of it and the vibration of your name and your picture and I just know, obviously. I don't have to explain it to those of you who know. But those of you who don't know are like, "I don't even know why I'm watching this shit," and those of you who are in between, are like, "Okay, you should join so that it can make more sense to you." So then when you slip into another realm, which I teach, I actually teach how to do in my blog post today, which I'll post when I fucking get to it, but it is ready. It's finished, but I thought of more things that need to go in there, so the [inaudible 00:18:42], it's so full at the moment, I almost can't handle the intensity of it. So, I'm gonna explain about that. Read the blog later. I'll tell you what it's called even, so you can look out for it. It's got a picture of a very wild looking spirit ghost cat, and me, on the picture that's going with it. Oh, this bloody nail. Ouch-y, kiss it better. I just licked my own blood on a livestream. Sorry about that. The title is called, it's quite long, it's called, "Slip into the Deep Collective Unconscious, Slip into the Rapture, Slip into Your Soul and Come Back Alight with Miracles, the Impossible, Created like This." I love my long titles with a lot of commas in them. And it says, "And now I'm gonna show you how it is I slip away fully and allow all of it full stop, a story," and then I may, indeed, quote the queen from Alice in Wonderland. Should I just read you the blog post? Okay. "'Let's consider your age to begin with. How old are you?' 'I'm seven-and-a-half, exactly.' 'You needn't say exactly,' the queen remarked. 'I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just 101, 5 months and a day.' 'I can't believe that!' said Alice. 'Can't you?' said the queen in a pitying tone. 'Try again. Draw a long breath and shut your eyes.' Alice laughed, 'There's no use trying," she said, 'One can't believe the impossible.' 'I dare say you haven't had much practise,' said the queen, 'When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'" "I tend to believe as many impossible things as I can all day long and I have a practise and a process around that and I wonder what would happen if you began to practise believing the impossible. Practise is a practise." Now, I'm really starting to read the whole blog post and I'm quite inclined to continue on. "I wonder what would occur if you allowed yourself to slip betwixt worlds." I wrote, "betwixt." I thought about writing "between" and I was to otherworldly at the time to come up with a word like "between" so it didn't come out of me. "I wonder what you'd allow if you realised suddenly that the answer to all of it is to simply access, daily, the ordered state in which visions are given, transmissions passed through, downloads continue, and miracles, become real." I will write sentences for as long as I fucking want to write them with as many commas as I want and all the grammar police can get back to the other world where I'm not a part in anyway. Can I tell you, it's the place I dance and play and, daily. I could keep reading. "Sometimes for an entire day or even more, I don't come back to Earth at all." I think that's obviously. All right, I'll stop right there. I'm gonna post the blog shortly after this. Maybe or maybe not. I thought of a lot of other things that gotta go in there and they're all just kind of bubbled up in my head and I'm not sure where they're going or where they're coming from, or even if I'm here or there or nowhere at all, but when I'm there, is when you just go there and you're just like ... Okay, just carve out some abs and just gonna reshape my body, I'm just gonna pull in this money, I'm just gonna draw in that post in two minutes into my soul, just gonna quickly soul DM this person or there, I'm gonna decide that the exact freaking soul crazy ass soulmate people ... How many times can you say the word "soul" in one word ... In one sentence. I'm gonna join into ... We all are mad here, and I'm gonna join into through the freaking [inaudible 00:21:53] glass, another world, another place, another time. Breaktheinternet.com. Don't go to breaktheinternet.com, it's just the name of the programme. Breaktheinternet.com. Read that comment, that was a freaking soul transmission and transmutation and download and that's where that programme came from, and I think that's fucking clear and that's exactly why everybody's who joining the programme is like next level crazy, fucked up in the most awesome way, and in that programme, we're gonna do a lot of travelling to other worlds. What book is it? Is it a book that I'm talking aloud right now? Should we transcribe this livestream? Anna, I know you're there in the other place with me, I know your in there, just send me a fucking soul DM and tell me what you're thinking and feeling, because we're co-creating this right now and probably nobody else here is real at all, except for me and Anna and it's our world and you just hopped into it. Thank you for being here. I think that's obvious to everybody. So, then, yes. Well, that's actually the whole instant manifestation process explained in two and a half seconds or maybe 25 minutes or however long it was. The time is irrelevant, because we bend time and space. That is how you instant manifest! Isn't it obvious? Because when you go to ... If I yell too loudly, the butlers might come and make sure I'm not being ... I was gonna say molested, but I don't like that word. I'm not having a meltdown. So, exactly. Exactly. Anna knows exactly what's going on. Intergalactic as fuck. And isn't it obvious that if you wanted to manifest instantly in the human realm, you would just go to the world between worlds, you'd go to the river beneath the river, you'd go to the place in your soul, you'd slip into the cracks and you might be there for 100,000 years or a minute or a moment or the blink of an eye or a quick DM from you soul to somebody else's, but in that time, there is no time and time is never ending and expansive, and I can't look at you, 'cause I'm just transmitting right now. And you'll just do whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter. You'll just do things that, in the human realm, would've taken 10 years or 20 years or 10 months or two weeks or whatever people think. I don't care what they think, 'cause I'm not with them or one of them or of them, and then when you come back, you maybe had meanwhile ripped your fucking nail off in the gym while listening to Sandman. That was unfortunate, but it doesn't matter, 'cause you're still on an adrenaline rush and riding high as fuck, so when you come back, people are like staring at you 'cause you're vibrating like a crazy person, or maybe you're walking through the streets yelling this shit, and then 20 minutes passed in that human people world that they talk about, and then people are like, "How the fuck did you do that like that?" It's like, isn't it obvious? I was in another realm, so I had as much time and space and whatever it was that I needed and I was upgrading, up levelling, rewiring my entire eternal fucking ram, and becoming the next level of my character of this programme, and so then I came back, and of course a moment had passed. Where the fuck do you think Alice in Wonderland or Narnia even came from? I mean, really? Who's gonna transcribe this book? It's gonna be my next book, it's gonna be called Soul Shifts and Intergalactic Transmissions, do you think? It'll be Soul Ships and something. I don't know. I can't think about it. I don't know why I'm thinking this, there should definitely be no thinking going on. So for those people who then come along and watch this or are watching it right now, and I still can't look at you. If I'm not looking at you, by the way, I notice that sometimes when I co-livestream with Patrick that I'm not looking at him, and I'm looking either over here or over there, and I can't look at you guys right now and if I'm doing that, it's not that I'm ignoring, it's because I'm accessing something else, by the way. Or if you ever ask me to intuitively download and message, get a message or a transmission, sorry, for you, you'll notice I have to look away, or if I'm looking at you, you'll see that I look away. If I'm on audio, you won't see anything at all, but you'll feel it. So that's what's up, and I'll read your comments later when I come back down to Earth, which may be in an eventual while, I imagine. So, for people like, "She's on something," 'cause this is what I get a lot of, and then a lot of friends who do use psychedelics and stuff like that are like, "You're like that all the time anyway," I've never used anything. Okay, now I can look at you. I've never used anything, I've never taken anything at all. I wrote about this in my blog today anyway, but I'm accessing other dimensions anytime I want to and that is why I'm high, and then I end up on massive fucking trip and sometimes it's a little intense and out of control. Thursday I was off in another place the whole entire day and it was actually a bit too full on and it was so hard to come back down. I'm pretty sure I just manifested you, Patrick, because I just mentioned your name about transmitting and channelling, downloading stuff and then you appeared. See? I told you guys, exactly what I'm doing. So, okay, I have to go over here again. So, when I'm over there and when I'm in that place and space, I was saying to you, not to you, I was saying about you, Patrick, that when I ... I'm, okay, are you just saying "I am," because you are, I am. All he says is "I am." I have no doubt. I re-watched some of our livestream from Thursday and I was like, for half of the livestream, I'm looking up there and it's like, it looks like I'm ignoring what you're talking about, but actually, it's 'cause I was downloading from another realm, but when I watched the replay I was like, "I didn't realise how much of that livestream I was looking up there." And then the entire rest of the fucking day, I was ... Nearly gonna tip this on my head. I was so in another realm, it was so fucking intense, so much crazy shit happened. Today, I haven't been in the human world at all, I was explaining just now how you instantly manifest, because when you're there, you're gone for as long as you need to be. You could be gone for hundreds of generations and lifetimes and now I'm going there again. I'm just in between words right now. I'm in the place between the place, and then you're just doing whatever the fuck it is you want to do, and then you come back here and people ... "How did she do that? How did she change that so quickly?" It's like, "Please, I was over there for several thousand generations." And then I came back to this moment in time, and here I am. That one on Thursday was beyond. If you didn't watch that joint livestream that we did on Thursday, I actually couldn't even handle the intensity of watching the whole thing again. I only watched an hour and a half of it. Yes, it did go on for well over two hours. So, then this morning, when I wrote this blog, holy shit, I was way through the looking glass, I was all the way in the looking glass, it was insane. I created so many new things and so many new worlds, and then, and then, and then, I was in the deep collective unconscious, deep in the realm which is not this one, deep in a psyche, obviously, of you and of me. I'm slipping. I have slipped, I stay slipped. I'm slipped right away, and then I ripped my entire fucking nail off in the gym. That broke me a little bit out of the spell for a moment, because of all the blood, and then everybody was looking at me, but then I was so freaking charged and other worldly that I couldn't feel the pain of it now anyway, and I'm like ... Yeah. Okay, I'm trying to decide whether I need to ground or whether I need to go further. "Further, further, in that flirty mystical, and if you're not careful, your scary place, where you access all things and you know all things and you create ..." I feel like somebody's gonna report me if I'm being too crazy. And you create, well, let's speak of that later. I'm reading from my blog post again. I'm reading bits and pieces. "Those who know me well, those who know me well and also regularly use medicine, drugs, tools to access an altered state often comment on how you seem to already be there all the time. This is become a recurring conversation with several of my closet people." Those who know me well know that I don't use anything, but I'm going further. Okay, I'm in it right now. Keep going further. I'm getting so shaky, 'cause I'm not really here. Oh! And, that's the also the reason why you don't need to eat when you're in super flow and you don't need to sleep, you don't need anything. You don't need to talk ... This is what I'm trying to explain to you guys. When I'm not replying to you on DM, it's because I'm only in the soul DM conversation, all right? So if you were smart about it, you would just send me messages when I'm journaling and I'll write them in my journal. That's what I do a lot of the time. I had many reports in there from many people. It's quite the story, and sometimes I don't write them down, though. Sometimes they just come to me when I'm out and about and I'm like, of course, and I just go back to something and then it's upgrade, upgrade, upgrade, and then occasionally, actually occasionally, and [inaudible 00:30:40] talked about this, occasionally, people are reckless with slipping between worlds. You don't want to be reckless, because you might stay there and, in fact, the human experience isn't actually an experience that we get to have. So, you want to dance between worlds. You want to play between worlds. You want to float back and forth. Why the fuck am I still wearing my ear pods when I'm at home? That was for on the street. Do you think that I threw the air pod container somewhere when I was out jumping up and down on the street? I just found it over here. Okay. They really annoy my human ears sometimes. So, okay. How many points have I not finished? It doesn't really matter, 'cause those of you who are with me in the other world are getting all the points anyway. And you definitely should join the programme. Oh my god. I was so fucking angry at myself on the weekend. It was ridiculous. I spent the entire weekend ... Actually, I was out a fuck load on the weekend. I met so many ... I don't know who they were. I don't know if they were spirits or people, but I did a lot of crazy, cool stuff on the weekend and in between being out, which was at least half of the time, I was all in that other worldly state, and then somewhere in the middle of it, I got fucking angry, which is where that programme came from and when you read that, it will reach into your soul, it will grab your soul, it will pull it out, and we will dance together into another realm, which is where that entire programme is being derived from. If you're not available for slipping between the cracks of the worlds, you should not join this programme, because I'm really not gonna know what to do with you. You're just gonna be one of those place feeler type people that sits there and looks pretty, hopefully, on the internet, but I guess we can use your name for something. But the problem is that we might just code you out of the entire game. So you wouldn't really want to come unless you are of that world. It could be dangerous for you humans. Okay, is there anything left to say? I think that's actually the entire fucking story. Let me tune in, let me dial in. What else is there? Oh, I was talking about being on the trip. Well, I may be still there. I don't know what's gonna happen when I jump into my members training after this, and then for those who I'm speaking with in an hour and a half, that will be interesting for everybody, and then I'm gonna have to have some sort of situation go on in my day ... I'm either gonna just keep going or I'm gonna have to ground back again if I want to actually manage to my ass on a plane tomorrow, which I am supposed to do in theory. You can go on a plane while you're in another world. That's what I was gonna say, when you're slipping between worlds, is when if you're walking down the street or you're at the gym or wherever you are, your feet are not on the ground and you're dancing and floating with space and time. You know that feeling and you're like, "What's happening? I'm not even moving, but I'm moving, and are these people real?" And everything's fucking blurry, but it's clear as day, that's because you're in another world. Actually, you're in massive amounts of soul, like, I was gonna say destruction, but it's beautiful destruction. It's upgrading, we're gonna upgrade that hard drive like a motherfucker. So, that's what's goin on there. You know where you're like, "I'm getting a little scared that I'm slipping away and I'm going crazy, and what's happening?" And I'm like floating and I'm flying and all the people around me are ... They're kind of just like energies and the ground is moving and you don't really know what's up and you're like, "I'm not in control," but actually, you're in complete fucking control. You just went into a different world, that's what's happening, and that explains why when you're in super flow, [inaudible 00:34:14] called it the deep collective unconscious, or the deep psyche or whatever he called it, and I call it super flow. All right? That's what I mean when I say "super flow." Other worlds slipping into other realms, and when you're there, of course you don't need to eat. Holy shit. I smell so bad. I was sweating litres of sweat when I was at the gym before. I'm gonna jump ... Definitely gonna do the high vibe livestream naked from the pool after this. From there up, don't get too excited. You don't need to eat, 'cause why would you need to eat when you're in another world? That's completely illogical. That would just be stupid. It makes no sense at all. So, when you're in the super flow land and you're like, something's almost wrong with me, because I never seem to sleep and I seem to never need to eat and I seem to just decide things when I'm floating and flowing and flying, and then they're done, and you get a little worried or you get a little concerned for your own sanity, don't be concerned, and if you have people in your life who are concerned, simply code those people out of the programme and come play with more of these people. That's really the whole system. And don't worry about it, because at some point in time, you'll come back to the human Earth and you'll go, "Fuck, I need some tacos" and then you'll go out for drinks with people and meet new people and be a human person, but while you're out meeting new people, you definitely could slip away as well, which happened to me also. That's it. Don't forget, life is now. Join breaktheinternet.com and press fucking play.

What’s up Diamonds,  Welcome to Thursday week three of the LJ Morning Sparkle where the music is good and the smiles are contagious  and I thank you for your listening support. Ok, Throwback Thursday is not bad at all with the exception of my through back only goes back to 4yrs.  I am always open for suggestions I would love to hear it email me at ljdnshow@gmail.com. However I hope you all are supporting artists whose music I play on the show if it anytime you want to know the name of a particular artist go to the website and click the #DiamondDelights page. Ready to conquer the new week? Tuesday through Friday think about something good that happened in your life something and reapply that feeling to your life everyday this week, and share it to help inspire others and you’ll have a successful week. Join in the morning at  9 AM to 10AM EST, 8AM - 9AM CST and 6AM- 7AM PST so come have some morning fun will me with music, social media and so on. Now I'll throw in some #'s #linajones #ljmorningsparkle #morningsparkle #DiamondNetwork #LJDNShow #diamondcity #videobl #linajonesdiamondnetworkshow #rjcomer https://www.gofundme.com/diamondnetwork-studio

What’s up Diamonds, It's #humpday! Midweek you got this just two more days to go! Week three of the LJ Morning Sparkle where the music is good and the smiles are contagious  and I thank you for your listening support. I am trying to find a Tuesday word  on social media I see #turnupTuesday but I've been told the term refers to getting high getting "turnt" so that's not going to work for me.. now I could say #tightenupTuesday referring to time to get yourself together for the rest of the week. Or something else which I have not thought of yet any suggestions? I am open to them. However I hope you all are supporting artists whose music I play on the show if it anytime you want to know the name of a particular artist go to the website and click the #DiamondDelights page. You have already conquered half pf the wek? Tuesday through Friday think about something good that happened in your life something and reapply that feeling to your life everyday this week, and share it to help inspire others and you’ll have a successful week. 9 AM to 10AM EST, 8AM - 9AM CST and 6AM- 7AM PST so come have some morning fun will me with music, social media and so on. Now I'll throw in some #'s #linajones #ljmorningsparkle #morningsparkle #DiamondNetwork #LJDNShow #diamondcity #videobl #linajonesdiamondnetworkshow #rjcomer https://www.gofundme.com/diamondnetwork-studio

What’s up Diamonds, Life is good in middle class in America right? How’s your life right now?  Is it as crazy as the rest of the world? If so keep in your fitting right in. Welcom to  week three of the LJ Morning Sparkle where the music is good and the smiles are contagious  and I thank you for your listening support. I am trying to find a Tuesday word  on social media I see #turnupTuesday but I've been told the term refers to getting high getting "turnt" so that's not going to work for me.. now I could say #tightenupTuesday referring to time to get yourself together for the rest of the week. Or something else which I have not thought of yet any suggestions? I am open to them. However I hope you all are supporting artists whose music I play on the show if it anytime you want to know the name of a particular artist go to the website and click the #DiamondDelights page. Ready to conquer the new week? Tuesday through Friday think about something good that happened in your life something and reapply that feeling to your life everyday this week, and share it to help inspire others and you’ll have a successful week. We have new music from #ColdCash and Jimmy Packes today’s show 9 AM to 10AM EST, 8AM - 9AM CST and 6AM- 7AM PST so come have some morning fun will me with music, social media and so on. Now I'll throw in some #'s #linajones #ljmorningsparkle #morningsparkle #DiamondNetwork #LJDNShow #diamondcity #videobl #linajonesdiamondnetworkshow #rjcomer https://www.gofundme.com/diamondnetwork-studio

What's up Diamonds, I did it! I made it to Friday and I can honestly say #TGIF I believe I have earned it this week. Let's see waking up early was trying to say the least my eyes are getting heavier as I am writing this description. I am supposed to be helping myself go to sleep earlier by having a morning show but so far its not working I think I am loosing to much sleep, Wed. I turned over in bed thinking I had more time to sleep then my alarm came on...what time did I go to bed? Well I started preparing to go to bed at 3:00am I did not actually get in the bed till 4:00am #crap I gotta get better at this. I am really glad its Friday and I welcome #sleepinsaturday because that is what I will be doing.. by this time I will have straightened my music glitches and can let the music flow. I have my after Christmas #Christmas party to goto I think I'm going to wear #red, will I feel confident enough to take a pic for my #Diamonds? IDK have to see about that anyways, it is a #casino night theme sounds #fun... I'll let you know. Enjoy the show I will be back on Monday... I think my house just shook.. did we just have an EQ? Let me go find out what's going on. Check me out Monday night for #CoffeeTalk at 7pm EST otherwise I will see you all early Tuesday morning. Now I'll throw in some #'s #linajones #ljmorningsparkle #morningsparkle #DiamondNetwork #LJDNShow #diamondcity #videobl #linajonesdiamondnetworkshow  

What's Up Diamonds, So far so good this morning thang is waking me up now to work out the glitches I have reverted to my laughter default a few times already mainly because my music uploads have been slow to process due to minor things like " - " yep that's what it is "dashes". See the night before it leads me to believe it took my uploads but when I get in the studio it is still processing.... frustrating to say the least. It's just a matter of checks and balances right... but hey the music is #awesome... social media is alright. The one thing I am noticing about social media is not all the time something interesting is going on I want to pick a popular but it seems what others find popular, I find as kinda stupid or negative. I mean it is easier to be negative and takes work to be positive could it be our society cares more about animals than people? However, I am having #fun and I hope you are having fun to I got nothing fancy going on here working out the glitches myself and I'll get there.. I always do ;-) let's see what the rest of the week has in store, thank you for listening please support these Independent Artist and their music they are #workinghard just like you and me. Now I'll throw in some #'s #linajones #ljmorningsparkle #morningsparkle #DiamondNetwork #LJDNShow #diamondcity #videobl #linajonesdiamondnetworkshow      

Well done, you've successfully managed to negotiate the U bend and made it here. Welcome to The Toilet Circuit.   I used to be Martin Ives. I also used to be Martin from Labrat, Martin from Charger, Martin from This Is Menace and finally Martin from Calculated Risk Products. Now I'll be your host for this podcast.   ​Here's what you can expect from The Toilet Circuit - ​On the first Thursday of every month we'll be speaking to people involved with the heavy music scene at the turn of the century and beyond. It might be people from bands, label owners, promoters, or even fans. Basically people with a story to tell, not a product to sell.   So be sure to hit subscribe on your podcasting software of choice to make sure you're regular, and never miss a show, as well as follow us on Facebook. A show that promises to be noughties but nice.

The fact most travelers have the capability to shoot video is an invitation for us to give it a try. Yet it seems we take very little on our vacations. Shooting video clips on our holidays seems to be an afterthought for most travellers. I want to change that, and make your travel videos stand out. Well it’s time put video shooting in the spotlight, with the quality and convenience, taking a few holiday videos is so easy. Every camera and smartphone now comes with a video mode. Plus there is the added experience of motion and sound definitely making your travelogue shows that much better. Now I'll be the first one to admit as a veteran still photographer that video is always a secondary thought in my mind. I often wish I would have taken more videos during my holiday trips and I have to keep reminding myself to do so and I really should. I am here to motivate and convince you to shoot more AND better video. With trying to make travelogue shows of our trips, videos probably get us closer than anything else to actually being there. And this is the best reason to shoot some good video footage so that you can take your audience back with you on that great travel adventure story. A few video basics to get you started: Plan your shot Right away I want all my amature travel videographer readers to stop waving their cameras around shooting aimlessly. . You know the type, standing there in the street panning around *looking for something good to capture. No one's going to look at all that junk, not even you! No more shotgun video. From here on in we are only going to record and fill up hard drives with valuable footage that could be used in your edits, otherwise delete, delete, DELETE. So with a little bit of planning every video clip shot will improve your odd of getting a good take.  Studying the scene for a moment will give you clues as to what angle to pick , how the lighting is working, what to crop out and leave in, where to pan (if at all) and when to capture the action. Video is a horizontal format First thing to remember is that video is shot in a horizontal format. Think horizontal flat screen TV. Yes even when smartphone cameras tend to be held vertically, they do not make useable video clips. Video takes longer to to shoot Yes indeed unfortunately you have to block off a little bit more time in your travels to get the proper coverage when shooting your video scenes. You may have to coral people to act/narrate in your clips. Plan to do more than one take if needed to get it right. Returning for a reshoot is highly unlikely. read more, visit traveloguecreator.com

What is the impact of distraction on your relationship? Or, for that matter, on your life? And - what can you do about it? There's only one way to know - and that's what we're talking about on today's episode of Relationship Alive! Also, don't forget to check out my free guide on the Top 3 Relationship Communication secrets. To get it you can visit neilsattin.com/relate or text the word "RELATE" to the number 33444 and follow the instructions. These simple actions can completely change how you experience your partner (and how they experience you) - bringing you closer whether you're talking about the easy things, or the challenging things. Meanwhile, I hope you also took a moment to listen to last week's episode with Keith Witt - and stay tuned for next week's episode, featuring a conversation with Sue Johnson about Attachment Theory and creating a vibrant sex life. Now I'll stop distracting you, and let you focus on this week's episode! :-)

Jenn T. Grace – Episode 93 – How Are Your New Year’s Resolutions Holding Up As We Enter the 4th Quarter?     Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 93.   Introduction:              Welcome to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast; the podcast dedicated to helping LGBTQ professionals and business owners grow their business and careers through the power of leveraging their LGBTQ identities in their personal brand. You'll learn how to market your products and services both broadly, and within the LGBTQ community. You'll hear from incredible guests who are leveraging the power of their identity for good, as well as those who haven't yet started, and everyone in between. And now your host. She teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn - with two N's - T Grace.   Jenn T Grace:              Well hello and welcome to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and today we are in episode 93, and it is the middle of September of 2016. So I have a whole host of podcasts that I am about to record for you. So for the last I would say probably five, six, maybe even seven episodes I have had those kind of ready to roll for a while, and now I'm in the middle of batch recording a whole bunch of new awesome guests for you as well. However that is just about to begin as we're in the middle of September, so what I would like to do for you today is replay an episode from earlier this year which is episode number 75, and my intent here is to just give you an update on some of the things discussed in 75, then you can listen to episode 75 itself, and when you come back for a new podcast episode number 94, it will be a brand new interview. So I've really been trying to focus all of 2016 on bringing you amazing interviews with just really awesome people, and I want to continue that trend. So for the remainder of 2016 I really want to be bringing you interview after interview after interview of just really amazing people, and I have a whole awesome line-up of people to do just that for you.                                     So quickly in episode 75, which I believe was the first episode of 2016, I was talking about New Year's resolutions and essentially what things that I was up to, and I recently saw an article that said that people in September start to re-visit their New Year's resolutions essentially because now that the summer has long come and passed, people are going back to school, people are getting back into their work routine, that now's the time that people are starting to think about where they are in relation to accomplishing their New Year's resolutions or not. So for me, I had talked about three specific resolutions, two of which I thought were going to be fairly low-key if you will and not too difficult to achieve, and in reality I found out that it's a little bit harder than I thought. And then the third one just was difficult to begin with, and I'm actually still sticking to it quite well.                                     So the first one that I had mentioned publicly in January that my plan was, was to only have one cup of coffee per day for the entirety of 2016. I can tell you that I'm still doing pretty good on that, I was only having two cups a day so it was not a major crisis, and actually I'm trying to do half decaf now because I recognize that caffeine is a drug even though it's a common drug that we all use, and I'm just trying to be mindful of my health and all that fun stuff. But I'm doing pretty good. So the status update on that one is that I'm doing pretty good, I'm sure there's been a day or two here or there that I've had more than a cup but generally speaking I'm totally on track with that.                                     The second one that I talked about was not drinking in 2016, and I thought I was going to be a little bit better at this than I was. So I last had a beer on New Year's Eve, and I still haven't had any beer since, and we are in the middle of September. However I did fall off the wagon if you will in the middle of July. I fell off the wagon- and mind you when I say 'fell off the wagon' it's not like I started binge drinking because that's not the case, but I did start drinking gin and tonic again in July. So I did make it seven months before having a drink of any kind. So prior to that, from January through July, I did not have a single drink and I was really proud of myself on that, until one day my wife said to me, "Why are you doing this to yourself? It's not like you have a drinking problem, it's not like you needed to do this, I don't know why you continue to torture yourself over whether or not you should have a drink," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it hit me that she was so right. So thinking about it I'm like, 'She's right, why am I doing this to myself? Do I have a reason for not doing this one activity that wasn't a problem to begin with?' So I decided what the hell, it's really not a big issue, I'm just going to go back to my norm which is having like maybe a drink or two at most in a given week. So again it's not a real issue.                                     But anyway, I did want to share that with you that I indeed broke my own resolution. So not everyone is perfect, and despite your best intentions sometimes your resolutions aren't really aligned well and they're not really helpful, and I think that goes for business as well. Sometimes we make goals that aren't in our best interest, and we stick to them out of ego and not necessarily because of any other reason. So I think this was one of those things that I had this resolution based on ego, based on just being able to say that I have done it, and in reality it was kind of stupid to do to being with. So I just threw that one aside.                                     Anyway the third one that I wanted to mention to you is that I declared publicly in January that I would be training for a full marathon, and that full marathon is on January 8th of 2017. So I am about four months away from running a full 26.2 miles, and that training is still going really, really well. At the time of this recording which is just a few days before the 15th- actually you'll be listening to this on September 15th which is Thursday, I just finished another half marathon on Sunday, and obviously I haven't run it yet so I don't know what my time is but I'm hoping it's better than the last one I did.                                     So I wanted to just kind of share that with you, especially for people who've been listening to this podcast for a really long time now, because I remember specifically when I decided I was going to start running, and that was August of 2013, on a whim I just decided randomly that I was going to start running, and I really was talking a lot about that journey, and that process, and how related it is to business, and kind of entrepreneurship, and all that stuff when I started doing that. So all of those old podcast episodes definitely have snippets of me kind of talking about the progress, and what I'm up to, and I still have people asking me about it. I was just at a conference a few weeks ago and I had people asking me like what the status of my running was. So I appreciate that you do pay attention to those things, and it is of continued interest to you. So as long as you are still interested, I will keep sharing.                                     So now you'll listen to the previous episode and hear me rambling on and on about all my reasons why I decided to put these two- these three resolutions in place, and now you at least hear the reality of what actually happened for them.                                     So one other thing I want to mention before I just hop into episode 75, is that I am still going gangbusters on helping people write their books in 2016 and beyond. So a lot of what's talked about in 75 is around the benefits of writing a book, what it can do for your brand, how it can help build your business, why today is the best day to just kind of start and get it done. So I wanted to just kind of share that with you because as of right now on September 15th I have helped twelve more people since January. So when I first recorded this in January I had already worked with a bunch of people previously, but as of this time now nine months into the year, I've helped twelve new people with their books. One person has already published hers, and that is Lindsay Felderman, and her book is referenced in the interview I did with her in episode number 87. Her book is titled 'Walking through Walls: Finding the Courage to be Your True Self.' So in episode 87 I kind of interview her on what it was like to put her book together, and really it was actually a really fun episode to produce.                                     And then I have another author who is about to publish her book in the beginning of October, so she will be one of the interviews that is to come in probably October or maybe even November, we will be hearing from her specifically on her experience with publishing a book, and what that's doing for her personal brand and all that great stuff.                                     So I'm really happy that I have helped twelve new people in the last nine months get their stories out into the world, at least get them started on the path of helping them write their books. So I bring this up because on October 3rd, that is when I am launching the third session of this year of the Purpose Driven Author's Academy. You've certainly heard me talk about it on the show, on previous shows, in my social media, if you're on my mailing list you've certainly seen it there too. So the Purpose Driven Author's Academy is really my online program that walks you through the entirety of getting your book concept narrowed down, to writing the book, to publishing it, to marketing it. So the whole gamut. It's a fourteen week program and the next session starts on October 3rd. So this will be the third one that I have done in 2016. All people who've participated in it are doing amazing, kicking some ass, it's really awesome. So if you're interested in that you can certainly go to www.PurposeDrivenAuthors.com, www.PurposeDrivenAuthor.com, or you can just go to www.JennTGrace.com and there's a button right on the homepage that will bring you to information about the program itself.                                     So that is all I wanted to share with you in today's episode, so if any of this is interesting, please feel free to reach out to me via email, Facebook, any social media, you name it I am there, and I am here to serve you. So please enjoy this repeat of episode number 75, and I will see you in a brand new episode in number 94 at the end of the month. Thank you so much and I'll talk to you soon.   Well hello and welcome to the New Year. I am looking forward to a great 2016, and I hope you are too. Now that we're in the new year, you're probably thinking of all the new year resolutions you could be focused on, or should be focused on, and today I want to share with you a couple of the resolutions that I'm working on, but actually how that's going to parlay into my new business focus for 2016, and basically how the podcast ducktails into that focus in 2016. So for my loyal listeners, what I'm going to be doing in 2016 is slightly different than previously in the last four years that I've been doing this podcast, but it really still kind of falls in line with much of what I've been doing.                                     But what I want to start with today is talking to you about a couple of the resolutions that I have for 2016, and none of them are too far of a stretch if you will from what I'm already doing. So I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll have a fairly high success rate. But what I've noticed is that unfortunately a lot of people create these monster resolutions; like just completely out of any realm of possibility, and when you do that, you're creating this wildly unattainable goal, and you're likely not going to hit it, and that's not what I want to share with you. What I want to be sharing with you are ways in which you can attain your goal. And I've noticed that people create these really unattainable goals for just a couple of different reasons. Most of the time it's because they aren't in the right frame of mind to achieve them, so when they create this goal it's not even something that they can really achieve, and sometimes this is done intentionally and sometimes not. And then a lot of times it's because people don't really have the right skillsets to pull it off, and they're not really committed to developing those skillsets to pull it off. So this is absolutely going to kind of fall into place with what I am going to be doing in 2016, and what I'm going to share with you.                                     But to start, here are just a couple of my non-business New Year resolutions if you will.                                     So for example, one of them is to drink only one cup of coffee a day versus two. Like I said, I'm not stretching too much with most of mine, and I'm only going to share three of them because the third one is going to be what really kind of plays into what I'm up to. But going down from one cup of coffee- I mean from two cups of coffee to one isn't much of a stretch, although I say this now and I'm not really sure how the caffeine withdrawals will go down. But as of right now it doesn't seem like it's that much of a stretch. I've already had my one cup of the day and I'm on to green tea, so I'm feeling confident that for the last four days- because today is January 4th as I'm recording this, I've been able to achieve that goal. So fingers crossed, goal number one, resolution number one should be attainable.                                     Now resolution number two on the other hand is to not have- this is going to sound crazy- not have a single drop of alcohol in 2016. And I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not I wanted to do this resolution for a couple of weeks thinking it's really not that difficult for me to not drink, because I'm not a heavy drinker in any way, so I might have a drink, maybe two, three at most in any given week, and I know people who drink that on a daily basis. So to me, it's not really- I don't think it's that difficult to not have any, however I don't know that for certain. So I've been thinking and hemming and hawing saying, "Is this really worth having a resolution over because what am I going to gain from this?" It's not like drinking is a problem in my life that I need to tackle or handle, but at the same time I'm really focused on my health and I know that extra sugar from alcohol is really not helping me, so why am I going to take in additional calories over something that I'm not even really enjoying so to speak? So that is another goal. And again, it's pretty much for purely health reasons, not because I have a problem that I'm trying to curb or anything like that, but really I just want to keep continuing on the path of getting healthier as I go. And 2015 I did I think a really good job continuing my health, et cetera, that I had previously been doing since back in 2012, 2013. So I'm still on a really good path in terms of my health.                                     Now this is where the third resolution comes in, and it's much more of a beast, and I have not publicly shared this information with anyone yet, so you my loyal listener are the first one to hear it other than my poor wife who deals with my random ramblings, and then a couple of close friends. But 2016 is going to be the year that I actually train for a full marathon. And now for you who may have been listening since the early beginnings of this podcast, you may recall that I started running mid-way through the first year of this podcast. And I was scared out of my mind, I had no idea what I was doing. I willingly shared all of my fears, and my trepidations with 'should I be doing this? Should I not be doing this?' And the reason I started running, and the same reason why I'm going to try not to drink in 2016, is for health reasons. So I had lost a lot of weight in 2012 and 2013, and it was about fifty pounds, and I just wanted to make sure that I could keep the weight off, and I've had no trouble doing that since 2012. So I feel fortunate that I'm going on a fourth and into a fifth year of keeping weight loss off, but a lot of it has to do with running because it's just a great activity, it's a solo activity or you can make it a group activity if you choose to. But I prefer to run solo because it gives me time to think about what I need to be doing, how to prioritize my business, and I think the best thing is that you're only competing against yourself, you're not worried about other people's time. So it's really kind of a solo 'let me try to see how good I can be and not compare myself to other people,' which I find to be really kind of peaceful in a lot of ways; and I am a very, very competitive person, as is my wife so it's a good thing she doesn't run because she would be the one person on this earth that I would be trying to compete against. So fortunately for me she does not. So anyway- a little tangent.                                     So tying this into the business, and tying this into today's episode, I wanted to share with you a little bit about this third resolution on my list, and it's not to run the marathon this year, which is 26.2 miles for those of you not familiar with marathon distance. But it's how I'm going about breaking down this really BHAG- as people call it in the business world, the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. That big monster of a goal, how I'm breaking it down to come up with a very clear plan that is attainable for me to achieve this goal. And now I won't be doing this until this time- almost exactly this time in 2017. So the race itself is on January 8th of 2017, and this is being released on January 7th. So I had to break down this goal into a variety of bite-sized chunks, and it really just started with picking a couple of races that I wanted to run this year which were half marathons; so that's 13.1 miles. And I ran two half marathons last year, and I'm planning on doing two more this year. So going back to the whole resolutions being attainable, running two this year should be no problem whatsoever, because I did two already last year. But what I'm trying to do is increase my speed just a little bit. So I'm not trying to go nuts, and I'm not going completely haywire, I'm really just focused on something that I think is attainable to me personally.                                     So for me this goal is something that I have to work on the entire year in order to be successful in doing it. If I do not stick to my plan, it's going to go rogue- I'm going to go rogue and it will go off the rails really quickly. So I spent about three hours over the weekend and I put together my plan. I started off with where I'm going to be racing, when I'll be racing, how many miles I have to do every week, how many times I have to run a week, and I went to my Google calendar and I put every single one of those in there, and I time blocked every single spot. So I know that every Sunday morning at or around 9:30 in the morning, that's when I'll be doing my 'long run,' which is usually seven to 26 miles at this point. It could be anywhere in between. So I have my plan super clear, super focused for what I want to achieve for my physical fitness in 2016.                                     Now it's a matter of figuring out what your goal is going to be for 2016 and how you could be laser focused on it too. Because I swear to you if you asked anybody in my life, and you can still ask them now, if they think Jenn plus running equals a good idea, I'm convinced that the vast majority of them would say, "You're out of your mind. Jenn will never run, Jenn has never run," et cetera. Like I had a pretty good reputation growing up as an athlete, but I was a pitcher for fast pitch softball, therefore I spent most of my time on the mound and helping control the game rather than physically running. And my softball coach happened to also be the track coach, therefore he had us doing running exercises that I felt were irrelevant to the game of softball, and I was terrible at it at all times. So my point being, if I can run a full marathon, I swear to you there is nothing in your life that you cannot physically do, or mentally tackle, or emotionally tackle, if I can do this. I am hell bent convinced of that, and I would love to talk with you if there's something that's really kind of blocking you, and you feel like you can't achieve it. Because if you break it down into bite-sized, manageable, day-to-day tasks, you can totally do it. In the case of running, it's honestly a matter of putting one foot in front of another for 26.2 miles. Of course there's a lot of other things that go into it, but basically speaking it's one foot in front of another.                                     With your goal, I don't know what that goal might look like at this moment, but what I want to talk to you about is authorship, and how writing a book can be your goal for 2016. And if it is your goal in 2016, how writing a book and running a marathon are identical processes. It might sound completely strange at this moment and so early in this podcast, but I can assure you that doing both of them are very, very similar processes. And my goal in 2016 is to help figure it out for you, and make your life a hell of a lot easier in writing your first book.                                     So now hopefully I have your interest piqued in this whole authorship thing, and how this kind of ties back into my business and the podcast. So just for a little bit of a recap, this podcast is going into its fourth year; so I did it all of 2013, all of 2014, all of 2015, and now we're entering into the fourth year. And I have done 74 previous episodes as we are in our 75th episode right now. Each of them, they're 45 minutes to an hour long. I also had another thirty episodes that were about a half an hour each that were part of a special series I did back in 2013 called '30 Days, 30 Voices: Stories from America's LGBT Business Leaders." So this is really kind of the 105th episode if you will of content around what my business does. And my tagline is that I teach straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Much of this podcast, and much of my business has really focused on the former, with really helping straight allies market to the LGBT community in an appropriate way, in a proper way, in an authentic way being genuine. So I really focus on helping people communicate better and market better. And most often I'm working with individuals who are in some kind of service-based business. So they are an attorney, or they're an accountant, or a financial advisor; a lot of people that have longer sales cycles. So it takes longer to build a relationship, therefore it also makes- it gives you more of a window of opportunity to kind of stick your foot in your mouth, and get yourself in trouble. So I have spent a lot of time really focusing on that aspect of my business, and that's really what my two- actually three. The two print books that I have, and then the eBook that I have, all three of them really focus on communications, marketing, really tactical stuff for how to avoid putting yourself into situations that is uncomfortable, makes you uneasy, et cetera.                                     Now while the focus has been to help straight allies in this, I've also helped LGBT people in this process as well, because there's a lot of things that even LGBT people are doing that weren't the most ideal thing. So while the focus has kind of been on the former of I teach straight people how to market to gay people, I've really been teaching gay people how to market themselves as well in very similar ways that I've been teaching the straight allies too. So the previous 74, or 104 if you're counting the Thirty Days series. They've all really been focused on kind of a combination, and it's all been around marketing, it's all been around how to get to your target audience, how to talk to them the right way, how to communicate to them in the right way, et cetera. So in early 2015, I think it was in February actually, I made a conscious effort in my business to say, "You know what? I'm want to focus a little bit more of my time on coaching individuals, coaching LGBT people, and working on the second half of that tagline, of teaching gay people how to market themselves more specifically than my advice that kind of crosses over to the ally community as well."                                     Now with that being said, I realized that there's a very clear pattern with who I work with. With the type of business owner, or the type of entrepreneur, or LGBT person that I work with. It seems like there's a very clear commonality that took me a little bit too long to see the pattern in all of them. But now that I have seen the pattern, it's very clear to me anyway that this is where I need to focus my business in 2016, and focus this podcast as well in 2016. And for allies listening to this, that does not mean in any way that you will not find really good, relevant information that is designed for you. You will absolutely still find a lot of value, I assure you of that. However I am focusing on story telling. And guess what? LGBT people or not, everyone has a story to share. Everyone has some kind of message that they want to get out to the world, and a lot of people are dreaming of being authors but they are frozen in fear with all that comes with being an author.                                     So while I'm talking specifically about wanting to help LGBT people share their stories, if you're an ally and you're listening to this, and you have a story that you want to share too, and you want to be an author to benefit your business, you listening to this podcast shows me that you are open-minded, that you're an ally, that you are someone who likely has a really good story to share, and I want to help you too. I'm not excluding you in any way, shape, or form, so please don't take this as feeling exclusionary because that's not my intention at all. And as I start talking about some of the books that I've been working on, helping people with, you'll see that it's been a really good mix of helping LGBT people and allies. So there's really no exclusion there by any means, because I do love you and I adore you.                                     So now what I've noticed is that I have been working with a lot of authors, and it kind of happened in a very unintentional way. And I've always realized that I work with a lot of creative people. So I really like working with creative people because I personally feel like I'm a pretty good balance of right brain and left brain, so while I can get on these paths of shiny-object-itis if you will, and really excited about something, and want to try all these new things and be really creative, I'm also equal parts logical, and reasonable, and rational, and think, 'Okay is this something that I should really be doing right now?' So I've managed to kind of tap into being able to use both sides of my brain, and it's benefited- I think, and I'm sure they would say too, it's benefitted the people that I've worked with individually a great deal because I can connect with them as the creatives that they want to be, but I can also say, "Alright let's be realistic about this and figure out how you can actually do any of what you're talking about doing right now." And writing a book is one of those things that's just- it seems like a really incredibly daunting task, and you might even be thinking right now, 'Why would I want to put myself through the hell of writing a book?' And I say you should absolutely do it because it will be a life-changer and a game-changer in your business, I can attest to that personally. But I also know that to be true for those that I've worked with.                                     So let me just share with you a couple of the projects that I've worked on, and you'll see very quickly the patterns and the commonalities here, even though it took me a little bit longer to recognize that this is absolutely where I should be focusing my attention. So like I said in early 2015 I had reached out and said, "Hey I would love to work on some more one-on-one coaching," and as a result of just sending an email to my list I had a handful of people say, "Yes I would love to work with you one-on-one." Out of that handful of people, about 30% of them were thinking about writing a book. So I don't know if it's because I have written a book that others have just trusted in me that I can help them write a book, but somehow that's kind of evolved over time. And in 2013 I wrote my first book, and that one is, 'But You Don't Look Gay,' and I'm sure you picked up on the humor and the sarcastic things that come out of my mouth, so I really kind of started that one off strong with, 'But You Don't Look Gay.' And there is reason for why I titled it that, it's written about in the book, and I've certainly talked about it on the podcast at great length. But it's really the six steps to creating your LGBT marketing strategy. And again it's designed for allies, but it's really applicable to LGBT people too. That was the first time that I had written a book, and I had not a single clue as to what I was doing. Literally no clue whatsoever. I've always enjoyed writing, and when I started this iteration of my business if you will, I started in November of 2012 writing blogs. And I was writing blogs addressed to people that I knew who had questions who needed answers, and I knew if I could answer their one question in email, why not throw it on the blog and educate some other people in the process? So that's really how my whole business started.                                     So I started writing this book when I started blogging basically. So I put all of the blogs aside, and I started to just kind of create this library of content, and then after I had probably- I want to say it was at least over 100 blog posts, I said, "Let me kind of organize this, add to it, take things away, and make a book out of it." And that was really the first book in 2013. Now I still had no idea what I was doing in terms of organizing the content, in terms of how do I get it on Amazon, how do I get a book cover designed, how do I get an ISBN number, how do I market this? Marketing is my background so the marketing piece actually was the easier piece, but everything else I honestly had no idea what I was doing.                                     So fast forward to 2014 when I write my second book. That one was a breeze comparatively, and it's also- it's not quite twice the length, but it's significantly larger than the first book. So it's just knowing what I know now, and knowing what I did in 2013, all of the mistakes I made because I made every mistake you can possibly hit, I think I did. But when I went to do it again in 2014 it was so easy; so, so easy. Now the hard part is actually writing the book. That to me is the harder part. So physically writing is what you need to focus on. So if you want to write a book, I can help you, I can shortcut everything but the actual physical writing part. However I do have some tips and tricks around that, too. But in 2013 I was working with a small group of other marketers, and just kind of a Mastermind group if you will, where we get together once a month, and we still do, and this goes back to about 2013. We still get together, and we just brainstorm ideas and I had shown them that I had written my first book, and one of the people in my group- or it's a couple, so the husband and wife, two people that I work very closely with, they decided that they also wanted to write a book. So when I began helping them, it was in a very informal way, and it was really just me wanting to help peers of mine shortcut the process. So I provided my template that I used for my first book, I said, "Here it is, it's in a Word document, here's the font I chose, here's the heading font, here's the paragraph font." I had very specific reasons for why I chose those based on design principles, and I just said, "Here. Take it, use it as a template, make your own book out of it." And then of course as they were going through it, I was one of the proof-readers for it, I gave them a testimonial; like we really just kind of worked together, again in a very informal way. So their book has been out for going on three years. I think they put it out in 2013, I could get up from my desk and walk over to it and tell you exactly, but I will put a link to their book in the show notes on today's podcast episode which you can get by going to www.JennTGrace.com/75 because we're in episode number 75. So if you want to check out that book you could certainly do so by clicking on that link, and it's on Amazon. So that was kind of the first time that I helped somebody else, and it was really just me helping friends get their stories out there.                                     So this happened a second time within that same group, but it wasn't until earlier in this last year, in 2015. So somebody else in my group who is also a marketer; he was working on his book and we basically did the same thing. So it's the same two people in that group and him, so now it's the three of us teaching this one other person in our group what we did. So I shared my stuff with Mike and Maria; they're the ones that did the first book. And then myself, Mike, and Maria showed the other Mike in our group how to do his book. And now his learning curve was shortened dramatically as well because Maria and Mike had gone through all of the same kind of hiccups and failures and successes of what they used from my starting point when I gave them my book information.                                     So as you can see, the more times this kind of happens, the easier it really becomes for everybody involved. So Mike- the other Mike was very grateful and acknowledging me as helping him in getting that book done, I did a good proofread of it, I edited a little bit, and that came out in early or mid-2015 I want to say. So that book also available on Amazon which I will include in the show notes.                                     So now I had my two books, and their two books already, so that's four we're already at. And then I had a third eBook that I'd released in 2015 earlier this year about marriage equality. So five books already kind of under the belt.                                     Now the process for all five books was a little bit different, and it really just kind of varied based on the size of book, what the intention of the book was, so am I writing this to get more business? Am I writing this to become a well-known authority in my space? Am I writing this to give it to my clients to just give them something to hold them over between coaching sessions? Or between projects? So there's a lot of different reasons you might want a book, and it's a matter of kind of identifying what those are, and then creating the best book that's going to get you that end result.                                     So now if we talk about 2015 a little bit more, I have been working with three people in particular throughout all of 2015, and we'll be going into 2016 on books of theirs. So one of theirs was previously a guest on this podcast, Ann Townsend. She has written a book called 'LGBTQ: Outing My Christianity." She and I have been working together for about going on I think a year and a half or so, so we've been working together for a while. She already has one book written, she's working on a couple of others, and we work in a one-on-one capacity, and just helping her just kind of shortcut the process where possible, making introductions to her to people in my network that could be good contributors. So it's again, while it's in a formal coaching capacity, I'm really kind of just sharing my knowledge and wisdom to a friend, and just trying to help as much as I can just make the process a little bit easier for her. And since she's already done one book, it's made life a little bit easier for her because she kind of already knows how the process works.                                     So that's just one person that I have been helping in a somewhat informal capacity. But then the two people- the two books that I have worked on in 2015 have been in a very, very, very formal capacity. And one of them just launched in November, so just a couple of months ago, and it's by Tony Ferraiolo and his book is called 'Artistic Expressions of Transgender Youth.' And his book is on Amazon now, and I helped him with the entirety of this book. From choosing a book cover, to figuring out what stock and weight of paper that we wanted to use, what size, what printer we wanted to go with, how we were going to get it on Amazon, how we were going to market it, who the end audience is; you name it, we have worked on it together, including putting together a book signing that was in December of 2015. So his book has been really, really hands on, very, very tactical, here's how I shortcutted the process for me, but what we learned in the process is that Amazon does not print hard cover books. So if you want to go use CreateSpace which is an Amazon book creation tool, there are no hard cover options; or at least when we were looking for him, or the size that we were looking for. So we had to go print separately which just creates a whole other level of chaos, complications, et cetera. It's also more expensive, but we've been going through that process for much of 2015, and now that is down to a science. So he is going to be working on volumes two, three, and I think a fourth one; all of which are going to be as easy as can be because we've already learned from doing the first one of that type of style- that style of a book if you will.                                     Now it was at Tony's book signing that I knew for a fact that I needed to focus on helping people share their stories in 2016. There is no two ways around it. If I could identify an epiphany or an 'ah-ha' type of moment, it was absolutely at his book signing. So his book- and he's also been a guest on this podcast as well, so I'll put a link into that in the show notes too, and the book. But his book is a picture book, and it is art drawn by transgender children who range from as young as six to as old as I think 21. And he asks them a question, "If you had all the money in the world, what would you buy?" And they're kids, they're young people, so they just draw what they feel. And then they write what their drawing means on the back of it. So we compiled all of this into a picture book. So I think a good marketing play for us would be to be packaging the book with tissues because it is a tear jerker, I assure you of this. And it's so good, so if you're doing anything in the transgender space of the LGBT community, this book is seriously amazing, and I don't say that because I had any part of it. It's just the content of it is amazing.                                     So for his book we did a book signing in New Haven, Connecticut, and one of the kids who is in the book showed up with their mother, and we had a special stack of books waiting for the kids who were in the book to come and get a special signed copy of the book. Additionally Tony had his own copy where he wanted the kids that were in the book to sign their page of the book. So for Tony, this is a life changing experience to produce this book, because it's so much of his hard work, and so much of his story, and the kids that he works with and their journey, put in a very neat package for the outside world to understand. However, it didn't occur to me- and I guess it did but it wasn't as profound as the actual physically being there for this to happen. I guess it didn't really hit me of how impactful the books would have on those who are included in them. So there are dozens of children whose artwork are in this book that is really deep and meaningful to them, and one of them as I had mentioned- actually more than one, there was a handful of them that were all there for the book signing. One of them was kind enough to be helping me swipe credit cards to sell the books which was really cute because I think he's nine. So yeah, so fun, had a great time. And one of the kids came in- and mind you they're walking behind their mother, a little bit timid, a little bit shy, I don't know this kid at all. I've run into them at a couple of Tony's events that we've thrown, et cetera. And I was sitting behind the table with all of the books, and I was watching them interact with Tony, just kind of seeing everybody's crying, everybody's teary eyed because the book is so emotional. And then I am watching them go out of the small book cafe that we were at. And as they were turning the corner to go out the front door, kind of walking a couple steps behind their mother, they had put the book which is just this very nice, hard cover- you know like a children's picture book landscape. They put it up to their chest, and I could see the biggest sigh, like you could just see their body, kind of their shoulders rise up and then exhale, like it was the biggest, deepest breath that I could see from about ten feet away, that no one else caught because no one's paying attention to people leaving, everyone's chatting. And I knew in that moment, my hair on my arms stood up, I had chills, I had tears in my eyes thinking, 'Holy shit, this book has changed that person's life.' There is no doubt in my mind that that book is a game changer for that one individual child.                                     Now knowing that all of the blood, sweat, and many tears that Tony and I put into getting his story out there; there is not a single dollar amount in this world that could replace the experience of seeing that one kid who's featured in that book, and how much that's changing their life. Like there is just no way of counting how incredible that experience is.                                     It was in that moment, like truly in that moment, that I realized, 'Holy hell, I need to use my process oriented, operationally focused brain in helping people like Tony, and like others that I've worked with like Ann, and Mike and Maria, and the other Mike, and helping them get their stories out to the world. Because I've done this as many times as I have at this point, that to me the actual logistics, the nuts and bolts, the BS of it, the stuff that makes people want to bang their head against the wall and pull their hair out; that's the stuff that I love doing, that's where I thrive. So knowing that I have that skillset, and somebody with such an incredible story has something to share, and it's that lack of skillset that's stopping them, it was truly that 'ah-ha' moment where I was like I have to do this. I have to focus 2016 on helping you get your story out. So there's a couple of other things that kind of dovetail into this epiphany, and like I said I didn't realize how many authors I was already kind of working with. And I have another author who I am not mentioning by name yet because I'm waiting specifically for when her book is out, I cannot wait. I really- just like with Tony's book, I felt just as proud of having Tony's book released as I did my own. Like I honestly felt that much pride for his work as I do my own work, and it's going to be the same thing for this other book that I'm working on. And this one's been really different because it's equal parts manifesto, it's kind of corporate focused. There's a lot of interesting nuances to this book, and one of them being is that this particular author isn't really a fan of writing- or she's a really, really good writer actually, but she just doesn't have the time or the focus to sit down and write. And just that thought of having to write just really kind of stressed her out for a long time that she kept putting it off, and putting it off. So we found a really good solution to have her basically be interviewed by somebody, which is then the basis of ghost writing that we can use to put into a book. And now this book is being more traditionally published if you will. So everyone else that I've worked with has been down the self-published road, which at this point you're much better off going self-published because the royalties of a traditionally published book are so high that if you're trying to make money off of publishing a book, it's certainly not going to be going down a traditionally published path, or at least in my experience. I'm sure there's many people who would debate me on that, but in my experience it's just- it's really costly. So with her, we found a way to really kind of navigate her busy lifestyle, and get somebody else to write the meat of the book, but in her voice because she's actually spoken it to somebody who's recorded it, and now they're using the transcripts to write the basis of the book.                                     So there's that one that I will be talking much more about on this podcast as it progresses. But I think what I would say that my toughest- yeah I would probably say my toughest hurdle to cross in 2016 as it relates to book writing is that I started writing a fourth book in early 2016. It's around LGBT, around how to leverage your LGBT status as a business owner, and really finding new opportunities, all that kind of stuff. It's probably 70% written I would say, but it hasn't been a strong enough priority for me to get it through that last 30%. So it's just kind of sitting shelved for right now, that I'll get back to it at some point. What book it ends up being, I have no idea, but it'll end up being- it'll end up coming out at some point.                                     However what I did have is another epiphany over the Thanksgiving holiday, and I realized during Thanksgiving that I needed to write a book that has nothing to do with LGBT, and co-author it with my wife, who has no desire to be an author really because she's an educator. She works in special education, she's a behavioral specialist, and we realized that we needed to write a book about the trials and tribulations and judgment that we face as two people trying to raise a child with mental health needs. And this was truly an epiphany, and it was more of an 'I have to write this book for my own well-being,' like 'I need this book in the world because it doesn't exist.' So my wife and I are working on that, and I think that it's not really challenging so to speak for the book writing aspect because we're collecting stories from twenty to thirty other families in similar situations to ours, so I'm going to be getting a lot of content from other places. But we've been talking about how are we going to use this book to help position my wife in more of an authoritative space so she can use this as somewhat of a launching pad into potential new opportunities for her. We have no idea what that looks like right now, none whatsoever. However, we're constantly talking about it, we're just going to keep kind of ruminating on it and figuring out where that's going to bring her, but that's going to be getting her to have the status of being an author, which will be a game changer for her in her community, because authors in her community are likely far less than in the business community where- I don't want to say everybody has a book, but a lot of people have books now, so it's not that uncommon to have a book. It's almost- it's becoming more common to have books, or to feel the need to have a book, to just basically stay afloat and keep up with a lot of people, of course depending on what niche you're in. So this is going to be definitely more challenging to figure out how to get her brain to wrap her head around how we're going to do this. So that's something that I'm focusing on in 2016 around authoring and doing more in this space.                                     So I tell you all of this, and I don't mean to over-simplify and try to pretend that writing a book is not a total pain, and I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it, because it really still is a pain. It totally, totally is. And even for me who I've done- I've been involved in a handful of them at this point, almost a dozen of them at this point. There's nuance in all of these basically. So what I want to emphasize I guess is there are ways to shortcut this process, and what I've realized is that I only have a limited amount of time because I am working with people one-on-one, I have Fortune sized clients, I have some larger consulting contracts; so I'm kind of a little bit all over the map in terms of what it is that I'm doing, but it's all still around LGBT; that's totally the core of what I do.                                     Now what I wanted to do, and what I am doing, is on February 1st I am launching a group program, and it's only for twelve people at most. Twelve people, that's it. And I've chosen twelve people specifically so I can make sure that everyone's getting enough one-on-one attention. But it's going to be in a group format, and it's going to go for ninety days, and my goal is to walk twelve individuals through the process of becoming an author in ninety days. Now the end goal for some people is to have a book done and launched by the end of those ninety days. For others it's a matter of getting them organized, and giving them the information that they need to then write their book at the end of the ninety days, and use that information to take it across the finish line. So everyone has a different goal, and I'm not trying to force people in saying, "If you're part of this program you have to have a book in ninety days." I know that's not realistic, I know that's not attainable, and I'm not going to put pressure on people in that way. So a couple of weeks ago before the holiday chaos kind of hit us, I had sent a quick email to my list, and five people responded within like a matter of an hour. And of those five people I have four of them who've already committed to the group, and I have a fifth person who is like a 95%. So I already have five people committed to this group that starts on February 1st. It's going to go regardless of the number of people who end up in it, but twelve is the cut-off. So I have room for seven more individuals who want to put a book out there in 2016.                                     Now I'll tell you a little bit about what the course looks like, just so you have a general idea. And I don't have a name for it even, it's that new of an idea, and just talking with five people and all five of them saying, "Yes, for the love of God, yes I need to do this. I need to get my story out there." That validates everything to me. It validates absolutely everything, and that this is the right path to go on. So it's so new that I do not have a name for it. I'm calling it the Author Program Live right now, because it is a live program. It's not a, 'Here, log into here and just watch some videos.' It's really- it's me, it's you, and it's eleven other people learning how to do this at the same time you are. So the benefit to that is everyone's kind of at a different stage of what they're doing. So one person I talked to has about 85% of her book written, and she just needs to figure out how to get that last 15% written, and then how to do all of the dirty details of 'how do I actually publish it? Where do I go? How do I get registered with the Library of Congress? How do I get an ISBN number? How do I market it?' Et cetera, et cetera. So there's just a ton of weedy details that people hate that I already have figured out that I can just completely shortcut, you don't have to stress about.                                     So it'll be ninety days, so from February 1st to April 30th. It will be a good kind of first quarter, going into the second quarter project. And it's going to be kind of sharing things like the tools of the trade, how to re-purpose your existing content if you have it, deciding on what you're going to write, how to position yourself as an expert if that's what you want to do, deciding if traditional publishing is better than self-publishing for you, although much of it will focus on the self-published road. And working with an editor, how to figure out your publication date; all of these really kind of annoying details, in a lot of ways, very annoying details. And the more I guess the one-on-one component of it, is that it's going to have twelve sessions- so it's really about twelve weeks, and they're going to be sixty minutes, maybe up to ninety minutes via a webinar on Tuesday nights at 8:30 Eastern time. And I have chosen that time based on the availability of the five other people who've committed to this, and I would love for you to be able to attend live. But if you can't it's not a big deal because I am going to record it and make it available to you after the fact. It will be available the following morning, if not that night. And each week is going to discuss some kind of topic in detail, it's going to have open Q&A so if you have specific needs that you need answers to right then, bring them to the table, we'll talk about it. We'll also do some laser coaching to get you over any particular humps and hurdles that you have. And then occasionally we're going to have some guest speakers thrown in who have already been where you are, and need that extra push to- you need that extra push from them to kind of help you get through this. So it's not just the live webinars once a week, it's also a Facebook group. And I chose Facebook because everyone's there, I'm not going to try to set up some separate site that you have to remember the log-in info for, completely forget it, and then have to be a total pain. So Facebook is a likely source that you're already on, so I'm doing a private Facebook group that will be with me, my assistant, and the up to twelve participants that you can ask questions at any time. You don't have to wait until we connect on Tuesday nights, you can just ask your peers what they think. So if you're in the process of designing your cover for example, why wait? Throw it up there and say, "Hey everyone, here's cover A, here's cover B, which one do you like?" So you can do a lot of stuff like that, or "Hey I really need somebody to look at my intro and tell me if this makes sense." Or "I just wrote the book outline, I don't think the chapters are in the right order, but I don't know how to put them in the right order. Can you help look at this?" So really it's a matter of having this- and not just me because I don't have all of the answers, I just happened to have done it enough times that I know where to find the answers. But now you have eleven other peers who are in this group, who can totally help you shortcut the process too.                                     So- and one of I guess the really exciting things I'm personally excited about, and this actually came as an idea from one of the people who've already decided that- 'sign me up,' is you're basically forming your own tribe of people. So now if you have eleven other people in this group with you, and your mailing list has maybe 200 people; so it's not a lot of people, but for your business it's a healthy size and it's great. But you also have somebody in your group who has a mailing list of 20,000 people for example. And they're really excited, and engaged in what you're doing, that they can- when you're doing your book launch, you can reach out to them and say, "Hey can you share my book with your list?" And you can figure out a whole bunch of different affiliate marketing types of things, and commission, and there's a lot of things that I'll go into in this course. But just from a general standpoint, you now have eleven people who have audiences who may have a connection to what you're writing about, that can then amplify and magnify your reach exponentially, and to me that is so amazing. So you're getting actual support in the weeds of getting it done, but then when it comes time to launch the book, you can shoot yourself to best-seller status on Amazon very, very, very easy by having this amplification of other people's tribes to help you get there. And I'm really excited about that, because I got both of my books to Amazon best-seller status, and it was not an easy feat, there are ways to do it I think more efficiently than I did it, and I know this is one of those ways. So it's just a lot of stuff like this that I'm just really, really excited about, and this is why I know that doing this is the right path for me personally.                                     So I do want to point out really quickly who the program is not for. Honestly, because there's a couple of types of people in here that I don't want part of the group, and I do want to have a conversation with you first prior to you joining. So if you're looking for a magic pill to just snap your fingers and all of a sudden you have a book, it's not going to work. I assure you of this. Or if you're resistant to changing your ways, it's also not going to work. So we're really going to- you have to be willing to shake things up. You want to be reaching outside of your comfort zone, and say, "This is a priority for me, I can make these certain changes in my life to accommodate this priority." And then if you're just comfortable and complacent, and you don't really have any drive or desire to be kind of reaching higher heights and peaks in your business, this probably isn't going to be for you. So I wanted to point that out because I'm not allowing people who don't have the right chops if you will to be in the program. Because having somebody who's kind of lackluster about it, it's just going to kind of be a wet blanket on the rest of the group, and I really want to protect the sanctity of what we're out to accomplish here in this particular group.                                     So if any of this sounds interesting to you, the only website I need you to remember other than you can just go to my website and contact me there, is going to www.MeetWithJenn.com, and that brings you to my calendar, and you can schedule a time to talk to me between now and February 1st and tell me if you would like to participate in this program. And it's just really a matter of me- for you and I getting to know each other, just for thirty minutes or so, to find out if you're a right for this program. And if you are then hop on in and we will make sure that you get your book in 2016.                                     So that my friend is the lay of the land for 2016. So really my commitment to running a marathon is going to be similar to your commitment to writing a book if that's what you so choose. So if that is one of your goals, I want to help you achieve that goal. If writing a book is not part of your goals, there are plenty of things in this podcast throughout this year that are still going to absolutely be relevant to you. For example one of the- actually the next podcast on January 21st is going to be with Dorie Clark. So if you don't know Dorie Clark, she is a marketing strategy consultant. She writes for the Harvard Business Review, Time, Entrepreneur, the World Economic Forum; she's kind of all over the place, and she's a recognized branding expert. So she has two books. One is called 'Reinventing You,' and then she has a second one which is called 'Stand Out,' and it was named the number one leadership book of 2015 by Inc. Magazine. And I don't know about you but I love Inc. Magazine, and I love Entrepreneur, they're two of my absolute favorite magazines. And she also happens to be an out lesbian who's making a huge impact on the world. So she's the first interview that I have in 2016, and it's very kind of my standard interview format that if you're a listener of this podcast you are very familiar with. But we talk a little bit about her book and writing content. So to me a book is just one more form of content creation, and that's the one I'm going to focus on, for me helping people in 2016. But all other forms of content creation are absolutely going to be coming up in this podcast, so don't think that I'm only going to talk about book creation on this podcast, because that is likely not going to be the case. It's going to be likely similar to what's been going on in the past, where I bring to you information that I think is going to be relevant to helping you market to the LGBT community, or market yourself within the LGBT community. So either way there's going to be plenty of information for you, I promise.                                     So as I mentioned, all of the things that I talked about, links to certain places, links to my calendar, past interviewees that have been on the show; you can go to www.JennTGrace.com/75 or you can just go to the website and click on the free podcast link in the navigation bar. Either way, you will find yourself to the page with all of the information. So if you are looking to share your story, and you think what I've been talking about makes sense for you, please reach out to me. For me personally, having a tangible outcome from somebody that I'm working with is honestly the best feeling, reflecting back on that experience with Tony at his book signing. If I can be the conduit to creating more opportunities like that in 2016, it would be an honor, truly an honor to be part of that journey no matter how big or small, part of that journey with you. Honestly, seriously can't wait. Cannot wait for 2016, I'm really excited about this.                                     So anyway, until the next episode, I hope you have a great week, keep your head held high, and go out and just kick some ass in your business, will you? Have a great one, I'll talk to you soon.  

Most common thing I heard from people who are somewhat interested in the idea of competitive shooting is that they aren't good enough. - If you can draw the gun, and walk around without pointing it at yourself or anyone else, and can do basic malfunction clearance, you have the skills needed to get started. That's not to say that you're "good enough" though. When you start, you're going to suck at it. It's that way with ANYTHING you do in life, so accept it. - When I started cycling way back when, I was awful. When I picked it up again last fall, I was awful again. I'm still not great, but the more time I spend on the bike the more I'm learning and honing my skills. - It was the same when I really took up shooting as a hobby. When I started I didn't have a clue what my sights looked like when the shot broke, and if I shot 10 rounds, and 5 of them were in the center of the target, and 5 were low and left, I couldn't tell you what was different on those shots. Now? I'll still pull a shot low/left now and then, but I know the very instant that the gun goes off that something went wrong. Because I've put in the time and practice to learn these things. - There's a Swedish Psychologist named K Anders Ericcson who's literally wrote the book on this stuff. I haven't read the book yet (literally ordered it while working on these shownotes) but I've listened to him interviewed on the Freakonomics podcast a while back, as well as heard him referenced in many different audiobooks about mastery and things like that, and basically, the way I understand what I've heard about his research is that some people are born with somewhat of an advantage in their given field, but for the most part, if you want to master something, you've got to put in the work. Not just "work" but deliberate practice. So, if you know you're going to suck at competitive shooting when you start, why should you start? I've found it to be incredibly rewarding for several reasons: 1. Not to sound cocky, but I've become one of the better shooters out there. If you put me and 10 random gun owners on the range, and have us shoot for accuracy with a handgun, I'll finish near the top, because I've practiced a LOT more than the average person. 2. I've built a level of confidence in myself, my gear, and my abilities that I didn't have before I became a competitor. Certainly before I was a competitor I would pretend I had confidence when talking to my buddies about shooting, but now that I shoot a lot, practice a lot, and know what I'm capable of (with the numbers to prove it) I'm very confident should I ever need to use my gun for self defense. 3. I've got to meet some of the best in the world at my craft. If I were a runner, I probably wouldn't meet Usain Bolt at a random 5K in North Carolina. If I were a competitive cyclist, the chances of rolling up to the line with Chris Froome just wouldn't happen. BUT, there's something about competitive shooting that's different. When we invited Chris Tilley to come over to Ben's house, and record a podcast around his kitchen table, he was happy to do it. When you roll up to the starting position and Todd Jarrett has the timer, chances are he's going to drop some knowledge on you at some point if he thinks you need it. When we had Ben Stoeger on the podcast, he invited us into his hotel room to record it. These are world class shooters, all of them, and they're available and approachable. When we interviewed Tilley one of the things he said was that he loves teaching brand new shooters how to shoot. Not the A class guys who should practice more, and make excuses for not doing it, but the people who have never shot before. I think that's freaking cool. All this to day: if you've EVER wanted to try competitive shooting, do it. If you've ever wanted to gain more confidence in your shooting, try competition. If you've ever heard that competitive shooting will get you killed on the streets, come try it, and if you're just looking for something to waste your Saturday's on, we'll see you on the range. Gear that Doesn't Suck: If you're looking to become a better shooter, you need a shot timer. If you're shooting drills on the range and you're not timing them, I think you're wasting ammo. Just get a Pocket Pro 2 timer, and be done with it. The News Mike Vanderboegh passed away this week. He was a fervent 2A supporter, and he did a lot of good work. I'll miss him. There were reports of an Active Shooter at Crabtree Valley Mall here in Raleigh in Saturday. At this point on Sunday there are a lot of conflicting reports from witnesses, some saying they heard a shot, some saying they heard 4 shots, others saying they heard 12-14 shots. The police still say they don't have any evidence of any shooting taking place. While it was all going down, apparently some dude approached the mall dressed in camo, carrying a rifle, and said that he was there to help the police. Contact There's a new way to contact the podcast. If you want to send in a voicemail through your phone, just dial 7817-BULLET and you'll be connected to the Triangle Tactical voicemail line. Boom.

Sooner Than GoldBy Cory SkerryI tug on clean underwear in case I get arrested, paint my makeup perfectly because there's nothing sadder than a grown man in badly applied eyeliner, and climb out my apartment window, onto the fire escape.I can't be late to this assignment, and if I go through the lobby, there's a strong chance the night doorman will have a thing or two to say about the video footage of our card game last night. I forgot there was a camera pointed at the lobby desk.The asphalt below reeks of garbage and piss; about half of the latter is probably mine. Don't judge. If I'm drunk enough, there's not even any point in aiming for the toilet.My boots land softly as I hit the ground, but the ladder clangs as my weight slides off. I look back up at the enchantment, where it strings out from my leg to the trunk in my apartment.----more----[Music plays]Hello, Welcome to GlitterShip episode nine for June 4... ish... 2015. I'm your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing this story with you.I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but in Seattle it's gone from kinda-warm-May to high summer death heat— which probably doesn't really count as that hot for pretty much anyone else but ugh. I mean, we're talking like 85 degress Fahrenheit. So I know that yes, that does mean I'm a wimp, but that's really hot for me. And I'm probably doomed as I move over to New York at the end of August. So hopefully I don't just end up melting into a horrible puddle.Anyway. Since our last episode a couple things have happened, at the beginning of the month, the Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issue of Lightspeed Magazine is out. You can read the first two stories for free now, or buy the issue to read the whole thing right away. I think some of the content is going to remain ebook only but more of the stories will be made available for free as the month goes on.The 27th annual Lambda Literary Awards have also been announced. The winner for LGBT science fiction / fantasy / horror is Chaz Brenchley for his short fiction collection Bitter Waters. The other nominees included Daryl Gregory for Afterparty, Lee Thomas for Butcher's Road, A. M. Dellamonica for Child of a Hidden Sea, Max Gladstone for Full Fathom Five, Lea Daley for FutureDyke and Craig Laurance Gidney for Skin Deep Magic. Congrats to everyone for making it to the shortlist, or winning if you're Chaz. The full list of winners and nominees is available on lambdaliterary.org, and I'll include a link in the transcript so you can check out the other categories.Our story for this week is "Sooner than Gold" by Cory Skerry.Cory Skerry lives in a converted garage that belongs to a pair of valkyries. If he's not peddling (or meddling with) art supplies, he's writing, reading submissions, or off exploring with his sweet, goofy pit bulls. When his current meatshell begins to fall apart, he'd like science to put his brain into a giant killer octopus body, with which he'll be very responsible and not even slightly shipwrecky. He promises. For more stories, visit coryskerry.netSooner Than GoldBy Cory SkerryI tug on clean underwear in case I get arrested, paint my makeup perfectly because there's nothing sadder than a grown man in badly applied eyeliner, and climb out my apartment window, onto the fire escape.I can't be late to this assignment, and if I go through the lobby, there's a strong chance the night doorman will have a thing or two to say about the video footage of our card game last night. I forgot there was a camera pointed at the lobby desk.The asphalt below reeks of garbage and piss; about half of the latter is probably mine. Don't judge. If I'm drunk enough, there's not even any point in aiming for the toilet.My boots land softly as I hit the ground, but the ladder clangs as my weight slides off. I look back up at the enchantment, where it strings out from my leg to the trunk in my apartment.It's a violet chain so thin it looks like I could break it with my fingers, glossy and iridescent like niobium. It burns where it enters my skin, a pain so bright and cruel it took me a week to learn to sleep again.Sometimes I think about finding some woo-woo psychic to tell me what it is or try to remove it, but I'm afraid the person at the other end of the chain will find out.Desert heat radiates from the ground, warming the soles of my boots, and I worry about pit-stains and failing hair gel. I shouldn't have worn my jacket, but I cut a better figure with something to embellish my shoulders. And I need to look sharp. I can't use my charm at a drag queen convention if I look like a microwaved cat turd.I give in and hail a cab, where I endure five minutes of crackly radio commercials and a Celine Dion song. My reward is AC while I sip from my flask and neurotically check the book for new directives.The book is old, like grandpa-times-three old. The worn leather cover is flexible and shiny from years of use, but the gilt edges of the pages haven't rubbed away. Sometimes I flip through all the paragraphs of nonsense, written in languages I don't recognize, but I usually just open to the page with the ribbon bookmark, the one page that's in English.The book says the same thing it said when I woke up this afternoon:GlitzCon Ball. Saturday night, 8:00 p.m. Pluck the thorns of the black lily. Do not touch her with your bare flesh.This cryptic bullshit is sometimes worse, sometimes better, but it nearly always works out in the end. I tuck the book back in my pocket as the cab rolls up to the convention. The side mirror shows me still-flawless makeup before the cab pulls away.Inside the hotel, I follow signs to the ballroom entrance, where the bass from the party is rattling the doors. An employee holds up a warning hand. She has enough cakey makeup and sparkly rings to be a GlitzCon attendee, and she's old enough to be my mother.This isn't the only entrance for me, but I want to see if I look as good as I think I do, so I'll try it."Where's your con badge?" the Sparkly Cougar asks."I don't have one," I say."Then—"I step back, cock a hip, and hold out my hands in the universal gesture for "I'm unarmed." It works even when you're not talking to cops. "But that room is full of horny, middle-aged queens, and you know what they like even more than bitching about how painful their shoes are?"I use both thumbs to peel back the fitted black cloth of my coat, exposing my all-black rockstar outfit: lace shirt, pierced nipples, edges of a mystery tattoo creeping up above the low-slung waistline of my skinny jeans. I'm going for "slutty Japanese pop star" tonight."This."Sparkly Cougar reluctantly chuckles.I grin. "I know, right? Come on, honey, you know no one is going to complain."She rolls her eyes, but she laughs and opens the door for the best thief she'll ever meet.I stroll into pandemonium. The stench of perfume, sweat, fuzzy teeth, and wine is almost too heavy to breathe;  the requisite flock of disco balls spin stars across the crowd; and the electronic music booms and whirs beside the cacophony of hundreds of gaudy floral costumes. One queen is wearing a ball gown that looks like a giant upside-down rose; another has a bouffant wig with real miniature pansies planted in it. Daffodils, lupines, orchids... None of the elaborate, garish costumes is a black lily.I don't see any black anything—I stand out like a goth skidmark.I had this coat tailored just for me, a slim-waisted frock style with buttons made of real antique coins: pieces-of-eight from a treasure chest I never should have stolen and definitely never should have opened. Still, without the chest I wouldn't have had the cash to pay the seamstress, and now I have over thirty hidden pockets to stuff with jewelry. Even though I'm here for the thorns of the black lily, nothing says I can't nab some extra rock candy to pay bills like rent and booze.I wend my way through the garden of glitter, searching for others in male clothing. Dudes or not, their jewelry is more likely to be real.I pretend that I've tripped on a drag queen's train,  stumble into a fat fellow whose tie tack looks like it might be real diamonds, and walk off wishing I dared snatch the matching cuff links. But even though I did put on clean underwear, I don't want to risk getting caught.The author of the book is not pleased when I'm delayed by jail.I try not to think about that, instead searching for a black flower costume. There must be a thousand attendees in this cavernous geode of a ballroom, plus at least fifteen hotel staff, ten live parrots hanging in gilded cages by the garden-themed photo set in the back, and two service dogs for one old lady. After forty-five minutes of charming my way through the crowd, winking when someone slaps my ass and leaning over to kiss fingers while I tease off rings—that shit works, I'm telling you—I'm still the single smudge of goth couture in this florist shop LARP.It's been almost two years since I failed to steal what the book directed.I am not going to fail again.Even the AC can't stop me from sweating now, and I pat at my hairline with my handkerchief. My mascara is waterproof, but that only goes so far.The fucking book can't be specific, can it? No, it just gives me riddles. Maybe I'm looking for a small enamel lily pin on someone's lapel. Maybe the book means black as in African-American, wearing a lily costume of any possible goddamned color.Around the room again, and again. Checking lapels, checking skin colors against costumes, panicking every time I see people trickle out the doors. I head for the nearest door—it's actually the one I came in—and place my hand on the knob. Options blur through my mind: the elevator, the emergency stairs, a utility closet. I choose the last, and when I open the door, that's where it leads.I shut the door quickly behind me, because I don't want anyone following. Now if they try to open the same door, it will lead into the hall, where it actually goes. Relieved, I take a deep breath of the closet's comparatively fresh air. Just a faint odor of pine, bleach, and the musty suggestion of a mop put away while wet.Two doors' distance is all I get. Don't ask me how it works, or why I can do it, but if I lay my hand on a knob or a handle, I can choose if the door opens into the following room, or any of the rooms that annex that same room. Sometimes it's a dead end, like this closet, because there's no other door to open. I've chosen the wrong door and gotten arrested before—it's a bit like trying to solve a maze with a pen instead of a pencil. You just screw up sometimes.Like sometime, you might go into a room no other human could have found. Maybe you take a chest that wasn't meant for a human to have. You smugly carry it back to your apartment, but the moment you open the lid, a chain snakes into your leg. The pain is phenomenal. You dig through the chest, looking for something to cut yourself free, but there's nothing but gold coins and one crappy old book in a language you can't read.The intangible chain stretches all the way to the hardware store, where they think you're a psycho case when you start hacking at the linoleum floor by your feet with garden shears, and then an axe, and then a sledgehammer. The cops mace your crazy ass, but you barely even feel it because your leg is getting worse. You say you were angry and drunk, and you agree to pay the damages, and you go home in defeat.You can't even tell the truth to friends or your now-ex-boyfriend, because they can't see the enchantment.There is no sleep. Not for days. You consider amputation, start looking up methods on the Internet. Turns out there are fetishists for everything, and their utter batshitness might be your gain. But before you pack your leg in ice to induce a frostbite so severe the doctors will be forced to surgically remove your curse, you wonder about the book.You open it again, hoping there's something in there, something to explain, even if it's just a picture. It's gibberish until one page, the page that says:Nautical exhibit at museum at midnight. Brass spyglass from a 1728 wreck. Place it in chest.You know which museum has the nautical exhibit. What do you have to lose? It doesn't hurt any more to walk than it does to stay in place. And you miss stealing, since you've been hiding in your apartment biting a pillow and swallowing a plethora of Vicodin tablets that do absolutely nothing.The moment you place the spyglass in the chest, it slides through the wooden bottom, like it's sinking through water.The pain in your leg becomes bearable. It doesn't disappear—it never fucking disappears, never—but you can pass out now. You sleep, and you don't wake up from a dream about being savaged by a shark or stepping in a bear trap or being allergic to only one of your socks.So you steal what the book tells you, and you put it in the chest. Gold coins ooze up from the other side, breaching like whales, until there's a stack to replace your offering.The burning subsides for a time, but the book always makes more demands.Now that I have the privacy of the closet, I pull the book out and look again. It says what it said before, plus one more word.NOW.I jam it back into my pocket, take a deep breath, and step back into the bouquet of B.O. and carcinogenic perfumes. I arrange a smile on my face with all the care that a florist takes with a wreath for a state funeral.Maybe I'm not looking for a person. Maybe the "her" was a statue, or a painting. I close my eyes almost all the way, so I just see a blur of light and color through my lashes, and scan the room. When a dark patch appears, it's just one of the service dogs I spotted earlier, a saggy-bellied lab standing guard by her owner's feet. Before I can dismiss her entirely, however, I spot a glint of silver on her service coat.Hundred bucks says I know that dog's name.They're leaving right now. The door shuts behind them.I duck around huge hats and ponyfalls, poofy skirts and trailing scarves. When I exit the ballroom, they're nearly to the elevator.No, no, no. I break my practiced saunter and jog down the hall toward the woman and her dogs. I hate drawing attention, but I don't have a choice.I slow as I approach, creeping up behind Lily's wagging tail. The pin comes off of her embroidered "Service Animal" coat easily, though the sharp edges puncture the pads of my fingers.Lily's tail brushes across my cheek as I get to my feet.She spins and snarls. Her elderly owner hauls at the leash, her face calm as her four-legged companion tries to get close enough to chew my nuts. I don't have to pretend to be terrified.I clench the pin in my hand, trying to pretend it's not cold as a polar bear's butthole. It's not the first object I've been told to steal that has strange properties, but it's the first that numbs my fingers until I can't even tell if they're still gripping it."Holy shit, your dog is psycho!" I yell, backing away."You probably deserve it," the woman snaps. Her other dog growls low in its throat, but it doesn't struggle to reach me the way Lily does.I flee, my heart beating faster than the electronic music in the next room.Good. Now I'll go home and throw this pin in the chest and waste Glenlivet by drinking it fast until I pass out. I open the book—still the same message—and tuck the bloody pin under the cover. When I get frisked, they never seem to be able to find the book, so it'll be safest there.I no sooner finish tucking it into my breast pocket than someone with a beautiful Spanish accent says, "You're not supposed to pet service dogs."I glance over my shoulder, just to be sure it isn't security.It's a queen, maybe. I can't tell; she's lanky, with a Roman nose and overpainted lips. She could be female with strong features, or male with delicate ones. She has blood-red extensions, high-quality toyokalon bound into a messy ponytail to show off her impossibly thin hoop earrings and her black leather choker.She's the only other person wearing black, a simple velvet dress powdered with glitter. I didn't see her in the ball room, when I was looking for black costumes. I realize I'm staring, and shrug. "Service dogs don't bite. Pretty sure that lady bought the coat on E-bay so she could smuggle her fleabag into tea parties," I say. "It's like a fad with old bitches. Give it a few centuries; we'll be doing it, too."She narrows her eyes but doesn't speak, as if she can't decide if she's offended or not."Nice being lectured by you," I say, and head for the stairwell.I hate elevators, because I can't open the doors with my hands, so if I'm trapped in an elevator, there's nothing I can do. Luckily, I'm my own elevator. I haul back the stairwell's heavy fire door and it opens straight to the parking garage.My footsteps echo alone for long seconds before I hear the elevator door open behind me. Heels click on the pavement, and I glance back to find the goody-two-shoes with red plastic hair. "You're leaving already? Not enjoying the convention, then?" she asks. She trots closer, inviting herself to walk along with me."Drag isn't my scene. I'm way too pretty to pretend to be a woman," I reply. The chain is hurting more. I'm taking too long, and the book's author is angry. I look for doors to get outside faster, but most of them are on cars, which won't do the trick.For a moment, I imagine going back into the convention with her and having a drink. She has style, and it's been a long time since I hung out with anyone I wasn't stealing from. But the book doesn't leave room for socializing in the schedule."What's your name?" she asks, toying with the silver disk hanging from her choker."Could you piss off? I'm not interested in anything with tits, even if they're fake.""My name's Lily," she says.I'm too slow. I turn to look at her, my mouth opening to ask a stupid question, when she reaches down on the ground and grabs the violet chain.She pulls, hard, and I thump onto my back.Even though I think I'm still awake, everything is black and sparkly. It's like her dress, like the sky, and then I keep blinking until my vision focuses again on the ceiling, with its emergency sprinkler system nozzles and sleeping moths. My head hurts and my leg hurts and I think I forgot how to breathe.I don't understand how she can touch the chain when I can't, but I also don't understand how she was a dog. The collar is the same, though. I remember now.The pavement scrapes by beneath me as she hauls me by the chain, toward the elevator. Some people getting into their cars glance over, then studiously pretend not to notice so they don't have to get involved. To people who can't see the chain, this looks like a psychotic tantrum, like I'm scooting myself toward Lily."Stop," I plead. It's barely audible, just a croak."I'll stop when you give me back my pin, you insufferable bag of dicks. If you were scared of me biting you, just wait until you see what I can do with this tether.""I can't—" I start, but I lose my breath again when she whips the chain around a few times, like a jump rope. I curl forward, retching. She lets go, and I lie gasping like a landed fish as her fingers poke through my pockets. She flings jewelry on the ground as she finds it, and finally, gives up."What did you do with it?" she asks."I gave it to someone," I say. The pin is cold against my heart, reaching through the book and the coat.I know my mascara is smeared now, waterproof or not. I have to remind myself that as bad as this is, it will be worse if I don't put the desired item in the chest. I just need to get to a door."I need the silver thorns to do my job. That 'old bitch' is down one body guard until I can change back into a dog. I've killed for her before, and I'll do it again.""Please, it's too late.""You're a wretched liar." She swings the chain around, lifting me off the ground, and slams me into the back of a lime green Escalade. The crunch is either a rear window or all of my bones.This time the flashing lights are colors. Blue, red. There's glass in my hair and everything tastes like blood.There are cameras, I remember, in the parking garage.I force my eyes open, past the prodding cops, and see them escorting Lily away. She glares over her shoulder, yells about theft.I'm not sure if I'm coughing or laughing. They frisk me, looking for her pin, but it's in the book where they can't find it. They do find the other jewelry I stole—well, what Lily didn't already throw on the ground—and they handcuff me.Fine. If I have to pick from: getting murdered, not putting the pin in the chest, or getting arrested, this is my best option.They don't care enough about me to call an ambulance, and after a few minutes, I have to admit I probably don't need one. The injuries they can measure are just a mild concussion, a split lip, and some bruising.The book is still in my jacket, and they make me wear ghastly jail jammies, so I spend all night wondering what the page says now.The first time I failed the author, the book gave me a countdown for fixing my mistake, and when I gave up, because I didn't understand how bad it would get, the book told me to go into my kitchen, pull out everything with a skull-and-crossbones sticker on it, and pour myself a cocktail.I had no intentions of doing it, but that's when I found out the chain reached deeper inside than just my leg, than even my flesh and bone.My hands mixed every cleaning product I had into the glass I usually use for scotch. My mouth opened, and I poured it down my own throat. The slop burned as it passed through me, for days, from my lips to my asshole. It crept through my veins and flavored my breath, blurred and stung my vision.When I couldn't take any more and tried to slit my wrists, I did bleed, but it smelled like Pine Sol and trickled out like rust-colored syrup. It didn't change my condition. When I tried to leave my apartment, or use the phone, my hands refused.I was so alone that Death refused to visit, and even my own body was on someone else's side.I keep my lawyer's business card laminated in my wallet, and I call him with my usual lies. He gets me out late on Monday morning, and I'm in too much of a hurry to sit through his warnings and advice. In the cab on the way home, I open the book.Place thorns in chest. Fifty-four minutes until punishment.I pull out the pen I stole from the front desk at the police station. I don't know if this will work, but I'm desperate. Bracing the book against my knee, I write:black lily touched my skin, tried to kill me for the thorns. got away but can't steal for you if dead. what now?My words disappear, but I don't know if that means they've been read. I stare at the page until the cab pulls up outside my apartment building. I am too sore to go up the fire escape.The doorman I cheated holds up a hand, like I'm traffic he's directing, and says, "Hey, you owe me forty bucks, or—""I'll get it for you tonight, when your mom pays me," I say, eyes still on the blank page. I open the stairwell door and step straight into the fifth floor hallway, where he can't follow fast enough to kick my ass.As I walk toward my apartment, text appears on the page, showing up in strokes as someone writes each letter.Place thorns in chest. Thirty-three minutes until punishment. Stab her with iron knife.I stole an iron knife with a silk-wrapped handle months ago and put it in the chest. My teeth creak against each other. I don't know where to get another. Who would even want a knife that rusts?I shut the book and fumble with my keys. I don't know if I could even use the knife—I can't imagine stabbing Lily, stabbing anyone. I'm a thief, not a murderer.I can't wait to put the pin in the chest so I don't have to worry about it anymore. My leg feels like one solid cramp. I'm so distracted that I don't smell the perfume until I close the door behind me.I look up in time to see Lily grab the violet chain and flip me onto my back again. At least it's carpet, I think."You left your filthy face grease on my tail, so I had your scent," she says. She's dressed much as she was Saturday night, in a short black dress and pumps.I'm not playing this game again. "I'll give it to you," I say. I thrust out my palms, my favorite no-weapons signal.She crosses her arms."Let me get it." My sore muscles tear like wet paper as I struggle to my feet."You sure made a shitty deal," she sneers.I pause on my way to the chest. It looks like a normal steamer trunk, against the wall under an expensive-ass painting that I also stole, next to an even expensiver-ass plasma screen, which I actually bought because for once it was easier than stealing."Deal?""This isn't a deal?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow. She dangles the chain meaningfully."No. I just... I stole that chest," I say, pointing. I explain about the chain and the book.I open the chest, because I want to show her the gold—prove I'm not lying—and see the same iron knife I stole months ago, with the chartreuse silk tied around the handle. The author must be loaning it to me.Lily flops down on my couch, setting her shoes up on my glass coffee table."You foolish mortal. Do you know what you could have gotten, if you'd asked instead of stolen?""What?""A contract with a clause stipulating when your service ends. We make fair deals, you know. We always have.""What are you?" I whisper. I've watched TV; I've seen movies; sometimes if no one is looking I even read comics. I don't want to say any of the silly words out loud, like demon or faery.She snorts and shakes her head."Me? I'm someone who can actually kill you. I'll just wait for you to start chugging Drano-on-the-rocks again, and then offer a quick death in exchange for my pin...unless you want to take me back to the hotel and show me where you hid it. I smelled you in that utility closet—is that it?"Lily pours herself a couple fingers of scotch and sips it, watching me. I reach into the chest and slide the knife into my sleeve. It's cold under my fingers; I imagine sinking it into the soft hollow at the base of her long throat.I'm suddenly so nauseated I almost fill the chest with half-digested jail food."How do I get this chain off?" I whisper. "That's all I want.""Good luck, bitch. Pretty sure you have to kill the bastard writing in the book."I pull out the book, flip it open again, stare at the words.Four minutes until punishment. Place thorns in chest. Stab her with an iron knife.My only idea is desperate, and stupid, but what do I have to lose?I hold the book over the trunk and shake it. The pin falls out. The bottom of the trunk swallows every silver thorn before Lily has even gotten to her feet.Her face crumples with rage, and even if she can't turn into a dog now, her bared teeth could have fooled me."Help me kill him and I'll get your pin back," I say quickly, half of a second before she yanks the chain toward her. If I can't make my plan clear she might kill me, so I force myself to explain even though every word is a scream."I can... control doors," I gasp. "I can get there."She scowls. "That could take forever.""It won't."I'm more scared of this plan than I am of Lily. The last place I want to go is the place where the pain comes from.After an interminable moment, Lily drops the chain.I'm too shaky to stand again. I kneel at the coffee table and reach for my only glass, which has her lipstick prints on the rim and a finger of scotch left in the bottom.She slides it out of reach. "Start talking.""Okay." I gather my thoughts, trying to ignore the glass. "I can get there and steal the pin back. I just need you to protect me the way you protect the old lady."She shakes her head. "The book's author has a dog, I'm sure, and she'll still have her pin, because some slutty mortal crybaby didn't snatch it.""I am not slutty!""Could've fooled me, Captain Nippleparty," Lily says, pointing at my torn shirt. She stretches, rolls her head to pop her neck, and gets to her feet. "Okay. If you can get the pin back fast enough for me to use it, I'll keep the dog from eating your face. But you're on your own with the book's author."She grabs my hand, and I feel a thrill at the touch of her strong fingers, until she casually kicks the violet chain on her way toward the front door.I pull her back.With my other hand, I close the chest's lid and grip the cold brass handle. I feel through the possibilities: the tiny wooden room it usually opens to, or the bigger room beyond."Maybe you're not as stupid as you smell," she says.I open the lid/door, step in, and we both fall through, linked by our hands.We land on a desk carved of glittering white stone.I don't have time to look around: in a chair in front of the desk, so close I can smell his graveyard breath, there's an old man with butter-yellow eyes and Count Dracula hair. His waxy, colorless skin reminds me of a maggot.For just a moment, he looks like he got fisted with an ice cube—and then his eyes drop to see the violet chain coiled on the desk's smooth surface. He smiles and lays one palm over it.Pain. I'm on my belly instantly, swimming across the desk. My hands claw at the stone, at Lily, at the still-wet pages of the book he'd been writing in, as if somewhere I might find the switch to turn it off. My boots encounter momentary resistance, followed by the music of hundreds of coins clinking, rolling, and spinning on a marble floor.I crane my neck at Lily, just in time to see him strike her face with the side of his fist. The quill with which he'd been writing stabs into her cheek, dribbling black ink down her jaw.In one smooth motion, she slides off the desk and lands in a defensive crouch.As she backs away, the clicking of her heels multiplies. It's a dog trotting up behind her. Woolly and beige, like an old couch, it seems harmless until it bares its teeth. The rumble in its throat sounds like a power tool.This was stupid, so stupid. I should go back through the chest. My left elbow bumps against it, so I know it's still here on the desktop. Just shut the lid, then open it once, tumble through into my apartment. No doubt I'd be punished, but at least I'd be far away, where I belonged.The plume hanging out of Lily's cheek quivers as she stands between the book's author and his canine mercenary. Then the dog jumps on her, its paws on her chest, tearing into her arm when she swings at its face.It's hard to focus, but I force my right arm flat on the desk so I can reach into my sleeve.The book's author watches Lily go down to her knees, his face expressionless. I draw the iron knife, and before I can change my mind, before I can get sick again, I slam the blade into the side of his neck.The blood that dribbles out is iridescent like a parking lot puddle. He paws at the knife with both hands, but a moment later he goes limp and molds to the contours of his chair like wet laundry.The pain fades, but it doesn't go away. I don't have time to worry about that, or the fact that I just went from thief to murderer.It's my fault Lily's here.I dig through everything I knocked off of the desk, coins and the inkwell and a bunch of jewelry, but I don't see Lily's pin. I have to get it to her—a dog against a dog is a better chance than she has now.I can't find it. The dog snarls louder behind me and Lily curses. I glance back to see her holding it at arm's length by its collar, its teeth gnashing the flesh of her arm as if it means to chew it off.No time to keep digging. I scan the room. It seems carved from a single block of opalescent white stone, even the desk. Sourceless frost-tinted light shows me shelves and shelves of familiar items. I spot a broken pocketwatch that worked back when I stole it, a hat pin I remember sneaking off of a mannequin in a porn store window, and finally, the brass spyglass I stole from the nautical exhibit.That's the one I grab.Lily's blood is slick under my shoes as I dash over. I swing the spyglass at the dog. I don't want to hit it, but its mouth is foaming with Lily's blood, blood she never should have had to spill. When the brass strikes the top of the dog's skull, it yelps, falls to the side, and is too dizzy to get up. I know how it feels. If I tried to pull the knife out of a dead man I would have passed right the eff out—I'm barely hanging on as it is. I swallow the gush of about-to-puke saliva and breathe through my nose.Lily stands, her lacerated arm dripping more blood. "Where is my pin?" she asks."I don't know. Why am I still chained?""I don't know."We stare at each other, she without her pin, me still attached to the chest by the violet chain."Let's load the chest with all the coins and jewelry," I say. "When we get back, we'll sort through it all."I take off my coat and rip out the lining to bandage Lily's  arm. When it's wrapped tight, she helps me pile handfuls of treasure onto my coat, all of it stained with ink and blood. We lift it together and dump the contents into the chest, over and over until there's not a coin left. "I can take you back through," I say, "so you can go to a hospital.""You'd trust me in your apartment with all that cash?" she asks. She starts to grin, winces, and yanks the quill from her cheek. "How come you're not going back that way?""I have to own both chests until I get the chain off," I say. "I can't bring it through itself—I don't know what'll happen—so I have to go back the long way."Maybe I don't hide my dread well enough. Her eyes are sharp and dark as she looks at the chest, already empty, and then back at me."No, thanks," she says. "I think I want to see what's through door number two." I fight the urge to hug her—I'm covered in enough blood as it is.I grab one end of the chest, and she grabs the other, and we walk toward the door. I caress the cool handle, considering the possibilities. None of them will take us home, but you don't get through a maze without hitting a few dead-ends.I choose a hallway, and then another door, and another.END"Sooner than Gold" was originally published in Glitter and Mayhem, edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, published by Apex Publications.This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library.Thanks for listening, and I’ll have another story for you on June 11th.[Music plays out]This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(image credit: Aoaoaoyama via Wikipedia CC-BY-SA 3.0) 先週、一挙８本をお届けしました「アメリカ探究の旅」いかがだったでしょうか。数が多すぎてまだ全部を聞けていないという方もご心配なく。自分のペースで聞けるのがポッドキャストのよいところ。お暇な折にぜひ耳を傾けてみてくださいね。そして次回の配信もお楽しみに！ さて、４月後半の３週間は「やさしい英語会話」をお届けします。今週のテーマは「ショッピング」です。２人の留学生が、広島にもあるあの有名なディスカウントストアで買い物をしているようです。ショッピングが好きな方も、そうでない方も、どうぞお楽しみください。 Download MP3 （15:35　9.4MB　初級～中級）Shopping *** It's a Good Expression *** （今回の重要表現） Don Quijote 日本のディスカウントチェーン。 to get stuck in one's head （歌などが）頭に残って抜けない、頭の中でぐるぐる回っている All's well that ends well. 「終わりよければすべてよし」 ※ことわざ。William Shakespeareの戯曲のタイトルとしても有名。 awesome すばらしい I wouldn't go that far. そこまでではないけどね。 ※thatは副詞。否定の文脈で「そんなに〜ではない」の意味で使われる。 これを直訳すると「私なら、そこまでは言い及ばないだろう」。 相手の言った（強い肯定を含む）ことに対し、肯定の度合いが低いことを表明する。 Wal-Mart アメリカの大手ディスカウントストア。 to dread ...ing ...するのが怖い mean （形）意地悪な、感じの悪い The quality of some of their products are pretty low. 正しくはThe quality of some of their products is pretty low. ※この言い間違いについては番組内の解説をお聞きください。 decent きちんとした to be few and far between とてもまれな to blow ... out of the water ...を打ち負かす multiple times 何度も flat out run 全速力で走る ※flat out＋...[形容詞] = really ... to check out （お店を）チェックする as far as the eyes can see 見渡す限り an option = a choice an entire day 丸一日 *** Script *** (Slow speed) 01:25-03:45 (Natural speed) 12:00-13:40 Shopping Scene: Two foreign students shopping at a Don Quijote. M: Don, Don, Don, Don Quijote, Don-Ki-Ho-Te! W: Please stop singing that song. M: Why? I love that song! And this store too. W: But it gets stuck in my head so easily! (sigh) Never mind. Now I'll just sing it the rest of the day too. M: See: all's well that ends well! Anyway, thanks a lot for bringing me to this store, they have everything that is awesome all in one place. W: I wouldn't go that far. M: It's like Wal-Mart, but with actually good things for sale. W: You don't like Wal-Mart? M: I'm a college student who has no money, so, yes, I like Wal-Mart. But at the same time, I kind of dread going to the place. W: Why? M: Because most of the time the people are very unhappy or mean. And the quality of some of their products are, unfortunately, pretty low. Now, I've been to a couple of Wal-Marts before that were decent with good customer service, but those are few and far between! W: So, now you're complaining about America's customer service? M: Not so much complaining as… comparing it to Japan's customer service, which just blows America's customer service out of the water! I've had people run to different sides of the store multiple times looking for something for me. They flat out RAN! (sigh) I'm going to miss Japan and their awesome stores. W: Me too, me too. Though I really wanna get back to America and check out their malls. Shops: as far as the eyes can see! Everywhere. Stores with clothes, and make-up, and bags! And, and SHOES! M: I know, I know, but really, why do you need so many shops in one place? W: Because women need options when they shop. M: And an entire day to do it! (Written by Matthew Bola)

(image credit: Aoaoaoyama via Wikipedia CC-BY-SA 3.0) 先週、一挙８本をお届けしました「アメリカ探究の旅」いかがだったでしょうか。数が多すぎてまだ全部を聞けていないという方もご心配なく。自分のペースで聞けるのがポッドキャストのよいところ。お暇な折にぜひ耳を傾けてみてくださいね。そして次回の配信もお楽しみに！ さて、４月後半の３週間は「やさしい英語会話」をお届けします。今週のテーマは「ショッピング」です。２人の留学生が、広島にもあるあの有名なディスカウントストアで買い物をしているようです。ショッピングが好きな方も、そうでない方も、どうぞお楽しみください。 Download MP3 （15:35　9.4MB　初級～中級）Shopping *** It's a Good Expression *** （今回の重要表現） Don Quijote 日本のディスカウントチェーン。 to get stuck in one's head （歌などが）頭に残って抜けない、頭の中でぐるぐる回っている All's well that ends well. 「終わりよければすべてよし」 ※ことわざ。William Shakespeareの戯曲のタイトルとしても有名。 awesome すばらしい I wouldn't go that far. そこまでではないけどね。 ※thatは副詞。否定の文脈で「そんなに〜ではない」の意味で使われる。 これを直訳すると「私なら、そこまでは言い及ばないだろう」。 相手の言った（強い肯定を含む）ことに対し、肯定の度合いが低いことを表明する。 Wal-Mart アメリカの大手ディスカウントストア。 to dread ...ing ...するのが怖い mean （形）意地悪な、感じの悪い The quality of some of their products are pretty low. 正しくはThe quality of some of their products is pretty low. ※この言い間違いについては番組内の解説をお聞きください。 decent きちんとした to be few and far between とてもまれな to blow ... out of the water ...を打ち負かす multiple times 何度も flat out run 全速力で走る ※flat out＋...[形容詞] = really ... to check out （お店を）チェックする as far as the eyes can see 見渡す限り an option = a choice an entire day 丸一日 *** Script *** (Slow speed) 01:25-03:45 (Natural speed) 12:00-13:40 Shopping Scene: Two foreign students shopping at a Don Quijote. M: Don, Don, Don, Don Quijote, Don-Ki-Ho-Te! W: Please stop singing that song. M: Why? I love that song! And this store too. W: But it gets stuck in my head so easily! (sigh) Never mind. Now I'll just sing it the rest of the day too. M: See: all's well that ends well! Anyway, thanks a lot for bringing me to this store, they have everything that is awesome all in one place. W: I wouldn't go that far. M: It's like Wal-Mart, but with actually good things for sale. W: You don't like Wal-Mart? M: I'm a college student who has no money, so, yes, I like Wal-Mart. But at the same time, I kind of dread going to the place. W: Why? M: Because most of the time the people are very unhappy or mean. And the quality of some of their products are, unfortunately, pretty low. Now, I've been to a couple of Wal-Marts before that were decent with good customer service, but those are few and far between! W: So, now you're complaining about America's customer service? M: Not so much complaining as… comparing it to Japan's customer service, which just blows America's customer service out of the water! I've had people run to different sides of the store multiple times looking for something for me. They flat out RAN! (sigh) I'm going to miss Japan and their awesome stores. W: Me too, me too. Though I really wanna get back to America and check out their malls. Shops: as far as the eyes can see! Everywhere. Stores with clothes, and make-up, and bags! And, and SHOES! M: I know, I know, but really, why do you need so many shops in one place? W: Because women need options when they shop. M: And an entire day to do it! (Written by Matthew Bola)

Our LAW LOVER'S LOUNGE™ series addresses a general overview of some of the most important issues to the general public! Attorney Courtney E. Anderson has owned a general practice law firm since 1998 in Texas, USA. A general practice attorney is similar to a general practice physician in that they address issues that do not require a specialist. They provide a primary level of legal services for commonly occurring legal issues and make referrals to specialists for more complex issues (appeals of cases, rare facts, unusual issues, etc.). We call this series its title because we do love law! Seriously. This is a lounge because these are general discussions on general legal topic for public information purposes. There is no client relationship created between this show and Attorney Courtney E. Anderson, or The Law Offices of Courtney E. Anderson (Litigation-Mitigation.com). These disclaimers are very important. The content in these shows is for general educational purposes and is not the delivery of legal services. This episode is, “I don’t have any stuff, I don’t need a will, right?!” I hate to break it to you, but in the US (and many other parts of the world), you already have a will (an automatic one that the government provides for everyone). If you do not create your own original will, the one that the government has already created for you will be used. That is called dying “intestate.” If you have no realatives that can be located under the government will, your stuff will go to the government ("escheat" to the crown or the state). This is rare but can happen. If you want to decide who gets your stuff (and who does not get it), you have to make your own original will. Let’s discuss the reality of death and the reality of either choosing to keep the government will you already have or whether to create your own!

"When life suddenly throws something at you like that...Now I'll believe anything. You tell me anything, I'll be like 'sure, why not.'"Producer: Whit Missildinethisisactuallyhappening.comInstagram: @actuallyhappeningContent/Trigger Warnings: death, explicit languageSupport The Show: You can support the show by supporting our sponsors, or through direct contributions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/happeningIntro Music: "Illabye" - TipperMusic: "To Speak of Solitude" – BramblesOutro Music: "The Moon is Down" - El Diablo & Adam Schraft (Rojo y Negro) @eldiablosf @rojo-y-negro www.eldiablobass.com/

09-08-2011 PM Dann Patrick Chapel Message on "No Will of My Own." Order CD Quality Sermons Here

09-08-2011 PM Dann Patrick Chapel Message on "No Will of My Own." Order CD Quality Sermons Here

DHR#105 - Darkhorse Radio (7 Aug 2010) "Now I'll hold your hand of running water - and now I'll wipe the black out of the blonde" www.DarkhorseRadio.com MySpace: www.myspace.com/alancarr iTunes : http://tinyurl.com/ox9ssf Twitter: @darkhorseradio  email :  alan [at] darkhorse.co.uk Here’s what I played in show 104 …… Headlights - Market Girl Farewell Milwaukee - I Call it Pain Kilterr - Stay Madrugada - Honey Bee Emerald Park - Open Danish Daycare - Red Dead Flowers Ali Bartlett - Lay Me Down Julie Peel - Sister The Rocking Chairs - Is That All You Got Madrugada - Shine Links Assoc of Music Podcasting Madrugada fan site and Madrugada's MySpace   Email with any comments - or leave feedback on the website (use ‘Comments’ link) I can be reached here: alan [at] darkhorse.co.uk. Darkhorse Radio is a member of the Association of Music Podcasting (AMP) The photo with these notes is ‘Industrial Silence' ©AJC, 2010 Alan, www.DarkhorseRadio.com

Daylight Saving Time is once again upon us. This annual time shift really has my body clock all out of whack. I don't know about you, but I'm looking down at the clock on my computer and just can't imaging its as late as it's telling me. Who would have thought shifting one hour would make such a difference. Now I'll be appreciative of the daylight later this spring when I can go play out in my yard after work, but for right now... I'm tired. In the News: Some of the latest headlines from the Oklahoma blog-o-sphere and (Bum Bum Buuuum) the main stream media. This Week in Oklahoma History: Cimarron Territory Links mentioned in this episode: Music:

"I love to come out here and look at those cold, pinpoint lights; they seem to draw me--the lure of other worlds. I've always had a sense of unfulfilled longing--the desire to go out there--and it's always been so hopeless. Now--I'll be out there by next spring!" -- Richard Arcot