Podcasts about oh i'm

You may know Jacob Ritts from the world of photography or his behind-the-scenes work on the hit podcast Sibling Rivalry, but did you know he once accidentally used an entire container of G to masturbate?!? Follow Jacob on IG: @Jacob.Ritts Rate and Review the pod!! sign up for the patreon at www.patreon.com/TowerBottom !!! Send dick pics!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/goodsodpod/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/goodsodpod/support

In this episode of the "Chicken Dinner" podcast, Sam Panayotovich discusses the betting madness surrounding Aaron Rodgers, Team USA basketball odds, and much more. Later on, Nick Kostos of Audacy joins to discuss his expectations for the Packers and NFL prop bets.SUBSCRIBE! “Chicken Dinner” on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, and wherever else you listen to your podcasts/FOLLOW! @chickenxdinner @spshoot 

Just listen --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/raw-secks/support

Today it's a recording of some DnD 5th Edition that I played. It's the "Tyranny of Dragons" adventure, which is a mostly not good adventure, but it's printed in a nice quality book with great art, so it sells well despite being a poor adventure.

Shill: "A person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty." That sounds suspiciously like someone who was recently banned from Twitter... who could it possibly be?! On this episode of Homespun Yak, the guys try to piece together the events that ultimately resulted in protesters storming the United States Capitol. Were these people inspired by President Trump to forcefully "take their country back"? If so, what are the legal and prosecutorial ramifications for the sitting President once his term comes to an end on January 20th? Next, the guys pivot to discuss the latest JRE Podcast with Dr Mark Gordon and Andrew Marr who both promote awareness and treatment for head-induced traumas that result in harmful brain inflammation. It's a fascinating discussion about how a reduction in inflammation throughout the body can often result in a better quality of life overall. However noble and intriguing this research and work is, Nic has some credible doubt surrounding the quality of research they have done in attaining some of their conclusions. Kyle's view is more along the lines of, "if I can hit a PR on bench once a week, I'll take the supplements." Finally on "Sports Segment", the guys rant about the NFL WILD Card Weekend and give their predictions on the outcomes of next week's match-ups! On the "QB Love and Hate" portion of the segment, Nic gives us an in-depth breakdown on Lamar Jackson while Kyle gives his opinion on the future of #sad Big Ben. Can 43 year old Tom Brady lead the TOMpa Bay Bucs to another glorious Super Bowl title in their home stadium?! If he can, according to Nic, it'll be one of the greatest Love and Sports stories ever told: "I can see myself now", Nic said with a smile. "My grandchildren gather round the hearth as I settle into my recliner. Their wide eyes gaze upon me with a sincere yet innocent look of pure anticipation. They've heard the tale before a hundred times or more, but they never tire of it. I suppose it's like the story of Christmas in that way. My youngest grandchild, Ezekiel, chimes in half way through the story of Tom's infamous battle with Drew Brees during the second round of the 2021 playoffs by saying, 'Grampy is that why you have the number 12 tattooed on your arm?' Instinctively I glance down at my arm and slowly pull back my sleeve revealing the bold red 12 that has been forever stamped on my body since that fateful February Day in 2021. Suddenly the floodgates are opened as tears stream down my face in remembrance of a glorious time gone by. For in this moment I am Noah at sea. 'Tonight children, my heart can endure no more', I say as my daughter ushers the grandchildren to their bedrooms. Though they are disappointed that I was unable to complete the epic story, they know in due time I will regain my strength and inspire them once more with the legendary Tale of Tom. My heart will go on. It must..."

Anette, along with co-host David Anderson, discusses the process of how a bill becomes law, or doesn't, with former legislative insiders Kyle Mauro, Nelda Hunter, and Kelly Barnes. All these knowledgeable folks are now at Hillco Partners, and help explain the complicated process our legislators must follow to create our laws. Find their bios below.David D. AndersonDavid Anderson joined HillCo Partners in 2003 and represents the interests of the firm’s clients at the Texas Legislature and with various state agencies.David is widely recognized throughout Texas for his expertise in public education policies and issues.  Formerly the Managing Director for Curriculum at the Texas Education Agency (TEA), Anderson has expertise on a wide range of education policy issues.  Prior to his work at TEA, David spent eighteen years in the educational publishing industry, including sixteen as a regional vice president for three publishers. He was a teacher and school administrator in Austin ISD and worked in an administrative role in both Killeen ISD and ESC 13 early in his career.Since joining HillCo Partners, Anderson has worked with numerous clients in the educational arena, including the Texas School Alliance, the Texas Fast Growth School Coalition, and several Texas independent school districts.  His client schools enroll more than three-fourths of the students in Texas and he has developed relationships with school leaders in a variety of positions and in every corner of state. David also works with Raise Your Hand Texas, THSCA, and TASBO. He has advised non-profit and private sector clients about the pursuit of state, regional, and local contracts and helped develop agreements between private sector entities.As an advisor to school leaders on a myriad of topics, David has developed keen insights into economic and program needs in Texas public schools. Superintendents, senior level district administrators, and school board members rely on his advice and recommendations as important financial and program decisions are made in school districts across the state. His in-depth experience in a variety of roles makes him a valued consultant for school leaders in Texas.Over the course of his career, Anderson has earned the respect and goodwill of key decision-makers in Texas public education, as well as among the members of both Houses of the Legislature and the State Board of Education.  Kelly BarnesKelly Barnes, who joined HillCo Partners in 2019, focuses on assisting the firm’s clients in various important areas of public policy.Barnes worked for six years in the Texas House of Representatives, prior to joining HillCo. He served as chief of staff for a State Representative, where he helped guide many pieces of legislation all the way to the Governor’s desk. The office Barnes worked in possessed the highest bill passage rate of any other House office during the 84th legislative session.Prior to working in the Texas House, Barnes was a government affairs consultant for the Texas Association of Business (TAB). While at TAB he assisted hundreds of companies and local chambers of commerce to improve the state’s economy, workforce, and quality of life.Barnes also worked in Washington, DC as a legislative aide for a U.S. Congressman from Texas.Raised in Austin, Barnes received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Spanish at Texas Christian University (TCU), and a Master’s degree from George Washington University. He lives in Austin with his wife.Nelda HunterNelda Hunter is a consultant at HillCo Partners and works primarily in the areas of state budget and fiscal policy, as well as health and human services.Hunter has over fifteen years of experience working within Texas government, and her various roles provide her with a wealth of perspectives on legislative process, budget and policy development, and state agency operations.  She served as Director for the House Committee on Appropriations while simultaneously serving as Chief of Staff for Chairman John Zerwas, M.D.  While overseeing the development of two state budgets, Hunter also led the advancement and passage of several statewide policies, including a constitutional amendment to extend and fund the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, and a bill that repealed the widely unpopular Driver Responsibility Program and that reconfigures and preserves trauma funding for the state’s hospitals.  She recently volunteered her time and expertise to the Governor’s Strike Force to Open Texas, which is focused on responding to the novel coronavirus.  Hunter was honored for her legislative work by several groups, including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACSCAN), the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, and the Texas Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs.Hunter received her Master of Public Service and Administration from the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M University in 2004.  She was named a Distinguished Alumna of the Bush School in May 2014.Kyle MauroKyle Mauro joined HillCo Partners in 2020 and focuses primarily on HillCo’s health care practice.Kyle’s most recent experience is his time working in the Texas Legislature guiding legislative strategy and policy development as the Chief of Staff and Committee Director to a senior member of the Texas House of Representatives who chaired the House Committee on Human Services.During his time in the Capitol, Kyle worked to craft legislation related to Medicaid managed care, Medicaid’s prescription drug benefit, oversight of the state’s health and human services agency and more. While primarily focusing on health care, he worked within a broad array of policy areas and helped to pass legislation related to taxation, gaming, transportation, telecommunications, and the electric industry.Kyle leverages his experience and relationships in the health policy arena providing insight to those inside the capitol and superlative advocacy on behalf of his clients.Kyle is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He lives in Austin with his wife Megan and their Great Dane, Barnaby.

Jo & Sarah dig into Sarah's very weird Saturday night. Is her brain broken? Or is the world on fire? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Eric reviews Meet The Fockers and Joe gets confused about shortbread.

We talk ice cube and the future of this cult. Check out @TheRubenVegaShow Instagram account for more video content.

Kontakt: Kontakt@powermigranten.de Instagram, Spotify, iTunes, Facebook: PowerMigranten

This week Haydn (@Herjuk) and Steve (@Stevoo7) discuss Destiny 2’s latest festival, Hitman Sniper on iOS, Project Power, Vampire girl v Frankenstein Girl and Casino Royale.  All this plus the usual news, charts, new releases and of course, your listener poll and questions.

We discuss how I was painted as an angry black woman at work this week. 

This is Micah.

We hold back our feelings for many reasons, but is holding back will keep us from developing relationships that will enhance our life. Get comfortable expressing yourself by: Starting with small open compliments. Being truthful when asked how you are feeling. Be accountable for your feelings and don’t place blame ******************************** Get your FREE copy of the Social Media Video Content Planner HERE! www.hobiejohnson.com If you are in network marketing, and NOT getting the results you want, Check out my friend Trey Bearor! He is the REAL DEAL! Check out Trey here! https://bit.ly/TreyIsTheMan If you are looking for THE most relevant opportunity in MLM / network marketing, take this brief survey and let’s talk! I promise you you won’ be disappointed! Take the super brief survey here! https://bit.ly/DisruptiveInnovationSurvey facebook.com/thehobiejohnson Disruptive Innovation YouTube hobie@hobiejohnson.com

In this episode, Mike Robinson, Founder, Global Cannabinoid Research Center, Cannabis Advocate, Cancer Survivor joins Jill Woodworth to discuss his MILLION MILLIGRAM GIVEAWAY of CBD to alleviate the dire need of many within compassion communities affected by coronavirus. Mike shares his own lived experience as a special needs advocate for many years and how devastating it is to learn of past clients struggling profusely in light of the drop off of IEP services post Coronavirus restrictions. "Kids in regular ed will have free home school by their computer every day, paid for by the US government. And there's absolutely zero announcement about the most vulnerable members of society that attend public school in special education. There is Zero an announcement about the civil rights and protections put in place by our government to the 1971 Omnibus bill that created DHS, that created CPS, that created the Individual with Disabilities Education Act that requires states to take the funds that they got and create programs for children and special education. These are very strict laws regarding how you use these funds. And the issue right now is not whether or not there's a pandemic, a cold, a virus. The issue is that states that have received billions and billions of dollars in funding for special education. They commingle those into their regular funds. So now they have gone ahead and used that money and now are going ahead and allowing parents to call and say, "Hey, I can't help what's going on at home", to lose their child. So, by lack of supporting children who are federally protected with these supports, we are facing a crisis, of epidemic proportions." "People tell me that "Oh, it's not my business plan. Oh, I can't give this away. Oh I'm going bankrupt "and I am like, "Guess what? What you give comes back. Always". If you give negativity it comes back to you. When you give a loan. It comes back to you. If you expect instant gratification, when you give. guess what? It's not happening. There's no remuneration, there's money coming to you for giving. It's love and love is returned. You put love out to the world, and it's infectious. It's way more infectious than the Coronavirus. Yeah, so that's my plan. My plan is to put love into the world. 1 million milligrams, a million milligrams, and the details are still being worked out. It's pretty awesome. So people can get a small amount of CBD oil mailed to them or they'll pick it up and have something that they can use to help themselves their loved ones" Mike learned about compassion under the tutelage of Dennis Peron, an American activist and businessman who became a leader in the movement for the legalization of cannabis throughout the 1990s. He influenced many in California and thus changed the political debate on marijuana in the United States. Dennis passed away on January 27, 2018 (aged 72). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Peron Please join us in sharing this podcast within and without the Cannabis Industry to garner as much support as possible. Donations are needed and welcomed! Please email: 50Kreasons@gmail.com, or pjlacy6@gmail.com and check out Mike's page on our site: https://tsctalks.com/special-contributor-mike-robinson/the-mike-drop/ for more information. Mike's Links: ounder of: https://mikesmedicines.com https://genevievesdream.com https://globalcannabinoidrc.com https://carouselchallenge.com

In this special Parkinson’s Awareness Month episode of When Life Gives You Parkinson’s, I chat with Jimmy Choi. Jimmy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s seventeen years ago. He ignored it for eight years. He took his pills every day, but he didn’t talk about it, he ignored it, he hid it and lied about it to friends and family. He was quite certain himself that the Parkinson’s diagnosis was probably wrong. “I convinced myself that one day I'm going to wake up and my doctor is going to tell me that, ‘Oh I'm sorry Mr. Choi, we made a mistake.” Jimmy continues his fantasy, “You actually have a tumor in your head. Once we remove it you're gonna be perfectly fine.’” Jimmy is stubborn. It takes a lot to change his position. But, Parkinson’s will not be ignored. Over the course of eight years, gradual changes happen on a daily basis. Insomnia, rigidity, and fatigue were all taking a toll on him. Parkinson’s disease pushed Jimmy to the edge. And he fell. “I was walking with a cane. I was no longer active. And as if things weren't bad enough, I was snapping at my family, screaming at my kids, and sitting around really not contributing to the daily activities of a household. I was walking down the stairs with my then 8 month old son Mason and we fell down the stairs.” His wife Cheryl and their daughter Karina watched in horror. At that moment, Jimmy made a decision that would change his life forever. He knew he was going to work hard to become the dad and husband his family deserved. He also began to participate in clinical research trials. It was during those trials, Jimmy realized exercise was a component of every trial he participated in and when he exercised he felt better. On his own, he began to take walks around the neighbourhood with his cane. And before too long, he was walking without it. His walk become a jog and his jog trained him for a 5k. Jimmy successfully transformed his stubborn resistance to Parkinson’s into determination, positivity and persistence in living an active, healthy life with the disease. In the past seven years, Jimmy has participated in over 100 half marathons, 15 full marathons, one ultra-marathon, six Grand Fondo rides, multiple Spartan Races and countless 5K and 10K runs. He became a high profile Parkinson’s advocate when he competed on American Ninja Warrior. Through his events, Jimmy has raised more than $250,000 for Parkinson's research. You don’t have to be Jimmy Choi when you’re exercising, but you can be Jimmy Choi in how you approach your Parkinson’s disease. He takes his PD one day, and sometimes one hour, at a time. His mantra is, “make today a little better than yesterday and make tomorrow a little bit better than today.”   Knowing Jimmy Choi is in the fight against Parkinson’s, makes today better yesterday already. Please comment by leaving us a voice message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/WhenLifeGivesYouParkinsons Follow me, Larry Gifford  Twitter: @ParkinsonsPod Facebook: Facebook.com/ParkinsonsPod Instagram: @parkinsonspod Follow Co-host and Producer Niki Reitmayer Twitter: @Niki_Reitmayer Thank you to my wife and partner in Parkinson’s Rebecca Gifford. Also, thank you to the following contributors and guests. Follow Jimmy Choi on twitter and instagram Our presenting partner is Parkinson Canada http://www.parkinson.ca/ The toll free hotline 1-800-565-3000 Follow them on Twitter @ParkinsonCanada Find the new Parkinson Clinical Guideline www.parkinsonclinicalguideline.ca Our content and promotional partners Parkinson’s IQ + You– A free, series of Parkinson’s events from the Michael J. Fox Foundation Spotlight YOPD – The only Parkinson’s organization dedicated to raising awareness for Young Onset Parkinson’s disease and funds for the Cure Parkinson’s Trust.  WPC2022- Save the date for the sixth World Parkinson Congress, June 7 to 10, 2022 in Barcelona, Spain in 2022. The only inclusive scientific conference opens its doors to people with Parkinson’s and families.  

Episode Notes Ghost lights! What the heck are they?! We're not sure, but we're on a journey to find out. Join us as we talk about the Marfa Lights, the Light of Saratoga, and the St. Louis Light! Have ghost stories of your own? Email them to us at TheGoldenGhoulsPodcast@gmail.com Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on social media - Twitter, Instagram, Facebook If you enjoy our show, please consider contributing to our Patreon! This helps us go on spooky trips and create even more ghoulish content. Mastered by Adam Hand, with intro and outro music by Richard Domings. Thank you for listening, and stay spooky! Find out more at https://the-golden-ghouls.pinecast.co Check out our podcasting host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free, no credit card required, forever. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-7d6f19 for 40% off for 4 months, and support The Golden Ghouls.

We are about to have our 5th child and with our growing family comes more of a necessity for spending quality alone time with each of our kids. The logistics of this also get more and more Complicated but that should not stop uf from trying and growing in our ability to single out our children to show them that we love them, want to hear from them, and want to get to know them as individuals in the family. In this episode, we share some practical ways to get some alone time with each of your kids and why it is so important to cultivate that experience on a regular basis. Join our Free Parenting prayer challenge today and build a habit of praying for your children daily.http://parentingprayerchallenge.com PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special, and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close to them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all they experience. May your love be woven into our legacy and may your light shine in our relationship with our children.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some fun ways to spend quality time with your children. - [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life, - Love. - And power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey, as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Okay, Aaron, this is just, I am so excited about this episode. I don't know why. - You're always excited for all the episodes, I like it! - [Jennifer] No, this is different. This is like I'm giddy over this because we have young kids and the whole episode is about spending time with our kids, things that we've been learning, as-- - [Aaron] We should let the cat out of the bag. You actually really like our kids. - I do, I'm biased. - So, that's why you get so excited about this. - Okay, fine. I was gonna say we're gonna share things we've been learning as new parents. Are we still new parents? - [Aaron] Someone recently called us new parents. They said, "I would consider you still new parents." And I'm like, we have a fifth kid on the way, how are we still new parents? - I know, I think it's 'cause they are all just still little-- - [Aaron] They're all young, yeah. - [Jennifer] Yeah, we're in a lot of just little kid time. And so even though this episode is about spending one on one time with your kids, really it can go for any age kid. But before we jump into that, why don't you give us a little update on something you shared a couple weeks ago on studying your kids? And if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you gotta go hear that episode. - [Aaron] So I got some journals and I purposed to take some time to write in those journals things that I'm observing from my children so that I can kind of learn them, think about my children on a level when they're not around and say, "What are the things that I've seen in my kids, "ways they're being, things they've said?" - [Jennifer] So he got one journal for each kid, and he's not writing to them, per se, he's just writing about them to help him. - [Aaron] Yeah, I just write stuff I'm observing as if I'm like, on a safari, like "I saw Elliot today do this." I will say this I wrote about Wyatt in the wrong book. - [Jennifer] I know. - [Aaron] I had to rewrite the whole thing, which is actually kinda good 'cause I wrote it better, but. - [Jennifer] What are some things you're learning about our kids? - [Aaron] Yeah, well, just some cool things. It's cool writing it down, and I've only been doing it like once a month right now. So it's not like every day I'm writing something about them, but it's cool 'cause I write down emotional things about them, like when I see how they respond emotionally to things. - [Jennifer] Okay. - [Aaron] I also write down things that I see them getting good at-- - Or interested in. - Or interested in, things they say, 'cause every once in a while, they say something really remarkable, and I'll just try and remember those things and I write it down, I'm like, "We asked this question and he answered this way." And so just, it's really cool, I've done it twice now and I'm gonna continue doing it, you've encouraged me and said, "Hey remember you said you were gonna?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah." So I think over time, it'll become more of a habit, but it's been a fun thing to to write down and I would encourage parents to figure out ways that they can learn their children. - [Jennifer] Do you feel like it's requiring you to pay attention more? So like, are you trying to notice things? - [Aaron] I am, I am. - [Jennifer] Your eyes are on them more. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not just, "Oh, yeah, they're in the background, doing their thing." I'm trying to watch them intentionally like, how do they respond to that thing? How are they gonna answer this question? How are they...? So yes, I would say it's making me more intentional. - [Jennifer] I just think that's so cool. So something that I wanted to share before we get started is that I had a friend recently asked me at church, she just said, "Hey, have you taken Wyatt out on a date, "like just you and him?" Okay, Wyatt's our, he just turned three, and I was shocked. I was like, "No, I haven't, thank you." Because they know that we do this. They know that we like to take the kids out for one-on-one time, and we've been doing it with the older kids, Elliot and Olive, but I don't know why I just didn't think about taking Wyatt, and he is getting to that age where he would probably love it. And so it kinda woke me up and it was a good reminder that God knows that we have this desire to spend one on one time with our kids, And He used a friend of mine to ask me about it. - To remind you. - To remind me. - [Aaron] It's like a gentle nudge. - [Jennifer] It was! It was really cool, so thank you friend. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what, just a little bit of honesty, especially as our family grows, 'cause we had Elliot and it was our first time being parents and so we had all this energy on every milestone, on everything with him and then we had Olive and that dwindles a little bit, all that attention. And then now we have Wyatt and now Trude, and now we have Edith on the way, and I just, sometimes it can be easy to forget certain children in the place they're at, forget what we did with our older children at that place. - [Jennifer] Yeah, or that they're all individuals, because we see 'em as a pack, we're always going places together, and so being able to separate them and say, "You are unique, and you are special, "and you are important to us." - [Aaron] So before we move on to the topic, we just wanna tell you about a new free resource. One of our ways we minister through this ministry is by creating free resources and paid resources. We have our books, of course, but we also love to create these free resources to encourage you in your prayer life and your marriage and your parenting. And the new one we have, I don't know if you've taken the Marriage Prayer Challenge yet, but now we've created a Parenting Prayer Challenge where you can sign up to pray for your son or daughter or both and we'll send you a prayer prompt every day for 31 days, to encourage you in your prayer life over your kids. It's pretty awesome, and all you gotta do is go to parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up completely free today. Go do that today. - [Jennifer] Okay, so the topic for today is, you know, spending one on one time with your kids, spending quality time with your kids, some even call it dating your kids, like having date night with your kids. And I'm not sure exactly where this came from, but we have two couples in our life that have been instrumental in our faith and in our parenting that we wanted to share with you guys 'cause I'm sure the idea came from one of two of these places. - Or both. - Or both. Matt and Lisa Jacobson from Faithful Life podcast, and Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting podcast. Again, both of them have been instrumental in both of our faith and our parenting, and they're so encouraging you guys, so if you're not already following their podcasts, you need to go check them out right now. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we started dating our kids after Olive was born, Elliot was getting older, he was almost three and we've tried to continue it since. There's seasons that we totally forget to do it, but we try and make it built into a regular routine. So just one example right now Olive's in dance and so I take her to dance, and I sometimes, maybe every other week, I'll go early, and we'll go have dinner together before she goes to dance. And so it's just me and her, and that's actually been a lot of fun. We get to go eat together and then she goes and dances off all the food that she ate. - [Jennifer] Yeah, not all of the the opportunities that we take with our kids happen regularly because well we're going into having five now, our oldest being seven. - It gets a little harder. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and it just gets hard. So we try and take advantage of every opportunity that we have, but as a large family, we also like to do things together. So I would say our goal is usually to take one kid out a month, and so either you will take them or I will take them. - Yeah. - Or you take two and I take two. So we kinda just mix it up and we play with it. - [Aaron] A good tip to make it more regular, and we tried this in the beginning was monthly birthdays. So Elliot's birthday's on the seventh, and so remember we tried doing on the seventh of each month would be like that date day for Elliot. We haven't been consistent with that, but someone might be able to take that and run with that idea. - [Jennifer] Yeah, the thing that I remember from that when we tried it was that the kids began to expect it. - Yeah they did. - Which was cool, because we want them to know that we wanna spend time with them. - [Aaron] It's my birthdate day coming up! - [Jennifer] But we also like the spontaneous, "Hey, I'm going to take you on a date right now." So, we'll leave that one up to you to decide, but we thought it'd be fun to share with you some standout moments that we've had with our kids on these date days. Do you wanna start Aaron? - [Aaron] Yeah, so speaking about Olive, I would take her to dinner, and we'd go to one of our favorite restaurants and it's right there, right where she goes to dance. And I'll leave early and we'll spend about an hour eating together and just talking, sometimes she's coloring, sometimes she'll bring a book that she loves I'll read it to her, but a couple of cool things about this is it really stands out to other people. They start seeing me with my daughter and they're like, "Wow, this Dad's with their daughter" or just, it's a really intimate thing. So it's an example to others, which has been really cool. It also gives you enough time to just ask them questions and be like, "Who are you?" This little girl who's growing and turning into a her own person with her own ideas and with her own dreams and which is just a really powerful thing. A couple months ago, there was a really funny thing that I found out about Olive from dating her. So we go to this restaurant and I order something I've never ordered before, and it's this shrimp pasta dish. It's amazing, I loved it. It's like one of my new favorite things. And I get it and I'm like, "Oh, this is so good. "Oh my gosh, this is so amazing." And Olive leans over and she's like, "What's that smell?" And I'm like what? - She's really straightforward and blunt. - She's like, "Dad, that smells disgusting." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And she literally, she was like "I can't eat Dad, "this is ruining everything and I don't like that smell." I find out she doesn't like seafood smell, 'cause it smelled a little like shrimp and she was like, "It's disgusting!" So every time I order she's like, "Dad, don't order that, "I can't eat with you!" - [Jennifer] Actually, I remember her coming home that night and so you went to dinner first and then dance. So you guys were gone for a couple of hours. And she came home and I was like, "Oh, how was it?" And she goes, "Mom, Dad ordered this food "that I did not like." - [Aaron] "It was disgusting." And so I found out that Olive doesn't like the smell of seafood. So I have to get that pasta when I'm out around Olive now. - [Jennifer] That's funny. Something that stood out to me was, I remember a while ago, just having a hard day and needing a Mommy break. You know, all the Moms right now are like, "Yep, I feel ya." And so I asked Aaron if he could come in and watch the kids while I went and grabbed some lunch by myself. And I was really looking forward to it 'cause you had said yes. - Oh I remember this day, okay - [Jennifer] You understood and said yes and I was getting ready to go, and it was a day that I was actually having a really hard time with Olive. And so I don't know why all these stories revolve around her but-- - She's special. - [Jennifer] She's special. - [Aaron] She's our only little girl right now. - [Jennifer] She was just having a very emotional day, which was new for her in her development. She wasn't like this before, and it was rubbing me the wrong way. And so I was getting ready and you looked down the hallway and you kind of signaled to me like-- - I said it quietly-- - Do you wanna take her? - [Aaron] You learn really quick not to say things out loud. 'cause then it's like, it ruins everything. - [Jennifer] And I was actually really frustrated that you even acknowledged that-- - Or even asked you. - Or even asked me because I just wanted to get out of there. And I'm just being honest, and I just felt my in gut like, yes, that's the right thing to do and so I-- - [Aaron] But with your body language it was like no. - [Jennifer] So I said, "Olive come here," and she came running down the hall. She goes, "Where you going?" 'cause I had my shoes on. I said, "I'm going to lunch, do you wanna go with me?" And she lit up like just-- - You made her day. - I did. And so we went to lunch and I sat down and I tried asking her some questions and getting to know like what's going on, I acknowledged that she had been emotional and she acknowledged that she had been emotional. And it was a really encouraging time for our relationship. It was almost like God showed me where it's gonna be when she's 16. - [Aaron] I know, I love those glimpses! I'm so excited for that. - So cool. And just being able to get her away from all the boys in the family, and just see her for who she was and what she was going through, it was like an eye opener for me. So that's something that really stood out to me and showed me like my little girl is growing up and I need to be there for her and what does that look like? We also took a little devotional with us and it was a book that you actually started going through with her on your guy's dates. And so I took it with and read a page out of it and we talked about it and she was just, she came back just different from that opportunity. - [Aaron] Well it totally encourages her and makes her feel so loved. And yeah, she had a totally different attitude the rest of the day from that time with you. And that that's kind of how is with all of our kids. I love when I go out with Elliot. Again, I take him to piano, and then I'll take him to a lunch. So we what we do is we couple events. - [Jennifer] Things that you already have responsibility to. - [Aaron] Yeah so, I'm like, "Oh if I just leave a little early, "then I can go actually have a date with my son." He looks forward to it and we go and we'll color together, we'll talk, I purpose to not have my phone out at all. - [Jennifer] That's good. - [Aaron] I had to check it once in a while for a text message or you might call me or something, but I try and put it away so he knows that I'm intentionally trying to be with him. And then like, I just try and be, it's actually honestly, it's hard sometimes 'cause I'm like, how do I engage with my son? I'm trying to come up with creative questions, I'm trying to dig deeper than just what we always hear out of his mouth. I'm like, you know, what about this? What do you wanna, you know? - [Jennifer] But you can't expect it because when they're so young, they might not and that's okay. - [Aaron] Yeah, but I have to try. And so it's cool. The last time I went on a date with him, so he's been loving video games. He's playing Zelda, like that little, it's like a remake of the original Zelda, it's pretty awesome, actually. And he just talks about it a lot and I'm like, "Okay, Elliot, you know that someone came up "with this game, right?" And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "Well, this whole story, "everything you love about this game, someone--" - Someone designed it. - "Created it." - [Jennifer] Someone made it up, yeah. - [Aaron] It came up from there, like all the names of the characters and all the places and he was like, "What really?" And I was like, "And you could too." And I actually started talking to him, I was like, "Why don't you describe a game?" And we literally spent the hour and he came up with his own game about a little boy with a backpack and his backpack has all of his powers and toys and we came up with what the adventure was gonna be about and he had to save the ancient. And it gave an opportunity where I was able to coax out of him more creativity and he was actually able to see beyond this thing that he loved to something to something that he could create like something he loves. - [Jennifer] That's so cool 'cause you took something that he was interested in and you saw it and you said, "Now how can I use this "to benefit our relationship?" - [Aaron] And it was fun because it made the conversation unique, it actually drew something out of him, I would imagine, made him feel more powerful like, "Wow, I could do that?" like, "I could make that thing? "I didn't even know that was impossible." I'm like, "Well, yeah, someone made it." So it was a lot of fun and I actually got to hear his creativity and I would ask him questions like, "Well, what does that character do? "Where did he come from?" And now he's like, creating these back stories. And so I told him, I was like, "You should do that "as a school project this year, come up with a game." So that was that was a really powerful, fun experience, too. - [Jennifer] That's awesome. Another standout memory that I have is with Elliot, I'm not trying to copy you on these stories. - It's okay if you are. - I know. But this actually happened when we were on vacation. I was pregnant with Wyatt and so Elliott was probably like three, almost four years old and we had gotten the opportunity to go to Maui, and it was really fun. And I remember waking up really early one morning and I shook you and I was like, "Hey, can I take Elliot out?" And you were like, "Yeah," but he was sleeping, but it was so cool. I woke him up and we snuck out without Olive waking up and so you and Olive stayed resting. - [Aaron] I slept for another two hours I think. - [Jennifer] Well it was probably like 5:45 in the morning and I'm like trying to get dressed in the dark. And we went downstairs 'cause we were staying at this resort with access to the beach, and we went, their coffee shop opened at 6 and so we went and got a bagel and walked all the way out to the beach. And I just sat there and we ate a bagel and then he played in the sand for like 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and we walked back up and got to have breakfast again with you guys. And it's such a standout memory for me because I loved having that one on one time with him. I love that we got to take a special unique opportunity away from everyone else just to be together. We got something that we both love and shared it, a bagel. And I have this memory of sitting on the beach, even though that whole vacation was pretty memorable, that's what stands out to me because I sat on the beach with just my son and I got to watch how he plays and I got to observe him and engage with him and love on him and it was just, I don't know, one of the things we'll talk about in just a minute is just the benefits of having that one on one time with your kid and I would say building memories like that where they stick with you-- - [Aaron] And they'll stick with them too. - [Jennifer] Well with them, but it makes you wanna recreate 'em. Oh, it's so powerful for the relationship, for the friendship, for the engaging aspect of what this is. - [Aaron] You know, in this episode, I would say our main goal in sharing these things with you is in parenting and in just marriage and in life and in church and all these things, there's so many things drawing our energies and attentions and every one in a while we just need to be reminded that we need to be taking opportunities to slow down and to get off the beaten path with our kids. To get to know them, to let them know that we are there for them, we like them. Like, it's one thing to love your kids, it's another thing to like your kids. And our kids need to know that we like them. Like I wanna spend time with you, I wanna be near you, I wanna know who you are and how you think. So that's our encouragement. What are some benefits, if those that are listening now start trying to implement some way that they should be taking these date days, date nights, alone time with their kids? - [Jennifer] Well, I the first thing that comes to my mind, and it just happens when you have multiple people in the family, when you step away with just one is you get uninterrupted time with them to really hear them and what they're going through. - Which is nice. - And to chat. It really is nice because anyone with multiple people in a family, you sit down at the dinner table and everyone's talking over each other. And we're working on that, our kids are pretty young so they're still learning that but it's all the time in the car, while they're playing, it's constant and so being able to pull away from the crowd and saying, "Hey, I see you and I hear you, "and I wanna hear more." It's powerful. - [Aaron] And then that goes into the other part of this, which is you get, you get to be un-distracted. But now this also takes, you should be intentional on this. Like I said, I try to not have my phone out because I don't wanna just be, and sadly, we see this sometimes, you see a father with their kid, and they're just, that Dad's on their phone and I don't wanna be that guy and I've done that before. Make sure that we're like, the intention is to be with your child. - [Jennifer] So it kind of gets you out of your elements to where you're purposeful and you're thinking ahead, you're thinking through all the steps while you're on this date, because your purpose is for them. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what our children see it. They feel when we're with them or not. Like, "Oh, I'm just here. "Dad's just here, but he's not here." Or "Mom's just here and she's not here." So intentionally putting it away, which totally shows them respect and honor and says, "I wanna know you, I'm here for you." - [Jennifer] It lets them know that there's, I kinda mentioned this earlier, but it lets them know that they're special, that they're an individual from the family pack. - [Aaron] They're not just one cog in the whole piece, that they're a person. - Yeah, yeah. We also get to know them. You know what, like you mentioned studying your kids earlier and I feel like having that one on one time, you really get to know them, where they're at, what they're going through. Something that I mentioned Isaac and Angie Tolpin earlier from Courageous Parenting, and Isaac, he just has this really great tool that he uses with his family that he shared with us, and he really is good at this, like naturally. But he talks about going three questions deep and this is a great tool to use for little kids because sometimes you ask them a question and either they don't fully understand, or they don't know how to answer it and so by asking the same question three different ways you get to pull from their heart. And so maybe you guys can just tuck that away or go look up Courageous Parenting and check that out but he talks about going three questions deep. But Aaron, why don't you give them some examples of what kind of questions they can ask on these dates with their kids? - [Aaron] And this isn't the definitive list, of course. - [Jennifer] No, no, but just some things that we go through. - [Aaron] Yeah, and the idea is, and it's a challenge, is I wanna be deeper than just like, "Hey, how are you? "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" Which I love those questions, but we wanna be able to go deeper so, "What do you know about God?" Which is a great question for discipleship, because then you get to find out like, where they're at in understanding God. - [Jennifer] They may say some off the wall thing that you might have to correct. - [Aaron] Yeah, or they'll blow your mind away and you'll be like, "Wow, I didn't even, "I've never thought of that about God." - [Jennifer] Or how do you know that 'cause I didn't teach you that? - [Aaron] Yeah. Another question is "What has God been teaching you?" Which actually makes them think like, "Wait, God teaches me things?" And then they can think like, "Oh, well, maybe to be more patient with my sister." Something like that. "What have you been interested in lately?" And you might already know the answer-- - [Jennifer] Well I was gonna say their interests can change so you might know the answer, but it could also surprise you. - [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause like forever Elliot loved Iron Man, and now it's Spiderman, but now it's not even Spiderman, it's Zelda. - Zelda. - So-- - Link. - [Aaron] "How are your relationships with your siblings?" - [Jennifer] This is a really good one for kids, that they are recognizing that their relationships with their siblings are important, and so they'll most likely be honest with you about how they are. Go three questions deep though. - [Aaron] Yeah. A good question is, "What things have you been frustrating, "or have been frustrating you lately?" Ask them like, "Hey, have there been things "that have been bothering you? "Are you frustrated with something "or do you feel sad about something?" - [Jennifer] Something that I've been used to asking when I have one on one time with the kids, like Elliot and I just ran an errand recently, and he jumped in the car, and we were headed over to my sister in law's house and I just asked him, "Hey, bud, how's your heart? "What's going on? "What are you thinking about lately?" So just things like that are really good. And then the last one Aaron. - [Aaron] This is a hard question to ask your kids. You know, sometimes they won't even know how to answer this but if you wanna honestly know the answer, and you honestly ask it, it's "How have I been doing as your Mom? "How have I been doing as your Dad? "Is there areas I can grow in? "Is there things that I do that bother you, frustrate you?" Now it doesn't mean that their answer is always gonna be applicable or right but it's a way of honestly saying, "I care how my children view me." Not that I just-- - Maybe they'll be, maybe they'll be really affirming and they'll encourage you. - [Aaron] Well and younger, they're all, "You're the best Dad ever!" And you get you're probably not or you don't feel that way but as they grow up, and they know that you care, they know that you want to know. - [Jennifer] And if we see this as a longevity thing, like an investment, then each time that we're with them, and we're asking these kinds of questions, we're asking this specific question-- - [Aaron] They might start thinking of better answers. - [Jennifer] Well, not just that but in their own maturity and development they will have more deeper, right? But you've prepped them over the years on answering. - [Aaron] Well and what it's also doing is building in them a trust of-- - You can tell me. - Mom and Dad wanna know, and I can tell them. - Yeah you can trust me. - They wanna know things and I want to tell them things and I wanna share with them. So it's this open line of communication and it's not just not having deep, if we as parents early on think "Oh I'm not, "I can't have deep conversations with my kids." Then when they're older, it's not gonna just start out of nowhere. - Right. - So we gotta start now, even if the conversation doesn't go deep, at least you're teaching your children like, "Hey, let's communicate, I want to hear from you." - That's good. - You know? - [Jennifer] So we were talking about the benefits of why we do this, why we have one on one time with the kids and we took a little side tangent to talk about questions that we asked them on these dates but let's finish up with this list of just some of the benefits. - [Aaron] And one of them is you get to know them. Remember we talked about we wanna like our kids. You get to know your kids. - [Jennifer] You get an opportunity to speak into their life. - Yeah. Going back to the whole continuing that open line of communication, you want your children to come to you for advice, you want your children to talk to you. So speaking into their life-- - [Jennifer] Here's two of 'em, I'm gonna share fun for both of you. Just whatever you're gonna go do, and it doesn't mean you have to spend money, I mean-- - [Aaron] I'll say this though, fun is a heart position and it's a posture you have to take. You have to decide in your heart this is going to be a fun thing not a inconvenient thing. Because I have hard time with that. I can be like, "Okay, this is inconvenient, "I have other things I want to be focusing on." But if we say, "Nope, this is gonna be a fun thing. " I wanna spend time with my kid." - [Jennifer] Well and you can look at fun and say, "What's something that I think would be fun "that I wanna invite my child into?" Or you can look at it from their perspective and say, "What would be fun for them?" And the other one I want to share, I already touched on it earlier, but it's building those memories and allowing your children to build those memories of having fun and doing something with just Mom or just Dad. - [Aaron] Another one, it's just logistically, especially when your family starts growing, taking one or two of the children out of the home helps the other parent also, it gives the dynamic of reprieve, it allows for other things to take place, it allows your wife or your husband to have time to themselves or with the other kids. So there's just a strategic, logistical thing that happens with taking one of the kids. And then also, your kids begin to look forward to it. - Yeah, even if it's spontaneous, they still know "Mom and Dad love me and they like me--" - "This is something that happens, "I'm gonna get time alone." And you know, it also opens that opportunity that our kids come to us and they say, "Can I go on a date with you?" They actually invite us on dates, they long for those times alone with us. - [Jennifer] Yeah. I'm gonna run through a couple benefits just for the parents' sake, investing into this relationship long-term. So casting that vision of, kinda like when I said when I was sitting at the table with Olive, it felt like how it would be sitting with her at the coffee shop at 16. - [Aaron] Which is exactly what you're doing. That's a pattern you're building of, if you want to be sitting when your child's 16, 17, 18, 20 and you have that deep close relationship, it doesn't start then. - Right. - It starts right now. - So. We admit, we don't have a 16 year old, but I would assume that if we haven't been putting in the time and investing in that way, when they're 16, are they gonna want to spend that quality time with us? - Well, I hope so. - Well, yeah, but I think the investment comes way earlier on and I think we need to be mindful of that. - [Aaron] Well, and I'll throw a shout out, Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting, they do have older children and this is what they say. They say, "Hey, we started early investing in this "'cause we wanted our children to want to hear from us, "want to spend time with us." And they do. So we have examples in our life that we get to look at and say, "Well, let's just start now "and let's follow that example." - [Jennifer] Another benefit is Aaron you mentioned that that whole heart posture of kids being inconvenient, like being an inconvenience, and so when you think about one on one time with your kids, going to spend that quality time with them reinforces that they're important and special to your heart, so that it doesn't feel like a burden, the day in and day out of things that you're doing with them, because even you start to look forward to spending that quality time with them and then you get to have fun. Like when I think about taking my kid for a treat, sometimes it's even spontaneous to us in that, "Hey, there's this window of opportunity "and I wanna go share it with them." I like a treat, I like coffee, I like hot chocolate, I like a good conversation and so it's a benefit to us in that way. And then the last one, which Aaron you touched on, but it alleviates the other parent who's with the other kids for a brief time. So if I take one or even two of my kids, and I go on a date with them and you're at home with the other ones, it changes the atmosphere a little bit and I think it's nicer and easier. - [Aaron] I'll say this also, not just on the date side of things, we've kind of made a commitment to each other, it doesn't happen every time but if any one of us are ever gonna go run an errand, we always take one or two. - It's an opportunity! - It's an opportunity for the children and it also is an opportunity for your spouse and it's called this, it's divide and conquer. It's this idea of like-- - Except you enjoy it. - [Aaron] Yeah, but you enjoy it. So it's a pretty smart strategy for not always having the burden of all the children all the time on just your wife or just your husband. It's this idea of like, we're gonna work as a team so that this parenting thing doesn't feel burdensome all the time. - Yeah. - 'Cause sometimes it does. - [Jennifer] Okay you guys, we've shared a lot, but we also wanted to share some cool practical date ideas to spend time with your kids and these are just a handful, there are so many more, and especially when you think about different age categories, 'cause different kids will be interested in different things. And we also just wanna be clear that you do not have to spend extra money on these things. You can make it as simple as going for a walk around the block and heading to the park, playing catch with your son or daughter, or you can save up and go to a nice dinner with them. But we just wanna reiterate that you don't, it doesn't have to be a painful experience as far as finances or time. - [Aaron] And our kids are, they're super complicated but they're also very simple. - Yeah. - Time. - Yeah it's time. - They want presence and time. So like, I would imagine my son Elliot, if I just took him to the top, we have a hill, a butte that we can go look up on top of at sunset or sunrise, he would just love that. - Yeah. - And it's free. We just take the time to do it. - [Jennifer] So here's the thing, don't let anything keep you from excusing your way out of this. If you're a parent, and you have a child or children, no matter what their age is, it's important to spend quality time with them and have one on one time with them to have those conversations and share with them your heart and hear their hearts and really just invest the time into that relationship and I think this is a good word and warning to all of us as parents, especially looking at the longevity of our relationships with our kids and where we want to be with them when they're older. - Yeah. And just a note, imagine or realize what you as an individual need and desire. Don't you want your spouse to spend quality time with you, alone time to get to know you, to look in your eyes and say, "Who are you? "What are you doing?" Jennifer we just had to talk about this. You know like, "Hey, I want you to get to know me, "I want you to ask me deep questions." - [Jennifer] Yeah. Even if you were to think about along those same lines there and if you were to think right now everyone listening about you as a child and what you desired most-- - [Aaron] I think about these things. - [Jennifer] Think about that. Spend some time today and really think about what did you desire most from your mom? What did you desire most from your dad? And if you have children, try and implement those things. Try and be that way. - [Aaron] I don't know if I'm right in this, but I would imagine the things that we wished we had the most, the things that we wish that we got from our parents are probably the things that we have the hardest time giving to our kids. I would imagine that's true 'cause we've seen in our own lives, like me, patience. That's something that my mom and dad struggled with with me at times, I'm not very easy person be patient with. And so patience has been something I've had to work really hard to give my kids. And so if you look at your relationship with your parents, I would imagine the thing that you longed for the most and probably didn't get is the thing that you might have the hardest time giving. But don't let that be the reason. Like say, "Okay, you know what, God help me in this. "I wanna give this to my kids. "I wanna give them that attention, that affection, "that patience, that gentleness that I didn't receive." - [Jennifer] And even without thinking about it, every person in the world, every human desires what? To be known and loved. So, bottom line, this is an opportunity for us to get to know our children, to let them know we know them that we're paying attention, and to give them that quality time where we're conversing with them about things and loving on them. - [Aaron] Okay, let's give some ideas. These are practical ideas for, and you'll have to look at this and figure out the age range, where your kid is at age-wise and say, "Oh, this would be appropriate or this would be applicable." - [Jennifer] And then talk to each other about scheduling and timing and like, is this something we can put on the calendar? What would be best? - [Aaron] And how does it work? Like practically? - And we would encourage-- - Is it once a month? Is it every week? - We would encourage you guys to take time doing it 'cause even Mom who's at home with the kids all day, she still needs that one on one time. So finding ways to give Mom that opportunity and then finding ways that Dad gets those opportunities. And every family will look different. - [Aaron] Okay, so here's some ideas, a meal date. Just picking a breakfast lunch or a dinner and going somewhere, maybe bring it, like you make a pack a lunch and you go to a park. - [Jennifer] Or bring 'em to either yours or theirs favorite restaurant. - [Aaron] Right and just you and them. - [Jennifer] Another one is grabbing hot chocolate and bringing a game along or coloring. Depending on their age. - Coloring, a miniature board game. - Yeah. - [Aaron] Something like, what's that dice game? Yahtzee? - I was gonna say Farkle. - [Aaron] Or Farkle, oh that's a fun one. - [Jennifer] But hot chocolate and I'm assuming as they get older, it might turn into a coffee date. But hey, that's fun. - [Aaron] Another idea is treat 'em to a treat, like a cookie or a bagel or a cupcake or something like that. A donut, we love donuts, and a devotional, bring some sort of like child appropriate devotional and just read it with them and talk to them say, "What'd you think of that? "Do you have any questions for me?" - [Jennifer] Or maybe you don't have a resource, but you have a very specific conversation that you want to share with them privately. Use that opportunity for that. Another one would be the trampoline park. Aaron, you're really good at this one. - [Aaron] I like this one. This one is a fun one for me. - [Jennifer] I feel like I'm always pregnant and so it's hard for me to feel comfortable jumping and I get dizzy really easily but you love taking the kids and the kids look forward to you taking them to the trampoline park. - [Aaron] And it gets a lot of energy out and you can do it with them. And it also requires, you're not gonna be on your phone because it's hard to jump on your phone. - [Jennifer] It doesn't have to be trampoline, it could be laser tag or something fun like that but it's just going to one of those places that is very kid friendly and having fun. - [Aaron] Another one that's free, a bike ride. - [Jennifer] Unless you don't have bikes. - [Aaron] Unless you don't have bikes, but-- - You could rent some. - You can go for a walk, but a bike ride, a lot of people have bikes. Go for just a bike ride around your block, go take the bike somewhere on a trail, and just have that time of going, stopping and looking at stuff and talking. - [Jennifer] Wear your helmets! Even you Mom and Dad, be an example. Another one is interest shopping, and what I mean by this is just for example, okay Elliot's so into Legos and we have this really cool local guy who has a Lego store and it's small and it's like a boutique, but you go in there and there's Legos everywhere. He has a personal collection that he switches that in and out. And so just taking a random afternoon to go check the Lego store. - [Aaron] And it doesn't mean even you have to buy anything. We tell our kids all the time we like to go look at things and we'll say we're not buying anything today, but let's go look. And then they're like "Okay," so their expectations are totally set and they enjoy looking at stuff. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so I say interest shopping 'cause it could be anything from window shopping down in a downtown area to eventually you know, your girl is 16 and she actually wants to go shopping so it could change depending on the child. - [Aaron] This next one's a free one also and Elliot loves this one, Barnes and Noble trip or library. What we do is we just go and Barnes and Noble's fun because you can go and they have so many different types of books and we'll sit in the back and he just picks a book up, starts looking through the pages, picks another book up. Sometimes he'll be like, "Hey Dad, read this one to me." We'll go sit down and I just read to him and it's just me and him and it's quiet in there. - [Jennifer] There's been a couple times you guys have come back with a gift for Olive or something like that. So using the opportunity as a thoughtful way to say "You're not gonna get anything, "but what would stand out to your sister or your brother "or your Mom or Dad?" Another one would be going to get ice cream. Go and get ice cream, go for a walk. Some ice cream places do like a factory tour, you could do something fun like that. - [Aaron] One more is, we got two more, run an errand. This is like a really practical one, I have to go do something, I have to go get the mail, we have to go to the grocery store, and take a child with you and they're your partner. So I'll take Wyatt and he's in charge of the list or Elliot will be in charge of the list of what we're getting and I'll say, "Okay, we're looking for this, what aisle that on?" And so it's like a fun, something that has to be done, but they're doing it with me and they're your partner in that job. - [Jennifer] And it's fun when you give them a job to do on that errand. I know you just mentioned that but I had just been thinking like yeah, they really think that they're valued and have responsibility in the family when they get to be a part of it. The last one that we want to share with you is just a special event. This could be as simple as volunteering to help someone move, so Dad and son go help so and so move or a baby shower, I think of all the times that I get to take Olive on a little date and share in an experience like a baby shower with her and so even something like that you can utilize an event opportunity to take your kids on a date. - [Aaron] And there's a ton of other things, our heart was just to get your mind on this. What are ways that you can get alone with your children and get to know them? And taking turns, Dad doing this, Mom doing this because they wanna know both of your hearts are with them, they wanna know that both of you know them, and that you desire to be with them and like them. And it also, yeah like you said, the pack, it shows that they're an individual amongst the family but that they're also a part of the family. - [Jennifer] And as I was just thinking about this, we shared questions that you could ask your child to be able to pull out that conversation from their hearts but also give them the opportunity to ask you questions. Say, "Is there anything that's been on your heart "that you want to ask Mom or Dad? "Anything that's confusing or you've been struggling with?" - [Aaron] Anything you want to know about me? - [Jennifer] Or yeah, you wanna know about me? So I think opening up opportunity for your kids to ask you questions would be a really huge benefit to the relationship by doing that. - Totally. So we hope that encouraged you. Hope we gave you a lot of good ideas to run with. - [Jennifer] The next time you go on a one on one date time with your kids, be sure to post a picture and share it on Instagram and tag Marriage After God so that we can see what you guys are up to. It'll be inspiring to all of us. - [Aaron] As usual, we end in prayer, so why don't you pray for us? - [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close with them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids Your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all that they have experienced. May Your love be woven into our legacy and may Your light shine in our relationships with our children. In Jesus' name, amen. - [Aaron] Amen. Thanks for joining us on this episode. If you haven't left us a review, please take the opportunity to do that now. We love reviews from our listeners. And also don't forget to get the new download. Or it's not a download, it's a challenge. The Parenting Prayer Challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, sign up, it's completely free and we'll send you prompts every day for the next 31 days to pray for your children. We love you guys, see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

A couple trash-cans team-up to assist in the destruction of many soulless husks all on a mission that is never stated all so the villain can become Dante and rule all of hell from inside of a Cylon. While that sounds absolutely nutty, we hope that you're able to get to any of those points because this movie's primary problem is...zzz...zzz. Oh I'm sorry, just thinking about this film put me to sleep like warm milk. It's painfully boring. Once you get past the excellent model work (that doesn't have enough shots), the spectacular theme by John Barry (which you're done with after the first 3 times you hear it) and Robert Forster just being Robert Forster (a damn pro), you're left with endless exposition, painful banter between the robots, a completely up-his-own-ass villain just for the sake of it and tedium. Endless tedium. However, the last 15 minutes of the film are absolutely bonkers. We got very little clue here guys about what the actually hell happened once the (of course) everyone goes into the black hole. For some wild reason, Disney decided to cram some Dante's Inferno and conceptual imagery of heaven (we think) and have absolutely no idea why. If someone could help us out in the WHY, not the what, we'd be thankful. Besides the bore factor, the film breaks its own rules constantly, the whole thing is the idiot-plot (whole plot could have been avoided had just one character not been an idiot), and the acting (aside from Forster and he's just doing what he can with what he's got to work with) is atrociously over-the-top. Which would all be fine and enjoyable if you'd managed to stay awake. Skip this one.

Connect with Sumeena Gupta on Instagram @sumeena_guptawww.pesonaresort.com TRANSCRIPTINTRO: 00:02 You are not here by accident. You are here by design. And you are here to find courage in the face of fear, to replace isolation with connection, to push back that feeling of overwhelm, and to start feeling confident. And you know how you're going to do it? By listening to other people's stories. There's no better way to feed your soul and raise your vibration and shift your mindset than to hear the stories of those who have gone before you. I'm your host, Lori Lynn, also known as Her Royal Excitedness, and I invite you to Rise and Climb. LORI LYNN: 00:49 Welcome back to the Rise and Climb podcast with your host, Lori Lynn. Today's guest is an entrepreneurial woman who has been on this journey of finding her own way and carving her own path. And she has a beautiful resort that she oversees and I would love for you to meet her. Her name is Sumeena Gupta and she is my beautiful guest today. Thank you so much, Sumeena, for being on the show. SUMEENA GUPTA: 01:18 Hi Lori. Thank you for having me. So good to be here. LORI LYNN: 01:23 So I know we've connected over being women in the entrepreneurial space and having sort of alternative views with regard to raising our children and homeschooling and travel. And just to give the listeners an idea of where you are right now. I am in Nashville, Tennessee and you are in ... SUMEENA GUPTA: 01:44 I'm currently sitting in Mendoza in Argentina, which is the wine country and it's a beautiful place if you've never been. I encourage everybody to get to Argentina. It's a, a big country, but there's so much to offer. Um, and I'm traveling minimum 10 months, possibly longer with my three kids and my husband, um, we left about seven weeks ago from, um, our homes in Bali, Indonesia, where we've been living for the last 12 years. Um, and maybe you can hear from my accent. I'm actually really UK, so, um, is it all a bit of a mix, but yeah, currently in Argentina. It's lovely to see you. You too. LORI LYNN: 02:25 Now you said, um, you're leaving for Peru too SUMEENA GUPTA: 02:28 soon, is that right? Yes, we fly to Peru tomorrow. Um, we'll be there probably also a month because, um, I've been to Peru before, actually, my husband and I traveled South America for eight months, about 12 years ago, which is when we actually started our business as well. Um, as you do when you travel, serendipity takes over. And, uh, that's how we stumbled across our adventure. But, uh, yeah, I love Peru because of the Inco history and Machu Picchu and this, uh, it's this very beautiful country also. So we're headed there tomorrow and then over the next two months we'll travel some more and end up in Antigua in Guatemala in February where we've signed the kids up to a Montessori Cambridge green school, um, Antigua green school. And the kids will spend at least two or three months at that school, which looks fantastic. Um, and tick Y, which is a UNESCO heritage city. LORI LYNN: 03:28 So I'm so excited for that. Can't wait. That's incredible. Yeah. And that's the type of education that you can't get sitting in a classroom.  SUMEENA GUPTA: Yeah, exactly. I, uh, I've, I'm one of these people that when I do something, I really investigate it. So when I had children, I read all the children parenting books, how to do it right, what not to do, what to do wrong. And, and as we know, as parents, you learn on the job. So those books, those books just get thrown out the window. But, um, I've really, I've really, uh, investigated education actually and where it's headed. Um, and I do think as parents, I mean, I was brought up in this way as well where education is the one gift that you give your kids. Um, but nowadays I think the education is not necessarily kind of the degree or the exam results. SUMEENA GUPTA: 04:19 It's hard to survive in this world and the world is changing so much that I really believe going forward, our kids need a lot more, uh, arsenal or, or more toolkit, more tools in their kit to survive. Um, so I'm currently apparently unschooling my children. So taking them out of the system and trying to teach them other things, survival skills, um, you know, being in a different place, learning different languages, you know, figuring out how to jump on a bus, dealing with boredom, dealing with lack of wifi in social. I mean, you know, where in remote places where there is no social media, making friends with kids who don't speak your language in the park because obviously, you know, kids always need that community and interaction. Um, so yeah, it's just amazing. And also I just think the year in a life of a child is nothing to take them out of the system and to actually give them this journey and their gifts and their, you know, they may not remember all of it, but they're writing diaries and drawing pictures then and something sticks. SUMEENA GUPTA: 05:23 And also we're loving it. We get to spend this intense time with our kids who will soon be grown up and fly the roost and we'll remember these times. So, you know, it's just such a powerful year for us and I'm really glad we've, we've orchestrated it and it wasn't easy. We've had to do a lot of things to make this happen, but it's just the right thing to do. And I know that and I feel it. Tell me how old your children are. The oldest is 11. Um, the second one, the oldest is, he's a boy. He's 11. Ishaan. Then I have a daughter who's nine. She's called Layla. She's a budding actress, I think I mentioned. And uh, the youngest is seven. So EMEA, I feel like those are the perfect ages for traveling. Yeah, you don't have toddlers and you don't have teenagers. SUMEENA GUPTA: 06:09 This is like the [inaudible] you did it. I had the will, I'm very close in age, obviously within five or five years. And they've always been really good friends so that, that helps with the company because they have each other to play with, which cause kids, I think kids when they're out a school that's you homeschool, so maybe you understand this, but they do need that social interaction. Um, and they get that from each other, which is really handy. And they love each other. They're really good kids, so they fight, but they do play together as well. Um, but yeah, this is such a special age. They still listen to you and they still love you and they still, you know, the, they respond to what you say, they respect you. SUMEENA GUPTA: 06:51 They, they old enough to kind of question and learn and take an interest. So yeah, it's really fun for loving it. There's challenges though. It definitely is not bed of roses. Yeah. It's not for the faint of heart traveling with three children to other countries. And I have to say one of my, so the reason I started on my entrepreneurial journey, which was, um, when I attend 30 actually, cause prior to that I'd worked in the corporate world. Um, I was on the treadmill. That's how I always say, or plugged into the matrix. We, you know, I studied, I'd got my degree. I, I've, I'm Asian, I mean Indian background and we're expected to do certain things like, you know, get a good job, buy a house, get married, have kids, et cetera, et cetera. And I know it was very much on that path, very much following, you know, doing, doing really well and, and just doing what I thought I had to do. SUMEENA GUPTA: 07:45 And then my husband and I decided to travel at 30. Um, and it just changed everything. It derailed us completely. We decided that there was way more to life than what we were up to at that time and it just didn't suit us. And we realized we could start seeing the cracks in, in what we were doing. And, and traveling opened our eyes to that and made us realize we have to change something. And that's where we ended up as part of our travels in Indonesia. We came across this Island called [inaudible], which is only seven kilometers. The conference, it's about two hours from Bali. Um, beautiful. It's a diving Island. It's just nature. You know, it's got sunset sunrises, sun dandy beaches. It's just gorgeous blue water. And we had some money in the bank cause we'd been working and we bought this plot of land and that was it. SUMEENA GUPTA: 08:34 That was the change, change our trajectory completely. Um, and as soon as we started, we kind of raised our kids on this Island. Um, they've always, they've grown up there. And then couple of years ago we moved to the big Island barley. And for those of, you know who barley, who know barley, it's a very big Island and it has great schools actually. Um, so we put them into a school that had a very big emphasis on growth mindset, which we love and it's an expert school so it's got lots of children with parents who have alternative views and you know, really open minded, you know, education is important but so is everything else which we really value. Right. Um, and then yeah, a couple of years in to Bali we've decided to take this year off and travel and, and kind of do it while the kids at the right age. Like you said, cause as the oldest gets older and they all do, they have to focus on different parts of their education, et cetera. SUMEENA GUPTA: 09:25 So, but one of the great things about starting my business, our business is that it gives us freedom. And you know, if I, if anyone out there, I would say if freedom is one of your really key values and your life jumping onto the entrepreneurial bandwagon is a really good way to kind of find that time that you want for yourself. And it seems contradictory cause I feel that people think if you run your own business, you, you actually work all the time, 24 seven really hard. And I have to say that is very true in the early stages. But if you're smart and if you're willing to let go and if you follow kind of an 80 20 rule, you can really, you know, trust. I have some really good stuff that I trust. My job now is to mentor my staff and help them and let them get on with it. SUMEENA GUPTA: 10:14 And that's kind of the entrepreneurial journey. If you value freedom, which we do. So, you know, we opened a restaurant a month ago while we were on the road by just managing our team and working very closely with our staff and just being there for them and guiding them and encouraging them and helping them with the hard parts and kind of leaving them to the bits we know that they could do. So being able to let go like that gives you so much freedom and then it allows you to earn the money that you need to do the other things like this, like traveling. So, you know, we don't stop working, but we don't have to work all the time. So yeah, it's really good. Yeah. So as an entrepreneur, I think it's very important to know why you go to it. Why do you want to have your own business? SUMEENA GUPTA: 10:58 What are your values that you're looking to really emphasize? And then focusing on those. So you mentioned the 80 20 rule. I don't know that everyone is familiar with that. Can you talk about that a little bit and how you applied it to those early days in growing your business? Okay. Um, two, I look at it two ways. First way is you can never ever get everything 100% right. So just letting that extra 20% go and I feel in every part of your life just makes life so much more livable. So, you know, even with, I see people with like really frenzied on diets and with exercise and just anything, if you try and do, and I do think that people like, like perfection and that's great, but if you try and do 100%, you're just setting yourself up for failure. I feel. So it has really helped me in my life to have a real kind of 80, 20 mindset with almost everything. SUMEENA GUPTA: 11:53 So in my business, if certain things don't go according to plan or, um, you know, it isn't exactly what I expected or it's not making the money that I thought it would, it's okay because we're 80% there and that's, that's fine. And it's, it's enough. So, you know, I just think that you've, maybe you have to know your own tolerance, but for me, 80 20 works and then the other 80 20 is almost the other way round, which is giveaway 80% of the work and keep the 20. That really adds value. And that's what I do. So the 20% that actually I bring to the business and that's the strategy. The idea is the guidance, the support, kind of a bit of the financial knowhow, you know, the understanding of the Indonesian laws and how that works. And now I'm really good at networking. So the networking side of things and queen and calling in people when we need them. SUMEENA GUPTA: 12:44 That's my 20% and the other 80% just gets shoved out to everyone else. And it's great because you create an economy. So we have almost a hundred staff and only two of them and only two of them are Westerners. So I have um, a spa, a dive shop, a restaurant and a hotel with 26 rooms. And then another restaurant we've just opened and we have, I think over 10% of my staff are from abroad and 90% are from Indonesia. So we've created an economy around that. And that makes me really proud because we train our staff. It's a very poor country. So there are, you know, hospitality's very big. It creates opportunities. But we really work with our staff. We train them, we educate them, we try and get them to see, not just turn up to work but actually try and, you know, get better, promote them, try and make them work their way up the ladder. SUMEENA GUPTA: 13:39 So I have some really, really strong Indonesian staff who basically are doing the 80% along with my, um, a couple of the Westerners that we hire because we always kind of need that in Indonesia. And in these Asian countries, it can be quite difficult to find the trustworthy staff as well. We've, I mean, we've been burnt, so we've learned a little bit from that, um, where we had money stolen, et cetera, like everybody has. So, you know, just being able to, to find that balance of the 80, 20 helps, I feel entrepreneurs just live their lives actually, which is the whole point is the whole point of those, you know, there's no point in having these successful businesses if you can't enjoy the money or the, or the freedom or the time that you have. So yeah, that's, that's what I, uh, that's how I would define the 80, 20 rule. LORI LYNN: 14:25 It's funny, I, I understand the principle and I would not have applied it the way that you just described it. So I'm so glad that I asked that question. I thought I understood and I was like, wow, that was actually really good. Okay, cool. Yeah, I mean I feel like it's different for everybody. And this is one thing that I, what I try not to do is listen to all the noise. There are me. SUMEENA GUPTA: 14:46 So, um, so many people tell you so many things and everyone says everything different and you know, there's all these morning routines and then you feel like you should be doing them. And then there's all these kinds of exercise regimes. And you feel you should be doing them. And this is kind of ideal. Everything. And I just think parenting, Oh my gosh, this is how you should raise your children. This is exactly. And if, honestly, if I listened to even half of what I heard, I'd have no idea what I was doing. So I think it's just for me, it's like what? What is clarity around what I want? What do I am I man, I'm so sure that this is what I want, that I can talk to anybody about it and no one can tell me otherwise. You know, it's almost that inner inner confidence or arrogance, I guess. SUMEENA GUPTA: 15:29 You don't have to shove it in people's faces. You don't have to be rude about it, but you know it for yourself to your core. So, you know, again, Indian families do not take their kids out of school and go traveling. It's just like what? They're not going to school. What is going to happen. I mean, I've got, you know, my parents and my ma, my inlaws and they're like, what about education, education, education? And I know to my core that this is so important that nobody can tell me that I'm doing the wrong thing and it's fine cause I have to live with the consequences so it doesn't matter. So again, with business, if, you know, when we opened our dive shop, everyone's like, Oh well we don't need another dive shop. There's already 10 on the Island. I mean at that time they were 10 others 20 so we were number 11. Wow. And I was like, yeah, yeah. I was like, Nope, this is going to be successful. It's going to be fine. And I think if you know that your, your make it work from almost like a a pride point of view as well as like, no, I'm going to make this work. So, um, yeah, it's just, it's just defining for yourself what it means I think is really helpful and really important. SUMEENA GUPTA: 16:36 So LORI LYNN: 16:37 how do you have the courage to launch into something that is undefined? So there had to have been some things along the way that led you, you know, you said you had that epiphany when you did the first trip and saw, okay, this is a completely different way of living that we could live. So how would you recommend getting a taste for something different if you feel that unsettled feeling? Um, and then where do you find the courage to, you know, to actually launch yourself onto that path and take that trajectory that's, you know, pulling you away from the traditional pull, you know, trying to keep you back where you were and where, you know, your family went and your answer. SUMEENA GUPTA: 17:22 Yeah. You know, that's such a good question actually because, um, I would have probably about a couple of years ago I would have said, I'm not sure, but I've actually thought about that because I really do want to help other people to be able to make those decisions. So I've had to, I've sort of thought, okay, what, how does, how do I make this happen? Like, what allows me to take risks, because, you know, although I said at 30 is when we sort of went, decided to start a business and my twenties I went through two full corporate careers. I worked for a.com. I worked for a big accountancy, I worked for a massive bank, but, and I always jumped ship because I was like, ah, this is not right for me. Like, so I was always quite happy to take these kind of risky decisions that were like, well, you're not gonna earn salary and then I'd get another job and it was fine. SUMEENA GUPTA: 18:15 Um, I feel that I'm really good at doing, uh, kind of making calculated risks. So, you know, like a kind of almost like a pro con list where I just say, okay, if I do this, what are the, what's the impact? What's the positive impact? Was negative impact. So, you know, sometimes it's in my head, sometimes it's an actual physical list and I'm just like, so what is the worst that can happen? And kind of write that down and go, what's the best that can happen? And write that down. And then try and give myself some security around like my risk-taking so that I know, okay, well, yeah, maybe I won't earn a salary for the next two years, but you know what, I've got a house I can rent out and therefore I can have some passive income from the rental. So there's my calculated risk possibly, or you know, okay, well why don't I just work another year and buy this asset and then I can maybe have that, you know, ticking over at the same time as, as I'm doing this. SUMEENA GUPTA: 19:15 So just really looking at really, but you have to do some like thought, you know, brainpower, soul-searching, writing lists or talking to someone that you really trust even, um, and just going, okay, what are the pros and cons? What's the worst that can happen? What's the best that can happen? How about we give it a go and no pressure. So how about we give it a go for six months and if it all goes pear shaped, we'll go back to this. So like, you know, no pressure to stay. So when I, when we first quit our jobs to start our business, we said to my husband and I were like, well, if it all goes pear shaped, we'll go back and we'll get another job, you know, and within a month we knew we were never going back. So just giving ourselves that little security blanket or a comfort, you know, cause it is really hard and there is a lot of risk taking and you do feel uncomfortable even with this travel, you know? SUMEENA GUPTA: 20:02 Yes, we've plugged in that we'll be away minimum 10 months if it's not working, if it's not the right thing. If we find that financially it's not viable, et cetera, et cetera, we'll buy a ticket and we'll go home and we'll just go back to where we were. And that's okay. Because again, we're not doing this for anyone else. We're just doing it for ourselves. We've got nothing to prove to anyone. So yeah, I'm a real kind of like calculated risk person. I just think that's, yeah, they're risks. But you know, I've thought about it, I know what I'm doing, I know the pros and cons. It's okay. So I don't know if that answers the question, but yeah, I think to kind of something that you mentioned that maybe sort of glossed over is being able to see beyond the present and having a vision for what you want, LORI LYNN: 20:48 what you want to grow, how you want your kids to grow up. You could see the business, you could see the dive shop, you could see, you know, your children learning new languages and interacting with people from other countries and different cultures. So when you have that vision in mind, then you know, that drives you toward it. And then it sounds like there, the courage comes from knowing that you've calculated the risk, you understand what the pros and cons are and you know that there's a backup plan. Like if this doesn't work out, you know what, no big deal. We can always go back to what we were doing before and switch gears. SUMEENA GUPTA: 21:24 Exactly. Yeah, that's, yeah, I don't, I think a lot of people are worried what other people will think in all honesty. And, and I could have fallen into that where I'd be like, Oh God, my parents told me that I shouldn't do this. And it would be a big mess. But if you thought, if, honestly, if I thought like that, and I say this often, I would have done nothing. Nothing. I would, I would probably, I probably wouldn't have gone to university because my parents, my dad was really conservative and he's like, Oh no, girls don't go to uni because they have to leave home and live out of the house. And you know, we kinda allow that. And I was like, I'm going to uni, like it's happening. So I just think if you really, if you keep thinking about what other [inaudible], and the thing is, they value education, but they kind of worry they've got, the security element was outweighing that. SUMEENA GUPTA: 22:08 And it was just like, I'm going, um, without being a rebel or being kind of slamming doors about it. It was just kind of like, I'm going like, why wouldn't I go to university? So yeah, I think just having a real kind of note, don't care really what people think. It's okay. Like I don't need to justify myself to them. And yeah, sometimes I get to a moment, I'm like, I already saw this. I, I've been here. It's almost like a deja VU. But you're right. It's that vision. So, you know, like I talked about the school, the kids are going to go to, I can already see it. I can see it's living in Antigua. I can see what we're going to do. We're possibly going to start a business. They're like, I've already said this to my husband. I'm like, let's, let's have a look at opportunities. SUMEENA GUPTA: 22:50 I've told the kids it's happening. You'll be learning Spanish, but, right. So, yeah, when I get there and be like, I've been here. So yeah, I, it's, it's true. It's, the visioning is very powerful. It's really gives you something to work towards. It's the GPS. I tell my kids, I'm like, if you have a GPS and you don't know where you're going, you won't get anywhere. And we use GPS a lot while we're traveling. Cause obviously we're like where are we, where are we going? And it's like you have to plug in the destination. Otherwise you're really aimless. And that is actually very true. What you said that, that's a good insight. Thanks. LORI LYNN: 23:25 Also seeing into this um, business relationship that you have with your husband, how do you maintain that marriage relationship alongside working together in a business relationship? So do you have advice for anyone who is either in the throes of trying to build a business together or like has the heart to do it, like might be able to see themselves doing it, but what practical advice do you have for people who are considering going that route? SUMEENA GUPTA: Well, it, that's such a powerful question because it's actually one of the things I want to mastermind over when in the future apparently were called CRA. Couple of printers cause we're a couples working together. Um, it is cause on, on this Island, many bit, many couples started businesses together because it's just, it feels so idyllic. Like, Oh, let's go to this little Island and start a business or a restaurant or a hotel or whatever, you know, a spa. And I have seen so many separations and they're friends of mine and it's so heartbreaking and I just think, Oh gosh, there are some really key elements that can help. SUMEENA GUPTA: 24:35 I feel couples work together. And one of them is you treat each other like business partners in the business space and you come home and you treat you sorta as a couple in the couple space. So, you know, I, from a very early, early on in our business career, we would have scheduled meetings with each other. Um, so like, Hey, you know, in work time we'd be like, can I need a meeting with you tomorrow to talk about this? Let's put it into the diary rather than 11 o'clock at night when you finally collapse into bed and you're just kind of starting to switch off and read your book. Or just, you know, reply to your WhatsApps from your family and it's like, Oh by the way, you know that wallpaper that we were choosing, I was like, no. And then that's when you lead, it leads to fights. SUMEENA GUPTA: 25:19 It's a complete passion killer. You know, you just don't want anything to do with that person anymore. And we really have worked together for almost 12, 13 years intensely. Um, almost sometimes where we don't see other people, but we're really good at going, work time is over. We're now in relationship time or I'm now having my own time as well. So you know, I'm going for a run or I'm going to the gym or I'm now switching off to you. I'm reading my book or you know, I need this space. So just being really kind of clear and we actually have a little bit silly, but we have WhatsApp groups with each other where we, you know, if you think of something, cause sometimes you are creative at different times, we have different, you know, mine schedule. So we WhatsApp each other. Oh by the way, blah blah blah. SUMEENA GUPTA: 26:05 And then you can read them in your own time. So it's out of your head. It's gone to the other person and it's done. And the other thing that we're really good on is we clear cut who's in charge of which part of the business. So my, my husband's so into the detail and he's into the kind of the real nitty gritty kind of project management financial stuff. Whereas I'm more of the strategy and the operations and the people and was so clear which part of the business we take a lead on. Um, and then that allows us to kind of go, okay, that's my area actually. I'm happy to listen to your input the same way I would at anybody else, but I think we should this and respecting that and going, okay, you are that person who makes a decision for that. I respect that. SUMEENA GUPTA: 26:49 So just the way you would raise your kids, just the way that you would kind of have your family life. It's separating the business life and the family life and just being treating each other like coworkers and treating each other as, as partners. Outside of that, it's really important cause I do have a very, I'm very lucky. I met my husband very young and we do have very good relationship and I do believe that's helped me make, take some of the risks. So, you know, that's, that's part of my calculated risk is that I'm in a, in a really tight relationship with my partner, um, and also having three kids and he's very supportive with that. So just, I do feel lucky about that, but I think that you can work on it and we do work on it. We work on it all the time. We've had plenty of, have bad periods and we work on it and we try and try and have good periods. Again, I read around it, I research, I try and look at, you know, what makes successful couples, what makes good business people who work together, et cetera, et cetera. So yes, I think it's education. I don't know if we ever stopped learning. Just educating yourself again and again, isn't it on everything? So, yeah. Yeah. LORI LYNN: 27:58 One of my homeschool heroes is, um, a woman named Charlotte Mason. And one of the things that she's known for saying and writing is education is a life. And I think that it's so important just to be lifelong learners, to be people who love to learn and who love to read books and who loved to explore and have adventures and travel and love each other. Well. And um, I saw that in everything that, you know, we talked about before this interview, SUMEENA GUPTA: 28:31 I thought, Oh I'm going to get her on my show. Yeah. Cause we just had a couple of interactions but I could tell that we were a good fit for each other in that way. Um, I would love to pick up on the education element actually because you know, I have always been very academic. I do love to learn and, and so, you know, I've always reading or learning something new or picking up something new and I only came, I was telling you to came to this sort of self development self helps you know, growth world in the last six months. Um, and one thing that did for me was kind of finally stopped me feeling like the odd one out or an outcast or kind of the person who's trying to go against the norm or you know, she's all, you know, the one who doesn't do what everybody else wants her to do type of person and just go, Oh my God, there's a whole load of people who think just like me and actually, you know, feel the same way. SUMEENA GUPTA: 29:26 And it's just so I feel like I found my tribe within not only the knowledge business blueprint, which is the course that we've signed up to, but also just this whole kind of self-development self, how I bettering contributing kind of ethos that will, lots of us have. Um, and just simple things like, you know, I didn't, I refuse to watch the news intensely and I have done for almost 15 years probably because I think, yeah, it's good to know. I do. I do know what's going on. I know the highlights I caught that comes to you, but just to go too deep into the news, it's really dark. It's really depressing. And a lot of it is just fear mongering. And recently, um, Dean I think said, don't you know, if you want to gain some hours back, just don't watch the news for two hours a day. And I was like, Oh my God, I haven't watched the news for 10 years. I'm not the only one. SUMEENA GUPTA: 30:22 So just simple things like that make you suddenly go, Oh okay I'm 43 but I'm actually finally with people that I understand and understand, possibly understand me as well, which is great. So yeah, it's, it's, and it's okay to feel like the odd one out I think. And just, you know, fit. I mean, I am not estranged from any of my family. I still have the same friends that I did at school. I don't see them so often cause I live in a different country, but I connect with them often when I go home, I spend time with them. So you don't have to, you know, alienate yourself. You can still be who you need to be for those people. And then you can still live kind of almost a parallel life of what you need to do to be successful in your own, in your own terms. SUMEENA GUPTA: 31:05 So as you said in your blurb, living in Georgia Canary life, I love that you said, I think you've said it in your blog for your podcast, where we live it to live an extraordinary life. It's exactly right. And not everybody does. So you have to do something different, I think to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I catch a lot of Slack for not having a television. I've never owned a television [inaudible] entire adult life. Okay. So I moved out of the house when I was 17, started going to college then and there was a television in our dorm room and there was a television at my parents' house. They never had cable growing up. They had maybe two, three channels at the most. Um, but there was just never any draw. I just couldn't bring myself to just sit for hours. And even now, if I sit for very long, I'm standing as I do this podcast, I like to stand all the time. SUMEENA GUPTA: 32:01 I'm either eating or I'm asleep. Like there's, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Great. Perfect. It gives you energy. Keeps you guys, yeah, I mean, what, chink television and you know, everyone talks about Netflix and how it's just, it's a kind of a black hole at the time and you just do sit there and you go, I think Netflix has its place and it's, and it does, you know, it, it, there's some interesting programs on there. There's some really good educational stuff or just interesting stuff and we all need to switch off. You know, I do love going to the cinema to watch a good movie. If there's something great on it. It's just, it's one of the things that we love doing as a, as a family actually. But, um, it's kind of that the daily habits isn't it? It's five hours a day, even two hours a day, you know, rather than possibly two hours a week or three hours a week. SUMEENA GUPTA: 32:45 It's that balance of, of saying, well, what else could I do with those two hours? I could do something else. I could work out or I could spend time with my kids or I could, you know, figure out these emails or, or just switch off in different ways. So exercise, I love yoga. This year I qualified as a yoga teacher, which was amazing. Um, and so yeah, just a couple of hours of yoga. It was just so fun. And this, this, those sort of things is really good. You know, too. You said something about knowing when to cut it off and it can be filled with something else. Those things can be filled with things that are just as distracting. And so I noticed that, um, I had signed up for, um, Facebook dating. I just wanted to see what was out there. You know, I had never been on an online dating platform and it didn't take long for me to realize that I'm not missing out. SUMEENA GUPTA: 33:37 Yeah. So true. But I just realized, um, just this weekend, what a waste of time it was. Okay. I got up to vision for what I want in a relationship and I looked at a handful of profiles and I thought, it's not here. I'm not going to find it here. There's nothing about any of these profiles that says, you know, this matches up with your vision for your life and it was easy to decide and just cut that away and I thought I went how many minutes a day I have that. I'm not like scrolling through profiles now. So true. Actually it's really interesting that you said that because recently I read something really cool which was rather than see what you want, it's almost like define who you want and what you would have to be for that person. And so you would be like, okay, well if I were this type of person they would probably want to be with someone who is like this. SUMEENA GUPTA: 34:33 Am I that person and do I want to be that person shows, do I have to change or you know, or this is me, therefore I'm probably going to be with this type of person. And when you know that it's again, it's the vision. Those people will suddenly appear. You know how it is when you are concentrating on something and suddenly you see all of it, like suddenly yellow is your favorite color and then everything's yellow. So you'll suddenly be like, Oh that was sort of person I was looking forward and they just appeared at the super bar or in the, you know, wherever you are at the gym or whatever. So I thought that was really interesting and I, and I feel that because you know, I've been with my partner and I have 23 years and we met our 20 really young and you know, we'll be together forever probably just because of our values of, of kind of relationships, et cetera. SUMEENA GUPTA: 35:16 Hopefully we'll see. But I often am like, Hey, what does he need? And I know he does that as well, like right now with what's happening. Yeah. And you know, even with the F and he does it with me and that's possibly also how our business life has been successful. Because when I was having kids and breastfeeding and you know, I was really adamant I wanted to breastfeed a long time. Obviously that was demanding. And I, and I was physically drained as well as could not invest in the business as much. And he did take over a bit more without making a deal of it without stomping or you know, just like an understanding like she needs me to be this person right now. And that was like, so just recognizing that, that we both do that for each other yet. So, uh, I see that, I see how we do that and I feel I've learned that from my parents because my mom just passed away, but they were married 44 years, so you know, it's just, and then many Asian parents are, and they have lots of issues that they skirt over, but there are also some really sweet, powerful things like being there for each other and always trying to supporting each other and seeing what the other person needs and yeah. SUMEENA GUPTA: 36:22 So yeah, that might work with relationships if you're in that space to look at what other people might need from you and then be that person that's so beautiful. It makes me a little teary. SUMEENA GUPTA: 36:37 I recognize that we do it for our kids as well. Right. That's what I thought when you said that. I thought I do that with my children. Like, okay, what do they need? What do they need today? What do they need in this moment? And um, and it's easy, you know, because you love them. It's easy to be present and, and to help meet those needs. And like we said, when we were talking before the interview started, sometimes you know, there are times when you say, I need this block of time where I work on something else. And then explaining like to my youngest right now that when she's in the middle of creating, if she's writing a song or she's, you know, making some sort of craft or something, I'm not interrupting her constantly saying, Hey, I need, I need to do this. And so just letting her know that this is what I'm focused on. This is my song, this is my craft. It looks different from yours. It's not as colorful. SUMEENA GUPTA: 37:29 Something I need to create. I think as parents we should speak to our kids as if they do understand because they do. And you know what you've just said there, where you're telling your daughter, giving her some comparison, letting her understand what your needs are as well. I think as parents they need to understand we have needs and often I'll, you know, when I was doing my yoga courses like kids, this is going to take time, but it's important for me and also I want to live a long healthy life and be active so I can play with your kids and I need this time and this is going to help me. So giving them some sort of like, okay, well this isn't just mom kind of disappearing this, there's a meaning behind it. And we do that all the time where it's like, okay, the reason that you're going to go to school here, the reason that we're traveling, the reason that we just giving them, not letting them, keeping them in the dark. SUMEENA GUPTA: 38:14 I think that the cap, the capacity to take that on and actually going back to entrepreneurship, doing that with your staff as well. And doing it with your E like I do it with my managers all the time where I'm like the thinking behind this, the reason that we would like to do this. What do you think? Do you agree? And also taking it back to the point being what they need you to be as the owner of a business, as the sort of the, the chief of the business, if your team needs you to be a certain person on a certain day is almost an obligation to do that. So, you know, if my managers need me to listen and I listen if they need my guidance or guide, if they just need me to go out for a drink with them, I will take them out for a drink if I need to buy them a present to make them feel special. SUMEENA GUPTA: 38:59 So just as business owners, as entrepreneurs, it's kind of being who they need you to be and that's your 20% that's where your energy. So, you know, being kind of really in tune with what your team needs rather than kind of going in with what you need, this is what I need. You know, a lot of us do that. Like, this is what I need you to do and I need it done by tomorrow where I was going, what do you need from me? So that you can make that happen by tomorrow. So just that little bit of a change cold. Yeah. Well it gives you freedom. It really, from a really selfish perspective, it gives you freedom. Cause they're like, I just need this and then you can piss it off. And it's like, okay. So it's just kind of the element of, you know, just give me this and then you can actually disappear. And you're like, Oh, okay, fine. SUMEENA GUPTA: 39:52 Yeah. It's surprising. So your team needs you and you actually empower them, which is fantastic. It's beautiful. Yeah. That's, that's why we go into doing our own thing, really, isn't it? I feel to, to make decisions to be the, the owners of the decision of our destiny. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's a beautiful stopping place. I feel like that sort of brings the whole thing all the way full circle. Um, unless there's anything else that you know is just burning in you to, to share. But that was just so beautifully spoken. Um, and I feel like kinda ties a lovely little bow on this interview that I haven't so much. It's been so fun. I think the only dish that I would really like to, um, really hammer home to anyone who's listening to this, especially I will emphasize, you know, moms, women who really want to be present for their children as well as obviously be successful because sometimes we think it has to be one or the other. SUMEENA GUPTA: 40:56 So I can either be really successful in my career and my children are raised by the nanny or I'm a mom who's at home, but possibly slightly frustrated, et cetera. So I would just like to say that if you're kind of verging on doing your own thing or you have an idea for a business, take some calculated risks and try and buy yourself that freedom to be both, to be really successful in your own mind of, you know, I am happy with what I'm doing, what contribution I'm making, you know, what financial, my financial situation. But I'm also really present for my children at the times that they need me to be. And I can be, I can be both. You can be both. You can be both. So I think that people, most people do know that, but I would like to emphasize that it can be successful in business and, and financially and also be a really, really good present mum. I love that. LORI LYNN: 41:50 Yeah. And I completely agree with you. Perfect. We are representing many. Thank you so much for your time and I thank you to our listeners for listening. I hope they uh, enjoyed it. LORI LYNN: 42:07 Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure you're a lovely, lovely person. SUMEENA GUPTA: 42:12 Well thank you. Everyone's invited. Just maybe put the link to my place somewhere and everyone is invited to visit. It's an absolutely gorgeous part of the world. And remind us again the name and what it means. Okay. So it's called persona beach resort and spa, which is the resort. And the spa is called as your spa persona in Indonesian means charming. Um, it's just got, it's got a beautiful feel about it. The sun, it's got an energy because it's on the ring of fire. I mean, actually last year, yeah, we had a very big earthquake, but we've managed to survive that and come through. But it does have a big energy about it. It has sunrise in the front of it. The sea is absolutely bursting with sea life, with, you know, turtles and fish and, and just, it's a diving Island. So you will definitely snorkel and possibly dive if you, if you really want to. SUMEENA GUPTA: 43:01 And we encourage, one of the things we encourage all our customers to do is push themselves and be inspired by the environment. So we encourage them to dive or to try something different. And we have a strong emphasis on sustainability. So we don't, we, you know, we don't have plastic bottles. Everything is, is kind of very sustainable and we work with the Island on that. So the Island's very working very hard to be very sustainable and environmentally friendly. So yeah, it's a great place. Um, and the dive shops called di central Gilley yeah. Come and visit. It's gorgeous. LORI LYNN: 43:32 I will, I absolutely will. I can see myself there right now. I can't do it. I love it. Oh, I they would be beside themselves. Yeah, that would be, we went to the city museum, um, a few weeks ago I guess. I guess it was spring break, so it's been months ago now. Um, it feels like yesterday and we just had so much fun just climbing. We climbed on everything. Like, Whoa, can we do this every year? And so it'd be so fun to just surprise them. You know, when we're going to go to Bali this year, let's make a plan. We'll make it happen as lovely. Thanks so much, Lori. Yeah, thank you. And I will definitely put the link in the show notes. So if anyone wants to come and check out your beautiful Island, your resort on the Island, um, they can do that. And if they want to hear more about what you're doing, do you have a way to, to get in touch with you? SUMEENA GUPTA: 44:28 Um, I'll give you my email. I'd be more happy for people to email me over the next two months. I'll be launching my first mastermind, which is actually, um, and uh, women who are in their early thirties and successfully in, in their education and their career, but they're not feeling the fulfilled extraordinary life. So they're on the past that they thought they should be on, but not necessarily they want to be on. So that's called mastering serendipity, um, a way to an extraordinary life. And then after, I feel that my next mastermind after that will be the couple per no ones, because I think there's so many couples that are so good together, but then they've decided to go into the business, into business together. They've fallen apart. And I find that really tragic. So I would love to be able to speak to that a little bit. SUMEENA GUPTA: 45:14 So that's the kind of intro, that's where my energy is going over the next couple of years, um, to focus in on, on those sort of high impact, um, things as well as possibly opening another restaurant and as far around Bali, et cetera. So yeah, just, just kind of piling things in that yeah, it's really interesting. Entrepreneurial fashion. Yeah, exactly. You've been busy trying to keep many strings. Yeah. So, uh, I guess we'll see you out there soon. LORI LYNN: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much again for being on the show and thank you for staying in touch. Yes, for sure. I take care. Okay. OUTRO: 46:00 Hey, thanks for listening. If you thought of someone while you were listening to this episode, would you send it to them? Just let them know you were thinking about them or that they came to mind and make that connection. If you would take a minute to rate and review my show, that would mean the world to me--and let me know about topics that you want us to cover in future episodes. Oh. And don't forget to subscribe. What are you waiting for? Go hit the subscribe button right now. I'll see you next time.

"You love me as you find me ... Your love's too good to leave me here." These lyrics are from Hillsong United's recent song, "As you find me." The 'you' in these lyrics is Jesus. Jesus, who today, willingly lavishes us with His love - no matter where we are, what we are doing or not doing, what we are saying and thinking. A love that says, "I know you aren't perfect and that's okay." A love that says, "I'm standing in the gap between you and your Heavenly Father, so your relationship with Him is restored." A love that says, "I have plans for you. Let my love take you into your future." A love that has transformed my life, given me love, purpose, strength, healing, joy and peace. What a gift! What's on your gift list for this Christmas? Is love on your list? Is purpose on your list? Is strength on your list? Is healing on your list? Is joy on your list? Is peace on your list? Where do you start shopping for these gifts? On your knees. Confess that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9) You may say, "Oh, I can't do that, I'm not good enough." And I would reply, "Well, neither am I, and Jesus knows that. He loves us as He finds us. There is no checklist to see if we measure up, because we don't, and we never will without Him. He loves us as He finds us. We just need to respond to His love and choose to make Him Lord of our lives." You may say, "But if I do that, won't I need to change the way I live?" And I would reply, "You don't need to do the changing. Over time as you understand more of Jesus love for you, the changes will happen. His love's too good to leave you here. Just plan some one on one time with Jesus every day, and see what He will do in you." You may say, "Oh I'm still not sure this is for me." And I would reply, "There is a God in Heaven Who loves you. He knows your heart's desires. He knows your pain. He's made a way for you to be lavished with unconditional love, know your purpose, have strength, receive healing, live with joy and peace. That way is Jesus and He knows your name. Just talk to Him." Jesus ... "I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." John 10:10 The Message The gift of love - Jesus. To find out more please visit https://wendyrobinson.com.au

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IDEA Pharma: IDEA Collider Mike Rea talks with Joseph Owens from Google X https://vimeo.com/269261531  Joseph Owens: Good to see you.  Mike Rea: Thanks for coming over. So, this is just for the benefit of everyone who has seen the previous live streams with me talking [in the camera]. This is hopefully the start of a new series of live streams and recordings where we're going to interview people that I find most interesting among the folks that I come across. Joseph Owens: Well I hope you find some interesting folks. Mike Rea: Well you're about as interesting as it gets. So, for those of you who don't know Joseph - Do you want to do a quick introduction? Joseph Owens: Yes. I'm Joseph Owens. I am a Neuroscientist at Google X, which is now actually just called X. It's the R&D factory for Alphabet, which is the parent company for Google. I am a Neuroscientist and a Management Consultant by training, by way of McKinsey and Northwestern. And right now, I'm on a team we call The Early Pipeline and we're looking for big ideas that would eventually be companies that would rival Google, basically. So, for Alphabet, we are de risking to bet on Google by creating other bets. Before that I was a Consultant at Google actually, in the Ad side. And then way back when, I mentioned my PhD was in neuroscience of sleep. So back when I was a Consultant, I was one of the experts on why the job was not very good for you. Mike Rea: And just for everyone who knows my background, Joe and I got over the McKinsey thing quite quickly. We've settled that conversation. So, one of the things that was most interesting actually in the conversation was really -- one of the things that pharmaceuticals struggle with is scaling innovation. And I know that you've had thoughts on that before you joined Google, and clearly since you've joined Google. It'll be interesting to hear whether you think pharma's going the wrong way, in terms of its approach, or do you think that there's a different approach possible? Joseph Owens: Well, I don't know if I can speak so well towards what pharma is doing specifically, but I can speak towards some of the things that happened in Google that are good and some of the things that I think we're improving. One of the things that Google was blessed with was, and I think it was really funny because we both knew this analogy, which was, it was a windless tree. And so, it had so much revenue for quite a long time that basically it made sense to plant as many flowers as you could. And so, by spreading bets as widely and sometimes even duplicative, you have the opportunity to let things bloom and let things figure out. As you have businesses that are more related to each other -- a great example is DoubleClick, which is programmatic advertising. The pipes for that are so complex. Having three different versions of that doesn't really work. And in some cases, we've made smart acquisitions -- DoubleClick was actually an acquisition -- and in others, we've built our own from the ground up. I think for innovation to be learned from Google, I would say it's knowing when to pull -- it's giving the engineering directors -- so Google is an engineering-led company and so the equivalent in pharma would be like the scientists or the people closest to it -- some leeway to make a call on whether they're going to let their [directs] just sort of experiment. From what I do know from you and others from pharma, that experimentation is probably not -- the degree of experimentation is probably radically different. And it is software, so you have to remember that some of that experimentation is a little bit cheaper from an opportunity [inaudible 03:51] point of view. But Google engineers are pretty well paid. Mike Rea: That metaphor of the windless tree, I think I wrote something about that like two or three years ago. It was based on the observation and the biased biome or biosphere or whatever the name is -- the trees grow to a certain height without wind but they fall over quickly because they need distress of the wind to grow. And I think that was an appropriate metaphor for companies and pharma’s that are doing very well despite much pressure from anywhere else. They haven't really needed to think about that innovation thing. But I wonder whether in pharma we spend too much time -- make it a quick call, "Right, well we've done the science already, now let's go to market with this thing." We stop experimenting at that point. So, I wonder whether that's a lesson to be learned.  Joseph Owens: So, Google has made a lot of changes around how it proceeds to launch, and specifically, how it measures that. Because of its size, it's pretty hard, just statistically, to figure out whether something's successful because it's got the Google brand with it. So, it's like, what is the adjustment factor for Google [to] launch this. And I think that's been something teams have been figuring out -- how to actually [re-weight] the metrics to see whether this would have been a success on its own. And there's some interesting programs in Google right now. There's a program where they're actually encouraging entrepreneurship within Google. So, people have great ideas and they might want to leave. They're allowing them to form their own teams and startup and pitch them to internal sort of VC-like group. Not necessarily with upside for the individual, except for just being able to pursue this thing that they see is really important. And so, it's a way to catch some of those folks that might otherwise leave and start other things. Because everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit. Mike Rea: We spoke with that a little bit [inaudible 05:54]. We covered that. It was one of the things that I thought about it over time. You look at [inaudible 06:00] with a lot of people who've left Genentech because they had to, to go and pursue their other interests. Interesting that you mention that there's no actual incentive for folks internally other than the progression of their careers. Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think it's interesting. If you look at -- I think it's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or whatever -- once you're paid a decent rate -- the monetary incentive, and you're comfortable -- If you're engaged with your work and you feel like it's doing something worthwhile, I think the monetary upside can be a bit overvalued in that scenario for a lot of people I've seen. There's great engineers who have families and are comfortable and would be great on startups, but they're not going to do that. And so, I think it actually taps into, maybe it's a slightly different slice of who would do that, but they're willing to do it because if they can keep their Google job and go for it. There's other people who want to strike it rich -- go [inaudible 07:04]. Mike Rea: But that spirit of innovation is encouraged within people that join Google? Joseph Owens: Oh yeah, definitely. So, Google still has, and I'm a product of this, the 20 Percent Program. I was a Strategy Consultant and I came into Google. I wanted to learn the main core business, how ads work. It's a lot more complicated than you think is.  Mike Rea: It's become a big issue recently. Joseph Owens: Google touches a lot of surfaces that you might not be aware of. Like how ads get populated across all of these different elements of the Internet, how they're sold, how they're traded in real time. All of these things. And like we talked about with the windless tree, they hire a lot of consultants, specifically from McKinsey, to come in and help them make those calls. While I was doing that, using my core McKinsey skillset, I started a 20 Percent Project. And so, for those that want to and have the inclination and [inaudible 08:01] and we formed a team, were running for six months or so, we had engineers, businesspeople, marketers -- our own little thing -- pitched it to all sorts of people. And that's actually what landed me at X. We had that drive because we saw an opportunity that Google should be working on this thing, and we can't talk about the thing. But we said we want to make sure that Google or Alphabet, actually, is working on this thing. And we pushed it until they took recognition of it.  Mike Rea: So just let me walk through the basics of the culture -- they enabled you to put together a bunch of people to pitch it to someone else. What's that look like? Joseph Owens: First off, to do a 20 Percent Project you need to be doing well in your role. But then the idea is -- It's based on good psychology, which is, you can't focus on one problem all the time. It's sometimes switching over to a different problem that actually helps you. And you can pull things over from that. Maybe you're going through a lull where you're bored with the implementation of your project and you're waiting for that next interesting part of your project, but you're still the right person to do that thing. Use some of that spare mental energy, connecting energy, whatever it is, on that 20 Percent piece. And instead of it being seen as lost time away from core work, it's more of an acknowledgement that you can only do core work very, very well for four or five hours a day. The idea that we can do more than that -- my background in psychology, you can't. You check your email, check the stocks, you check the news, go have coffee. And then when you look at your time across the day, whatever. But if you have something that was really driving you on the side, and you can keep up that -- The other thing is momentum. You're keeping up the momentum with the one thing that carries over the first.  Mike Rea: So, the 20 percent time isn't like Friday, it's spread across.  Joseph Owens: It's spread across, yeah. I don't think it would be effective if it was like everybody takes one day and puts on a different hat. There might be teams that do that. The other 20 percent thing I've done in my time is, I teach a mindfulness course. And that's actually a two-and-a-half-day course called Search Inside Yourself. And there's an org that runs that, a not for profit that now runs that. And we teach it to Googlers. And so, once a quarter I go and do that. So that sort of is a different day. Now that I've turned my 20 percent job into my full-time job, I have a different 20 percent job.  Mike Rea: So, people internally, they have the permission to spend that 20 percent time. Are they looking for each other? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. There's so many ways in which people find people. I just happened to be really crazy interested in this one topic. And someone introduced me to somebody else who's interested in that, and then found one more person, and then steamrolled from there. I said, "Google has to be doing this." And we just pushed it.  Mike Rea: And then you mentioned X as a special place. What's the special sauce about X that's different from Google itself? Joseph Owens: So, X is meant to build new companies. There is [triad] of criteria. One is that it would affect enough people. So, we think of a billion people, which means it needs to not be just U.S. So, it can't be just a U.S. business. Mike Rea: Basic rule of thumb. Joseph Owens: Basic rule of thumb. And it needs to be some sort of radical advancement of technology that has some real breakthrough way of solving a problem. And so, that's the three criteria, and you put X marks the spot in the middle. And it's always in the eye of the beholder, obviously, how breakthrough something is. But it has to be for good and it has to be a self-sustaining business. So, it's not [inaudible 12:07] Mike Rea: So, the really interesting thing about the business side is that those rules of thumb are not market size. The problem [inaudible 12:17] and the benefit, those are interesting rules of thumb.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. And all of the things that happen at X will touch regulation because they're [inaudible 12:28] business model plays, they aren't regulatory plays. We have a rule, you can't break the laws of physics but you might, for a little while, break the laws of man maybe, at least as they currently exist. So, for example, we have a project that literally launched drones into the air, called Wing, in New Zealand. And because the laws of man there were a little more friendly towards flying things, that was a good place to literally launch. And so, you have to figure those things out. Same thing with [inaudible 13:05] which is the inertial project at X, which was driverless cars -- figuring out how to get those safely on the road and get enough miles driven to train the AI. Obviously had [inaudible 13:17]. Mike Rea: Someone was telling me, actually yesterday, internal [betting] that happens at Google. Is there a market internally on which projects are going to succeed and which ones aren't? Joseph Owens: I don't know of one. But I've only been there for three years. I've been at Alphabet for three years, about a year and a little at Google and a year and a little at X. Mike Rea: Again, someone from pharma had heard this and felt, "This is an interesting way to see which projects are likely to succeed and which ones aren't." Because internally there's a culture of -- you know stuff internally that maybe senior management don't know about.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. I would be interested in that. There's a company called Steam; they do video for gaming. So, it's a very engineering -ed company somewhat. It's much smaller than Google. I think what they do are sort of a platform for online games, but then they also I think, sort of video. Could get that wrong. But an engineer friend of mine told me that they vote with their feet. So literally, their desks are attached to their chairs and people just move their desks together to work together on whatever the project is. I like that model. You can see what's working and what isn't, based on where people are moving. But the betting on things, we have a different version of that at X which is, before we kick off and get really running at speed on a project or even an idea in our early pipeline, we create kill criteria. And so, these kill criteria are what would be convincing reasons to stop working on this. Because the most valuable thing is our time. And those are easier to make before you spend a lot of time on a project because you're not as invested. You haven't hired as many people and all of these things. And you try to make them as objective as possible. And the way we do it is we just [sense] test with other people. "Is this significantly better than what exists?" or "Will this out compete the current thing on the market?" And that allows you as you get further down, if you realize you're not meeting that -- and you choose when you're going to check in with your ill criteria beforehand. So, it's like good statistics, it's a priority bet. And that allows for a more objective decision later on down the road. So, it's a way to manage your bets. I guess.  Mike Rea: And then one of the things I was really keen to recover was you mentioned the "Thank god its Thursday" and I described to you this  environment where in pharma that we spent so much time moving towards this six-monthly review with senior management of very polished, carefully curated slides that they're allowed to see. Can you describe a little bit more about this? Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, speaking completely for myself, and I think it's well known that this exists out in the world, but the company is -- Steven Levitt, the guy from Freakonomics wrote about this in the early days of Google. Larry and Sergei and others of the founding team decided to have a meeting every Thursday with the company. And I think the first meetings were around a ping pong table, which is also like their boardroom. And that tradition has carried on. That was on Fridays. As the company grew to have enough [inaudible 16:47] components they moved "Thank god it’s Friday" to Thursday. And crazily enough, Larry, Sergei, now Sundar, Susan Wojcicki -- all these folks get up there and talk about the state of the company, weekly. Mike Rea: Every week. Joseph Owens: Weekly. And it's kind of funny because Sergei also does a lot of things at X, and so he is often out of breath from making the one mile, mile and a half, from X to doing the same thing at X -- going over to main campus. And I think I said this to you. That's really good, but if you're a product manager, your product's coming up this week. You're going up in front of the CEO and chairman of the board and whatever, and they'll tell you what they think. I think that level of transparency is something Google obviously has struggled with this last year, because of the leaks. And I won't talk about that. But maintaining that transparency, it's amazing. I came into the company, my first day and they give you a computer and you're on the Intranet and you're like, "I can see this?" In any other company I wouldn't be allowed to see that. And that trust in a first day Googler -- Well, maybe I'd go look at that, I'm like, "Wow!" In my last business, we were doing that a different way. "Maybe I should let that person know," And I often do. When I get launch notices from people and they haven't -- from PMs and they'd go out to all of Google -- and I see something that I have a point of view on, I'll let them know. I'll just reply to that launch notice. Not to everyone, but to the PM and say, "Hey, I noticed that you guys did something here." And I think there's a lot of people that do that. And it's not liked a trolling sort of way. It's like there's something I really care about, that maybe you should know about it. And they might ignore you. They might not. But sometimes you get really long responses. They're like, "Oh I'm so glad you pointed out that. I was really struggling with how to weight that decision. And I'd love to have coffee." whatever exactly.  Mike Rea: And that was what struck me about that idea of Larry and Sergei and their [comfort] to do it. I'm the type to do it as well. I think we spoke about the [inaudible 19:13] book about the beginnings of Pixar and pulsing and the way that -- Pulsing sounds nice and gentle but sounds like there it's also not. You do get your animations ripped apart by everyone -- the magazine, then Pixar. That's not a destructive thing but it's a constructive, enabling, empowering way to -- Joseph Owens: As an employee, you can get an answer. If there's an issue that you believe is important enough, you can stand up at the mic and ask the heads of the company, from the beginning. You might face social feedback on that. I've never heard of anything of someone's manager getting mad at them for saying something like that. I think I would have heard that if -- Someone would tell you, "Hey, don't get up to the mic." And then they take internet questions from around company. And then they take my questions and they alternate. Mike Rea: Okay. I've spoken to a few people in pharma about whether they could imagine a pharma CEO standing there every day, every month, every week.  Joseph Owens: It goes with overall cultural transparency though. So, if they get at -- Mike Rea: Is it just transparency or is it something about the connection to the product or the ideas or the -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think you've got to be willing to go both ways. You have to defend your project, the people getting up there and talking about whatever they're launching or whatever or the bad news cycle on their project, whatever it is. That's one side of it. But then them asking like, "Hey, we did this launch and --" The thing that was in the way might have been you. Can you tell the audience why you made that decision? I don't know if I would go up and there do that, but people in the audience will. They'll say like, "Why did you make that decision?"  Mike Rea: Right. Okay. It's interesting because part of that same conversation that we had around whether they could imagine pharma CEOs doing that, people tend to go with the ones that they've worked for, that they could imagine being that. And actually, at the same time, those people also seemed to be the most empowering and best leaders -- the people talk I'm talking about in pharma -- people like Bob Levinson at Genentech have a [proof ability] but also deep -- you'd follow them anywhere with the science. So, I wondered whether that was a -- Joseph Owens: Well you have to remember that Larry and Sergei were grad students at Stanford, in information sciences. So, the transparency piece is there. The depth of engagement is there. These are future academics made into CEOs. And I think Larry's written about this bunch, about what that transition was like for him. What they're gifted with is all these great people who can teach them these things. And so, as they were going through -- I think I've seen this written in a number of books about Google -- One of the things I did before I applied to Google was, I read all the books about Google, at least the ones that are available. When I was at McKinsey what I did was a lot of reorgs. And so, I worked on helping organizations be more effective, because I liked the novelty of that problem every time. And reading about their early history and seeing the problems they faced in changing their worldview -- I was a PhD student. That is a very different [person] to being an executive. And so, the attitude there is you have journal club. And I got to say, TGIF is not that dissimilar from journal club. Journal club, you get up, you talk about some data, you beat it up. The goal is everybody gives their opinion. And if someone is silent then you're losing out on something useful. Because all the researchers in the room are going to have different takes on that data, or maybe they have statistics or genetics or whatever it is. It's not that dissimilar. It's bringing a little bit of that academic culture into corporate; I think. Mike Rea: There is something about pharma which I think we [could] change. We've got [inaudible 23:30] with people with project teams to say, "Well, what are all the things that could go wrong here?" Remarkably, it's the first time we've ever been asked, typically. And then they have this long list of things that could go wrong. They're not just about the product succeeding or failing on its basic parameters, but everything else that needs to be thought about it to get it there. If they're not being asked, those things will still happen and we're just going to ignore it until they do. Is there something that's enabled -- Let me describe it perfectly just from the beginning -- it always was that way. Joseph Owens: Yeah. If you're not working [in] your culture at the beginning then you're going to have whatever culture you get. The changing it though, is that what you're asking? Mike Rea: Well, I was wondering because one of the approaches that you have, clearly, is that you stop other cultures that are separate -- that you've created companies within Google that are different. Joseph Owens: Yeah. That was one of the things that kept me awake the most when I was working on the 20 Percent Project. I said, "Okay, we've got five people on this. Whatever we do right now that's the beginning of the whole proto-companies culture. And those are big weighty problems to think about. So how are you making decisions as a group? How are you choosing the direction? Are you going to be monolithic based on that one engineer or are you going to be consensus driven? Those decisions are made on those teams as they form, and a lot of big projects in Google started out that way. I'd say there's an example that teams can learn from, which is what's happened at Google and maybe what's happening on their own teams. And then when they make these new teams -- like the 20 percent ones for example, or the new bets at X, or the acquisitions -- there's a lot of freedom given to them to make those calls. I think it's an experiment that keeps happening over and over. Mike Rea: And we also discussed the accidental versus on purpose nature of the organization within Google. Which you can say about the way that it's organized and your observations on how controlled that is versus uncontrolled.  Joseph Owens: I think Google, last couple of years, they made the switch to be a holding company, I think quite wisely, while I was there. And the reformation that happened because of that has objectively been good for at least the short-term stock price. And starting to compare some of these projects against each other, and to make some of these calls. I think those things happen in cycles. And so, they're on that cycle of it. I think the culture probably still has this exploratory way. And so, if you go through one cycle of comparing things and choosing which ones of the best ones, you'll go through a growth phase. I think the inertia is clearly there for it to be a [inaudible 26:54] thing, not like a, "It was doing this and now it's doing that." Mike Rea: And there was an observation that you mentioned along the way about how much people want to work for Google, as opposed to somebody else. Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, Google maintains a pretty amazing reputation, at least as a place to work, in the world. I always saw it on lists with McKinsey and other consulting companies. And I feel like those are pretty different jobs, which is interesting. Mike Rea: Those rankings are usually done by [inaudible 27:24] Joseph Owens: Yeah. [inaudible 27:26] does rankings too. If you want to be a world class software engineer and you want to have some of the best tools at your disposal, and obviously the [inaudible 27:43] places to work, and smart people -- I think I've got a little bit off the question -- but the attractiveness to do that, I think it's quite high. What was the question again? Mike Rea: Well,  it's linked to that. Because we had the conversation around the pharmaceutical innovation index, on whether that leads to retention of people over time or the ability to recruit.  Joseph Owens: Yeah, I think there's everything at Google. So, there's enterprise businesses at Google, there's consumer businesses at Google. With the cloud bet, that's a very different business than the hardware bet. And one of the things Google has is a lot of ability to move around. I think that's what I was mentioning. And so, you might work two or three years in one role and then you might change ladders as I did. I went from a strategy consulting ladder -- I'm actually on the engineering ladder now. I don't know that that happens that frequently, but I definitely see people who might go from, say, a sales ladder to PM ladder or a program management to product management, or one type of engineering to another type of engineering, as they change their skill set. One of the things I do as a 20 Percent Project is, I work on what's called G to G which is Googler to Googler training. And we have loads of that. We have an engineering school. If you want to get ML training, there's weeks of training you can go take to start teaching yourself to be an ML engineer. There's Python 101. There's everything you can imagine if you want to spend that effort to train yourself. Now there are tools that are available for online training and any person training, you can literally change your career while you're at Google. And I've seen a lot of people do that. Mike Rea: And you can start your 20 Percent Project from any one of those ladders? You don't have to be on -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. You can be a salesperson and be the PM on your 20 Percent Project. Or like me, you can be a strategist on your normal ladder and you can be a scientist on your 20 Percent Project.  Mike Rea: Because one of the things that we haven't spoken to anyone yet about is about the rankings that lead to companies being perceived as more innovative, and whether that leads to the ability to attract and retain all the time. Joseph Owens: Google made a big bet on hiring ML engineers and that looks like it's paying off. Mike Rea: That's machine learning? Joseph Owens: Machine learning, yes. Sorry. Everything where you teach a computer to label things. That's all ML is. So, it's saying, "I give you a lot of data --" and then computers are very good at saying, "That is A and that is B." Assuming that you have good enough examples of A and B. That is all machine learning is. And Google made a big bet on that because they get a lot of -- it's an information technology. We're categorizing and making available the internet. And so, all that tagging, that's kind of the grass of machine learning. You have videos on YouTube that are labeled, and voice recognition and all these things. These were the data we were taking in. And so, not being [inaudible 30:39] ML was pretty obvious, you're not going to work. And then we happen to have servers. So, the other thing that's happened to make machine learning capable these days is something called deep learning. And that's only possible with the amount of server space, basically. The amount of little, literally, processors to throw at the problem to run these iterative models. And without that you can't do the kind of machine learning that we do. And so, we had both of those things and then we are where we are. Mike Rea: Which is interesting, the ability to understand and deconstruct at the same time, is important. And then clearly within the health space, I know we spoke a lot about the essential problem of hundred-year-old disease definition still being part of the fabric against which we're developing new drugs and new ideas.  Joseph Owens: I just read the outgoing NCI directors book on cancer, which was I think, Curing Cancer. And it's a labeling problem. Initially, when you go into labels, if the label's too general, well, the machine can't learn to label below that. At least, it can't learn on its own. There are machine learning techniques called clustering and unsupervised learning, and those can begin to do some of that. And we're not -- Google is not the only person doing this. Unsupervised learning without the gold standard labels with it, and clustering these things out and then saying, "Hey, this is a cluster. Let's go study that." And yeah, these were all what we were calling cancer. But [now in terms of] mass childhood lymphoma -- and this is sarcoidosis or something, whatever it is --  Mike Rea: But we're getting there, or we're starting to get towards that in cancer. I think probably because it's had a molecular target for such a long time and people have explored the genetic mutation mode and so forth within the tumors. My concern is that you get into areas like mental health, that we're still using broad categories like schizophrenia or major depression -- Joseph Owens: Now you're getting into my wheelhouse. I'm not going to begrudge the people who hammer these things out in committee to make the DSM. That is exceptionally hard, based on what we have. Because we don't have data. We have an empirical wisdom and we have research going in lots of different directions. Because we just don't know very much. We don't know very much about the brain. We have to admit it. We don't know very much. And I won't compare neuroscience to cancer or anything like that but taking one of these labels and deconstructing it. And then, we have loads of studies. I was doing genetics too, where we say, "Wait, why does one disease and another disease and another disease, all radically different labels, run of the same family? Are these normal curves and we're just picking out the ends of the curves? Are these bimodal curves under certain environments?" Picking that stuff out, I think computers will be very good. But we need more labeling data. So, the move right now -- and there's a lot of folks doing this -- is to get passive monitoring. One interview in a doctor's office is not enough. And if you can move towards passive monitoring and long-range continuous datasets -- And then folks are very wary of doing that. Mike Rea: It starts to feel healthier as a way of -- if you take something like schizophrenia, we know there's genetic components, we know that there's typically socioeconomic components as well, and then the family environment components. But then also, the interventions that we've had are pretty broad brush and pretty crude measures, in terms of their effect. And if you look at the construct that you're describing of an appetite, to want to break it down into micro subsets -- Joseph Owens: I mean, it's been variously called personalized medicine, lots of different titles for it. But subcategorizing disease for neurological -- I mean, all of this -- is the next wave, I think. And hopefully we'll destigmatize it.  Mike Rea: And then you put together, what I see from the outside, as a kind of long bet that someone like Google is prepared to take on. If you look at mapping the roads and self-driving cars, there was no business in that for a long time. There's a long-time bet. Parmer is in that same sort of 20 or 40-year cycle of discovery to development to revenue. Do you see any parallels or any differences between them? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. I think pharma is interesting because it starts, and at the early stage if you can kill something and save you a lot of money down the road -- because the last trials were the most expensive, theoretically. We're at a point which is very different, where we say, "Let's take in as much data because we don't know what it's going to lead to." And that's a very different decision to make at the beginning. So, to take the mapping example, "Let's go out and put cameras on backpacks and on cars and take in this data." I don't think they knew exactly what product that would turn into. But when I did my interview at Google they said, "What product at Google do you admire?" And I said, "Apps. It changes my life every day." Every day I set out with confidence. I can get to where I want to go. Every day I can take a request from somebody to go meet somewhere I've never been. And I [inaudible 36:16] take that request. "Hey, come meet Mike in this building you've never been to." Didn't bat an eyelash. Before maps -- get on the internet, look up where I can find it, find a map, whatever it is. That's a radically different decision multiple times a day. I think when they first sent the cars out -- there's no way they're foreseeing that everyone would be making different decisions. At least that has, the luxury of having Google Maps.  Mike Rea: Yeah. And that's one of the things that we talk a lot about. That idea is that exploration and value early. Because no one knew where the iPod would lead, in terms iPhones and apps and a bunch of other things. And certainly, if you try to do what pharma tends to do, which is to try to put like five decimal place forecasts around a Phase 1 asset, you're already limiting -- Joseph Owens:  False precision is -- Mike Rea: Yeah. And how does that get approached at Google? Do use those rules of thumb all the way through or is it something that someone else [inaudible 37:14] Joseph Owens: I don't think I've been there long enough to see things from genesis to multiwave implementation at scale. So, mine would be snapshots across different projects. The decisioning that happens to kick something off at Google is, I think, laxer. So, it's experimentation. If you're really excited about, "Well, I believe in you because I hired you." or "we hired you" and you're coming to me and saying, "I really [inaudible 37:50] this." Your energy is the voting factor for a little while. At the point that you start needing additional resources, then you start to make decisions. So, then you're making prioritization. Some of the similar, "Let's make a business case for these things." pops up and you say, "Here's a design brief, here's a PRD -- product requirements document -- and here's the case." At the beginning of the product requirement document it would be, "Here's why we need the thing. And here's what the thing has to look like." From the ones I've seen, they're not trying to get to decimal places of precision. And that's probably a little bit because of the luxury of resources. I think things are allowed to flourish a little bit.  Mike Rea:  That's an interesting word -- flourish and thrive. Because one of the things that pharma tries to do is to project ten years into the future and then bring it back to today with a huge degree of accuracy, despite us all knowing whether it's wrong every time we do it. And then the project's not allowed to flourish, despite all the evidence that most of the great drugs have got where they are through serendipity. They've pivoted at some point in their life cycle.  Joseph Owens: My example for that is -- basic research is -- Carrie Mullins goes and works on a project which, its title, would every time get defunded. He's going to go measure proteins and enzymes in hot geysers. No one cares. No one cares about those organisms. But then you get PCR. His project, if it came up for a vote, everyone would, "De-fund." And then he's driving down the highway and he thinks -- So we have some core principles; more data, better; diverse data. So, try not to just collect data in Silicon Valley, these sorts of things. Build for scale down the road. Because everything we want to do is going to serve Google's customers. And so, things probably move more slowly than they would at a startup because we're building for scale early. That could be a headwind of saying, "We'll go get a bigger dataset than maybe a startup would want to launch their thing." Or,  "Build your pipes a little bit stronger than a startup might." Mike Rea: So, there's some value to their being Google? Joseph Owens: Right. But then you're slower. I mean, those are tradeoffs.  Mike Rea: And probably the last question, because we could carry on for another few hours, would be just really around how you personally see health -- the intersections -- health and Googling -- the kind of technology that sits behind those. Joseph Owens: So, health for me,  for Joe Owens, II vacillate between extreme jaded [inaudible 40:54]-- like I said, we don't know anything about the brain. And we're at that moment of Newton where we can't see Einstein. When you're Newton, you can't see Einstein. [inaudible 41:05] physics, you can't move into relativity. And I feel like we're -- that moment on brain -- But in the same sentence I have to say, there's so much science sitting on the table that hasn't been brought to people's lives. We have doctors that have no time to do the thousand things that have been recommended for them to do. Well that just sounds like a platform and it's fixing the issues that happened. If that's an operations problem, that's a more McKinsey [hat] problem. So, if we can take all of these recommendations that we have for our health, and figure out a way to [massage out] the way we live to meet them, well then maybe we don't need -- we don't actually have to know all those things about the brain to actually operationalize some of that. So, I think science [hat] kind of terrified, consulting [hat], I feel like we just need to do some stuff.  Mike Rea: So, some systems thinking? Joseph Owens: Systems thinking, yeah. And design thinking. Changing the way, we live to be healthier. We know what to do, we just haven't done it.  Mike Rea: Yeah. Some of those things are [inaudible 42:09]. If you've got socio economic problems -- Joseph Owens: Google, it changes every day of my life with maps. It could change every day of my life with my health. And I think there's people at Google who are seeing that. They have been thinking about it.  Mike Rea: And actually, [inaudible 42:29] is really around the ethics with that as well. I'm aware that there's a kind of internal ethics, people looking at whether you can do harm as well as good. Joseph Owens: Oh, yeah. First do no harm, is the first rule of medicine. So, if an IT company wants to get into medicine, they've got to follow that. One of the things we have going right now is a lot of people thinking about machine learning fairness. Do you collect first data sets? Things that work on one population won't work on another, unless you figure out the little bits. And so again, that'll be a tax for speed but it'll be in the effort of fairness. And ultimately, scale. So, the ethics of that -- I would say you probably don't see people out in the world talking about this, but teams talk about fairness a whole lot. [inaudible 43:23] would be a great example. And the computers are sometimes really good at this. They have an example where there's a woman out in the street shooting a duck with a broom. There's no way you're going to train your data [to solve] that because you could even conceive that the car would ever see that? And so, figuring out ways to end all of the niche cases via getting really diverse data sets and really good transfer learning, that's -- Computers actually may have a better shot at scale -- oh, sorry, in fairness.  Mike Rea: Excellent. So, I think I've promised everyone that this would be phenomenal, and it has been, Joe. It's probably obvious, we could carry on for another couple of hours and debate this. And I hope you get a chance to [inaudible 44:16].  Joseph Owens: Yeah. That would be great. Mike Rea: Thank you. Joseph Owens: Of course. Have a good day. Mike Rea: Thank you very much.  

Razi is excited that Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes are out and Ferg is feeling the pressure from Z's ever expanding hall pass list. The brothers have a great time discussing our worst whippings and whether they were worth it. Byron want's to know some stereotypes we have heard and which ones we still hold. Razi wants to know who is telling on a friend cheating or being cheated on. What does man law say about it? Another fun episode with real nuance. Enjoy. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/threebrothersnosense/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/threebrothersnosense/support

Oh I'm sawwy. I'm just a w'ill baybee

Writers need a page, a profile and a whole lot of patience and persistence to even feel like we’re close to getting Facebook “right.”The question first appeared, as these things do, in the #AmWriting Facebook group. A book is coming! I’m on Facebook (obviously), but do I need an author page in addition to my profile? Why—and what should I do with one once I’ve got one? Our answer is yes, but of course it doesn’t stop there. In this episode, we talk the ins and outs of Facebook for writers of all kinds, with a primer on the basics and then a few ninja-level tips from Sarina.Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, November 4, 2019: Top 5 Things You Don’t Need to Be a “Real” Writer. We’d love your support, and we hope you’ll love our Top 5s. Join in for actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.LINKS FROM THE PODCASTThe #AmWriting Facebook GroupGrown and Flown on FacebookRon Lieber’s Author Facebook PageSarina’s Facebook PageSarendipity (Sarina’s Facebook Fan Group)Jess’s Facebook PageKJ’s Facebook Page, which she didn’t even remember existed but will now tend as directed by Sarina.ManyChat#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: Home, Run Away, Harlan Coben (also mentioned, Tell No One)KJ: Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan StradalSarina: Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo#FaveIndieBookstoreGibson’s, Concord NHThis episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.The image in our podcast illustration is by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ:                                        00:01                    Hello listeners, KJ here. If you’re in with us every week, you’re what I like to call “people of the book.’ And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only we writers, we’re people with a gift for encouraging other writers. For some of us, that comes out in small ways, but for others it’s a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. If that’s got your ears perked up, head to https://www.authoraccelerator.com and click on “become a book coach.” Is it recording?Jess:                                     00:02                    Now it's recording, go ahead.KJ:                                        00:45                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     00:45                    Alright, let's start over.KJ:                                        00:45                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     00:45                    Okay.KJ:                                        00:54                    Now one, two, three. Hey all, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is your podcast, your weekly podcast, our podcast, about writing all the things. Fiction, nonfiction, pitches, proposals, essays you know what? All the things, except poetry. None of us do that. But we did have a poet on once. I dunno, I just was thinking that the other day like, wait a minute, it's not quite all the things. Alright, back to the regularly scheduled introduction. #AmWriting is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work, whatever it is, done.Jess:                                     01:40                    KJ, before I introduce myself, speaking of the intro changing up, we got an email this week from someone who said, 'Wait, you changed the pattern at the beginning of the episode and I don't know what to do with that.' It was very, very funny.KJ:                                        01:54                    I love that people go back and listen to all the episodes. It brings me incredible joy.Jess:                                     01:58                    Yes, it does. I am Jess Lahey, I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids. And I write at various places including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Atlantic.Sarina:                                 02:13                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30 plus contemporary romance novels. And you can find more of me at sarinabowen.com.KJ:                                        02:22                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, a novelist and also the author of the nonfiction book How to Be a Happier Parent, first novel will be out next summer, more to come I hope. You'll sometimes still find my work at the New York Times and in a variety of other places. So that's it, that's who we are. We know some things and today our plan is to talk about what we know about Facebook. But before we do, I just want to thank everyone who has gone in and subscribed to our weekly emails that come out every week about the podcast. That is a new thing that we're doing and I love that people are finding it useful. Every week we send you little something about what the episode is, all the links, and a way to see a transcript, which is pretty cool. And also huge shout out and thanks to those of you who have signed up to support the podcast and get our weekly top fives for writers. It's huge, we feel so grateful and excited that you guys want to support us, and want to be a part of it, and want to get our top fives, which we're having a great time doing. So you know, thanks to everyone for that. And if you're looking to do either of those things, head over to amwritingpodcast.com and you'll find all the links there.Jess:                                     03:42                    Alright, let's do it. You said our topic is Facebook. What do you mean about this Facebook thing?KJ:                                        03:54                    Well, it's a great place to put up pictures of your kids and offend all your relatives on your political views. But as a writer, people have questions like, 'Should you have an author page and a personal page? Should you do everything from your personal page? How has this evolved over the years? And I have wrestled with it. Sarina has come to some pretty good terms with it and I'll just also throw out there that back in 2013 when I started with the Times, they actually said to me, 'We do not want to create a Facebook page for the Motherlode blog, which doesn't exist anymore anyway. So just use your own. It was one of the best gifts that they gave me. I don't think it was actually the right choice for them, but well, and here and today I'm sitting here with no author page, but the AmWriting page and everything I do professionally ends up on my personal page and I'm not sure that's where I should be.Jess:                                     05:01                    I'm a mess. Sarina, you go cause you've got a whole thing. You use it beautifully.Sarina:                                 05:07                    Well, thank you. But we have to talk about vocabulary for a second. Because people have a profile, not a page. And we just want to be careful to use that vocabulary correctly because if listeners go and try to untangle our suggestions, they might run into a little trouble. So every person, like the way that we would define a person has the right under the Facebook terms of service, to have one profile. So, if you use a pseudonym for your writing, you may find yourself in the awkward position of trying to fake it to Facebook that you can have two profiles. And yeah, so that's a good time. But the profile is the main way that most people look at Facebook, you login with your profile. Now a page, you can have as many pages as you want. A page is meant to be representing something that's not a person. Like a brand or a business or it can be a person, like a personality. So I have a profile under Sarina White Bowen, it's three words. And then I have a Sarina Bowen page. And pages and profiles have different things that they can do, they're not identical in their functionality. And that's why we get into these tricky discussions because the way that pages and profiles behave is not identical and that's where some of the weird fun comes in.Jess:                                     06:54                    Well and honestly that's where most of my apathy/confusion lies. Mainly because for me, my profile, Jessica Lahey. Actually, I think my profile is Jessica Potts Lahey because my maiden name is Potts. So that's my personal profile, the thing I originally signed up for Facebook with. That has long since gone out the window as a private, personal thing. Like I get 30 friend requests a day and I accept some and don't. But most of them are people I don't even know. I've just long since given up the ghost on that. But it is how I keep in touch with childhood friends and high school acquaintances and things like that. Then I also have a page as Jessica Lahey and that was something my publisher wanted and it was important to them. But see, here's the problem - if you're accepting any old person out there to your profile, and I'm posting things to my page and to my profile and honestly, there's a lot of overlap between the two. I wish I'd been more strategic about this from the beginning. And I somehow had a profile that was really just personal stuff and then shuttled everyone else over to my page, like put up kind of some kind of like, 'No, I will not friend you, but here's my page.' I wish I'd been more strategic about that, but I didn't and so now I have a mess. I have, two things, neither of which is personal, and both kind of get duplicate posts.Sarina:                                 08:28                    Well, I could make you feel better by telling you that we're all in the same mess, honestly. Because Facebook has treated the two things differently over time. So, it used to be that in the glory days of 2010 you could make a page and even if you'd gotten this right from the very first day...Jess:                                     08:53                    If I could have seen the future...Sarina:                                 08:55                    Well, that's the thing. You would have still not been able to do it exactly right because the behavior that would have been optimized at the time would have changed. So back in the glory days, you could've made that page that you were just talking about and kept your profile private and you could have posted the things you were writing and thinking about it on this page and people would see it and they would interact with you and your page would grow, and grow, and grow. And you might have like 30,000 followers. However, Facebook has very much become a pay to play platform and now they would want you to pay every time you put up a post on your page that you wanted more than say 5% of your followers to see. So the fact that when you share meaningful things on your profile, at least there's some chance that the people who are connected to you will see it. So it's not entirely clear to me that you wouldn't be a very sad owner of a highly followed page by this point. But everybody who relies upon Facebook to push content into the world has been increasingly unhappy with their results because it's not just that Facebook wants your money (and they absolutely do want it), but also just the number of pages in the world grew at such an exponential rate that they can't actually show everybody all the stuff that they're following anymore. Like if you liked your dentist's office in 2013, then you know, the odds of you actually seeing a post from the dentist are really bad. Like the pages who you might actually see are the people who have been out there working it so hard since the very beginning, with a nice pace of content release, and a good interaction that...it's very few pages that are still getting that kind of play. You mentioned that you get a lot of friend requests. Facebook actually caps the number of friends you can have at 5,000.Jess:                                     11:05                    Early on I think it was like 2000 or something. But yeah, it's definitely 5,000. I'm getting close and that worries me. Because what if someone I really want to follow, that's why I don't accept all of them or even real people...KJ:                                        11:19                    People don't know you didn't accept them. And probably most of their goals is just to follow you, which is what happens if someone puts in a friend request and you say no, they end up following you.Jess:                                     11:32                    That's right. Yeah, I forgot about that.KJ:                                        11:35                    At least you've got that going for you.Sarina:                                 11:36                    So, another factor is that now Messenger is tied in with the people you're friends with on Facebook. So I have stopped accepting friend requests completely, unless of course I met the person.KJ:                                        11:51                    Unless it's your friend.Sarina:                                 11:53                    Or, but I got some friend requests after that retreat we went to in Maine and I accepted those. But I don't accept random requests anymore because I've discovered it's just a way for readers to bug me. Like when is such and such a thing coming out and you know, there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do a good job answering those messages.Jess:                                     12:16                    Actually, I'm so glad you said that because that has been a source of anxiety and frustration for me in that the number of direct messages I'm getting via various apps has gone through the roof and it's a lot of people asking very personal questions about their own children. I got one the other day and she sent me this long, long, long message about what she's going through with her child. And she wrote the word please and she sent a picture of herself with her child.KJ:                                        12:48                    I wish you could auto reply from Messenger. Because if you had that that said, 'I'm sorry, I can't...' I suppose you could just type one. Okay, we're going to get back to how everyone should use Facebook in a second, but just to solve this particular problem with which I am somewhat familiar, type something up, and imagine yourself as your assistant. 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Lahey can't respond to all.' And you know you're gonna feel like a jerk, but Mrs. Lahey can't respond personally to everyone and that leaves you the freedom to do it. To take a step back, we have people on our Facebook group page, which is a whole other thing, and is a great tool for various kinds of authors, particularly I think in nonfiction. Someone was saying, 'Here I am and my first book is coming out and should I create an author page?' And there are reasons to say yes to that, I think.Sarina:                                 14:07                    Yes, there are. One of the reasons you might need an author page is if you want to advertise something, you can't advertise from a profile, you have to advertise from a page. So, the main reason that the Sarina Bowen author page continues to grow a following is because of paid advertising. And when you use paid advertising you collect likes sort of by accident. So you should never run the kind of ad that just gets likes because that's pointless. But if you have something to advertise like 'Look, this is my new book. Here is the link at Apple books.' Then that is something I advertise and the page does grow its following that way. So I would say that if you have even a 20% chance of ever wanting to advertise something, you should set up that author page. But then you should not obsess about how many followers it has. You should post only often enough so that it looks like the lights are on. And you don't need to worry about it. It needs to be set up so that there's somewhere people can find this kind of information, like the link to join your newsletter, and the link for your own personal webpage. So you need to be listed there because a lot of people will use Facebook as like a global directory. So you need to be find-able, but you do not need to obsess about how many people are following you there. So you can really put it as one of those things on your Sunday promo calendar where you're like, 'Oh, time to stop by the neighborhood of my Facebook page and maybe update something. You know, a book I'm reading or an article I put out this week.'Jess:                                     16:05                    I use it for my speaking calendar, too. Like you know, 'Oh I'm going to be in the next week or month or whatever I'm going to be in so-and-so.' One thing I would like to add is that so early on in my promotion plan for Gift of Failure, my publisher very much wanted me to have a Facebook page because one of the things they did during my pub week was that I added my publisher as an administrator to my Facebook page and they posted a couple of ads. So that was wonderful and helpful.KJ:                                        16:37                    That's really nice. I have not heard of a publisher doing that, which just means I haven't heard of it. I advertised my book personally a couple of times. But I actually did it from the #AmWriting page, I think, because we have a page and I don't remember if I have a page.Jess:                                     17:00                    I think they did two or three ads just during pub week itself. And that was nice. They wanted to know as part of my original, the fact that I had one was what interested them. So I don't think they actually care that much about my followers. Who knows. Anyway, I want to make sure that was in there.KJ:                                        17:22                    When you pay to place a Facebook ad from your page, that has nothing to do with how many followers your page has. It goes to that subset of people that you hopefully carefully create within the Facebook ad maker.Sarina:                                 17:40                    That's right. The ad engine is a vast thing. There are entire podcasts about the Facebook ad engine. So, we won't cover that today but it does give you access to basically everyone on Facebook and Instagram.Jess:                                     17:58                    And you can target very carefully and all that sort of thing?Sarina:                                 18:00                    Yes, sort of carefully. But yes.Jess:                                     18:03                    Okay. Anything else here?Sarina:                                 18:06                    I do have a page and I do have a group, cause you mentioned groups, and groups are lovely and for a couple of reasons. One is that they gel with what Mark Zuckerberg claims to be his new idea for what Facebook should be, which is groups of like-minded people talking to each other. So I actually have a fan group on Facebook.Jess:                                     18:41                    I belong and I love it. I love your fan group and it is so much fun to go in there and look at what's being posted. I love your fan group.Sarina:                                 18:51                    It's called Sarendipity and I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of having a fandom. I don't like to use the word fan, I'm not saying that I don't use it, but I don't really want to be that person. It's kind of like there's always a party that I'm hosting and I have to show up, you know. But what happens is that people tend to go there to talk about things that come up in my books and it really takes the pressure off of me. So in May, I had this book where one of the characters, who was known as lobster shorts, that was his avatar on an app. And one of the central conceits of the book is that the other person in the book doesn't know that lobster shorts is really his neighbor. So they have this whole conversation and I swear there are still people posting various lobster clothing in my group, you know, five months later I'm still seeing, look at this lobster shirt I found. So that's super fun because then the discussion doesn't have to be about whether or not you liked the book or what I'm having for lunch. It's like a commonality. This thing that we've all found funny and here's a little more of it. So my group is full of posts about apples because of one of my series.Jess:                                     20:21                    Your group also, I have to say, there was one thread that was posted by one of your fans and it was a question and it was, 'How did you discover Sarina Bowen?' And it was one of the most and incredibly fascinating look at how readers find authors. Some of them were, 'I discovered her through Elle Kennedy, I was an Elle Kennedy reader.' Some were, 'Amazon recommended Sarina because I read X'. It was fascinating and it was a wealth of information about how people stumble upon new authors. I loved reading that thread.Sarina:                                 20:56                    You're right, that was fascinating. But you also said that I didn't post it. There are lots of authors who do ask that question, who are able to ask questions about themselves without wanting to jump off something high. And, but I can't, it's just not me to do that. There's also other romance authors who posts like Towel Tuesday. And so on Tuesday there'll be some photo of a guy in a towel and the other romance readers are like, 'Ooh, good one.'KJ:                                        21:23                    I thought it was going to be the author and a towel. That's brave.Sarina:                                 21:29                    Well now you're really scaring me. That's not me either. And I really struggle with what is my role in that group. And there are so many ways to do it. And if you are a person, as an author, who is comfortable hosting that kind of party all the time, then the group is probably your greatest asset.KJ:                                        21:54                    Alternatively, if you are a person who, as an author, wants to generally answer those kinds of questions that Jess is getting by Messenger, who has a nonfiction platform, which is self-help or that kind of thing you could create... Yeah. Ron Lieber does it really well, that's what you were going to say.Jess:                                     22:26                    No, I was going to say Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington, they do that incredibly well. They use those questions as fodder for posts on their massive, massive group for Grown and Flown.KJ:                                        22:42                    Right, but they started out as a group and a blog and only later became a book. I guess what I'm saying is if you are Lori Gottlieb, or you, or Ron Lieber, you could use Facebook to start a group in which people discuss the topic of your book. But, I think that there would be a pretty high maintenance requirement there. I mean, at a certain point it would probably become somewhat self sustaining, but for a while I feel like it would be really demanding that you find and put up questions, and respond to things, and keep track. I think that'd be a pretty big time investment, but it might be a worthwhile one.Jess:                                     23:30                    It would be a big investment.KJ:                                        23:31                    I'm not suggesting you do it, this is a general. Let me just say, I don't think that's you, you need to write books. But there might be people for whom it would be a great strategy. For example, the author of Quiet, Susan Cain has said, 'I thought about writing another book and then I realized, no, my mission is to keep talking about this one.' She does it in a different forum. But if that's where you are, if your mission for the next few years is to talk about the topic of your nonfiction probably. Then that could be good.Jess:                                     24:15                    As a speaker, I have to say, reader questions are incredible fodder for either articles, new chapters, blog posts, things to talk about on stage. I have this sort of wealth of stories and many of them came from readers who wrote me, or posted, or messaged, or whatever and said, 'Here's what's going on and here's how I've used the things you wrote about.' So that can be an incredibly valuable thing and if you want to mine that for all it's worth, a little bit of effort could pay off big time.KJ:                                        24:47                    Right. All right, so we got the basics. You've probably already got your profile. Certainly there's no one in our Facebook group asking questions about how to use Facebook that doesn't already have a profile. You're gonna need a page, but you don't need to do anything more there besides keep the lights on. You could contemplate a group, you need to think about how you use Messenger, and what else? What am I missing in terms of the basics?Sarina:                                 25:14                    Well, we definitely covered the basics, but I could give you a couple of ninja level things. So my page has an auto-responder that is hosted by a service called ManyChat. So if you go to the Sarina Bowen page and you hit the button there to send a message, you will immediately get a reply from a bot and it says something like, 'Hello. And then insert first name of person. Thank you for reaching out. The best place to find information about upcoming Sarina Bowen books is this link right here.'Jess:                                     26:09                    Brilliant.KJ:                                        26:13                    That's for Messenger messages or postsSarina:                                 26:17                    Messenger, but it's Messenger to the page, not the profile. So it also says, 'And if you are a man who just wants to chat or show me your photo, you will not like my response.'KJ:                                        26:35                    Even if you're wearing a towel. Especially if you're wearing a towel.Jess:                                     26:39                    I do like that when I get messages like that, like gross, disgusting, stuff like that. Often for example, in Instagram it will shield it from your view. And so in order to see whatever picture someone has sent you, you have to actually click on it. And I have decided not to click on a few things that I receive via the messaging part of Instagram.Sarina:                                 27:05                    Weirdly, the what to blur out trigger is really strange, though. Because I click on them all the time and it's usually like just a photo of a book on a table and it's like my book, you know. So that's one thing that you can hook up. Now, this is the ninja super top secret thing is that also ManyChat, will collect the identities of everyone who ever messages you.Jess:                                     27:34                    To what end, Sarina? To what end?Sarina:                                 27:40                    I will tell you. A page can also always message whomever has messaged the page before. So if you run a contest where to enter the contest, you send the page a message, then ManyChat can retain that list of hundreds of people and then randomly messaged them when you decide. So I could right now just blanket message, all the whatever thousand people who've ever messaged my page before with, 'Hey, guess what? I have a new book.'.Jess:                                     28:16                    Oh my gosh, you're so brilliant.Sarina:                                 28:17                    I don't actually use it, though. Because I find that people are very confused about whether I'm messaging them personally this way. Like it's not common enough a thing to break down that wall. And I don't actually want people to think that I'm messaging them. So, it's not a useful tool for me, but it does exist. And the other Ninja level thing is about the page itself and how nobody sees them anymore. So I do keep track. My page has either 14 or 17,000 followers. I can't remember right now. And the average post is seen by like 1200 people. So it's less than 10%. But if I didn't do certain things, then it would drop even further because the Facebook algorithm looks carefully at each post to decide if it's going to love you or not. So if you're always posting Amazon links then it hates that. But if you're always posting to your own website, it hates that less. And if you're posting text with no links or pictures at all, it loves that because that seems really genuine to Facebook. Like if you just have a haiku to share or something.Jess:                                     29:53                    Is that why people started doing that thing where they started posting in the first comment instead of in the post itself?Sarina:                                 29:59                    The link? Yeah, the link in the comments. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think Facebook caught onto that immediately, though.KJ:                                        30:05                    So, interesting, completely random side note, Facebook doesn't want you to sell animals anymore. And of course Facebook is actually the largest place to advertise horses. So our barn manager, I just turned her on to go ahead and put a picture, but you put the link or you put the ad in the comments. Because if you put an ad they throw it off and it's got to do with puppy mills and that kind of thing, which I'm totally supportive of. But Facebook killed all the sites upon which people once sold horses and they have not yet been replaced with anything. And it's a problem. But, that does still work to some extent I think. The link in the comments.Sarina:                                 30:57                    Okay, well this is how I handle it. A page can also have what are called top fans. That is Facebook's word for it. So if you turn this feature on to your page, you might have to have a certain number of followers, I don't know what it is. You turn on the top fan badge and then Facebook will actually track for you who it considers to be your top fans. I believe I have, I don't know, a couple hundred of them. And top fan badges are earned by commenting on things and liking things. So I actually run a giveaway like once a month we pick a random top fan and they get to have a prize of their choosing and the prizes are a signed book shipped anywhere, an item from the Sarina Bowen swag store, or a bad, but flattering poem in your honor.Jess:                                     31:56                    While we're on the topic and because I have helped you with some of this in the past and I have had to deal with it myself, when you run these sorts of things and you say shipped anywhere, just keep in mind how much it costs to ship to Australia. Just keep it in mind. Just think about it when you do it.KJ:                                        32:14                    There's a reason people do U.S. only and apologies to those who can't participate, but whoa.Sarina:                                 32:23                    Yeah, one book to Australia is $22.50 and yesterday I shipped a box to France for $57 50. Ouch., right?KJ:                                        32:35                    Groups have a similar thing to the top fan, which is the conversation starters.Jess:                                     32:40                    Yeah, I love that. And there's also like a visual storyteller. We have it in our group and, according to our group, I'm an administrator, but I'm also a visual storyteller because I post a lot of pictures to our group.KJ:                                        32:53                    Well, no prizes for you. I'm sorry.Sarina:                                 32:55                    Well, the point of giving prizes to top fans is to give an incentive to comment. If you were to go look at my page right now (and I have no idea what the last thing we posted), but you'll see like 'Can't wait' and just people chiming in and the chiming in tells the Facebook algorithm that that piece of content is valuable or interesting. So Facebook will give it a little more love. I mean there are days when it feels like my entire job is to try to outwit the Facebook algorithm and not everybody needs to think like this or operate like this, but it's quite the rabbit hole.Jess:                                     33:37                    Well, and we've talked about this in the past, is that certain social media platforms are great for certain things. And for me it's Twitter and for you it's Facebook. And we've talked about this in the past and partially it's a self-perpetuating thing. But when Sarina goes on my webpage (which I let her do from time to time and look at where my traffic's coming from) you know, mine's coming from Twitter and hers overwhelmingly comes from Facebook. So if you know that the genre that you write in is Facebook oriented, then this is really helpful information. For me, I'm trying to figure out how to best use Facebook. And it may be different for nonfiction authors, but I think when you know that that's where your fans are it's worth spending a little bit extra time and effort, as you do, to engage that audience. It's all about decision making.Sarina:                                 34:27                    And in order to remove some of the emotion from it. So yesterday I got very depressed because I have a book launch coming up and I realized just how much I hate launching. Like it's a kind of a popularity contest that I don't really want to enter. I don't enjoy that week of share me, share me, love me, buy me. So one of the ways that I get around this is that every two months I take note of where the growth in my social media following is happening. So I'll just note the totals of how many followers are on the page, how many people in the group, how many on Instagram, how many on BookBub and how many on my newsletter list. Not because I'm obsessed with the totals, but because I want to know which thing is growing the fastest?KJ:                                        35:23                    Where should you invest your time?Sarina:                                 35:25                    Right? Where is the heat? So that I don't obsess about my Facebook page if that's not obsessable this week.KJ:                                        35:34                    Well, my loose take on what Facebook is good for is nonfiction of the kind that I have written and that Jess writes, parenting stuff, family oriented stuff, self-help style stuff. Basically, probably nonfiction with more of a female audience. I don't know what I mean, Facebook is definitely both genders. Does it skew female? Do we know?Jess:                                     36:07                    I don't know, but I do know that parenting stuff, at least from my perspective, does incredibly well on Facebook. And then the added bonus is that some of the outfits I write for like the New York Times and the Atlantic and Washington Post have very active Facebook pages. And when they post my stuff to Facebook, holy moly, the shares for those articles go through the roof. And then of course other Facebook pages pick up those articles. And I'm very lucky in that some of my more evergreen content the Atlantic will repost from time to time, thus revitalizing an article I wrote four years ago, which is lovely. Yeah. So from that perspective it's really useful.KJ:                                        36:47                    Well, I often think of it is Twitter for serious nonfiction, Facebook for lighter nonfiction, Instagram for fiction. But I think that is just a gross, gross oversimplification as evidenced by the fact that Sarina makes a really good use of Facebook. And Facebook's ads for fiction, especially independently published fiction, are kind of I think without parallel. And there's no barrier to entry like there is on Instagram. You can't advertise on Instagram. You can't even link on Instagram. You can't advertise either, can you? Am I right, Sarina?Sarina:                                 37:23                    You could advertise on Instagram.KJ:                                        37:25                    Oh you can still advertise, okay. Alright, fine. Well, this is good. Okay.Jess:                                     37:31                    This is really helpful.KJ:                                        37:32                    We've laid out some useful basics, given me some ideas. I hope we've given some of the rest of you guys ideas. Oh my gosh. Books.Jess:                                     37:56                    Yeah, do we want to talk about what we've been reading? I have a new author that I've recently discovered that's fun to read. You know there are certain really popular authors that are sort of are in the periphery of your awareness and yet you never actually listened to them. I finally listened to a Harlan Coben book recently. So I listened to Harlan Coben because a narrator that I really, really enjoy - Steven Weber, he played one half of the duo on the show Wings in the 80s, and he's still out there doing some great stuff. He's an audio book narrator and I happen to love his audio narration voice. You can click not only on authors in a lot of apps, but you can click on the narrator, too. So if you really like a narrator, try other things they've narrated. And that's what I did. And I've been listening to a Harlan Coben book. I listened to one called Home that was kind of interesting, but now I'm listening to one called Run Away (it's two separate words). I think it's his newest one. The opening was so beautifully done - and what's really fun about Harlan Coben is that he's funny without trying to be comic. Like he's just a witty writer and it's really fun in a way that I don't get to read a lot. And so he's highly prolific. There's tons out there. He has series. He has stand alones and so it's nice to have a new author to be able to dip into and learn new things from. So that's Harlan Coben Run Away so far I'm loving it. Home was really, really interesting. I like that one, too.Sarina:                                 39:32                    Well, Jess, I love Harlan Coben. And there's a lot to learn there, also. One of his novels (my favorite one) was made into a movie in French.Jess:                                     39:49                    What's the book?Sarina:                                 39:51                    I'm trying to figure that out right now. Tell No One. It's a wonderful novel.Jess:                                     39:56                    I actually originally heard about him because Stephen King talks about him a lot. I think they're buds or something or he just really likes his work, but I just never occurred to me to listen to any of his books or read any of his books. But I'm glad I am.Sarina:                 &#

Welcome to the first episode of BryghtCast Weekly, our new podcast, for the week of October 21st, 2019. Prior to today, this podcast had been published as a part of our long-running Managing Uncertainty Podcast, but now we're spinning this off into its own podcast. We explain our thinking a little more deeply in the episode, so have a listen. Topics discussed on today's podcast include: WSJ: NBA Arenas prepare for Hong Kong protests WSJ: US troops withdrawing from Syria draw scorn International Elections:  Canada, Israel The Conversation: Chile protests escalate as widespread dissatisfaction shakes foundations of country's economic success story Leadership vacancies at the US Department of Homeland Security Episode Transcript Bray Wheeler: Hi. Welcome to this week's episode of BryghtCast for the week of October 21st, 2019. Before we get started, I mean everyone may have noticed there was some new music. There is some potentially new graphics up for this podcast. We have elected to spin this off a little bit from the Managing Uncertainty podcast where it has lived since we've started doing this into its own podcast. We've gotten some overwhelming support from folks and listeners, so we've decided to break that apart. So over the next few weeks, you'll see the new graphic, you'll see this split off. There may be some additional things that we're kicking around to include with this podcast. So before we jump in... Bryan Strawser: So this is Bryan Strawser here at Bryghtpath. I think one of the important things to point out here is really two fold. This is now going to be its own podcast. So if you're listening to this on the Managing Uncertainty podcast, this is the last episode we'll be posting to this channel, this subscription of the BryghtCast. We'll continue with what you're used to on Managing Uncertainty, which is this deeper 15 to 30 minute dive into a particular topic related to crisis management, business continuity risk, organizational resilience. Bryan Strawser: You'll want to subscribe to BryghtCast Weekly, which will be the new podcast name in order to continue to receive BryghtCast, and that should be up in the next day or so, should be available on iTunes and Stitcher and Google play and all the wonderful places where you can find podcasts. We'll remind you of this a few times in the coming weeks as well. But with that... Bray Wheeler: Yeah, we're super excited. Bryan Strawser: Welcome to BryghtCast Weekly. We've got a handful of topics I think that Bray's going to kick us off on. Bray Wheeler: Again, this is Bray Wheeler consultant here at Bryghtpath and so for the week of October 21st, we're going to just kick right into it. The big topic that we've been talking about for weeks and weeks and weeks, Hong Kong. What's unique about the situation that we're going to delve into here real briefly is the fact that not much has changed, status quo. Hong Kong continues to be filled with unrest, but what's unique is the NBA is now prepping for protests at games in the US and Canada, in particular the opening night games in both Toronto and Los Angeles. Bray Wheeler: So it'll get very interesting for the National Basketball Association here over the next couple of weeks in terms of their fallout from their back and forth with China around support for Hong Kong, freedom of speech. It's been just a mixed conversation, even within the NBA and with fans of the NBA as well as just the public at large, but really for this demonstrates the NBA as organization wading into the waters of Hong Kong and the results of how they've handled themselves, probably not so well. Bryan Strawser: Not so well. The NBA's in a really difficult situation, right? I mean they are organization that was founded in the United States and has a market. Their largest market is still the United States, although that may change in the future. Their teams are in the US and Canada, but there are attempting to turn themselves into a global league, and they're playing games in International locations and they have a huge deal, huge contract in China that will likely become their largest market over time. The Chinese citizens are huge into basketball. That's been a trend that's been going on for some time. If I take off, my I'm an American hat, for a minute, the NBA is in a horrible bind. Bryan Strawser: From a purely business perspective, there is no easy decisions for them here. I think they're going to try to thread the needle. I don't know. It really never works to do that. But they are faced with a really difficult decision and that is do they cater to their existing market, which will piss off their likely future larger market, or do they cater to the future larger market and piss off their current market, or do they find some way to thread the needle in the middle? I'm not sure how they do that. But the complicating factor to all of that is that activists have figured out that the NBA is sensitive to this, and it's making a lot of play and therefore the activists, are going to lean into this issue with the NBA and provoke responses that will likely benefit the activists over anything else, so that's the bind they're in. Bryan Strawser: If I put my American hat back on, I think the message that they're receiving here in the United States is you should... I mean, why would you not back democracy? Why would you not eject these people, or why would you not welcome these kinds of protests? Why would you not make statements in support of that? Why are you censoring people who are? Bray Wheeler: Right. Bryan Strawser: And then I think I've mentioned in all of this too is the NBA has changed their rules of conduct for fans and taunts and basically even if you don't bring in a sign or wear a shirt, if you chant things that are not related to the game, you can be ejected. Bray Wheeler: Correct. Over the past few weeks in these pre-season games they've kicked out a number of fans for holding up simple Pro-Hong Kong signs, Chance, T-shirts, the whole nine yards and they've booted them right out. They're in a really, really tough spot. In the sport of basketball, just in comparison to the other major sports in the US, that's the one that's really gotten international foothold and really taken off that the other sports leagues don't necessarily have to combat with. Certainly baseball is an International sport. Certainly hockey is very popular in North America and Europe. But in terms of actual leagues, actual connectivity with the Pro League, the NBA is really the only one that has to deal with this. Bryan Strawser: Right. Baseball and football have just stepped there. They've just dip their tippy-toes in- Bray Wheeler: Right. Bryan Strawser: With all of this. Bray Wheeler: It's all localized in a way that the NBA certainly has capitalized on the big market and popularity in China and globally. But it definitely is for organizations, just a good case study and a good reminder of engagement, and even engaging for the right reasons has potential consequences and opens you to reputational crises, operational crises around these different policy issues and political issues that are going on now globally. It's not just State by State. It really is international flares to these issues. Bryan Strawser: One of the challenges, I mean we've talked about this in various ways in the past on the podcast and on Managing Uncertainty around globalization and deciding to take your business outside of where it started, and doing so usually requires that you find ways to adapt to the norms of the countries in which you're operating in. Bryan Strawser: I know from my own experience in doing this in India and in Asia, my operating model there was different. My leadership approach was different. In some cases, more reserved than what my brash American in your face leadership style is, in some cases more aggressive because that's what the local situation demanded and that's just adapting my own leadership style. Your business has to adapt to the local cultural and norms. Bryan Strawser: That's the real challenge here I think is as we've talked about previously, the Chinese do not expect to be challenged by a business that they've granted permission to operate, particularly an American business. And so the NBA is going to have to really think about, any company that's going to do this, is going to have to really think about the reputational aspects of this. I don't know that the NBA or any company could have predicted what's going on in Hong Kong this year. Bray Wheeler: Right. Bryan Strawser: But this kind of disruption is going to continue and the challenge will not be contained as we're seeing here to just businesses operating in Hong Kong. Bray Wheeler: I mean this is certainly headline grabbing type stuff. Things like regulatory and safety in factories and things like that in Country State you're operating in aren't the same as the US and that's made some headlines here in the past few years. But, even things as simple as that, just how you operate your business even behind the scenes, there is an adaptation factor that has to take place. Bray Wheeler: So moving on from Hong Kong until next week, the next topic is Syria. And so there is a few different things that are going on with the Syria Kurd issue, post US withdrawal or as we're seeing active US withdrawal. Over the last 24, 48 hours, there's been a lot of international media attention around Kurdish forces, Kurdish population's reaction to the US leaving. Bray Wheeler: There has been pictures of them throwing stones at different military vehicles. There has been pictures of US soldiers with patches of Kurdish forces to try and show the symbol of unity that, we're still with you even though we've been ordered to leave, so there is just a lot of tension with the US-Kurd position now that the final US troops are moving out of that Kurdish region. Bray Wheeler: President Trump has indicated that some troops may stay in Syria in order to protect oil fields, oil facilities in order to prevent ISIS who has capitalized on those facilities in the past from regaining control of those to sell oil on the black market, which was very lucrative for them for a while. So that's the last force. Otherwise, the rest of them are moving into Iraq. Bray Wheeler: As a result of piling on to that, ISIS has been posting a lot of propaganda material, particularly on the newer social media site that's gaining popularity Tik Tok, which has meant to largely be funny. Their stuff is not so funny that they're posting on there. So ISIS is really capitalizing here in the last week around this attacking prisons, attacking Kurdish forces to try and free up some of that land, facilities, captured members of ISIS, things like that, so ISIS has really been on a little bit of an upswing here the last week in terms of from where they have been at least relatively speaking. Bray Wheeler: Finally, the unique piece that's we're recording this on Tuesday, October 22nd, but what has broken here today within the last couple of hours is, Turkey and Russia have reached an agreement on patrolling that Syrian border between Turkey and Syria. The US vacating that role as influencer in that area, Russia has stepped into that, and so they're the power broker for moving the Kurdish forces out of that buffer area that Turkey is seeking to establish on the Syrian border. So a lot going on in Syria, a lot of different implications that will continue to play out, but really for organizations watching that, staying on top of all the different tentacles of what's going on there is going to be very important, particularly on the US engagement front. Bray Wheeler: If you have business with Turkey, that kind of relationship is a little bit unsettled. On the terrorism front, there is certainly the ISIS factor in that popularity. You may get some, not necessarily copycats, but sympathizers that may take action as, Oh, ISIS is back, I'm going to do something to affirm my spot. So there is just a lot going on that front. Bryan Strawser: There's a lot to keep an eye on, I think because you may not be doing business in... Well, you're probably not doing business in Syria if you're listening to this podcast. Bray Wheeler: Hopefully not. Bryan Strawser: Right. Hopefully not, but you're probably doing business. If you're international, you probably have some connectivity to Turkey and you're more than likely have some connectivity to the Middle East region as a whole. This is definitely something to monitor. When we've talked about this on a previous episode, there's a lot going on in terms of military conflict there that can expand. Bryan Strawser: There's obviously other countries that are bordering Syria have concerns about what's going on and then the regional terrorism concern with ISIS and even their global reach. As this continues that they continue to gain foothold, a chance to reconstitute. There's a lot to keep an eye on here and I'm sure we'll be talking about this much in the future. Bray Wheeler: I have a feeling it's going to be another Hong Kong here over the next few weeks. Bryan Strawser: It's going to come out of nowhere and... Bray Wheeler: We're just going to keep talking about that, which transitioning into another topic we've talked to a lot a bit about is Brexit. So over the last 24, 48 hours here, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has moved to have the House of Commons vote on the agreements with the European Union that he reached with them over the last week. That got nixed yesterday by the House Speaker. He shut that down as a breach of protocol, but today they're actually reviewing that agreement and hopefully voting on that. That's the expectation. Bryan Strawser: So they have voted. While we've been here- Bray Wheeler: They voted. Bryan Strawser: Recording this episode and we're recording this episode. Bray Wheeler: Look at that. Bryan Strawser: A little afternoon on a Tuesday the 22nd, you'll be hearing this likely on the 23rd- Bray Wheeler: Real time. Yes. Bryan Strawser: Update from just about 10 minutes ago while we were recording the podcast, UK Lawmakers, and I'm reading from the Wall Street journal here, UK Lawmakers on Tuesday endorsed Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, giving it critical momentum in Britain's factual parliaments and raising the prospect that the country's protracted divorce from the European Union is finally reaching the end game. The fight's not over. Johnson will face further votes in the House of Commons that could delay or frustrate the deal, and he's even threatened to pull the deal if they refuse to fast track the legislation. Bryan Strawser: But in principle, this vote marks a remarkable turnaround for the Prime Minister who in three months has managed to both renegotiate an agreement with the EU and persuade the deeply divided house of commons of its merits. Earlier today, he was telling lawmakers that he would pull the deal and call for a General Election if they did not push this through in the calendar year 2019. Where was the vote? Here we go. Bryan Strawser: Mr. Johnson negotiated a deal last week with the EU that covers payments to the EU, citizens' rights and arrangement to avoid a hard border, a physical border from being built in Ireland. Despite running a minority government, Mr. Johnson in the last 48 hours has managed to win over to his course, a group of opposition labor lawmakers who backed Brexit and also persuaded almost all of the conservatives that he threw out of the party last month for defying him on a Brexit vote to rally behind his deal. Bryan Strawser: Whether this alliance will hold is unclear. Lawmakers have already begun publishing proposed amendments to the now approved divorce deal. So there's a lot here left to do, but in principle this is pretty remarkable turn around from even say Friday where things were at. Bray Wheeler: Bryan correct me if I'm wrong, essentially the vote today was just to advance the conversation and movement to make the conversation official that yes, we are actually talking about it because for the longest time it's been talking around the agreement or the process of getting to the agreement. Not necessarily the agreement itself, particularly in the last couple of months. But you're right, I mean this is a huge move to even just open up that conversation channel implications if this does go through- Bryan Strawser: They're huge. Bray Wheeler: Or a lot, they're huge. I mean even down to, Scotland potentially thinking about breaking away from the United Kingdom to go back to the EU. I know there's some tensions or uncertainty around what that lack of hard border in Ireland really the means, and whether or not that will play out how people say it will play out. Bryan Strawser: What happens to Balmoral or Scotland succeeds? I'm sorry, I just went to the Queen's favorite palace, but no, I mean you're right. I mean there's a ton of concerns around where things could go from here that are- Bray Wheeler: Beyond the just [inaudible] economy. Bryan Strawser: And I think, and I've mentioned this before and I like to just make this real for the impact on individuals. I'm a Grad student at a UK College and most of my classmates are not... I would say most of my classmates aren't British. They're from mostly from Commonwealth countries and a lot and then there's a bunch of Americans in there. They don't even know what this means. There was an email from the Principal of Kings college, which is the President of an American college, Dr. Byrne yesterday morning that said, we know many of you are concerned about this and the fact of the matter is we don't know what's going to happen, but here's what we do understand today. And I thought that that was extraordinary that you'd have to send out a message about what your country's immigration policy might be because you don't know. Bray Wheeler: Well in real time. Bryan Strawser: In real time. Bray Wheeler: And it's not. Sadly- Bryan Strawser: I mean I should let- Bray Wheeler: You probably get an update. Bryan Strawser: Maybe I'll got an update from Dr. Byrne here on a... Bray Wheeler: Perhaps by the time you've completed your coursework, it will be settled and finalized and you'll be able to just- Bryan Strawser: You'll be able to figure it out. Bray Wheeler: Float in for graduation. So for organizations around Brexit, I mean really between now and the 31st the deadline, things should become clearer or become muddier, one of the two. But now is the time to really pay attention. Now is the time to make sure that travelers are aware of what's going on and the potential implications, both short-term and in the near term until things settle out or there. Organizationally, you're having those discussions around what does this mean for our organization, whether we have operations in the EU and the UK or one of the other. Bray Wheeler: Really now is the time if you... And we've stressed this over the last couple of months, but really watch what's going on here and really start having real conversations around what this means for your organization. Because if you're not, you're going to be unprepared and you're going to be in some trouble no matter how this shakes out, even if it's orderly and everything else. The complexity here is pretty high and so to not have a good sense and feeling of what's going on and understanding of some of the implications, you're going to be behind the ball. Bryan Strawser: Brexit's a big one, most large organizations I think are studying this carefully and it's tough as fast as this moving to understand the various provisions that are going on. I do think though, if you're a US based company and you're doing business in the UK, the US has individual agreements with the UK that will likely protect your business, but it will depend on where you're coming from, where your folks are citizens of. There's a lot of moving parts here to keep track of. Bray Wheeler: Keeping with elections and votes and things like that, a couple of notable international elections have taken place here and we won't go too deep because the actual impacts of these are still a little bit unknown, but Canada here today, last night in the last 24 hours, finalized their elections. Prime minister Trudeau was re-elected, however his party lost the popular vote. So there's some political tensions going on within Canada itself. It's been a little bit of an abnormally contentious election for them. Bray Wheeler: I would probably argue they're a little bit more civilized than the US elections typically, but this one was pretty contentious. Kind of a split votes. He was able to get his majority coalition. However, there's a lot of uncertainty that has to play out on that front. Bryan Strawser: Who did the liberals ally themselves with in their conservative government or I'm sorry, in their Coalition government. Do you know? Is it the new Democrats? Bray Wheeler: I believe so. I have two of- Bryan Strawser: The most ideologically aligned. It was interesting. I think everybody expected this to be closer between the liberals and the conservatives and it wasn't. The liberals, that's Trudeau's party took a 157 seats losing 20. The conservatives gained 24, I think the surprise of the night was the Quebec Bloc, the [inaudible] names and one of the names they picked up their 32 they picked up a bunch of seats. Bryan Strawser: They picked up 22 seats, almost as many as the Conservatives dead. And so I think somewhere in there lies the coalition that went on. But yeah, it's interesting. Everybody expected this to be closer, I think, and it wasn't. The liberals primarily relied upon Ontario for their votes in the popular vote, but there's a lot of seats there. The conservatives could sort of vote was heavily concentrated in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but there's not a lot of seats there, so that shows big in the popular vote, but just like our electoral college, it didn't translate to seats. Bray Wheeler: And then the other election, which has already taken place, but this is the aftermath is in Israel. So there was a very close vote with no majority, no rival at a coalition between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his counterparts... I'm going to probably, what's his name? Gantz, former Israeli military general. Really Gantz took a little bit of a gamble and allowed Netanyahu to try and form his coalition first. Bray Wheeler: Netanyahu had the majority of seats but really Gantz challenged that Netanyahu's ability to try and form a coalition first. Unfortunately here Netanyahu's coalition did not happen. He was not able to do it and it has now moved over to Gantz to try and form that coalition and if he is able to do that, that will be a shift in Israel's coalition that they've seen for quite awhile. Bray Wheeler: It has real political and personal implications for Netanyahu who is trying to stay in power in order to be exempt from some of some legal challenges he's facing. If he is not Prime Minister, he is open to those legal challenges. So there's a lot playing out there. Nothing is settled, but it is an interesting turn of events that Netanyahu was not able to get a coalition formed. Bryan Strawser: And is likely the end of Benjamin Netanyahu's political career. I mean there's a criminal investigation that's going on that I think was pending the outcome of this election to some extent? Bray Wheeler: Yeah. Bryan Strawser: I don't know if you had more context on that. Bray Wheeler: No, I think that's... I mean that's the piece that everybody's playing up a little bit, but I think from implication to Israel standpoint that has less implication to operations and to the public of Israel other than removing somebody who's faced a lot of controversy, especially over the last few years. Bray Wheeler: So more to come there. Chile topic we haven't talked about in quite a while. I want to just briefly touch on that. There has been protests here over the last four days in Chile, particularly in the major cities. The protests really started over a small increase in transportation costs, but that was really the straw that broke the camel's back for the public in Chile who's seen in spite of economic growth that Chile has experienced, wages have stagnated, the quality of living has not improved. Bray Wheeler: So there's just a lot of tension going on in Chile. And so this transportation increase on top of the fact that people aren't making more wages has set off a lot of protests that's taken place across the country with the military being deployed, political implications for the Presidents and some of the other politicians that are in an office. Bray Wheeler: So if you have operations in Chile, you're probably likely aware that some of that's going on. But really this has the potential to turn into a Hong Kong situation where it could play out over a long period of time. Chile has a history of being a little bit more forceful on some of those things. So there's more a physical security threat potentially with some of these protests here in Chile. Bray Wheeler: So just another area to keep an eye on and we'll likely be talking about that here in the next couple of weeks as well. Last topic we have of course, our first BryghtCast Weekly edition is a nice long one. We have lots of topics, but really this one is a little bit of an interesting one. I'm going to turn it over to Bryan, but it's really around DHS, Department of Homeland Security here in the US. Leadership vacancies and the implications of that inability to fill some of those key spots. Bryan Strawser: So there's a really... So I think everyone's aware at the start of this administration, John Kelly was the Secretary of Homeland Security. He resigned that position to become White House Chief of Staff, and then Kirstjen Nielsen came in as the Secretary of Homeland Security and was confirmed by the Senate. She served in that role until she was asked to resign by the president, and then the President named the Commissioner of Border Protection, I believe this is a McLaren as the Secretary of Homeland security, the acting DHS Secretary. And he resigned, was it last week? I think that took effect last week was his last week. Bryan Strawser: And so now the President has to fill the role... The president never has a nominated a secretary. There's no one pending. It's been open for months. The acting Secretary has resigned. There is no Deputy Secretary. So the challenge becomes filling the role of a Cabinet Secretary means invoking part of a law called the Federal Vacancy Reform Act, which gives the President power to appoint individuals in roles within the Federal government in an acting capacity, except that there's restrictions on this. Bryan Strawser: And to appoint someone to the Secretary role, you have to have someone who has been either confirmed by the United States Senate in a previous role that's currently serving for 90 days under the previous Secretary who was [inaudible] confirmed. That means it can't be in a... It's not service under an acting Secretary, it's got to be serviced under a Senate confirmed secretary. Bryan Strawser: Well, the last Senate confirmed Secretary was Nielsen, and since then we've had months without a Secretary in place. So my understanding from an article yesterday was that the President was looking to appoint Ken Cuccinelli, who was previously the Virginia Attorney General, or another individual who I believe was the acting Head of Customs and Border Protection. Bryan Strawser: Cuccinelli is the acting Head of Citizenship and Immigration services. Neither of them served under Secretary Neilsen. So they're not eligible and they're not Senate confirmed. So they're not eligible, and I believe most of the Assistant Secretary roles in DHS are either open or unsuitable in terms of the President's mind. This is information that leaked out of the White House personnel office yesterday. Bryan Strawser: So we're in a really interesting bind here because there needs to be an acting DHS Secretary. There's a number of statutory issues associated with that role. The department as a whole, one of the largest departments in the Federal government needs leadership, and we can't even name an Assistant Secretary, Oh I'm sorry, an acting Secretary because we don't have these roles. So the president's really in a bind on this right now until he appoints a secretary. I'm not sure that we see any other way out of that. Bray Wheeler: No, I mean it's going to force his hand a little bit in terms of this acting leader position that he's trying to put into place across several agencies. He's likely going to have to nominate somebody in likely going to have to play the political game with those nominees that he's successfully avoided here over this year in particular, he's going to have to probably play ball again in that capacity. What would be, Bryan and your take and your expertise, what would be some of the implications just for from that lack of leadership with the organization's thinking like FEMA and immigration and all those different pieces that DHS potentially overseas not even counting. Bryan Strawser: Well, I think there's a couple of key things that come to mind and I'm not an expert in all things that DHS does as a whole, and I want to make this nonpolitical in terms of content, but I think just there's a number of issues in the public sphere right now related to DHS as work that I think are important to have a secretary or release an acting secretary in place in order to represent these issues before the American people and drive some of these policy questions to resolution. Bryan Strawser: I mean, honestly I think the biggest one in the public policy spirit now is just immigration. The president's made that a key part of his administration, as a key part of his campaign in 16 and will be again in 2020 and if you don't have a public face of that, a policy face to that, that's really the role of the Cabinet Secretary's play as in implementing and speaking to the President's policy and defending the President's policy and bringing those policies to life. Bryan Strawser: And whether you agree with the President's view on immigration or not, we need to have that debate with that position filled in. There needs to be somebody that's overseeing that work. I also think there's been a number of things that don't look good that have happened around immigration and detention and deportation of people and I think you need somebody there to mind the ship so to speak. Bryan Strawser: That's a civilian appointed at the Cabinet Secretary level to do that. And then I think there's the contingency issue of we're confronted with natural disasters all the time and FEMA, I think does a very good job of managing those in the role of the Federal Government to provide logistics and support and funding to the States who are really the ones in charge of response and the FEMA administrator as pending Senate confirmation. Bryan Strawser: But there's an acting Head who came from within FEMA and I'm sure they'll do just fine, but they need top cover and it don't mean to hide or conceal something. Bray Wheeler: No. Bryan Strawser: They needed somebody to help take the political issues off of their backs so that acting administrator, Pete Gaynor and the team can manage the situation. And I don't think this any different from the other big agencies within DHS. I think that's true for the US Coast guard. The Coast guards part of DHS and the Commandant who I met in Aspen in July is extremely capable leader and so as his team, but again, you need the civilian leadership to help you navigate situations, particularly political one. Bryan Strawser: And let's face it that the Federal budget is something that is a constant debate in Washington. And although the Commandant and the few minutes later to go and testify and make their own arguments, they worked for the DHS Secretary and they need to be able to be there as a part of that as well. So that's probably a long winded answer, but I think those are the challenges we're faced with. Bray Wheeler: Yeah, no, I think to your point, it's less the political implications and more the operational challenges for businesses around with these vacancies and acting leadership and a lot of these key posts within DHS and those implications on business, because you're talking about travel and work visas, you're talking about FEMA response to different things. You're talking about coast guard implications to supply chain and logistics, all those different things. Bray Wheeler: And to your point, that lack of not necessarily top cover but support to take the other issues off the plate so those Department Heads can actually do the things that they're tasked with doing and that their agencies are required to do and should be doing. That's really the main focus of that secretary is to act on their behalf and to support and redirect and direct as appropriate and triage for them, and that lack of stables leadership, consistent leadership in the agency has some very potentially real implications with this. Bray Wheeler: And so hopefully it is going down that path of assigning a Permanent Secretary that being forced in that position while probably not what President Trump necessarily wants to have happen might actually be a silver lining for him in that agency and thereby the public in business operations in different organizations. So with that, that concludes the first of official separates BryghtCast Weekly Edition. We will be back next week with more topics, so look for this as a separate podcast subscription again, and we'll chat next week. Bryan Strawser: Thanks for listening.

As we all know, studying abroad is filled with ups and downs. Unfortunately, Megan got hit with a major obstacle down here in Brazil. In this episode, she opens up about navigating her experience in Rio de Janeiro and learning Portuguese in a different country. There’s alway’s going to be people who don’t think you belong, but here we are. Everyone come together to send Megan some BLCKGRLMGC as she finishes off her semester!

Christopher Lambert dons the worst hair we've ever seen and leads an uprising against the Romans only to ultimately accomplishing nothing and dies off screen. There's nothing good about this film. Zzzz....Oh I'm sorry. You caught me napping after watching Druids. What did I miss? Oh, nothing. Absolutely nothing? Ok. I'll move on to something else. Seriously, this movie sucks. Even for fans of Lambert's nonsense. Nothing happens. It's such a crappy Braveheart knock-off but fails in that it the world has not changed at the end of the movie. He doesn't even give the Romans that much grief. It's about as much grief as buying a $30 worth of lottery scratch tickets and finding 10 of them that are worth $1. Whoa the grievance... Oh yeah - where the hell are the damn druids?!?!  Seriously, don't spend a second of your time watching Druids. Go plant a flower. Eat a sandwich. Read a book about Gaul. Do ANYTHING but watch Druids.

A hug, a nap, a kind word: each of these actions can be really helpful for those that are going through hard times. Jemima Mertes, age 6, shares these insights and more on this episode of Handle with Care. Jemima is no stranger to sadness. As she speaks about her safe place, breathing techniques, and how to remember well, Jemima offers wisdom for anyone walking with a child through tumult as well as for those that support parents during times of disruption.   - Jemima Mertes I get kinda get all sad in my stomach and then my eyes get watery. I think sometimes I say that kinda because I'm kind of feeling sad about Mercy but I don't want to admit it.   - Liesel Mertes Why don't you want to admit it?   - Jemima Mertes Cause I'm kinda scared. I don't know why.   INTRO   Today, we continue our miniseries on childhood disruption.  If you missed our last episode, we are talking about how disruption affects children.  By extension, we are also talking about the adults that care for them.  If a parent goes through disruption, they are also interpreting and explaining and shepherding their child.  I know, from my own story, how important and exhausting this role can be.    I hope that these reflections help in three potential ways.   They help you better companion the children in your life that have experienced or are right now experiencing disruption.  If you don’t remember, childhood can be hard.  There are scraped knees and neighborhood bullies.  Someone is always deciding when you go to bed and what you have to eat for dinner.  Now, factor in a divorce or a cancer diagnosis.  It can all feel pretty overwhelming, for both kids and adults. These episodes help you show more empathy to friends and coworkers that are parenting children through seasons of disruption.These adults are not only managing their own sadness and exhaustion, they have little people that are looking to them for direction and guidance…and that is a really particular burden to carry. Maybe these reflections help you to encounter your own childhood disruptions through a different light, to reflect on the ways that you were met or missed and how that empathy (or lack of empathy) might still be affecting you now.   My guest today is Jemima Mertes, my six (almost seven year old) daughter. Before she was born, Jemima’s older sister, Mercy, died at just eight days old.  Jemima is the child born after our great loss.  Jemima has also experienced real-time sadness.  Her younger brother, Moses, has had numerous open heart surgeries.  Jemima has been my hospital companion, coming along to cardiologist visits and holding Moses’ hand during blood draws.  She exudes care and comfort.  Jemima is the one that always remembers to pack snacks for sporting events, bringing extra applesauce and Cliff bars just in case someone else gets hungry too. She is not readily overwhelmed, steady and competent and deeply attentive to the needs of others.     - Liesel Mertes So, tell us your name and how old you are.   - Jemima Mertes My name is Jemima Mertes and I am six years old.   - Liesel Mertes What grade will you be in next year?   - Jemima Mertes First grade.   - Liesel Mertes Jemima, tell us some of your favorite things to do. What do you really like?   - Jemima Mertes I like watching movies. I like going to the store. I like swimming. I like going on slip and slides.   - Liesel Mertes Totally. Do you have any favorite foods?   - Jemima Mertes  i like pizza. I like popcorn. I like ice cream. I like M&Ms. I like candy.   - Liesel Mertes And tell us about where you fit in your family. Who are your siblings?   - Jemima Mertes Magnus, Moses, Ada, Mercy.   - Liesel Mertes And who is Mercy?   - Jemima Mertes My baby...uh, my older sister.   - Liesel Mertes Tell me a little bit more about her.   - Jemima Mertes She lived only for eight days. She had a big bump on the back of her skull inside her skull was cracked in two pieces and   - Liesel Mertes What happened to her?   - Jemima Mertes She died.   - Jemima Mertes Yeah. How did you hear about her dying? When do you first remember becoming aware that you had a sister who died?   - Jemima Mertes I don't know.   - Liesel Mertes What is it like being a sister to a sister who died?   - Jemima Mertes Kinda sad.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Tell me more about that.   - Jemima Mertes Cause you can't really play with them and you kind of think of them feel sad.   - Liesel Mertes What are times that make you feel sad?   - Jemima Mertes  When I get hurt   - Liesel Mertes When you get hurt. When you think about Mercy, when you talk about times when you're sad about Mercy, what are some of those times like?   - Jemima Mertes Uh, it kind of feels sad and I kind of cry a little bit.   - Liesel Mertes Are there certain times of year where that happens more than others?   - Jemima Mertes Mostly when I am in school.   - Liesel Mertes  What is it like when that happens in school?   - Jemima Mertes Kind of sad, but my teacher helps me.   - Liesel Mertes How does your teacher help you?   - Jemima Mertes She makes me feel better, gives me a hug.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Anything else she does to help you?   - Jemima Mertes She sometimes gives me a snack.   - Liesel Mertes Oh, snacks can be really helpful, can't they?   - Liesel Mertes You've been talking lately, you've said, "Sometimes I just feel like crying and I don't know why." What does that feel like for you?   [00:04:24.560] I guess kinda get all sad in my stomach and then my eyes get watery. I think sometimes I say that kinda because I'm kind of feeling sad about Mercy but I don't want to admit it.   - Liesel Mertes Why don't you want to admit it?   - Jemima Mertes Cause I'm kinda scared. I don't know why.   - Liesel Mertes When you get really upset about something, how does it feel on your insides?   - Jemima Mertes  My brain kind of gets, my brain kind of makes me eyebrows go down on my eyes. And you kind of start shaking. And then my hands kind of want to move a lot and so do my legs.   - Liesel Mertes What are some things that are important for you to do to remember Mercy? Are there are things that are important as a family that we do?   - Jemima Mertes Yeah we go, we sometimes go places for her birthday. We go to Great Wolf Lodge for her birthday sometimes. And we also go to her grave and I like taping stuff on it was kinda funny when that picture blew off the grave and then Daddy had to hop on it.   - Liesel Mertes I remember that you put a picture on her grave and it like blew away didn't it? I remember that   - Jemima Mertes It was a picture that I had made with hearts and squares.   I like it that Jemima can laugh at this funny memory from the gravesite:  we were trying to tape lovingly handmade pictures on Mercy’s grave on one particularly blustery afternoon when a blast of wind caught a picture and sent it spinning.  Luke had to run a good fifty yards in hot pursuit and make a diving leap.  It was hilarious.  And we strike this balance as a family:  how to remember Mercy well without too much heaviness.  My father remembers having to go to his mother’s grave on every holiday as a child, how oppressive the cemetary felt in his starched suit.  I don’t want that for my kids.  We try to have visits remain short, they are allowed to roam and explore.  When we lived further south, sometimes Ada or Magnus would just ask to drop in after school for a casual visit.  Another thing that we do as a family is to try to do something really fun in honor of Mercy during February.  We have spent a couple of years going to Great Wolf Lodge, riding waterslides and eating pizza, so that Mercy is more than just a graveyard presence.    - Liesel Mertes What do you what makes you most sad when you think about Mercy?   - Jemima Mertes I don't know.   - Liesel Mertes What do you wish that you got to do with her?   - Jemima Mertes Play. Get to go on the slip and slide with her.  Get to go to Great Wolf Lodge with her.  Watch movies with her.   - Liesel Mertes Do your friends know that you had a sister who died?   - Jemima Mertes Yeah, I sometimes tell them. I don't really want to cause kind of makes me feel sad.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. What did they do when you told them?   - Jemima Mertes  Say, Oh I'm sorry. And one day when I said, for announcements, this was the day my sister died, yeah, they were like, I said death day and they were like, what's a death day?    - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Did you tell them more about it?   - Jemima Mertes  Yeah.   - Liesel Mertes And how was that?   - Jemima Mertes Uh, good.   I want to interject an observation.  I am thankful that Jemima felt comfortable letting her teacher and her friends know about Mercy and her death day.  I think that it can be difficult for children to find the space to bring up their sibling that died. Mercy is very much a part of our family. Even as a grown-up, I can find it feels socially complex to bring up my dead daughter.  At what point in relationship is it appropriate to let you know about this integral person that died, this little girl that has shaped so much of my story?  If I reel that, my children probably feel it too.  So, a few years ago, we decided to host a birthday party for Mercy Joan. Ada, Magnus, Jemima, and Moses all invited friends.  There was cake and a showing of Big Hero 6.  We wanted to provide the children with space to introduce their friends to the reality of Mercy in a way that felt organic.  I hope it helped…   - Liesel Mertes We were talking about Mercy, but you've also had another one of your siblings who has had some hard times with their health. Who's that and what's wrong with them?   - Jemima Mertes Moses. He has a heart problem.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. And with Moses what has had to happen for him?   - Jemima Mertes He's had to have his bones cracked open and fix up his heart and have wires to patch up his heart.   - Liesel Mertes What has that been like for you as his sister?   - Jemima Mertes Kinda scary. I like when I get to visit him.   - Liesel Mertes You go to the hospital and visit him?   - Jemima Mertes Yeah, I like getting sometimes ice cream and I like having fun with him cause I don't really get to see him when he's in surgery and I like watching movies with him in his bed.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah you're really good at watching movies with him on his bed. How does it make you feel, as his sister, when he has to have surgeries or more tests?   - Jemima Mertes Very scary. Cause I don't know what's gonna happen, what they're gonna say.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah, is there anything that helps you when you feel scared like that?   - Jemima Mertes Kind of breathing in and out..   - Liesel Mertes Totally. That breathing a great thing to do. Anything else that helps you?   - Jemima Mertes You smile, take a breath, and relax.   - Liesel Mertes I like that   - Jemima Mertes I have a lot of breathing I can do.    - Liesel Mertes Did they teach you that at school? Yeah they do I like that.   - Jemima Mertes And also going to bed makes me feel better.   - Liesel Mertes Oh. Going to bed can make me feel super better when I have hard times too.   - Liesel Mertes Tell us about your safe spot.   - Jemima Mertes My safe spot is a place I made out of wood, blankets, and straps.  I put the stuff in it, like putty, that I can use when I am really angry and then I can remake the stuff and keep ripping it.    Sometimes the emotions of childhood are so very big and scary.  The anger, the sadness can seem totalizing.  This is why we helped Jemima build her safe spot. It is a place she can go when she feels flooded by emotion.  As she mentioned, she has some meaningful objects in her safe spot.  Pictures and thing that calm her, paper to write on, a calculator (she loves math) and putty.  Putty by request.  Jemima found that she could tear and destroy putty when she was really angry, but, unlike other objects, it could be put back together again.  Especially in a busy house with four children, I have really appreciated how the space spot gives her a physical space that is out of the way to regulate and return.    - Liesel Mertes I think sometimes grown ups don't really know how to help kids when they've gone through a hard time. What are good ways that your friends could help you or that grown ups could help you?   - Jemima Mertes They can tell you it's OK and sometimes give you snacks and give you a hug.   - Liesel Mertes Anything else that helps you?   - Jemima Mertes I don't know   - Liesel Mertes Anything else that grownups should know about kids?   - Jemima Mertes That they love candy   MUSICAL TRANSITION   A few reflections on my time with Jemima   There is great power to a tasty snack, a warm hug, and a good night’s rest for both adults and children. Providing children with a safe spot can help with unruly emotions. Putty can be a great resource; Jemima found particular comfort in a tactile expression for her large emotions.  There are also companies like Generation Mindful that provide Time-In Toolkits.  I am including their information and a link to our favorite putty in the show notes.  When you are feeling scared and overwhelmed, take time to breathe. Jemima demonstrated a few techniques in our podcast.  I love that they are teaching these techniques in school…and it is great insight for adults as well.  Deep, rhythmic breathing communicates safety to your body and helps to stem the cascade of stress responses in the body.    OUTRO   Here are links to the resources mentioned in today’s podcast Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty: https://puttyworld.com Generation Mindful: https://www.genmindful.com/?rfsn=654637.ab95e

When tragedy impacts in the life of a child, it can be difficult for adults to know how to help. Ada June, age 11, had a sister die and a brother undergo multiple open-heart surgeries. She shares about death, the power of remembering, and the importance of being able to self-advocate in the midst of pain. There is wisdom here for anyone who is walking with a child through sadness as well as for those that support parents during times of disruption.   - Ada Mertes I remember telling you and Daddy when I was younger that I was afraid that my grandparents were going to die or that you were going to die or that I was going to die. I was afraid because it was, now something that was going to forever be a part of my life. And it's, it's something that actually really stays with you. Not like the fear but just like the feeling of loss. And there's always a slight feeling of, there's always something that's never going to be perfectly right because you know, something, a part of everything's not there.   INTRO   My daughter, Mercy Joan Mertes, died at just eight days old in 2011.  In the coming weeks, I will share more of my personal journey with grief and mourning.  The sadness of her death affected every area of my life:  my graduate studies, my marriage, my friendships, and my parenting.  Parenting. I was still the parent of Ada and Magnus…and part of my role as their mother was to help them navigate their loss. This was not always easy.  I was exhausted, wrung out by the emotional challenges of my own day.    And yet the task of translating and interpreting loss, of listening to children as they go through their own grief journey, is so important.    So today, I am beginning a mini-series to talk about childhood disruption. Over the next three weeks, you will meet three of my favorite people:  Ada, Magnus, and Jemima Mertes.    It is my hope that these reflections from children help in three potential ways.   They help you better companion the children in your life that have experienced or are right now experiencing disruption.  If you don’t remember, childhood can be hard.  There are scraped knees and neighborhood bullies.  Someone is always deciding when you go to bed and what you have to eat for dinner.  Now, factor in a divorce or a cancer diagnosis.  It can all feel pretty overwhelming, for both kids and adults. These episodes help you show more empathy to friends and coworkers that are parenting children through seasons of disruption.These adults are not only managing their own sadness and exhaustion, they have little people that are looking to them for direction and guidance…and that is a really particular burden to carry. Maybe these reflections help you to encounter your own childhood disruptions through a different light, to reflect on the ways that you were met or missed and how that empathy (or lack of empathy) might still be affecting you now.   But first, some context.  In the fall of 2010, I had just started business school and was pregnant with our third child, a little girl named Mercy Joan.  I found out, at the 20 week scan, that she had a birth defect called an encephalocele:  the base of her skull had not closed.  Doctors were unable to gauge the severity of her condition…they wouldn’t be able to tell until she was able to have an outside the womb MRI.  Mercy was born on February 15, 2011.  She could not breathe on her own and she died after eight short days of life.  Ada was three and Magnus was seventeen months old.    Two children followed Mercy:  Jemima and then Moses.  Moses was born in 2014 with a serious cardiac condition called tetralogy of fallot with pulmonary atresia.  Let me put that in layman’s terms:  an optimally functioning heart has four valves…and you need all of them to survive; Moses was only born with three.  Without surgical intervention, he would have turned blue and died.  He has needed multiple open-heart surgeries.    When I was a child, I remember that out postman died.  Apart from this tangential loss, nothing really horrible cast a shadow over my childhood.  This is not the case for my children:  they have had a sister die and a brother need significant medical intervention.  Along the way, they have asked deep questions and found meaning in the midst of pain.    Today, I’d like to introduce you to Ada, my eldest.  Ada is 11.  She has one of the most active minds I have ever met, she is always analyzing, assessing, and making connections.  She is kind and vibrant.  She loves to read and run and she began Middle School this year.  Ada is the big sister in our house.    Ada Mertes So, I have a younger brother who is 9 years old and he he's really funny. And he, he's really, he's just a fun guy to be around his name's Magnus. I have a 7, 6 year old sister, Jemima, and she's she's really really perky but she's she's always doing all these different things and she's always doing something and she likes crafts and Moses who is five years old now. Yeah. And he he's really rascally. But he's also he can be really, really sweet and then Mercy who would be eight. And yeah.   Liesel Mertes So talking about your siblings is one of the reasons that we're here today. Could you set the scene for us a little bit about how old you were and what point you're at in life when Mercy came into your world?   - Ada Mertes I was three years old and I was expecting a baby sister. And when she was born, she was born with a birth defect in her brain. And so, I, there was my little sister and I was three years old and Magnus was one.   - Liesel Mertes What do you remember about finding out that I was pregnant about your sister about her arrival? What really sticks out in your mind about that time?   - Ada Mertes I was thrilled when I found out I was going to have a baby sister. I remember planning to have tea parties with her and teach her how to sing and to read into walk and into talk and I remember, I was finally going to have the perfect girl playmate and she could dress up with me. And that was something that Magnus could do but he just couldn't do it in the same way that a sister could. And I was just so thrilled I was going to have like a little, a little version of me that I could take under my wings.   Liesel Mertes So do you remember finding out or what it was like to find out that it was not all going to be as you expected?   Ada Mertes I think I was I was kind of shocked, but I think I also was kind of in denial a little bit. I thought, you know things are gonna be OK and I held onto that hope for so long that things were gonna be OK and that everything was gonna work out in the end like a fairy tale kind of and things didn't work out that way.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah, tell us a little bit more so when she was born.   - Ada Mertes She, she had a lot of problems, not only she had a hole the back of her skull and she also had some problems with her spine. And so she stayed in the hospital for several days and we came and visited her a lot and she had to be hooked up to a machine. Then you decided to take, you and Daddy decided to take her off of the machine and you brought her home. Well, actually to my grandmother's house but to home and that was she lived for a few days and then she died there.   Liesel Mertes What was it like being 3 and having a sister die?   Ada Mertes Well I remember it was I it was kind of hard because in all of the stories that I've read there were fairy tales they used to read me and the Bible stories and they would go through hard stuff but in the end everything would work out. And I think I had my fingers crossed in a way and I was just hoping things are gonna work out. I would tell myself, you know don't worry, we'll overcome these things just like you know, Robin Hood and all of these these characters that had been some my best friends when I was little and I like, till the very end, I just hoped you know things can still work out. There's there's this magical way to save her and it's it's there.   Liesel Mertes The hope that everything will work out in the end.  I want to interject a memory here, the recollection of the awful moment when we told Ada that Mercy had died.  We were sitting in the basement, Mercy’s small body in my arms. And I told Ada, your sister is dead. Ada was perplexed, after all, her sister was there, in the house, no longer at the hospital.  “She’s not dead, she’s home.”  “No,” I replied, “she doesn’t have any more breath.”  I could see her mind working, “Then I will get her breath” Ada declared, coming over to give Mercy her breath.  She continued, with a hint of desperation, “I will feed her.” “No,” I reply, “she is dead”. There it is, that magical hope that the much loved sister would somehow be saved.    Liesel Mertes What do you remember of what it was like after she died?   Ada Mertes At It, I think it did affect me a lot. Even today, like the way that I talk and just act is affected by that. But then I remember I was told after this, like a few years ago, that at the playground sometimes I would pretend that I had a pretend sister and I'd play with her, it affected my play and just everything about me. I don't think, like, I don't know if I really understood what was going on. But the loss was definitely rooted within me.   Liesel Mertes Indeed, the loss rooted down deeply. This is an excerpt from my journal, just a few weeks after Mercy died: In the mornings, before we are out of bed, Ada June often arrives with requests for milk, snuggle bugs, and changed diapers.  She will snuggle in between the sheets with us to chat and squirm before the day and her brother fully awaken.  Lately, we have been playing “Baby Mercy”.  Ada lays in her diaper, because babies come out “naked and slimy”.  For the first few times, we would play overshadowed by the reality of Mercy’s death. I am designated to be Ada, and I would stroke her face lovingly, telling her how glad I was to have Mercy and how sad I would be once she left for heaven.  However, the game has taken a different, more painfully reflective turn. Baby Mercy (aka Ada), now declares that “I am going to stay with you!  I am going to grow up!”  We then play that Mercy dresses up with Ada, they play games, they eat together, and do all of the things that sisters who have years together will do…all of the things that will never be for Ada and Mercy.   A dull ache.   Liesel Mertes How did it make you feel about, an apprehension about death of other people in your life?   Ada Mertes I think it was definitely a lot more a lot more paranoid and scared because this thing was like something that had been talked about, death. But after she died, it became like a real thing to me, it became like something that could actually happen. It wasn't just something in the distant future. It was something that was here and now and a reality in such a very different way. And I think I definitely I worried a lot more about it.   - Liesel Mertes Tell us a little bit more about that worry.   Ada Mertes I think not only was I worried that like my grandparents, my parents were going to die, because I knew it could be something so unexpected, but I think I was also worried that I was going to die in a different sort of way. And like, just, I kind of, I was a lot more aware that there was like a true, sad, very sad reality to that.   Liesel Mertes Was that worry something that was just inside of you? Or did it come out in different ways?   Ada Mertes I remember telling you and Daddy when I was younger that I was afraid that my grandparents were going to die or that you were going to die or that I was going to die. I was afraid because it was, now something that was going to forever be a part of my life. And it's, it's something that actually really stays with you. Not like the fear but just like the feeling of loss. And there's always a slight feeling of, there's always something that's never going to be perfectly right because you know, something, a part of everything's not there.   Liesel Mertes Was there anything that was helpful for you when you were feeling like that?   Ada Mertes So, the thing about it is it always stays with you. The sadness and a lot of times when I was younger, I didn't know just ways to get my mind off of it. Like I remember making play dough with you or just like being able to try to be a child again in a different sort of way. Not having to think about that. And as I got older, when I would feel sad about it, just having someone to talk to, one of my best friends, like I could just tell them, you know, I'm feeling sad about Mercy today and they, they remembered and they're like, Yeah, I know that that must really be sad. And they were just able to say that it really, it really hurts when people don't remember when, like, say like I'm feeling sad about Mercy, you could say that to someone and they're like, who? And you have to explain over and over again and you've explained it to this person several times before but they just don't remember, yeah.   Liesel Mertes Tell me, tell me more. Was there anything that people did that was particularly unhelpful or hurtful?   Ada Mertes I remember once I was writing a story about Mercy and I was particularly, particularly, particularly sad that day and I was telling them, like, I'm, I'm so sad about my sister and what they said to me in response was, "Well, you know, my my sister, she once fell and she split her chin open and she had to get stitches. So you know what happened to you was not that bad." And that just, like it really hurt because she's comparing her sister having to get stitches to my sister who died when I was 3 years old. And it just felt like she didn't even care, that all she cared about was like her pain and that she didn't really even like acknowledge any of what I was going through.   Liesel Mertes On the other side, are there things that people have done that have been really helpful for you?   Ada Mertes Like I said, just people being able to remember or if like, sometimes I'll be not able to focus, especially like on a day that's like her birthday or and the day she died. Or just like, just I'm feeling sad one day and I can tell my teachers sometimes like it's kind of hard for me to focus, like today was Mercy's birthday or something like that and just saying Yeah that's OK, I understand. Just having people to talk to and be able for people to understand how I'm feeling is really, really helpful.   Liesel Mertes And I'm struck that, you know, you're talking about that sense of apprehension or wondering could this happen to me. Could this happen to someone else? You did have another disruptive life event that came with your brother Moses. Tell us a little bit more about that.   Ada Mertes  Moses was born with a heart defect. He was born without one of the valves in his heart. And so he's had to have numerous open heart surgeries and just heart surgeries over the past five years. I think four or five of them and they've been very serious procedures and I think the first one was the case. I'm 11, now five years ago, I was seven or eight. Probably something like. So yeah, that was, that was hard too because I'd already had a sibling die and of a birth defect too. And it was definitely very worrisome. Is, is this going to happen again? Is this going to to be the same all over again?   Liesel Mertes What do you think are things that grownups misunderstand about kids and their grief or sadness?   [00:11:52.910] - Sometimes kids don't actually, like for me, I'm very verbal, so I like talking about it but sometimes kids just don't want to talk about it and I feel, like, sometimes people are led into having, like making kids talk about it, like, oh how are you feeling? Are you okay? And like, saying, like that sometimes kids don't want to talk about it. Maybe they just, like want a hug or say, I'm feeling sad and they don't like, want to be pushed into talking about it. Or sometimes kids say, there's a lot of stuff that happens at school and it's just like, so much stress sometimes. And with all of that, it's sometimes, it can be too much and sometimes when they are asking like, hey it can be hard to like have the courage to go up and ask, Hey could I just like have some time off to just be quiet and read or like yeah, I can't really focus today. Is there anything that I could just like do. You know, sometimes it can be hard to have that courage but. And then, if adults are like, well and then they can just, it can kind of feel like they're judging you because of that but it just can be really hard to focus when you have other things on your mind and your mind can be swirling all around, you can't focus.   Liesel Mertes What is helpful for you when you want to be able to focus or deal with some of those emotions?   Ada Mertes  Well sometimes I listen to music that really helps. And I can't sometimes. Just talking to people not even about it, just like making conversation with others can really help. Or just being able to read a book or take a nap can really help. But sometimes it's hard to like do that within the chaos of everything that goes on in our everyday lives. And it's really good to take the time to do that when you feel like, Oh I'm feeling really sad or really stressed about this. I want to be able to have self care and that's something that people can really struggle with because they're like, but I have to do this so that they can't. Sometimes they don't understand their own emotions. But what really helps is just to take a moment to say, what can I do to help myself feel better? And then maybe be a self advocate for yourself. Ask an adult and if they they don't help you, then ask another adult. You need to be able to advocate for yourself when you're feeling sad like that you.   Liesel Mertes Do you have any, those were some great words of insight for people who are going through something similar, but as you think about, if there's anyone listening who has a child who is going through grief or who is a child going through a disruptive life event, what words of insight would you offer to someone in that situation?   Ada Mertes What I would say to the children is, it's not your fault and it's OK. You are, you're always still loved by God. And no matter what happens, God is always going to love you and your parents are always going to love you and just keep believing in the power of hope. Things can feel really, really hard at times, but just keep, keep believing that things can get better and just, if there's a time where you're just feeling super overwhelmed and you can't get this sad thing out of your mind, be able to self advocate for yourself or just be able to say, you know what I'm going to take a break from this homework, it's really stressful and I'm really, I can't focus on this because of something else and I'm gonna go and take a nap where I'm going to go and take a walk or go for a run. Be able to be vulnerable. Sometimes to be able to tell people, I'm feeling really sad because sometimes that really, really helps to be able to, to let people know that you're feeling. And for parents, I'd say just be able to to give support. And you don't always have to bring it up. Sometimes that can be hard to talk about, but be able to, be able to find fun things for you and your child to like, say look, let's go on a bike ride.   Ada Mertes  You know it doesn't have to be something big. It can just be like going for a bike ride or reading a story together because sometimes those are the most meaningful moments, just being able to sit down take a break from all the busyness or all the, the grief and everything that's going on, just being able to do what you did before everything happened. Being able to just be a child in a different sort of way.   Liesel Mertes You, you spoke about that feeling of feeling overwhelmed or for a child who might be listening to that. Could you tell us a little bit, could you describe like what that feels like inside of you when you know that that is coming or when you're in the midst of it?   Ada Mertes Sometimes it can be just like you just can't focus. You're like working on a math sheet and it should be super easy. It's something you know or you're, you're reading a book but these thoughts just keep nagging at you like, Oh I'm so sad that my moms have has cancer or I just my siblings really sick right now. I I'm really worried. I can't, I don't know what to do. It can feel like that. It can also be like, it can just be like, I can't take it anymore. I don't know what to do. And sometimes, it can just be like you can't, you just can't think about anything. Your brain's overloaded.   Ada Mertes  You really don't know what to do and in that moment I'd say, like talk to me and I'll ask them like I want I can't, I don't know what to do. And I'm really, really stressed and I'm really, really sad. Is there anything that you know to do or you could ask like, can I just have a break from whatever you're doing or could I just like go and ride my bike. Or, if you're doing homework, like can I read a book or listen to an audio book or something.   Liesel Mertes Have you needed to take time like that. I'm struck that you have been in school like on days when Moses is having surgery, have you needed to take moments like that in a day?   Ada Mertes There was one time where I was doing math in class but I just could not focus on it. It was I think it was Mercy's birthday and I just couldn't focus. I was really, really sad and I just I went to my teacher and I said, "Mrs. Wilson, I really, I can't focus today was my dead sister's birthday. Do you mind if I just take a break from math for a little while?" and she said, "Sure Ada, that, you can totally do that," And just being able to be vulnerable is really, really helpful. Or sometimes on days where Moses is having surgery, I can go down and talk to the school counselors or just like play a game with them and be like, you know, Yeah he's having surgery today think thanks for caring about that. Thanks for noticing. Thanks for being there.   Liesel Mertes I'm so glad that you've had adults that have been able to be there for you like that. Is there anything else that you have not gotten a chance to say, whether it's a story or something that you thought of? And we can edit it and put it in a certain point.   Ada Mertes Well just like I said before, just being able to remember people's grief is really, really important because if you forget, it can feel really really sad to the other person. I know many people have forgotten about Moses his condition or about Mercy. And I've explained it to them, like I've lost count, I've explained it to them so, so many times and they always say, oh I'm sorry, but I never say any more about it. And then I talk. I try to talk to them about it, hoping they'll remember because I've told them so many times but they they never do.   Ada Mertes  And it feels like, in the in the hubbub of and the busyness of all of our days, remembering something that's kind of insignificant that doesn't affect us. But you know, really is important to your friend, being able to remember that, in being able to acknowledge that throughout your life daily basis on a daily basis is really, really, really, really helpful. It really, really makes me feel supported and loved when people can remember that.   Ada Mertes And I really just remember, remember when someone's going through a hard thing. Remember and be able to say, like, hey are you OK? I know, I know that what you're going through is hard. And if they say, yeah, then you don't have to bring it up but if they say, no, I'm actually feeling really, really sad and you can ask them if they want to talk about it and just be able to be there and remember don't forget because they feel like that's the worst thing it can do.   Liesel Mertes I'm struck with one more thing that you talked about as I was thinking, you know, for kids who are experiencing disruptive life events, oftentimes their parents are also going through disruptive life events. What is it like being a kid watching your parent go through something hard?   Ada Mertes It can, it can be kind of scary. And also really sad because you see parents vulnerable and they're supposed to be the ones taking care of you. I'd say that sometimes, if you see your parent being vulnerable, maybe not in the moment but a little later, be supportive of them supportive of them too. You can have the entire family can help. They can support each other and be able to build each other up, give each other just encouragement throughout the day. Pray for each other be able to be there for each other. Can really help to have a safe family and a safe school and workplace can really help.   Ada Mertes Just be able to remember and be able to support your family. And like, if your entire family is going through something, be able to be vulnerable with them because they, they probably know how you feel more than anyone. Also be able to be someone in your family who can be able to be like a bright shining candle in your family in a moment of darkness, when your siblings are stressed and you're having a fight with them. Just don't get angry because there's more going on. Be able to just give them a little bit of, a little bit of leeway or make your parents coffee in the morning or just be able be able to be there for, not only your family but your friends when they're going through something and be able to be vulnerable. Sometimes that's what you need.   Ada Mertes You need to self advocate sometimes and then other times be able to know what you need and just be able to take that time to talk. Maybe it's you just need a good cry. Sometimes you just need to cry and when that happens, just be able to give yourself that chance because nobody's going to judge you; they don't, they don't know what you're going through in the same sort of way. And sometimes you really, really just need to be able to give yourself that.   Liesel Mertes Thank you Miss Ada June Mertes for joining us.   Ada Mertes Thank you.   MUSICAL TRANSITION   Here are three closing thoughts from my interview with my daughter, Ada June Mertes. It is meaningful to remember with someone that is grieving. Ada talked about the pain of having to explain, again and again, about Mercy’s death or Moses’ surgeries.  As you remember with a child, resist the urge to make comparisons or rush them too quickly to a resolution. It is OK to cry, it is OK to be fragile, it is OK to need a hug, even years after the death or the diagnosis. There is no set timeline for grief.  Kids (and grown-ups), learn, in the words of Ada, to self-advocate. Are you feeling overwhelmed?  Let someone know.  Would you benefit from a break from your homework or class?  Let someone know.  Do you need a hug or a kind word, don’t be afraid to ask.  There are people who can and will help you.  And to all of the school guidance counselors and teachers and bus drivers that have cared well for my children over these tear-stained years, let me take a moment to say thank you.  Thank you for making the space for my children to hold their grief instead of hide from it.   OUTRO    

OKAY ladies, hands up - who owns a drill?  You better all have your hands up because home improvement while single is NO JOKE.  And as my guest Emily and I exchange some rather entertaining anecdotes of attempting to do a two-person job just on your lonesome, we realized one very important thing:  that when you're a woman, accomplishment of any particular challenging physical job becomes in a way a sort of challenge.  As in, "Oh I'm supposed to have someone in my life do this for me?!  Watch this, Society!!  F U Patriarchy!!" {{enter obscene finger/ arm gestures, if needed}}   Shoe cabinet/ bed assembly aside, we agree there's things in life that are simply easier when shared by others.  Such as dishes, and cleaning, and decision making, and pizza making, so that when some a**hole asks you just how big of a sausage you like, you can tell them to go F themselves.   Which really we should all be doing anyway.  VOP Tom chimes in to share his perception on why men just can't help but make lewd remarks every bleeping time they message you.  You won't wanna miss this one - it gets preeeeetty dark, but we bet you'll never think about dating apps the same way again.  Or pizza.  

I'm certainly not a fool, but everything is strange here .... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/darcyfm/message

I love driving around in circles with these two goof balls. If I could find a way to monetize these car rides, I would quit my job and tour the planet with them.

In this Fast Fab Friday, I talk about feeeelin' good. How do you feel good? Since this is a super short episode, I go over a few key things: -how to hear intution -how to tune into your body -what factors lead to how you "feel" Of course if you love this, let me know! @carendesaren xox.. see you Monday

Self realization is great until you find out about the worst part of yourself.(Oh, I guess I am an addict.)

How would you know if there were experiences from the earliest moments of your life affecting you here and now? And if you are indeed being impacted by the distant past - what can you do to heal those early traumas so that you’re more free and connected in your current life? Our guest today is Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing, and author of many bestselling books on healing trauma - “Waking the Tiger”, “In an Unspoken Voice”, and “Trauma and Memory” - just to name a few! Today you’ll learn how to recognize the signs of these deep emotions, and what to do to regulate them, as well as how to help our co-regulate with your partner, to build a stronger, more resilient foundation for your relationship (and within yourself).  As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Check out my other episodes with Peter Levine: Episode 127 of Relationship Alive on Building Resilience Episode 29 on Healing Your Triggers and Trauma Sponsors: Migraines are a real headache. For a consult with a licensed doctor to figure out a personalized treatment plan for you, and for a free month of acute and preventative medicines to treat your migraines, visit withcove.com/alive. Resources: Visit Peter Levine’s website to learn more about his work and Somatic Experiencing. Pick up a copy of Peter Levine’s books on Amazon. FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/levine2 to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Peter Levine. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin  Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin. As always we are exploring both the relational skills and the inner healing that's required in order to show up fully in your life and in your relationships. Today, we are fortunate to have a return visit from none other than Peter Levine -- one of the world's experts on healing trauma and also the creator of somatic experiencing one of the world's foremost modalities on healing trauma of all kinds. This can be the big kinds of traumas that people think of, you know, with war, and assault, and things like that. Or, it can be the smaller traumas that that still have a huge impact on us, things that happen in our childhood things that happen in our day to day lives. So, today in our conversation with Peter Levine we're going to be talking about how our early attachment traumas affect us in our adult lives and what we can do about that to bring more presence to our relationships. As always we will have a detailed transcript of today's conversation which you can get if you visit Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-Levine-2. That's L-E-V-I-N-E, as in Peter Levine and then the number two. Peter has also been on the show a couple other times, so if you, if you check out Episode 127 you can listen to us talking about resilience. Or I used the kind of funny form of that word resiliency, and uh, way back in Episode 29 we were talking about the again the effects of trauma on our lives and how to heal it. So we're building a comprehensive library here for you to help you get present and free your cells as and your physiology as well as your mind and your emotions -- your mind body spirit from the pernicious effects of trauma on our lives.  Neil Sattin  So as always Peter thank you so much for joining us here today. It's great to have you again.  Peter Levine  Sure, sure.    So let's just without having to give the full picture because I definitely think that our listeners can, can go and check out those other episodes that the two of us have done together. Let's talk about what might constitute an early attachment trauma or an early attachment wounding. What kinds of things would be the kind of thing that might stick with someone into their adult lives?  Peter Levine  Yeah. Well you know, I mean, so many things from our past from our deep deep long past do affect us. They don't affect, they don't affect us in ways that we're conscious of, I mean that's part of the problem. And. I think of attachment, probably a little bit different than than most people do. I look more along a developmental arc about what happens to us from womb to, to adolescence and and the memories we carry. Now I said the memories are not conscious. But what are they? Well, we have to just take a couple of minutes to understand, at least comprehend, the different types of memory. Basically that some memories are conscious, are explicit. Other memories are much more unconscious and those are called implicit memories. And our basic attachments have to do with implicit memories. It has very little to do with explicit memories. That's one of the reasons why I think probably therapists often struggle in working with the early attachment wounds because they're so deeply ingrained in the, in the body experience and and can only really be accessed through the vehicle of sensations and these sensations are very primitive sensations very old, very raw. So, if we look at an implicit memories there are basically two types. One type is emotional. And so for example if you're introduced to somebody for the first time and all of a sudden you feel anger or fear or revulsion or just wanting to avoid them. There's a good chance that this stems from earlier experience with somebody who had some of those same qualities, so they get triggered and then they explode in an emotional way. I mean we all experience something like that at different times. You know, as an example, uh, a couple that's riding in their car and the wife is driving and they make a wrong turn. And her husband starts yelling at her: "Don't you know where you're going?" And then of course he starts laughing and they both died laughing. But from that moment something in him something in not being to the party at time or being lost, triggered some kind of a.. an old engram, an old memory trace. I sometimes am a little hesitant to use the word memory because the memories are so different than the conscious explicit memories. Ok, then even deeper than the emotional memories, which again do have to do with our early experiences as well as our development over the lifespan, that the other type of memory is called procedural memory. And these are memories that happen in our bodies and they can be both positive and negative, depending a lot on what our early experiences were in the womb at birth and during the bonding process.  Peter Levine  And procedural memories very often are long, longlasting, and I divide them into two categories. One are basic things that the body learns such as for example, teaching a child how to ride a bike. So the parent or an older sibling by the side of the child and has their hands on the bicycle and they walk together and then run together, run and then bikes goes a little bit faster and then just at that right moment the parent lets go of the bike because they sense that the child is being able to balance themselves and then the child rides off on the bicycle and wants to go on the bicycle every day for the next six months. Because they're thrilled at that accomplishment. They now have a new memory, a new procedural memory, a new body memory and that involves a lot of different things that the body does. So if the parent trying to explain to the child: "Well, if you, if you, if you bend over this way your center of gravity will go off that way. So you'll have to turn the bicycle in that direction." It's just impossible.  Neil Sattin  Right.  Peter Levine  The body learns that quick, quick, quick, and once it's there even with a memory like that a positive memory like that the child is - you never forget how to ride a bicycle. That adage is largely true. It really is. So let me give you an example -- and again those memories can be positive like learning to ride a bike or learning dance steps or they can be highly negative. But let me give you an example and it does affect - It does introduce the relationship between attachment and these memories.  Neil Sattin  Ok.  Peter Levine  God, I don't know. Twenty, twenty-five years ago or so I was visiting my parents in New York City, in the Bronx. And so I spent the day down in Manhattan going to museums and it was coming back in the train the D train and train was packed with men in similar suits with newspapers folded under their arms. And so. But there was one particular person I just I didn't even see his face. There was just something about his posture that had a strange effect on me and I felt a slight slight expansion of my chest and a little bit of a warmth in my belly as I paid attention to my body sensations. So unbeknownst to me in a way I was having a memory but certainly not a conscious memory because you know I hadn't been the type, who knows why I was having this attachment. So anyhow, he, we both got off at the last stop. The crowds thinned out. Two-hundred-and-fifth street and I walked up to him and the fact, the words came out of my mouth out of my lips. I wasn't even consciously aware of saying them. I touched his arm and I said, "Arnold." And he looked at me utterly perplexed and puzzled. And we just stayed there for a moment. And then I said, "Arnold, you were in my first grade class with Ms. Campini. And well I would say, I would say, he was astonished, we were both astonished. There is something that I knew him in this class many decades before several decades before. Yet there was some attraction to that person because I obviously I don't remember everybody who was in the class. He's probably the only person I do remember that was in my in my first grade class. I mean I do remember bullies and I was very bullied at the time because I came in I was younger I came in in the middle of the class time, middle of the semester, and I had my ears were the same size then as they are now. So kids tease me about and call me Dumbo. And so I was bullied a lot. And Arnold was the one child that seemed to support me that seemed to care about me and it wasn't even verbal support. It was some, I just felt him someway, somehow on my side. So that implicit procedural memory is something that I've carried forth, for the rest of my life. Hopefully our early attachment figures have something like that so that when we are meeting another person, for, in terms of cultivating or being in a relationship or navigating the vicissitudes relationship that we have these positive memories, which have to do with approach. OK. Keep that word in mind. Approach.  Neil Sattin  Ok.  Peter Levine  If on the other hand we have had neglect, abuse, confusion, in our early experiences, we have procedural memories that are primary avoidance. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, the positive experiences, the approach experiences are much greater than the avoidance experiences because that's what we need for a healthy relationship. So. OK. So, anyhow let's look at some of the kinds of things that happened early in our experience of the world.  Peter Levine  So. So as I was saying hopefully they approach procedural memories outweigh the they avoidance one. But again starting way way back our experiences in utero. You know, if the mother is in a relaxed state, which again is a good reason why hopefully, mothers are able to spend it. Certainly the later part of their pregnancy at home doing things they enjoy to do settling, resting, preparing, that, so, however if the mother is under a lot of stress, accumulated stress during that period particularly the later part of gestation, that stress through different channels is actually passed on to the fetus. It does this by certain chemicals that are released when the mother is under stress but also direct neural mechanisms that, that, that, that increase or decrease the blood flow to the placent-placenta itself. So the placenta increases level of carbon dioxide, less oxygen, which stresses the fetal nervous system and overstimulated it. And then, what often happens in these studies were done in animals of course, is that you have this tremendously increase in the activity of the whole brain. But then after a certain point it just shuts down. And so again here already, we're hopefully having positive implicit experiences, but we also might be having negative ones.  Peter Levine  Then birth of course is the next stage here in development and my sense is that the, the utilization of midwives and doulas is a little bit starting to come back taking the birth process out of the realm of a, of a disease that needs to be dealt with medically.  Neil Sattin  Right.  Peter Levine  To part of a natural process. But anyhow. And so during that time again the fetus the newborn can be extremely stressed. But, here's the, here's the, the, the hopeful part because eh, that the parents, the caregivers can also soothe the distress of the infant after it's born, can really hold it, rock it, soothe it, patiently. So again it's getting a positive imprint a positive memory of being able to be helped out of the distressed state into a state of settling, of a relaxation because remember an infant can not regulate itself. If it's distressed, it has precious little in the way of being able to, to, to come down from that activation and that will -- and calm itself. It needs to be, the term used often is, co-regulated by the caregiver. So by holding, soothing, singing, gently rocking all of those kinds of things helps the newborn regulate.  Neil Sattin  So.  Peter Levine  And again. Yeah go ahead, anytime you want.  Neil Sattin  So there are a couple things that are jumping out at me. One of them being that from the youngest moments of our existence, we're creating memories that are that are not the kind of memory that you would typically think about, you know, where you can picture a story in your head of something happening. These are actual body memories and emotional experiences that just live within us and can be evoked in the present. But they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily something that have a story attached to them that you would consciously remember.  Peter Levine  Yes.  Neil Sattin  And then the second piece that's popping into place for me is around how, so there are all these things that are just kind of happening to us when we're in the womb. And then when we come out and are born there's this additional component where we're associating these really intense visceral experiences in our neurobiology with our primary caregiver so with our primary attachment figures, and I can already see this kind of setting up what plays out in, in our future selves when we are actually entering partnership with others, so we create attachments as adults with the people who are, who we can be most vulnerable with, most cared for most caring to, et cetera. But it's like --.  Peter Levine  Or the opposite.  Neil Sattin  Exactly. Good point, good point. And memory being what it is, just the presence of these people will naturally evoke some of these early memories. And then if we're not aware that that's happening, it's clear that that could create all sorts of problems because you might think that it's something specifically about your partner that is evoking this particular sensation, you might not know you're having a memory you might think whatever they just did is absolutely disgusting, and revolting and whereas you're really actually having a memory and I'm wondering as an adult how do we begin to tease apart the two or is it not even really important to do that? Maybe it's more important to just think about how we process those experiences so that they're not impacting us quite so profoundly? Peter Levine  All right. Well actually let me go back to, to baby time.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. Let's go back.  Peter Levine  Before we go to adult. And this is and this is actually an example of work with a 14 month old and the session is all, is described and along with photographs in, in my most recent book, "Trauma And Memory: Brain And Body In A Search For The Living Past." So again it's how the past lives within us. Anyhow Baby Jack was born of an extremely traumatic birth. The cord was three ti-- it was around his neck three times, at the last minute he turned breech and he had the more mother tried to push, the more that Jack tried to propel against the uterine wall. He became more and more wedged at the apex of the uterus. In other words, oh! Maybe some people don't know that actually the birth process itself is not just about the mother pushing the baby out, but the baby actually pushing itself out. So the more Jack pushed the more he got wedged, the more he got stuck in, you know in the new apex of the uterus, and so they did an emergency caesarean his, his heart rate was starting to go down significantly. And even so they still couldn't pull him out. So they use suction to pull him out. And use it -- this is a very traumatic birth. And he was suffering from some physical symptoms which would have required that they do endoscopes and also looking into his lung, uh, a procedure which would have certainly really add a tremendous amount of traumatization to this fourteen, to this infant which has already been highly traumatized. So the baby has been highly traumatized. So I start to work with him. And again and you'll see that the pictures in the book. But I take some wrapped rattles that were made for me by a Hopi person and I wrap them a little bit to get his attention and he's he's an alert person but his mother says he never will, you know, uh, stay still. Never just stay her lap and mold into her. She never had that experience of him. So she say "He'll maybe come over. But then he is off to the next thing again." And she says, "Oh and he can be okay when he is alone." So again you see this thing in relationships, when we're alone where we do we perceive ourselves to be OK, but then when we're in a relations with somebody, we can lose all of that. So anyhow he reaches for the rattle as I hand it towards him. And then he retracts his hand his arm and just, it goes limp. And so he is now having a memory. He cannot talk about this memory because he doesn't really have words and even if he could they wouldn't be the words that could, would work. So then I give the rattle to him again and this time he pushes against the rattle. And I say "Yeah that's great, Jack." You know because he had all, he was taken away. All these tubes all these procedures that were done, and he felt, he was helpless. He was this little teeny baby and all of these, you know, giants were doing these things towards him. So anyhow we continue with this and at one point I put my hand on his middle back, because I see that's where he stiffens when his mother starts talking about needing to, the doctors wanting to do an endoscopy. So anyhow this time he pushes against her leg really pushes any propelled, as though it was propelling himself through the birth canal as though it really was. Anyhow after that he just starts crying and crying and crying. It's just birth cry sounds. And his mother is just astonished. She said, "I've almost never heard him cry and I've never seen tears coming down." His tears coming from his eyes. And you can see it's both a combination of amazement and relief and she doesn't even quite know what that relief is about.  Peter Levine  Then at, at the end of this crying there is deep spontaneous breaths, deep spontaneous breaths and he just positions himself so he can mold into the mother's shoulder and then she knows exactly what to do now.  Peter Levine  She put her arm around him and gently holds him and you see them attaching. So it wasn't that she was a bad mother that prevented the attachment. That wasn't the case. It was that they got disconnected at birth. She was definitely a, in Winnicott's terms, a good enough mother, very caring mother. But again you see in youth, and you can see it in the pictures, her complete delight at him doing this and then they come in the next week for a checkup. And his mother says, "Oh, when, when we got home Jack went to sleep, and then at one o'clock in the morning he called out, 'Mama! Mama!' And she she came in and picked him up and he molded again right into her arm, right into her shoulders." Peter Levine  So this here is a, is a definitely implicit memory. And it turned out to be positive. But what if nothing had been done at that, had been done at that time. Then you can certainly project ahead and probably have a pretty good guess that he is going to have difficulties in relationships, that he's going to have difficulty in getting really close and bonding and attachment. So I'd be able to change that memory from the timeframe of this birth that really made it much more possible for him to have secure attachments in other later relationships. There's one thing I like to say about that. Oh OK. So even in this case, in a case, like this where there has been trauma, er, around the birth and around early attachment, we are still able to work with those memories. They may not be as accessible as they were with Baby Jack. But, but at the same time we can use language and imagery to help the person connect with those procedural memories and to transform them, to transmute them, from negative ones which were dominating Jack to positive ones of approach. And again we want a relationship -- a relationship is not going to be able to really survive, unless there is much more approach memories than avoidance memories. But again these things can be shifted even in our adult life, but they will come up in close relationships. And if we have had those difficulties experienced negative experience if we were neglected... You know, when I was born, the medical wisdom at the time was, first of all, give the mother all kinds of drugs and then do not breastfeed because breast-feeding was unsanitary. I mean, can you imagine how archaic that was?  Neil Sattin  Oh my god.  Peter Levine  And to add insult to injury they also instructed parents not to pick, not to pick up their babies when the babies were crying because the babies would just use that to manipulate them.  Neil Sattin  Right.  Peter Levine  I mean think about that, that, that's abuse. Frankly, as we understand today. But that was the that, was the that was the understanding of the time the wisdom at the time.  Peter Levine  So anyhow when people from my generation were crying and upset we weren't held. And so that's the memory that we carry, that when we're upset we will not be able to calm. So we're, if we're upset in adult relationship we do not expect to be calmed, and we won't even allow ourselves to be calmed. So we either avoid the relationship or become over dependent in the relationship to soothe us because we're unable to be soothed. And again one of the things that we teach in somatic experiencing, is to help people learn this is part of working with these procedural memories, to have people learn to be able to regulate themselves. And for couples to learn how to regulate each other, because there's a pretty good chance that if you you're dysregulated you find a dysregulated person to, to be in relationship with or, or opposite.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. So, wow, there are so many things jumping out at me right now and I definitely obviously we're not going to go through the whole body of work of somatic experiencing right now. I do hope that we can offer our listeners a few things they can do when they notice these things coming out. All your books that I've read have been such a revelation to me and in particular when it comes to applying your work, there is a rather thin book called "Healing Trauma," that we've spoken about before, that I think is just so great because it offers like a whole sequence of exercises that people can work through that, that take you on this journey of of uncovering these implicit memories and and unearthing them and being able to resolve them in the moment like you were describing resolving or the resolution of your work with that with baby Jack. When you were describing the ways that your generation was or that your parents were taught to to care for your generation when you were born. It made me also think about the way that trauma is passed from generation to generation because what I think happened to a lot of people in my generation was that their parents were, you know, the product of this whole you know don't, don't breastfeed the baby, don't pick up the baby, and then when when they were presented with a baby that was crying or inconsolable, even if they had a different sense maybe of like, "Oh I'm supposed to be doing this differently or differently than my parents did." It's evoking all of these implicit memories for my parents. Um, and which makes it much more challenging for them to show up as a regulating force for their children.  Peter Levine  Yeah yeah yeah. Or sometimes the parents will try to do the opposite of what they had experienced. And so there's another key feature here which is also important is, that absolutely you know for the first several some months after birth the child basically has to be held and rocked, eh, when it's upset. But then you know starting after several months like nine months or so, it's also important that, because once the child has had enough solid procedural m-memories, experience of being calm, being settled then it is important to at least allow for the child to be upset for some amount of time, so that they can also bring in their capacity, their gradually learned capacity to self regulate. And often parents who come, where they were not picked up, and where they were just left in this, this, this swamp of distress, they may have trouble to not immediately pick up their baby when it's crying and then immediately hold it.  Peter Levine  So, sometimes those children don't develop a full enough capacity for self regulation, which can also can be problematic in later relationships, because of course we're going to be upset with things that our, that our spouses do, our partners do. And... But the question is do we have tools so that we don't just go into profound distress and despair every time something happens that upsets us. So we do need to have both, I think, I just mentioned this, the capacity to regulate and to co-regulate and to get some of these skills that the book that you mentioned, book-CD, actually by "sounds true" called "Healing Trauma," something like, "A pioneering program for healing trauma." I don't know but anyhow...  Neil Sattin  "A Pioneering Program For Restoring The Wisdom of Your Body." Peter Levine  Ah. That's it. OK thank you. So again, some of the exercises where we learn to regulate states of arousal, of fear, of anger -- so that we don't have to constantly rely on the other person. But at the same time a healthy relationship also involves co-regulation. Particularly, hopefully, when we're able to say and this may this is, a kind of a higher state, "Dear. I'm really feeling so unsettled and anxious. Could you please just hold me for a little bit?" And, then if the other, if the other partner is in a relatively grounded, calm place themselves then they most likely will want to offer that.  Peter Levine  So again it's a combination of co-regulation, transmuting into or developing into the capacity to self regulate. And then as adolescents and adults to be able to switch between self-regulation and co regulation. So again we are in a sense transforming these procedural memories where we did not have positive experience of being co regulated or we didn't develop the capacity to self regulate, to self regulate.  Neil Sattin  So, how would I know if I'm having an experience where, where it would make sense for me to check in with my partner let's say and ask for some co regulation? What kinds of experiences would I be having within me that might be an indication of like, "Oh wait. That's..." So when when someone hears this, they'll be like, "Oh that's the thing that Peter Levine was talking about. And look I'm experiencing that right now. Maybe I should go ask my my partner if they'll hold me for a minute and see what happens." Peter Levine  Right. Well guess what. It's absolutely not... It's not going to happen at once, at once. It's a skill that one has to really, really build. But the basic idea is that when we become upset, become emotional, become angry, become fearful, become sad, that's out of proportion to what's happening here in the present, then that's a almost certain guarantee. It's a certain guarantee that we're dealing with some kind of imprinted procedural memory a negative, in a word, memory. And so while we're in the midst of it it's going to be harder to ask for help. But if we know how to co-reg, uh, how to self regulate ourselves, even a little bit then we can realize, "OK, I'm upset but I'm upset so much more than you know then my partner saying “you know I'm not going to be able to get together tomorrow because I have to work, for dinner. I have to work later at work." OK. So really upset. But if that child had been abandoned as an, as as a baby, then all of a sudden that abandonment comes in, and for an infant being abandoned would cause death. If if the baby is abandoned for enough time.  Neil Sattin  Right.  Peter Levine  And so we will experience this, this perceived rejection as a life threat. OK, so again if we know enough about our implicit memories we can then be able to kind of soothe ourselves, and I give exercises for that, to soothe ourselves and then to be able to enter back into the relationship. But it's a skill that really needs to be developed and good therapy, both couples and individual therapy, can really help to facilitate this kind of cooperation, between, between our relationships, our primary relationships as adults.  Neil Sattin  Yeah, no, I've mentioned it on the on the show before and I think when when you were on... Maybe the first time you were on, we, we went over the "Voo" exercise and that's something that Chloe and I we do together all the time when we notice one or the other being in a dysregulated state to help us come back into balance with each other. It's super helpful.  Peter Levine  Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean there are a number of exercises like the Voo exercise, like the self holding exercise, where it is bringing one's awareness to the parts of our body which are not feeling horrifically. And so that could be our, our hands or our feet even. So again there's a number of different exercises that we can learn from and learn how to self regulate enough. You know there's a Motown song that goes something like: "It takes one to stand in the dark alone. It takes two to let the light shine through." So I think again it's this combination of being responsible for our own implicit memories, our own emotional and procedural memories. But also to be, to be cognizant about them enough so that we can enter into co-regulation and that co-regulation really enhances the attachment, the adult attachment and secures that relationship, solidifies that relationship, build it into a positive experience. So you know, again a lot of times all these things that happened to us can have these different effects that really will disrupt the relationship. Let me give you one example. I was working with this woman, young woman, who was abused by a sports coach when she was 13 years old, and because she is a teenager, she thought that he was in love with her. She certainly was in love, whatever that means, with him. And then she was rejected by him. Anyhow, those were really, eh, procedural memories and so when her husband would try to touch her. She would go into anger or revulsion and just want to push him away. So. And of course he was deeply deeply upset cuz he had no idea what to do. So I had worked with her to do a few sessions and then suggested that they would come in together. And they were sitting as far away as possible from each other and they talked about their resentments. That he never gives me eye contact, she never gives me eye contact. So they were talking about wanting to make contact but they couldn't do it. So after this went on for 30 minutes where they were basically blaming each other I asked if they would be willing to try an experiment. And I said, "This is, there's a risk at this. I mean hopefully this will help but it might not. Are you willing to take that risk?" And they both said yes. So then, he, I had him where he was sitting and then I had her going to explain this both to them sit with her back towards him and kind of having his knee a little bit like touching her shoulder. So she could feel this contact but it didn't demand eye contact and it was touching in a relatively, in a relatively safe way. And so at first I could see they you know they felt very awkward and I encouraged them just to keep noticing their body sensations and maybe just report them out loud and they did that for a while and then for the first time she could say that she felt some safety with her husband. But otherwise it was all threat and confusion the confusion of this 13 year old adolescent. So, again all of these things will affect our attachments profoundly. But the good news is there are things that we can do about that. So, again I hope I'm not pitching too much, but I, I really do recommend that people, even if they're not therapists, read "Trauma and Memory," because it really helps to explain the nature of all of these memories that we have a better idea of the map of where we are, and also the understanding of when we're hyper activated or when we're shut down, which I cover deeply in, "An Unspoken Voice." So. And then of course the one that you mentioned. So all of these really talk about a map to know where we are. What is it, if we're, if we're angry with a person, there's energy in that we can more easily work with that. But what happens if when with the person our whole organism shuts down and goes into a protective shell, where we can't easily be reached then we have to help the person come out of that shutdown into a more activated state, and then learn to regulate... co-regulate that state and then to learn to self regulate that state. I know that's a mouthful. I'm putting in it at the end but...  Neil Sattin  Yeah way to drop the bomb, Peter! You know I'm curious when maybe you could offer something then. So because I think it's so common for a partner when they feel their beloved shutting down in some sense to not really know what to do in that moment to not know how to how to speak to them or how to respond in a way. So, what would the invitation be there?  Peter Levine  So sometimes you know instead of like being like confronting each other, uh, indoors, to, or at least I mean even indoors but hopefully outdoors if the weather is clement, is to just walk together, side by side and talk instead of trying to face each other, which is bringing up a lot of those difficult emotions. And when you're walking you're less likely to shut down. So, that's the first thing I would recommend. Don't, if you, if if things are stuck just walk together side by side because there's something just in that gesture side by side which is supportive which is caring. And caring that the person can actually experience.  Peter Levine  Then I'll suggest doing some of the exercises like the "Voo exercise", you know the long easy sustain "voo" directing it from the belly. And that's one way of helping people both come out of shutdown or if they're in a hyper state, to calm the hyper state. So, I would suggest that they do the exercise and maybe especially do them together so that they feel more settled and in this more settled place they're able to engage each other, much more in the here and now, rather than in there and then. So, again that's why I use the term brain and body in the search for the living past, how the past lives within us and what we can do about it - how we can change the past so that we can be in the present.  Peter Levine  And when two people are in the present with each other who care about each other that solidifies the bond and takes that out of the realm of things like adaptations, like codependency.  Neil Sattin  Right and gets them into that space where, they can, they can re-experience those memories but metabolize them into something positive, where they're feeling like, "Oh I'm experiencing that, but my partner is here to support me like now I know what it's like to actually feel supported in this...  Peter Levine  Exactly. Exactly. And again when we're able to cultivate in the relationship to the degree that we're able to do that, we're solidifying the relationship. Because difficult times will happen. I mean there is no -- I don't know of any relationships where, where crises have never occurred. Some kind -- it can be a small crisis but it can also be a really big crisis. So the question, is are we fortified enough have we built the foundation of our relationship somatically, so that when these things do occur we're able to weather them and co regulate each other. And I'm thinking sometimes of something that's really devastating. Like when a child dies or gets seriously ill, that's the time really that the parents need to co-regulate each other.  Neil Sattin  Mm hmm.  Peter Levine  But that's also the time where there's a tendency to distance. Or to blame. Rather than to connect.  Neil Sattin  Right. Right. Those are the moments where you need each other more than ever really.  Peter Levine  More than ever. But again if we've solidified that, up to that point then the chances of us getting through that are greatly enhanced.  Neil Sattin  Yeah. It makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense. And, and I could see you know, for instance even just with something as simple as taking a walk and doing the "Voo” together. That doing that in times that aren't dysregulated. That it's setting the stage for that just becoming something that you can rely on in a challenging moment.  Peter Levine  Yeah yeah. You know many people, many couples, many individuals are reported when they did that with their partner, did the walking, the "Voo"ing that kind of thing -- they were really angry and fearful and blaming and they just walked for a while did the "VU" and then both of them started spontaneously laughing and laughing and laughing and crying and laughing. And then just kind of both seeing the ridiculousness of those, of that reaction but also their appreciation for the other.  Neil Sattin  So yeah I can relate. And it's so important too, I think because when you're stuck in an old memory, that translates often into thoughts, the kinds of thoughts like that, "You're not safe with this person or that they're out to get you." And, and but the feelings actually precede the thoughts. So if you're able to tackle your somatic experience that feeling in your body, then the thought shifts.  Peter Levine  Yeah. Right. The emotions precede the thoughts and the procedural memories come... uh, procedural memories are what's also evoking their emotional memories.  Neil Sattin  Yeah.  Peter Levine  So again and in somatic experiencing, we do a lot of work from the bottom up from sensations then to affects, then to new meanings. And so that couple had the new meaning like, "Oh my gosh. I don't have to feel so alone when I'm feeling angry or fearful I just need to ask for some kind of connection such as what we were just mentioning. Yeah. So again these are tools I hope that couples all know and practice a bit so that when they really, when it's really called upon that it'll be there. And again, my experience is that can really determine in a crisis time whether people, whether couples stay together, work together, stay together cooperate together, or where they split.  Neil Sattin  Right. Yeah. Well, Peter thank you again for all your time and wisdom and you know, the years and years of dedication to unearthing ways to heal from traumas that happened to us before we even were aware of them. And your work is so important, I think to finding ourselves again and again in the present, especially when we're in partnership and you know evoking each other's deep emotional experience all over the place and hopefully, hopefully healing together as well.  Peter Levine  Yes, yep, that's the idea.  Neil Sattin  Before I go there's some work that's a little tangential to this conversation but I just wanted to give you an opportunity to mention it because it's so important that has to do with the ways that the effects of stored trauma, unprocessed trauma, in our bodies results in chronic illness and I know, I know you've been hard at work on ways to help people through that.  Peter Levine  Yes.  Neil Sattin  Would you mind taking a moment to just talk about what that is and...?  Peter Levine  Oh yeah yeah yeah. No, gladly because that's something that really really excites me really turns me on. It over the years some 40 plus years. Um, I've probably worked with thousands of people who have had what would now be called conditions like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel, chronic fatigue, severe PMS, migraines, urinary problems and so forth. And working with them, with SE, has been quite effective. And these are conditions that don't have a medical diagnosis. There are now calls sometimes in medicine MUS, medically unexplained symptoms. MUS. And there's no help for many of them, some people do have something organically wrong of course and that has to be eliminated. But many of these people are just thrown from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, with you know, with no help. And you know even after the diagnosis of fibromyalgia, I think in 1980 to 94, 84... Still very very few physicians understood that but certainly almost nobody understood that it was not something that was just in a person's head. But these are functional disorders involving our stress responses basically. So you know thinking about that. There are probably at least 10 or 20 million people suffering in the US alone with those kind of symptoms and there's no amount of therapists. I mean that could really help all of these people and many people can't really afford therapists and so forth and they really need something that they can use even if they are doing therapy to be an adjunct of supportive therapy. So along with, uh, a project manager, an entrepreneur and an M.I.T. specialist in computer human interaction affective communication. And then three other programmers, we've been working in the last two and a half years on this program, be a program or an app, that people can use at home to help them heal those kinds of sick, uh, symptoms. And we'll be finally testing the first version of that in the next couple of months. So I'm both also I'm excited but I'm also a little bit, like, anxious... A little trepidation you know like putting in all this work. And I bet and I know it's going to help. I mean we did a proof of concept at the very beginning. And, it had very powerful effect but anyhow that's that's really where my a lot of my energy is right now. It's in, in, in continuing to develop that as we start getting feedback from the first... or, actually the second test group. So if you want to be glad to let you know when we're up and about.  Neil Sattin  Definitely and we can we can send a blast out to everyone on our email list about that. And, and your assistant Melissa who is such a blessing, she also wanted me to mention that if if you send an email to Ergos-Levine-at-gmail-dot-com and that's spelled E R G O S L E V I N E at gmail-dot-com then then they can let you know and there's maybe even a chance that that those people can get involved in the testing of that app as well it sounds like.  Peter Levine  Yeah.  Neil Sattin  So. And of course you're always out teaching and people can participate in your public courses. There are some on the East Coast in the fall. There's a course in London in June. And if they visit is it, Somatic-Experiencing-dot-com? Then they can sort of see everything that you’r e doing.  Peter Levine  I believe so. I believe so. Yeah some of the stuff I'm doing yeah. Neil Sattin  Well Peter. Peter it's always a pleasure to chat with you. And I've so enjoyed your generosity of time and wisdom over the years. And thanks so much again for dropping in with us here on Relationship Alive.  Peter Levine  OK. Take good care.  Neil Sattin  You too Peter. Take care.  Neil Sattin  And as just a reminder if you want a transcript of this conversation and also the relevant links and things you can visit Neil-Sattin-dot-com slash-Levine-2. That's L E V I N E, and the number two or you can text the word passion to the number 3 3 4 4 4 and follow the instructions where you'll be able to download the complete transcript of our conversation. All right thanks again.   

If You Can't Flip After This Episode We've Got Nothing Left For You (LA 016) Transcript: Steven:                Steve and Jill here. Jill:                          Hi. Steven:                Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven jack Butala. Jill:                          And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven:                Today Jill and I talk about if you can't flip after this episode we've got nothing left for you. Jill:                          You think that you know someone after many, many, many years and many transactions and all the things that we do together, but now and then you come up with things, and I even take a step back and go did not see that coming. Where did you get this? Steven:                I actually got this title idea from another house flipping podcast, because I think it's the funniest thing ever. Jill:                          This is good. Steven:                You know why, here's why, because Jill and I walked around the face of this planet wondering and looking at ourselves going I'm not sure why this is so complicated or why it's being made to be so complicated. Whoever we're talking about we ask about it, and they're like oh it is that easy? Jill:                          Yeah, that's my whole thing. I look at it like why is nobody doing this? That's reality, we all know the value, we all know what's possible. Especially in some states like where we are right now in California, everybody has a story. Everybody knows someone that made money in real estate. I'm like why doesn't everybody do it then? Steven:                Before we get into the topic let's take a question posted by one of our members on HouseAcademy.com online community, it's free. Jill:                          Jack asks how many properties do you guys flip a month? So I'm sure that was just a generic question out there? Steven:                I don't know, I think maybe it was just for us. Jill:                          Oh I'm not sure, it could be like in there hey community do you guys doing? I hope that's how it was taken, I hope everybody weighed in and said what they're doing. You know what's nice about this, once you get the boots on the ground, in place, then it's like you can do many a month. Because you have people out there doing the work for you and you're just sitting back watching. It's like you're watching the dashboard and seeing them open and close. You can monitor what's going on. The way we do it now with full time in house transaction coordinator that's actually not one of us. Which is a huge step in the right direction. That makes it very easy to even do more deals. Steven:                We do about one transaction a week per MSA, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Like Phoenix metro area is one, and it turns on and off based on how busy the boots on the ground are in that location. Or if we need to add one and all of that. We're spending a tremendous amount of time updating our old rickety CRM to accommodate more transactions. That's the only reason we're not pulling out the stops, it's from 2004. It's a [inaudible 00:03:22] database, and I'm spending a lot of time changing it. Jill:                          I'm going to sound like you for a second here. Hey listener, remember always having that computer on the other side of the office or in your office. Or maybe it was your computer that we could all hear, just because it's so old and the fan's just working so hard and everything. So we're upgrading from that. Steven:                It's true. Jill:                          It's really what it is. To in the cloud. Steven:                It's a server, it sounds like it has respiratory issues. Jill:                          Every day it's like as you're using it's like please don't die, please don't die. There's so much on there please don't die. Steven:                It's a little more complicated than that, but it's interesting to hear your perception on that Jill. Jill:                          Thank you. Steven:                Today's topic, if you can't flip after this episode we've got nothing for you. This is why you're listening. Here's what I mean by this. Jill:                          Okay. Steven:                There's people in this planet who, for whatever reason, prefer to put obstacles in front of themselves, so they don't have to do stuff or don't have to really see it all the way through or whatever. Jill:                          Those are also called commitment issues too. Steven:                Yes, I'm not a psychologist. I don't know, there's a lot of things, a lot of reasons why people do stuff. I don't pretend to even understand it, I do know this: that if you have it in your mind that you want to buy and sell houses and you're not a renovator and you're not a landlord. I'm describing myself right now. This is how you do it, you send a bunch of offers out to owners that are priced correctly and are very predictable and consistent number are going to come back and you're going to buy property based on those numbers. It goes up a little bit and down a little bit, but not very much. That's it, everything else after that is developing simple systems for you to move this property though the stages of acquisition and sale. Jill:                          Well that's great Steve. Once again you're making it sound easy. Steven:                It is easy. Jill:                          I know, but I want to add one thing, because I think that if I were listening to the first time to you I'd be going well that's great, you make it sound so easy. How do you know it's going to work that way, because you're not only picking markets that you know because of data that it's going to go that way. You're not messing with markets that nothing has sold in for the last three years, or it's just a community or it's a retirement community and they only buy in the summer. You're going to have sit and hold things for six months. Well it's not hard when you learn and have access to the data, get in and just figure out where are the hot markets. And not just what you hear and what you think and what you read in the paper, but you have hard facts with data and you're pitting and you're MSA the top ten zip codes in that area. And now you're really getting strategic to the two that really shine. It's important for me to point out that that's why we're saying this is easy, you really know and that's what we do. Steven:                Let me oversimplify again, on websites like Realtor.com they pull all the statistics. Realtor.com is a culmination of all the 300 or so MLS's in the country. They concoct data reports constantly you have access to this stuff, it's free. So the data makes a decision for you, so for instance they can see which MSA. Which MSA has been clicked on the most by users, and I know I just looked this up. In Arizona in Chandler, the city of Chandler, so all right that's a good indication. Now I'm going to make data driven decision, I've got the data and where to send mail. I'm going to look up all the zip codes in Chandler, pit them against each other, see which ones got the lowest DOM. Okay great, I've got a handful of zip codes that really make sense. Let's take it a little step further and one step after, step after step the data makes all the decisions for you. Jill:                          I mean what do you think, do you have to be like a data analyst nerd to really get it? Steven:                Yeah. Jill:                          Okay. Steven:                I know that's not the answer you want. Jill:                          Well wait a minute, I wasn't born a data analyst nerd. Steven:                Well you have me. Jill:                          That's true, but I understand it though too. You can teach me, I get the gist of it. You know what it is? I think the difference, I'm glad we're bringing this up, you love it, I don't love it. For you it's fun, for me I can do it not as well you clearly, but I can get through it and it's painful. But what I do have is the stuff that you don't like too. So then it comes to the sales part then we reverse. I shine there. Steven:                You're a rainmaker there. Jill:                          When they finally call in, they do want to sell, that's where I shine. It's a no brainer. Steven:                I mean what's more fun than taking a look at a ton of data, realizing that zip code 85258 for example, is the clear place to send out a bunch of offers to owners because of all the statistics that you've compiled. That's like cheating. If you did that on the stock market you would go to jail, it's inside information, you would go to prison. In real estate it's totally encouraged. Jill:                          Yep, that's true. Steven:                And we teach all this stuff, so now you know why we're at this title. Jill:                          Yeah. Steven:                We can go on for hours, Jill and I, as exact like take you through the sales process, because she applies data to sales and the whole thing. There's a real easy way to see whose going to buy this house. Very, very serious less than five minute data driven indicators to see whose going to buy the house before you even close on it. Jill:                          Exactly. Steven:                In my opinion, so she says she's not a data geek but she is. Jill:                          I guess you're right, but you know what, but I just look at different data. That's a good point, I look at the sales data. I look at what days people are more responsive. And some of it's not just what I've learned, but it's my personal experience into data. Because I've got a lot of transactions under my belt now too thanks to you. But I know when how much time needs to pass when I hang up the phone, let them think about it, here they come. But I do study that too. Steven:                We cut our teeth, if you know us from the Land Academy Show, we've got our teeth for years and years on land. Buying and selling land, but the whole time Jill and I have been buying and selling house we just never really talked about it. Until recently I didn't realize how special our approach was to buying and selling houses. It's built off of that land prep platform, so we decided to list Land Academy, and what we're finding the same type of data geeks [crosstalk 00:10:22]. Jill:                          House Academy. Steven:                I'm sorry House Academy, the same type of data geeks are joining House Academy as the land people. It really tells me that there's a special kind of person that joins our group, anybody can join, but it's a special kind of person typically that has some type of analytical background. Whether it's finance or aerospace or something like that, somebody just joined our group whose a former land acquisition person for a large home builder. They were buying agricultural land, farms and stuff and converting it into subdivision properties. So this was a very logical step for them. So it's really, really exciting to see this unfold. And it's such a logical extension I think for buying and selling land. Jill:                          I agree. Steven:                And it's a lot easier. I'm going to be real honest here, buying and selling houses I think there's benefits to both. But it's so much easier from a pricing standpoint, because everybody understands houses. Jill:                          Well there's more data available too, more comps. They're more reported, more accurately reported and recorded than a lot of land transactions. That makes it easier. Steven:                Post office based mail gets a bad rap in this industry, let's face it. A lot of people veer away from it because they're not doing it right. They're not actually sending offers, they're just sending letters of interest and it doesn't work. Jill:                          Exactly. Steven:                Join us next time for the episode called The Gold is in the Follow Up. Jill:                          And we answer questions posted in our online community, it is at HouseAcademy.com, and it is free. Steven:                You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I get overexcited. Jill:                          You do? Steven:                I get heated up let's say. Jill:                          Oh yeah you do get heated up. I'm like let's define that. Overexcited is one thing, heated up is a whole nother thing. I've seen both and I know which one I prefer. Steven:                No, every once in a while something happens when Jill and I are both present. We both look at each other and go wait a minute. Nobody understands us, and it usually has nothing do with our business or anything. But for whatever reason Jill, I was thinking about this a couple days ago, you and I just don't have to explain anything to each other. For some reason, I don't know, we both want to get to the same place. Jill:                          I never thought about that, but we do. From day one we're automatically have been on the same page and you're right we don't talk about it. Steven:                Right. Jill:                          We just know we want to get it done. Steven:                That's right. Jill:                          I love it. Wherever you are watching, or wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill. Steven:                We are Steve and Jill. Information- Jill:                          And inspiration. Steven:                To buy undervalued property.  

Beneath anxiety, depression, guilt, and shame, are core emotions that are hardwired into our circuitry. When you’re able to tap into the core emotions - and move through them - you’ll feel a new sense of freedom and empowerment - with the ability to handle anything that life sends your way. Our guest today is Hilary Jacobs Hendel. She’s a psychotherapist and the author of the new book, "It's Not Always Depression: Working the Change Triangle to Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions, and Connect to Your Authentic Self,” which will definitely be a game changer for you. Today she has some practical tips for you on how to identify and work through these core emotions, so that you don't get stuck in the secondary emotions that can get in your way. As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Want to experience a Luxury Suite or VIP Box at an amazing concert or sporting event? Check out Suitehop.com/DATENIGHT to score sweet deals on a special night for you and your partner. Find a quality therapist, online, to support you and work on the places where you’re stuck. For 10% off your first month, visit Betterhelp.com/ALIVE to fill out the quick questionnaire and get paired with a therapist who’s right for you. Resources: Visit Hilary Jacobs Hendel’s website to learn more about her work. Pick up your copy of Hilary Jacobs Hendel’s book, It's Not Always Depression: Working The Change Triangle To Listen To The Body Discover Core Emotions And Connect To Your Authentic Self. FREE Relationship Communication Secrets Guide - perfect help for handling conflict and shifting the codependent patterns in your relationship Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner's Needs) in Your Relationship (ALSO FREE) Visit www.neilsattin.com/triangle to download the transcript, or text “PASSION” to 33444 and follow the instructions to download the transcript to this episode with Hilary Jacobs Hendel. Amazing intro/outro music graciously provided courtesy of: The Railsplitters - Check them Out Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive. This is your host Neil Sattin. It's been my mission of course to give you the best tools that I can find to help you have an amazing thriving relationship. And some of those tools are relational and how you interact with other people, and some of those tools are all about the inner work and how we can come to understand ourselves better and experience life more fully, shine more brightly and to get past the obstacles that stand in our way. And today, I hope to synthesize both of those things for you. Though, we're gonna start with the inner work as we unearth how to get to our core emotional experience and just why that is so important. And along the way you're gonna learn how to identify when you're in a core emotional experience and when you are not and learn exactly how to handle that situation. We are diving more deeply also into the work known as AEDP: accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy. Which is a mouthful but if you listened to Episode 176 with Diana Fosha, or episode 189 with David Mars then you're getting a sense for how this way of working with people can be so profound in its ability to create positive change. Neil Sattin: Today's guest has taken the model even further in showing us how we can apply it for ourselves. So, it's great when you're doing it in, in therapy it's great when you're doing it in couples therapy. And this is going to show you how to do it on your own so that you can experience this kind of change in your daily life, using what's known as "the change triangle.". Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Our guest today is Hilary Jacobs Handel and her recent book: "It's Not Always Depression: Working The Change Triangle To Listen To The Body Discover Core Emotions And Connect To Your Authentic Self," is, I think, a game changer for you in terms of deepening your experience and being able to bring that fully into your relationship with your spouse, your partner, and your relationships with others in general. As usual we will have a detailed transcript of today's episode. You can get that if you visit Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-triangle, because we're talking about the change triangle, or as always you can text the word passion to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. So let us dive in to the change triangle and discover how to get even more in touch with who we are at our core and how to bring that into the world. Hilary Jacobs Hendall, thank you so much for being here with us today on Relationship Alive. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Thank you Neil. I am delighted to be here talking about my favorite subjects, of emotions and relationships. Neil Sattin: Perfect. Well we're on the same page then, definitely. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes we are. Neil Sattin: And I do want to mention before we get too deep in, that if you are a visual person and need a visual representation of the triangle that we're talking about then that's also available both on Hilary's Web site, which will announce in a little bit, and also at Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-triangle, where we have the transcripts. You'll be able to to see it in front of you if that's required. But we'll do our best to to make it, make it real for you as we're talking about it. Neil Sattin: So Hilary, why, why is it so important to get in touch with our core emotions and and how do we distinguish core emotions from just that emotional wash that can come, come at us or come over us throughout our day? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Well, it's, there's many reasons why it's important to get, not only get it, well understand the different types of emotions and to get in touch with emotions and to be able to discern what you're what you're feeling and what you're experiencing. Because most of us live up in our heads. And thoughts are fantastic and we need them. And I love my thoughts but it's half the picture of knowing who you are and what you need and what's good for you and what's bad for you. And core emotions are these biologically wired survival programs that really tell us, at the core, so much about what we who we are and what we need that if we're not listening to them and our society really teaches us to avoid them and block them, which I think is responsible for the epidemic we're seeing in depression and anxiety and so many mental health issues, that, and we don't learn anything about emotions, that, that without knowing about emotions and understanding how they work, we're really at a huge disadvantage to thrive in life. Neil Sattin: Right, when you're able to identify the emotional experience that you're having, it gives you clues as to how you need to best respond to the world in the moment with whatever is going on in your life. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly and I think what's become more and more important for me, just to say from the beginning to the people listening out there, is that this is not about wearing emotions on our sleeve. This is not about looking for an excuse to act out or behave badly, to rage or to cry, experiencing emotions is a wholly internal process it has nothing to do with what we actually then show to others, or, or enact. It may, but I'm, we're always trying to think about what is constructive for us, constructive for the person we are with. It's not about an excuse to behave badly and I think we live in an emotion phobic culture partly because people don't understand that, they think "Oh my gosh, you know, if we're all into our emotions it's just gonna be you know not good. It's just, it's..." I'm only thinking of curse words now that would come out and explain like a shit show, but I'm just you know that type of a thing. And this is a very thoughtful process that I am talking about that only helps us. There, there is no downside to getting in touch with emotions the way that I am thinking about it and the way that I try to educate others. Neil Sattin: Right, what you just said is such an important distinction that we're talking about a constructive way to meet your emotions and to metabolize them into something that's beneficial not just for you but for the other people in your orbit or for life in, in general. And you know we had Harriet Lerner on the show to talk about her seminal work, "The Dance of Anger," and turning anger into, into a constructive emotional phenomenon. And I love how in your book it's not always depression you talk about each of these core emotions and we're talking about emotions like sadness and fear and anger and disgust, and we're also talking about emotions like joy or excitement or sexual excitement. Lust I think is the way that Jaak Panskepp talks about it. And we're talking about all of those core programs that you just mentioned and looking at how they lead to our common good. The common benefit and also ways to know when, when something's coming at us that really isn't healthy and and how to respond effectively to that. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly right. In particular with using anger to set limits and boundaries and to assert ourselves without being aggressive. Neil Sattin: Right. Right which you're able to do when you've figured out "Wow I'm, I'm really angry. And here's why I'm angry right now." And so it becomes less about telling someone that you're angry and more about setting an effective limit with them. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes, and I would add an additional piece: it's, it's also working with that anger internally to to discharge some of that energy that causes us to, to act too quickly, and act, and say mean things or do hurtful things, so that there's techniques to work with the energy that, that most emotions have and that grip us into impulses right and these impulses have to be thought through very, very up, down and sideways, before we decide to say something or do something that we really want to be thoughtful about ourselves and the action that wants to come out. Neil Sattin: Right. Yeah. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: It's hard work too,  this is a lifelong process. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So important to name that and, and for you, listening, we're going, we're gonna get to some of these techniques of how to really integrate and and process your emotional experience in the way that Hilary was just naming. And I want to say too that well, as you know I read a lot of books for this show and I love the ones that just right out of the gate, I'm like, "This book is gonna make a difference in my life." And I definitely felt that reading your book it's so practical and in some ways the title is misleading because I think people see it and they think "Oh this is a book about depression. I'm not sure that impacts me." And so I want to encourage everyone listening that this is really a book about what we're talking about: how do you encounter your own emotional experience and chew it up in a way that's beneficial for you and then bring that into how you how you interact with the world around you. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah exactly. And I think you're right about the title. I guess if the title was exactly what it should be, it would say "This is a basic emotion education that you should have received in high school," and hopefully one day people will. But it's something that every, everybody knows that the title came from the article that I wrote for The New York Times back in 2015 and because the article went viral and so many people responded to it, that Random House said let's just name the book that. And you know it's not always depression what is it? It's really life, and how surviving our childhoods and all the adversity that life entails affects us emotionally and what happens when you block those emotions and what happens when you embrace those emotions and learn to work with them. And it's it's it's a fork in the road. And it matters. Neil Sattin: Yes. Yeah. So let's start with talking about "the change triangle," because I think identifying the three different corners of the triangle will be really helpful for everyone in understanding what we're talking about because why is it a triangle, why isn't it just like well you've got to have your core emotional experience, and there, there's more to it. And this was where your book was so eye opening for me in many ways, was getting to see oh these kinds of things that I experience< they're happening because I'm, I, I'm trying to I'm trying to protect myself from a core emotional experience as an example. So, I think as we as we dive in this is going to make a lot more sense for everyone listening. So, where's a good place to start, Hilary? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: I think just a quickly, describe it and and what I, I'll try to bring it to life a little bit. Neil Sattin: Great. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: So for everybody listening you want to imagine an upside down triangle superimposed on your body. The point of the triangle is in your core, you know, somewhere between your stomach and, and your, under your ribs. And that's because, and that's, at the bottom of the triangle is where core emotions are and they're in the body and that's why I'm asking you to imagine them in your core. And they're, the core emotions to say them again are: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement. And each of those have their own unique programs and they're very simple in a way, you know, when something, when somebody hurts us... Well let's just take anger because it's something that we all struggle with in our culture. And there's so many myths about anger, but anger is there basically to protect us. Anger and fear. And when when somebody attacks us. And I always think about how these were designed to be sort of, hundreds of thousands of years ago, if somebody wanted to kill you, and, and had a threatening pose or gesture you would evoke anger in the middle of the brain, like where all core emotions are evoked, and then it sends out a myriad of responses to all organs of the body to ready the body for an action and that action is meant to be adaptive for survival. So anger will make us kind of want to make a fist and put up our dukes and get ready to attack. And it come, it's visceral. We all know that experience of when someone we care about insults us or doesn't do something that we really needed to and there's energy in the body and our, and we get tension in the body and we really feel like we want to lash out. So it's a full body experience and each of the core emotions have their own program that has an, uh, an uh, group of physical sensations that we can learn to recognize and name, and each of the core emotions has an impulse to action that we can learn to recognize, and, and explain and name, and, and an impulse to action, that we are, that it's pulling for us to do. And it's that whole experience that we want to get really good at recognizing and that is really just a part of knowing ourselves. The, the emotions react similarly in everybody. But there is nuance in everyone. So the way that I experience anger will be differently than the way you experience anger, Neil. And that's the same for all the core emotions. Neil Sattin: Great. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: So that's the bottom of the triangle. Does that make sense? Neil Sattin: Perfect. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: OK. Now there's uh, there's three corners of the triangle, which I'm going to explain. But there is a fourth point here and I'm just going to share it real quickly now because when we have a core emotion, we're at a fork in the road and there's base likely two ways it can go. We can bury that emotion and push it away and block it and then we're going to be moving to the top of the triangle. Or, we can validate it, name it, and work with the experience that it's evoking, in which case we get to this place that I put on the bottom of the triangle. That's called the "open hearted state of the authentic self." And what that is basically, a more practical way of saying, is it's a regulated state of mind and body and that when we are with our core emotions, and we let them process through, and we are allowed to experience them, and again nothing has actually happened yet in the outside world it's wholly internal, it's a way that comes the body back down. Because core emotions come up they kind of cause an arousal of the nervous system like a wave. You ride the wave and then they come down. And if we don't block them the energy kind of naturally will dissipate over time, and in ways and techniques that we can help with that, and then we come back to this kind of calm state, where our mind and body feel relaxed, and in that state good things happened, and there's a bunch of c-words that I borrowed from Richard Schwartz with his permission, where when we stay in this kind of calm regulated state, we are more curious, we feel more connected, we have a greater capacity for compassion for ourselves and other people, we tend to feel more confident because we can deal with our own emotions and we feel more courageous in life and we have more clarity of thought. So you obsess less. So this is where we all want to spend more time. Neil Sattin: Definitely. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: And it's not that it's the goal to spend all our time there, right? That's impossible because life happens but that's where we want to spend more and more time. And so working this change triangle to get back to core emotions and to go through them down to this calm state is the whole point of this. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I think it's important to mention that too, that we're describing this, this static image but it implies a process that you can go through in order to get to the openhearted state of self energy that that Hilary's just described. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Right, because we're moving around this triangle all day every day many times and it's what we do that matters and then we're also kind of moving around in this triangle in life on a macro level spending less time in our defensive states and more time in the openhearted state. So. So that's sort of a sort of a micro and a global way to look at it. Neil Sattin: Great. So then when you have that core when you're when some core emotional response comes up, you said you're at a fork in the road and you can head, you can ride the wave and and get to that core self state or... Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Or like most of us do, because that's what we're taught to do in our society, is we tend to block them. And so the top of the triangle if we move to the top right that corner is labeled inhibitory emotions and the inhibitory emotions which everyone will recognize are anxiety, guilt, and shame. And again what they have in common is that they all push down, and block, and bury core emotional experience, in purpose for the purpose of pretty much getting along in our society. There are more social emotions, so that if the core emotions are the selfish emotions what's good for me the inhibitory emotions are, "How do I curb my own impulses and desires, so that I stay in the good graces, good graces of initially my mother and then my father and my siblings, my family, then my peer groups, my uh, by then you know as you broaden into society, my religious groups, my, oh, my collegial groups..." That we it's so important for human survival to get along. So in a way there's a fundamental conflict here. So, so the inhibitory emotions when we it's the way that we block our core emotions. And so what we end up doing is noticing that we have anxiety, for example, and if we have anxiety we know that we're on the top right hand corner of the triangle. But what that means practically, is that we also know that we are inhibiting some core emotional experience that if we can get to and name, and, and, and use, we will likely feel less anxious. Feel much better and I can give an example of this, but, then the way we do this is with muscular contraction, all sorts of maneuvers that anxiety, shame, and guilt block these core emotions and for different purposes. And some of us will feel more shame, some more anxiety. You know, we have to mix in genetics and disposition here, and then the environment for why we end up feeling ashamed or guilty or anxious. Neil Sattin: Right and something that feels important to name right here is the way that you can feel those inhibitory emotions from a core positive emotional experience as much as a core negative. And I'm kind of putting those words in quotes because I think what we're getting at here is that they all have the capacity to be positive but one might not think like, "Oh you know, I'm, I'm experiencing shame because I'm feeling too much joy right now," or "I'm too excited. And so my anxiety is coming in to to block that, or my guilt about being excited about this thing.". Hilary Jacobs Hendel: That is so crucial and the more that I do this work in psychotherapy and just observe the people that I'm with, the more I believe that it's the larger emotions. I wouldn't even say so... I think you're right, that people block joy and excitement and pride in the self and anything that makes us feel physically bigger. It's kind of fascinating you can almost reduce all below the neck deep experience into emotions that have energy that makes us feel larger, which is dangerous when we take up more space and we feel bigger, we tend to experience some inhibition either anxiety, guilt or shame. And so people tend to stay small and in a way people go negative... I'm not so sure anymore, which came firrt, err, do people kind of move into negative thoughts to keep them small? Because there's some core fear? Or is it that it's a it's a way not to feel big? I dunno if it gets sort of too complicated. But you can start to think of everything as almost like amoebas like am getting bigger or I'm getting smaller? And to begin to understand one's experience as, "Is this an expansive emotion now, that I'm feeling, like, joy and pride, and anger?" In which case it's going to make me feel vulnerable and then I'm going to come down on myself with some anxiety or shame or guilt. So that's just getting to what you were saying about people struggle with feeling good. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Yeah. So it could go either way. And, and what I love is this sense of, "Oh. When I notice shame or anxiety or guilt that the problem isn't the shame or the anxiety or guilt." That's, the I don't want to spend all my time there, because they're indicating that there's a deeper core experience that's happening and that's where the the gold is. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. That's where the gold is. Now. I think it's also important to mention that that, we're talking about kind of detrimental levels of anxiety, shame and guilt here, that the shame has a purpose too. Guilt has a purpose. Like when we do something that hurts somebody else it's good that we feel guilty. That means that we're not a sociopath and so we want to listen to the shame. Listen to the guilt. Listen to the anxiety. And we also know that we have to look for our core emotions. So, it's, it's both because the inhibitory emotions are going to bring us to the relationship piece. But we also need to know what we're feeling so that we can express ourselves to, to yourself and to others. Neil Sattin: Yeah and I will say just as a side note your, your chapter on dealing with anxiety shame and guilt. I think it's also super helpful along with creating self compassion but for understanding the other people in your life and what might be motivating certain behaviors that you experience from them. That was, in many respects, worth the price of admission for the book because that's part of what's going on is not only understanding yourself but being able to see these things happening in other people and to, and to recognize how it might be impacting them as well. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. So we can understand ourselves and others and I've had so many people read the book and tell me that they thought it should be in the Parenting section of the bookstore because we also want to understand our children's emotions so we don't unwittingly cause too much shame and guilt and anxiety when it can be avoided just by the education and emotions. Neil Sattin: Yeah yeah they should have a "self parenting" section in the bookstore. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. Self parenting, and parenting though, there's so much you know parents mean well, I made so many mistakes. If I had had this at this book in my 20s that would have spared me and my children a lot of heartache and I know most people feel that way. Most people have intent to do good. And if you don't have proper information, and you're just basing things on what you sort of intuition and how you were raised and what society says then it's easy to make mistakes anyway, easy to make mistakes, and we're not free that you know there's no way not to screw up your children on some level but you just want to know what's going on in the emotion department. It's really, really helpful. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So we've covered the bottom corner of the triangle the core emotions, and the top right which is these inhibitory emotions that are are meant to block or suppress the core emotions. Neil Sattin: What's up with the with the other corners triangle. : So and again if we go back to that this is superimposed on the body. The point is of course in core emotions as in is in the gut area and then we're coming up. So anxiety and defenses are kind of sitting above the shoulders, is how I imagine them because they're out of, they kind of take us out of our body, they take us up into our head. And so because emotions, core emotions feel so at best they feel weird and new if you don't know what they are, and, and at worst they feel awful emotions and core emotions, and inhibitory emotions when they come in, in large doses and they come, many at one time and they're all mixed together... It's a horrible experience and a horrible feeling. And so we then tend to want to avoid the whole enchilada and we move into defenses and that's the topped, top left corner of the triangle. And defenses are basically anything we do to avoid feeling something that we don't want to feel and I don't even mean it in a pejorative sense I always say that that defenses, as I learned in AEDP training, which was so helpful, are really these brilliant creative maneuvers that humans can do to spare themselves pain as opposed to in my psychoanalytic training... I don't want to sell psychoanalysis down the river because I got a lot out of my studies there, but there was always this negative sense of bad, that you're doing something bad, and you're resisting and that defenses are bad and I think that defenses really need to be appreciated for one when they hold up. They get us through life. And two, when they don't hold up and we break through and start to have symptoms of depression or anxiety or many other things that we needed them at one time those defenses and now they're not working so well and then we need to embrace other ways of being that bring us peace and calm. Neil Sattin: So defenses are like toward the, the last stop on the on the train. They're, they're, they're meant to help you not feel anything. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. Exactly. Or to for, to exchange one emotion for for something else like defenses... Emotions can be used as defenses. For example, I would, you know, my whole younger life, if I felt scared or vulnerable I sort of had a more of an irritable, crusty armor and I would get angry and I would try to curtail it a lot because I had a really sweet, gentle mom and a really sweet, gentle sister and I was kind of the, the, the, the tougher one in the family. So I was always working hard to be quote sweet like like my mom. But I felt it. I felt it and I really didn't understand. I would beat myself up for you know, Why, why do I feel angry?" And it was really a big defense against fear. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: I had no idea I had no idea even I was the one that I was anxious when I was younger because it was just kind of covered by this kind of this kind of tough armor. Neil Sattin: Right. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Or how many people do we know that might be feeling fear but instead go to like humor or lightheartedness, instead of instead of being able to go to that place. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. And so there are so many ways we can use defenses can be emotions. They can we can use behaviors as defenses. Self-destructive behaviors like, like cutting just behaviors like joking, making, being sarcastic, eye rolls, shrugs this is like body language defenses, not being able to make eye contact. There is, there is a myriad of defenses and I list a ton of them in the book and on my website. And you can try to recognize your own defenses which is probably one of the hardest things to do. It's much easier to see other people than ourselves and so you could probably much more easily recognize the defenses in the people in your family. But it's good to begin to recognize our own defenses so that we can loosen them up a little bit and know what the feelings are underneath them and then it kind of, gives us more resilience, more choices for how to be. Neil Sattin: Yeah if we wanted perspective from an outsider that we more or less trusted about our defenses what would you say is a is a safe way to ask for that from another person? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: That's such a wonderful question. I think it's not only the safe way to ask for it, but I think you're saying to make sure that person is safe is a safe person to be vulnerable with. Yeah, because what we really want to spare ourselves, as much as possible, is the excruciating experience of being shamed or humiliated. So, I think I would say and I do say this to my to my husband and my children, even friends sometimes: "Please let me know if I do something that..." I mean it's not so much as a defense, I would say, "Please let me know if I do something that you don't like or that hurts your feelings or that doesn't feel right." And then I guess if I was asking it I think I would just leave it at that. I'm concerned for the people out there listening who might say that to somebody they care about who doesn't have a lot of therapy background or understand emotions that might not be so gentle. So, I think you could always say: "But, be please be gentle with me." You know and I believe in using humor and lightheartedness in relationships a lot, but you know be be gentle. But I do want to know.... Yes. Neil Sattin: Yeah. No, I think that's great to name that desire for for gentleness or just to point out like, it's, "It's kind of tender or vulnerable for me to even be asking you this but I know that you may see, something that I don't see." Yeah. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: That's it's such an interesting question Neil. No one's ever asked me that and I think it's because most people get feedback from their family, when they're, when they're acting in ways that are are not pleasurable and they they might not all be defensive maneuvers some may be just like self care. Like I don't want to do this. Setting a limit or a boundary and then somebody reacts badly to that. But some of it would be defensive. So again, it's sort of interesting to think about. Neil Sattin: Right and I think if you're not inviting someone into that conversation, then the feedback that you're getting is most likely not coming at you either at a moment where you're truly receptive to it, or in a manner that's that's constructive.   Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Mhmm. Exactly. Constructive being the operative word. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So we we found our way up to the top. And let's talk about what the process would look like if I noticed, "Oh I'm about to do that defensive thing that I always do." So maybe for someone like I'll just kind of out myself here, I might go to a political blog or to Facebook or something like that. I'm doing that, it doesn't serve any real constructive purpose in my life. So, even though, you know, you could argue about being informed or whatever but when I notice that I'm doing that, what would be the steps that I would want to take to help bring me into identifying whether or not there was a core emotional experience at work? And I think, especially because we as adults... Like these patterns are pretty well developed for us. So, so it may be a bit of a journey to find your way down into into your core, but what's, what's the map look like? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. Yeah but I think very possible, and, and I like your example, which I'm going to address. And you know, we could also use the example of reaching for a snack when you're not hungry or reaching for a drink right after work. Right? These are all these kind of they're just sort of automatic defensive behaviors and they don't serve us. So what I do is, you know, for all these examples is the first thing we have to be able to do is notice, right? If we don't notice what we're doing then we can't work the change triangle at all. And the way you get good at noticing is really by slowing down. We can't really notice much about how we're feeling if we're moving fast, it just tends to obscure or we just stay up in our head and our thoughts are churning and it kind of numbs us out below the neck. So, I when I'm teaching new people this you know you can just set aside, you can write in your, in your inner, in your, in your calendar, in your phone, you know, just set aside three times a day and remember to kind of check in and observe what you're doing. Meditation, obviously, is a great practice for this. So, let's say you actually notice that you're about to go check, what did you say Facebook or the political blogs? Neil Sattin: Right side or more or more likely I'd, I'd be you know five or 10 minutes in, and I'd be like, "Wait a minute here I am. You know here I am on Facebook again.". Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Good. Good. OK. So before, or during... Neil Sattin: Just being, just being honest. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah of course. You know, join the rest of humanity. That's great. So what you would do is stop what you're doing. And you would, kind of feel your feet on the ground like you instructed me to do before this, and, before we started, and maybe take a few deep breaths to kind of set the stage for noticing. And then I personally especially in the beginning would ask myself I would kind of scan my body head to toe, and toe to head, and just kind of see what I can notice about my physical state. Am I tense? Am I anxious? I might even go through all of the emotions and ask myself, "OK Hilary,or Neil, you know, do you notice any anxiety now check? Do you notice any shame? No, not right now. Do you notice any guilt? No. OK, so we've got some anxiety. What else? Let's see if we can get below that anxiety and see what else we might be feeling". And you may want to bring in the context of what's going on in your life also and what might be affecting you. So let's say, uh, this is the day my, my, my kid goes off to kindergarten. What else is happening today? I have work stress, what not. So then I might ask myself, "Is any of these things in life causing me fear? Check." And then we want to go through all the core emotions, do I feel angry? No. Do I feel sad? Check. And you want to name all the emotions that you possibly can but kind of holding them all together like, as I tell my patients, try to hold all the emotions but imagining them with lots of air and space between each one, because we have to, we have to attend to each emotion separately. Another way that I say it, is don't say "I feel afraid but I also feel sadness." I want to change the "but" to an "and." "I feel sad, and I feel afraid, and I feel excited, and I feel happy." And once we get a lot of emotions going at the same time it's a lot of energy. We can automatically push those down because we don't know we can handle it all. Feel some anxiety and then boom. Reaching for a political blog. So, that would be the idea to try to start to name the emotions and then just by doing that just by naming emotions and taking that time to slow down and do that, you might feel much, much more relaxed and in fact it gives you space to think, "OK do I want to continue with the blog? Because this is a good distraction that I need now." Because defenses aren't bad by definition it's only if they're hurting us or if we rely on them all the time. So you may continue to read or you may decide, "You know what. I'm going to go exercise instead or I'm going to go tell my partner how I'm feeling about everything going on." That type of thing, and that's the last step is to think through, what's the best thing for me right now? If I don't feel better and I'm trying to change my state what are some things that, that helped me feel better where I can take better care of myself. Or you may want to work with one of these emotions using some of the techniques that I, that I outline in the book. Staying with them in the body or imagining using fantasy to discharge some of the energy. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I definitely want to talk about fantasy, but before we go there, I, I just want to name that for me even though I knew this to be true it was really a revelation to stop and think about what that's like, that we can be experiencing fear and disgust and joy and sexual excitement that we could be feeling all of those things at the same time. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. Neil Sattin: Each one calling out for potentially a completely different kind of response. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. Neil Sattin: So, no wonder we get all bound up with anxiety or overwhelm or feel any any of those things that just kind of paralyze us in a moment. Or if we, if we name one and we just kind of go with the first thing, "Oh, I'm feeling sad right now," and then you neglect the others, how you could feel incomplete in terms of actually processing the experience that you're having. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. Exactly and that's why it's so important to keep sort of searching when you notice one particular emotion to just keep looking around. What else is there? And to, it really helps to kind of run through that checklist. I still do that I've been practicing this a long time and I, I run through the different emotions and once you name them and search for them you know you might even find them. I say to my patients, "Even there's you know just check for like a little molecule of joy there, or a little molecule of sadness, and then if you find it you know, Oh maybe I need to actually make space for this particular emotion I spend so much time, you know, really orienting myself towards my anger, that I'm missing out on what the sadness or the fears telling me.". Neil Sattin: Yeah. I was I was searching for a good acronym while, while I was reading the book, I was like there must be a good one for those core emotions to like help people just kind of do the, do the checklist. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. Did you find one? Because I looked hard also. Neil Sattin: Not yet but I'll let you know if I can. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. Yeah. Neil Sattin: And there's not a good one for all those C's when you're when you're... But I do like how you also offer that as an example of looking for you know am I feeling calm, right now? Am I feeling clear? Am I feeling compassionate? To be able to go through that list to find the nuances of your experience right now and to highlight, "Okay here are ways that I am feeling courageous even though at the same time I'm getting all this, this tremulous fear going through my body. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes, exactly. And I think even sometimes you can bypass the whole thing and just really try to shift into those states if you don't like what you're feeling right now and it's a particularly a great idea when you're about to have a conversation with somebody important to you, to before you do try to, try to just see if you can shift into a calmer, certainly more curious standpoint, more state, where you can try to take a couple of deep breaths and access some curiosity, so we don't make assumptions about another person's motives because they're often incorrect you know we make up our own stories and then we believe them without checking them out. And to try to lean into connection, so that, let's say you know again your partner really pisses you off. It's important, and the brain doesn't naturally do this, you have to push, put energy behind this idea of remembering the good things somebody has done to kind of take the steam out of the uh... You know, we can rev ourselves up with anger and start to think it's like chaining, you then, everything that someone ever did to hurt you comes back with a vengeance. Unless we really pull the other way and say, "OK, what is why do I love this person." Or if I can't remember that I loved him at one point, you know what is it that I used to love about this person and try to conjure those that part of it as well. It takes energy. It's not easy because we're really pulled to tough places and we have to use mental energy to pull ourselves back and it doesn't feel good at first, always. Neil Sattin: Yeah yeah. Wow so many different directions that I'm going in at the moment. I think first I just want to name, it's really lovely the way that you show the integration of AEDP work through the vignettes, vignettes that you offer in your book, and also internal family systems and working with different parts of you, younger parts. If you're a listener for, and you have been for a while then you've perhaps heard the interviews we've done with Dick Schwartz, the most recent one is episode I wrote this down episode 140, where so you can you can get a sense of how the two modalities work really well together, fit super well together. And so all of that work to get to understand and process and metabolize your emotional experience, and to learn how to show up for yourself can come through what we've been talking about today and can also be helped by getting to identify the places in you that are stuck in a past experience. And the reason that I wanted to bring that up is because you were just talking about like the the possibility of skipping to connection and calmness, or doing what you can to to get to that place especially if you're going to reach out to someone that's important to you. And I liked how you also bring in the work of Peter Levine and talk about how all of this energy that emotions bring up in, in us when they're not processed when, when that energy isn't metabolized, then that is what creates trauma in our bodies -- that, that stuck energy that never quite got released. And so some of those stories in your book are just were so moving to me, as I, as I read them and got to see like oh right there's another nuance of how this could apply to me or to my clients. And so really beautiful, I think, to to see it written out like that but let's get into a little bit more of the... Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Thank you by the way. Neil Sattin: Yeah yeah you're welcome. Let's get into the metabolizing and in particular let's talk about fantasy, because that use of the imagination and how it can help I think can be so powerful for us when we, when we're wrestling with that question of: "Well, I feel so angry or I feel so sad or bereft or whatever it is, and I don't know like I want to bring it to that person I want them to feel my anger. I want them to see the depths of my sadness." How can we do it in a way that's actually going to be more productive and give us the satisfaction of truly handling and, and, and giving our body some relief from those unfulfilled impulses? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's a question that has many levels because I think what I'm first responding to is this idea of wanting someone to see and wanting to really be seen, in with one's emotions. And so I think that is legitimate. And, and then there are times when that's all somebody sees and they get weary. So it's it's really... you have to keep a lot in mind. So, I thought you were just going to kind of ask me about working with child parts and releasing stuck energy as a sort of either, either as an alone process or with a therapist and then you surprised me when you brought in this idea of, if you bring it into relationship and that makes it all sort of like it, I think we have to deal with one and then the other. Neil Sattin: Yeah let's start with a first part.: Yeah, let's start with the first part... Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah. Neil Sattin: ...which would be that the inner process that we might go through, and then and then we can bridge into bringing that into relationship. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Great. Great. So, I now I really consider myself a trauma therapist and I now think of trauma as something that everybody has just from surviving their childhoods. And so then we were changing the definition of trauma. This is still very controversial. You hear the word trauma, which most people still think of as a, as a some major catastrophic event happening, that is trauma. I'm adding on to that something that is also called small-T trauma -- which many people in the trauma field object to because it's it's sort of putting a value judgment on trauma. That one is smaller or bigger, which is, I want to say, that, that's not the case it's just some way to to differentiate different types of trauma. And small-T trauma is really what I believe everybody has, and small-T trauma is really, um, can be from so, so many, so many things that actually happened in our childhood. But the bottom line is, and I'm sure Diana Faucheux and David Marr spoke about this in the other episodes, that whenever we have too much emotion which happens a lot when we're children because our brains are full of emotion and very powerful emotion. So when there's too much emotion and too much aloneness at the same time, then the mind figures out a way to kind of block it. So it's not overwhelming. And then once that happens a lot where we're kind of blocking whole parts of ourselves and whole experiences and those are these little kind of child parts that we all have that are alone these kind of child parts of us exist alone because they had to be kind of cordoned off. So this, this happens you know if you have... In most families there's a parent that doesn't tolerate a certain emotion and so when you feel that emotion you are really told, you know, to put it away or get over it or you're yelled at or it's not acknowledged. So that kind of thing, on a small level, becomes big because when we have to exclude parts of our experience then they are literally excluded in the mind, they're not integrated. They're not connected to other parts of the... of us. So these are the the parts when I use the word parts from Richard Schwartz or in psychoanalytic literature they were called interjects. That we might have absorbed parts of our parents in us. It can be many, many different things but these are the parts that sort of live on with us, within us and they can get triggered and then we can start to react. The reaction is, is not really commensurate with what happens in our adult relationships. So, I think everyone can relate to like just when somebody pokes you in that just wrong place and you felt the feeling many, many times before and you can kind of track it back into fourth grade when you were bullied or ostracized, or you can track it back to sixth grade when you started to know that your sexuality or gender wasn't the same as the people around you or you were punished too severely, yelled at, you know all these or somebody you loved died when you were young or got sick or there was substance abuse, active substance abuse in the family, all these type of things and then these parts of us hold... They have their own triangles in a way and we need to be with those parts and liberate those old emotions so that they don't fire off and cause havoc in our adult relationships and inside us and make us feel bad all the time. Neil Sattin: Yes. So we can, so you can get related to in a particular moment. The part of you that is feeling, that is having this emotional experience and to what was happening at the time and the way that you portray that in the book, I think is, is a great illustration of how to go through this process for someone and then talk about if you could, that, taking it to that next level of where you incorporate fantasy as a way of helping either a younger part or just helping yourself in the present with an emotional feeling how you could actually kind of burn off some of that energy before you're bringing it out, into how you connect with the world. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah I guess I'll use the, we could take any emotion and you can change this, but I'm going to, I'm going to go with these big energy emotions that are common like how you burn off as you say anger energy and also kind of feeling good about the self prideful energy both of these create a lot of anxiety and depression in people when they're blocked. And so I really like to, to harp on let's liberate this, this energy and how can we do it in a safe way. So one of the the the most effective ways to work with anger is, and I use this a lot myself... And I'm sort of pausing here because as people listen to this, it may seem kind of crazy. But we begin with the fundamental idea that the brain doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality in certain, in emotional ways. And we know this from experiments where somebody imagines running and they're hooked up to an FMRI, that they imagine they're running. And there is movement in the in the parts of the brain as if they were actually running. So... And we see this every day in clinical practice. So, let's say I am angry, I'm going to take my sweet and wonderful husband John as an example here because I use him all the time. Let's say John does something, and he really doesn't anymore, we really get along quite well. But let's say he did something that really, really threw me into a rage. What I have learned to do and practice many times is before I go talk to him about it, I will, I know I will be able to identify that I am angry, right? And rage is sort of all emotions are on a spectrum from a little irritation or annoyance to outright rage. I will know, I will be able to say to myself: I am enraged. I will be able to feel that deeply in my body a burning energy in my stomach and a, and a movement of energy that wants to come right up and out, and I will not do anything, but I will focus in on that energy, listening to it with a kind of curiosity, kind of tuning in like a radio receiver feeling it deeply and seeing what that energy wants to do to John and it might want to just, so I and then I try to make it into a fantasy. So the idea is I'm noticing that if that energy could come up and out of me in a fantasy or a movie like, let it play out in a movie I would see myself just like punching the crap out of him. Like that's how angry I am that I really want to hurt him. And then I will allow myself in a fantasy to imagine doing that. And I do this in sessions for people that have a lot of pent up energy from being abused as children and neglected and various very hurtful things that were done to them. So I can see myself actually doing what this anger wants to do and trying to really even feel it as I see myself making contact with skin. And just let it... Imagining it and imagining it, watching it and watching it and watching it, and doing it and doing it and doing it in fantasy, until it feels done. Like the the energy will discharge and will drain out. And then when I tune back into my body, I'll feel probably tired and a little more calm so that I can then gather my wits about me and go back and say, and say, "We need to talk about what you did. I was so furious because you hurt me so badly when you did this this and this. And I never ever want you to do that again." That type of thing as opposed to storming out, I wanted divorce, you know this isn't working or attacking him you know verbally abusing him for everything that he's ever done, and which isn't going to help, it's going, it may feel better in the moment. And then I'm going to feel guilty afterwards. He's going to withdraw. It's going to escalate a fight and it's going to increase our disconnection. Neil Sattin: Yes. . Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Does that make sense? Neil Sattin: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And one thing that I think you mention in the book is how often you can go with that initial like you're feeling all that anger and rage and seeing that. And then when that is finally discharged through imagining this scenario, that it leaves room for another core emotion to rise up. So it may not end there, it may be that after you experience your rage, you then experience your sadness or your fear. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. Neil Sattin: And so there's there's a lot there to be processed and what you named so beautifully was the problem not only with having those experiences, but, or emotions but having them and feeling alone and how showing up for yourself in this way also undoes that aloneness. I think that's such a powerful aspect of the work as you describe it. It's also so powerful in my experience of Dick Schwartz's work in IFS, that it it's kind of undoing aloneness with yourself not that you don't want to get to a place where you're inviting other people in. But, it also just builds such resilience knowing that in a moment like that, a powerfully charged moment, you actually have the capacity to to do something about it. Just you. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. And in that sort of reminds me to say that when you are connecting to yourself in that way, one has to have the utmost compassion and empathy as though you were relating to your own child or pet who you love or someone that you really cared about that you would never hurt. It's really unconditional love and positive regard, and not shaming yourself not judging yourself. Right? Because fantasy is so fabulous it doesn't hurt anybody. Even though some people get scared you know, when a lot of people that have a lot of trauma or even a little trauma, and I first kind of try to teach them how to do this. They... Guilt comes up and they're like," Well I don't feel good about myself. You know good people don't do this," and and I was like, "Well I'll explain. You know, you don't do it out in real life. That's what we're trying to to prevent." But, the capacity to use fantasy is very, very healthy and that's why it's so important when you have little children to use imaginative play and even as parents listening that when you're one child let's say wants to hit your other child, when they're young, because it's not always easy to have a sibling. Just use this as an example. You don't kind of block the anger and say no you have to love your your sister or brother, and, and we don't hit, you have to find a way to, to accept and to channel it, like we don't hit grown ups and we don't say mean thing -- we don't say we don't hit people and we don't say mean things to people. But here's this doll you can imagine it's your sister. And we can beat it up together and have a good old time. And that way the kid is learning to sublimate -- how to use emotions and play at the exact same time and that it doesn't have to be a toxic experience that the emotions are validated and they have to be released. And it doesn't have to be with again beating up like or even a fantasy of beating up like I just shared about myself. It could be writing these things out, unedited, just writing what you want to say to someone drawing a picture of what you want to say or do to someone. The idea is to just get it out, and it has to work so we not only have to get it out but you have to sort of the next step after this is do I feel calmer. Do I feel better. And if the answer is no, there's either more to be done or there's inhibitory emotions that are getting in the way and complicating it or other emotions that need tending. And it may be that you need to bring it to someone who is a professional to help you do this. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I was going to say this could be a good place to get support. Especially at something. If you're like, Oh, that feels like a big river of rage or grief or whatever it is. Well great. Like it's awesome that you identified that and sit with someone who knows how to help, how to hold you in that. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Exactly. Exactly. Neil Sattin: Well what a rich conversation. And before we go today, Hilary I'm wondering if we can just take a moment to bring this back into the relational realm and, and talk about how, like, if you identify something going on with your partner or something is going on with you and we've talked about taking this space so that you can process and metabolize, is there a way to bring what you now know about the change triangle, maybe into your connections so that you and your partner can now be on the same team with seeing how this dynamic is at work as the two of you come together? What's a good first step, I think, for people to bring this into their relationship? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. Well, what what I would say as a, as a good first step is to make sure that both of you have the exact same information. So when possible, I really wrote the book to be used in many ways as a, as a workbook and to read the book together with your partner and to go through the exercises gives you just that, you're on the same page. And even though it will take practice over a lifetime to work it together. That at least you have the same bit of knowledge and you've gone through the same exercises which are pretty simple and, and, and, and, and just to say why I put case examples is because emotions have to be experienced. How do you help somebody get a sense for an experience? And that had to be through the stories. So, I would say just to make sure that the person that you're wanting to connect with has some basic emotion education. And... Neil Sattin: Perfect. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: And then after that established ground rules. I wrote a little blog on this for, for, for how to find your life partner on medium that you want to establish ground rules that you won't be mean that nobody is going to attack or retaliate in ways that are dangerous and hurtful and that you don't abandon, so that if a conversation has to stop because it gets hard, and one person gets too anxious, then you then you have to be able to say to each other. I'm overwhelmed I'm not able to really think as I'm talking to you, anymore. Let's take a break but we'll come back and finish this because really in relationships all there, all there is is talking. You have to just keep talking. And then lastly I would say is you want to try to use the change triangle to make sure that, that both people are relating as much as possible from a core place. Either from that openhearted state or from the emotional state of the core emotions where you're saying, you're using I statements like, "I'm afraid," "I feel anger about this," "I feel sadness about this," as opposed to you, you, you, you, you. And that, when you're, when both people move to the top of the triangle, when you're either you're they're anxious or ashamed or guilty or defensive, you really have to stop. Like, I make a time out motion when I'm working with couples or even working in my own relationship, let's stop and then I say let's rewind to where we were going fine and then somehow we went off the rails and then it's usually a miscommunication, or let's stop and take a break and calm down and let's come back tomorrow again sit and have coffee or tea and begin again and see where did we go wrong, where, where, literally if you sort of track moment to moment: You're having a discussion. Everything is going fine. I want to talk about you know, why we, we don't have more fun together and then all of a sudden one person starts to get anxious or you start to, one person starts to get angry then you can literally stop and say, "Let's rewind to right before you, like I felt like I was with you we were connected and then all of a sudden I said, 'Well I don't really you know. You know, you're no fun anymore.' And then I noticed you got defensive." And then that's where you have to work because the person might say, "Yeah. When you told me that I wasn't fun anymore it hurt my feelings. And then I, I went up into the top of the triangle. I started to get defensive." Neil Sattin: That's great. And, and I see to this opportunity for couples who really start to get this together to like, in a state of shame or anxiety or guilt those inhibitory emotions to learn how to show up for each other in those moments to help, settle whatever is going on or to help navigate their partner back into a place of like feeling understood or seen, and that might be a good, a good return visit for you on the show to talk a little bit more about how how they can collaborate in a moment like that to bring themselves back to a core emotional state. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yeah I would love to. Neil Sattin: Hilary Jacobs Hendel, thank you so much for being here. If people want to learn more about your work where can they find you? Hilary Jacobs Hendel: I have a website with tons of free resources all about emotions and that's Hilary-Jacobs-Hendel-dot-com. Or you could just google "the change triangle" and you can also get there by going to "the-change-triangle-dot-com," and there's articles that I've written for major media outlets. There's my blog which the titles are pretty explanatory of what they're about. And then there's a tool box section that has a lot of resources. So that would be the best place. I also have a youtube channel, so I could go over and explain certain aspects of this and I do something called 1 minute videos on emotional health, because everybody's so busy and nobody has an attention span anymore, so that's "The Change Triangle" YouTube station and then my Website. And then of course the book is the whole enchilada because it was what I did is it's got exercises so that you work The Change Triangle along with me as I'm working The Change Triangle with the people in my practice and then there's little bits of no jargon science to explain what's going on because I wouldn't have been interested in any of this had it not been deeply grounded in current neuroscience. That was really important to me. So, that's really gives you the whole kind of flavor of what's going on. Neil Sattin: Great. And again the book is called "It's Not Always Depression" and we will have links to all of that on the page for this episode where you can download the transcript. And that's Neil-Sattin-dot-com-slash-triangle or as always you can text the word passion to the number 3-3-4-4-4 and follow the instructions. Hilary... Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Yes. Can I just say one more thing? Neil Sattin: Yeah of course. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: The book just won two book awards that won the 2018 Best Book Award for psychology and mental health, and the Nautilus Award for personal growth. So I just wanted to share that because I'm hoping that people will read this book and that eventually the, our entire society will be very well educated from an emotional standpoint. I think it can really change things for the better. Neil Sattin: Absolutely and congratulations on those awards. They are well-deserved. You definitely have a gift from taking all of this information and making it really practical for people who read the book. So, big recommend for me. Hilary Jacobs Hendel: Thank you. Thank you.

One of the most common fears I hear from my students is 'I can't charge that much!' Most often it's said in response to us talking through the pricing model, after I show them how their prices need to account for labour, flower / foliage, taxes, operations AND profit. It's such an instinctive reaction once you're shown what your pricing SHOULD ACTUALLY BE. I spent the first three years of this business way way way UNDERCHARGING and my guess is you're doing the same thing. In today's episode, I share my top four tips for overcoming the fear of being too expensive. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the goodies we've got going on at the moment – if you want more of my 'how to' business stuff be sure to check out my new online course. Details for Business Accelerator are here. This program includes our exact pricing model, I talk you through how we manage enquiries AND as a special bonus you'll get direct access to ME – we've got a private facebook group where I will be hosting weekly Q&A as well as doing LIVE coaching sessions for my students. Oh I'm so excited. This program is exactly what I wish was available to me a few years ago! Check out the program here. Don't forget too, follow me on Instagram @littlebirdbloom and send me a DM if you have any specific questions. ❤️ Kathleen 

Dr Carolyn Lam:                Welcome to Circulation on the Run, your weekly podcast summery and backstage pass to the journal and it's editors. We're your co-hosts, I'm Doctor Carolyn Lam, Associate Editor from the National Heart Center and Duke National University of Singapore. Dr Gregory Hundley:       And I'm Doctor Greg Hundley, Associate editor for Circulation and Director of the Pauley Heart Center at VCU of Health in Richmond, Virginia. Well Carolyn, in the second half of our feature we're going to discuss a randomized clinical trial in lower risked surgical patients related to, the five year clinical echocardiographic outcomes from aortic valve intervention. So Carolyn, do you want to go first this time and discuss on of your favorite papers? Dr Carolyn Lam:                Absolutely! So, are Cardiac Troponin T and I equivalent measures of cardiovascular risk in the general population? Well that's the question Doctor Paul Welsh and colleagues from University of Glasgow aimed to look at. They wanted to compare and contrast the associations of Cardiac Troponin T and Cardiac Troponin I with cardiovascular disease and non-cardiovascular disease outcomes, and also determine their genetic determinants in a genome wide association study involving more than nineteen-thousand, five hundred individuals in generation Scotland, Scottish family health study. Dr Gregory Hundley:       How about that. So this is kind of interesting. So most of us kind of use these two chests interchangeably Carolyn, and I think, I guess we'd consider them to be almost equivalent. So are you going to tell us that they are the same? Dr Carolyn Lam:                Ah-hah! So this is what the authors found. Both Cardiac Troponins T and I were strongly associated with cardiovascular risk, however, Cardiac Troponin I but not T was associated with both myocardial infarction and coronary heart disease. Both Cardiac Troponins I and T had strong associations with cardiovascular death and heart failure, however, Cardiac Troponin T, but not I was associated with non-cardiovascular disease death. They also identified five genetic loci in fifty-three individuals snips that had GWAS significant associations with Cardiac Troponin I and a different set of four loci of four snips for Cardiac Troponin T.                                                 So, the upstream genetic causes of low-grade elevations of Cardiac Troponins I and Cardiac Troponin T appear to be distinct and their associations with outcomes also differ. Elevations of Cardiac Troponin I are more strongly associated with some cardiovascular disease outcomes whereas Cardiac Troponin T, is more strongly associated with the risk of non-cardiovascular disease death. These findings can help inform selection of an optimal Troponin essay for future clinical care and research in these settings. Dr Gregory Hundley:       Very good! So, does sound like there could be a little bit of a difference, depending upon what outcome you're looking for. So, Carolyn I'm going to discuss a paper from Doctor Alison Wright and colleagues at the University of Manchester, and it involves cardiovascular risk and risk factor management in type two diabetes.                                                 So in this retrospective cohort study, using the clinical practice research data link, linked to hospital and death records for people in England, investigators identified 79,985 patients with incident type two diabetes, between the years 2006 and 2013, matched to three 386,547 patients without diabetes, and sex-stratified Cox models were used to assess cardiovascular risk. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Oh I'm dying to know, what did they find? Dr Gregory Hundley:       Well compared to women without type two diabetes mellitus, women with type two diabetes mellitus had a higher cardiovascular event risk than the adjusted hazard ratios 1.2, with similar corresponding data in men, so their hazard ratio is 1.1. And that lead to a nonsignificant relative risk in women with a risk ration of 1.07, however, some important sex differences in the management of risk factors were observed. Compared to men with type two diabetes, women with type two diabetes were more likely to be obese, hypertensive, and have hypercholesterolemia but were less likely to be described lipid lowering medication, ace inhibitors, especially if they had cardiovascular disease. So Carolyn, compared to men developing type two diabetes mellitus, women with type two diabetes mellitus do not have a significantly higher relative increase in cardiovascular risk, but, ongoing sex disparities in prescribing should prompt heightened efforts to improve the standard and equity of diabetes care in women as compared to men. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Nice Greg. Important message. My next one has an important message too. Now it goes to the pediatric population now. We know that brain injury, impaired brain growth, and long term neuro development problems are common in children with transposition of the great arteries. Now does the age at arterial switch operation predict these neuro developmental outcomes in infants with transposition of the great arteries or TGA?                                                 Well Doctor Mike Seed from Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada and colleges addressed this question by imaging the brains of 45 infants with TGA, undergoing surgical repair, pre and post operatively using MRI. Their main finding was that surgery beyond two weeks of age is associated with impaired brain growth and slower language development in infants with TGA. Dr Gregory Hundley:       Wow Carolyn, this seems like, this could have really important clinical implications for the management of these patients. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Yeah, indeed. Expediting surgical repair could be neuro protective in newborns with Transposition. While the mechanisms underline this association are still unclear, extended periods of cyanosis and pulmonary over circulation maybe factors that inversely impact brain growth and subsequent neurodevelopment if the surgery's not done early. The timing of surgery may have an impact on neurodevelopment in other forms of congenital heart disease, too, therefore. So all of this is discussed in an editorial entitled Correction of TGA, "Sooner Rather than Later?", and this is by Doctors Rollins and Newburger, from Boston's Children's Hospital. Dr Gregory Hundley:       Fantastic Carolyn, well I'm going to discuss a paper from the World of Basic Science from the Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center from Doctor Douglas Lewandowski. And it involves the preservation of Acyl-CoA and how that attenuates pathological and metabolic cardiac remodeling through selective lipid trafficking. So Carolyn, it has been shown that metabolic remodeling in heart failure contributes to dysfunctional lipid trafficking, and lipotoxicity. Acyl-Coenzyme A Synthase One, or ACLACSL1 facilitates long chain fatty acid uptake an activation with coenzyme A, mediating the fate of the long chain fatty acids. The authors tested wither cardiac Acyl coenzymes A synthase One over-expression aided long chain fatty acid oxidation and reduced lipotoxicity under the pathologic stress of transverse aortic constriction or TAC. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Interesting, I like that concept of metabolic remodeling. So what did they find? Dr Gregory Hundley:       So Carolyn, the studies were performed in both mice and in human subjects, and in mice at 14 weeks, TAC induced cardiac hypertrophy and disfunction was mitigated in MHCACSL1 hearts compared to nontransgenic hearts. This was manifest by retain greater rejection fraction, 65.8 percent versus the nontransgenic hearts of 45.9 percent. An improvement in diastolic E over E prime. Also, functional improvements were mediated by ACSL1 changes to cardiac long chain fatty acid trafficking. In humans, long chain Acyl-CoA was reduced in human failing myocardium and restored to control levels by mechanical unloading.                                                 So, Carolyn, this is the first demonstration on reduced Acyl-Co-A in failing hearts of humans and mice, and suggest possible mechanisms for maintaining mitochondrial oxidative energy metabolism by restoring long chain Acyl-CoA through ASCL1 activation and mechanical unloading. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Awesome Greg! Thanks so much for sharing that paper. Let's go on to our feature discussion. Dr Gregory Hundley:       You bet. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Our feature discussion today is about transcatheter aortic-valve replacement. Could this be the new gold standard for the treatment of aortic stenosis? And yes, I am borrowing from the title of the editorial that accompanies our feature paper. With the editorialists right here with us, Dr Bernard Prendergast, from Saint Thomas' Hospital in London, and we are talking about the wonderful paper for the notion trial and that's a Nordic aortic valve intervention randomized clinical trial, and we're here with the first and corresponding author of that paper Dr Hans Gustav Thyregod from Copenhagen University Hospital, and we also have our associate editor Dr Dharam Kumbhani from UT Southwestern. So welcome gentlemen! And for a start could I ask Hans to please describe the results of the notion trial. Dr Hans Thyregod:           The notion trial as you said is the Nordic aortic valve intervention trial. Designed to compare transcatheter therapy and surgical therapy and patients with severe aortic valve stenosis, patients have to be thirteen years old or older and we didn't really specify any risk profile, as in previous trials. So all patients eligible for both procedures would be enrolled in the trial. And the main result of the trial was that we couldn't find a difference when looking at the composite outcome, which was all-cause mortality, stroke American infraction.                                                 The primary outcome was after one year, in this paper it's up to five years and we could not see any difference. So the range was, in my estimate was 38 percent for transcatheter therapy versus 36.3 percent for surgery. And when looking at the different components of this composite outcome, all-cause mortality, stroke American infraction. We couldn't find any surgically significant difference for any of those outcomes either. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Wow, Bernard, could I ask you to place these results into context for us, I mean the notion trial is after all the first to compare TAVR and SAVR in patients with severe isolated valve stenosis at lower surgical risk, and really has the longest follow-up doesn't it? So please tell us, what are your thoughts? Dr Bernard Prendergast:               So this is yet another notch the remarkable success story of TAVI or TAVR, as you call it in the U.S. We pass our congratulations from the community to Dr Thyregod and the team in Copenhagen for such a ground-breaking study. The wider context is he say is the TAVR have demonstrated remarkable efficacy and safety, initially in operable and high-risk patients, but, more recently randomized control trials in intermediates and lower risk patients. And the important perspective of this study provides is the longer term follow up, because for a number of years we've perhaps considered TAVI or TAVR as a, let’s say a shorter-term treatment for patients in their eighty's and older, who perhaps have a shorter life expectancy. But what the five-year data demonstrates to us is that TAVI or TAVR is as good as surgery, at five years of follow up. With very reassuring outcomes, they maintain durability of the transcatheter heart valve, that's highlighted in the companion paper, which, is published very recently in JACC.                                                                 So really takes TAVI into a new territory, which is patients who have at least five years or longer to live and allows us to extend the indication for the procedure into younger patients. Alongside lower risk patients, who have supported by the recent landmark studies published in the New England Journal from Partner Three, and the Core Valve Low Risk trial. So, the information is very reassuring and it's another very positive notch in the journey of TAVI across the spectrum of surgical risk. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Thank you! Beautifully put and Dharam could I just ask you I mean what more do we need? Do you think this is guideline defining stuff now? Or do you have questions? Dr Dharam Kumbhani:   I really want to congratulate the investigators of the NOTION trial, as far as providing us with this longer term follow up in a lower risk population, and so, you know the field is moving incredibly, incredibly quickly and you know as we just mentioned TAVR has now gone from being something that's done in patients that are too high risk to level convention surgery, to now perhaps becoming either one of the main stream options, or the main stream option. And you know time will tell, so I think what this study really helps us is, provide us with a five-year time horizon on follow up, but, to be fair, you know this trial is very helpful in certain ways because it was designed a few years ago. You know it was done with the generation of a valve that is not used much right now for the most part, and you know so it's some of the things like pacemaker et cetera, may not translate to current practice.                                                 Even though the clinical outcomes were similar, it's probably some issues with power as well, but, again not in a clinical way, but, just to kind of say that this trial definitely helps us in moving the field forward and it kind of adds to the growing body of literature that supports that. Going forward I guess one question I would have for this group is, you know as we think about TAVR and surgical aortic replacement, it would seem that we would need even longer term data, based off of detonators to be able to confidently tell patients, there are fairly similar therapies.                                                 And then the other question is, this construct of surgical risk is that we applied telegraphically based on how the evolution of TAVR has occurred, but one wonder, you know with NOTION and other trials we should be thinking about this perhaps from an age perspective as a sort of NOTION trial—those would be my two comments. Dr Bernard Prendergast:               I think that's a very valuable comment, and of course there are other ongoing trials, which, will help to address many of these questions. One important deficit of notion is that it didn't enroll, for example, patients with bicuspid aortic valves. And we know that bicuspid aortic stenosis is far more common in younger patients. So, Hans a few comments regarding the protocol for notion two maybe helpful for our listeners. Dr Hans Thyregod:           Well this was mentioned, the follow up of five years is obviously not a very long time in younger patients with a lower risk profile. We are planning to follow these patients for at least 10 years. And the other comment about the risk profile of the risk certification of patients is also very interesting because the SDS and your scores have been developed for surgical patients and not for transcatheter patients. So we need a whole new transcatheter risk scoring system to help our team determining what treatment would be the best suited for each patient.                                                 And as Dr Prendergast mentioned we are in Copenhagen, and Scandinavia conducting a NOTION II trial, which, will enroll patients younger than the previous low risk trials and also the notion trial. Which, at a mean age, at least for the patient of around 80 years and in notion two patients must be younger than 75 years old. And we are also including patients with bicuspid valve stenosis, and also patients which were not included in the NOTION I trial. Patients with a coronary artery disease, so these patients are obviously also a different patient category and will maybe require a different approach regarding the timing of the revascularization and so forth so there is more research to be done in those areas. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Well exciting. Thank you for sharing that Hans. Dharam could I ask you to just wrap us up with the take home message, it's for our audience right now. Dr Dharam Kumbhani:   For me one of the most interesting findings was that in five years, the clinical performance between TAVR and SAVR were similar, but, more importantly the valve performance, the hemodynamic performance was the same, and perhaps slightly better with the self-expanding design. They are so proud of the self-expanding design that was studied in the study. So that is helpful because as we discussed earlier, I think a lot of the controversy discussions centers around the long-term durability of TAVR compared with surgically aortic valve replacement, so that is a step in the right direction. The same investigators have published that hemodynamic performance elsewhere as well, sot that's I think the number one take home message that, that's very, very reassuring. The second thing is you know this study shows us it adds to the growing body of literature, in lower risk patients so all of this was not strictly a lower risk trial based on contemporary definition.                                                 It was definitely a lower risk population and so, this is the largest pool of patients where they aortic stenosis about 50 percent will have low risk aortic stenosis, low surgical risk aortic stenosis and so this is very helpful in that space and then third you know that this is very exciting that NOTION investigators indeed are the low risk trial investigators, will be extending their follow up with 10 years. So I think in this next decade, most people expect as Dr Prendergast also mentioned, we'll see a gradual change perhaps in how patients with aortic stenosis manage. But, I will add a word of caution, I think in the current era, the way things stand right now, it's probably best in favor to appeal to what the guideline indicates. And for the low risk patients, surgical aorta valve replacement is still the center of choice. Dr Carolyn Lam:                Thank you so much Dharam and thank you Hans for the beautiful paper, and Bernard for that excellent editorial!                                                 Thank you audience for joining us today, you've been listening to Circulation on the Run. Don't forget to tune in again next week.                                                 This program is copyright American Heart Association 2019.  

I'm very pumped for PART 2 of ‘How to Rate Your MLM Business’.   Like I said in the last episode, this is not about rating the MLM that you work for. We are talking about rating your current position inside of that.   Are you treating it like an actual business or is it like a hobby?   This will help you know, not only where you are, but what to do next. *This* episode we'll teach you the latter.   What do you do next? Now that you are able to go in and treat this as a company? Like an actual business, like an asset.   If you did not see the last episode, DO NOT start with this one.   Go to the episode just before this one. Go watch PART 1 because this is part two, and it builds off of what you saw during the last one.   AND… If you guys want more help on building real systems in your MLM business, go get the program secretmlmhacks.com.   WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT?   Having an SLO means that I gained control back over the:   Lead Convert Deliver Upsell   I gained control back on this side of the ranking.   I lose control over at least half of the stuff on the MLM position side.   I can't…   Convert people in certain ways Say certain phrases Income claims Health claims   ...All of the stuff.   I wouldn't say it anyways... BUT there's so much red tape because the government's sooo involved.   I've got to be way more careful and far more watered down.   What I CAN do is control the pre-frame that they see my MLM with by the stuff that comes through on the SLO side.   My challenge to you is to go in and rank YOU. How well do you...   Attract leads? Convert the leads once you have them? Deliver on what you sold? (Just improving that alone will increase your sales because your testimonials increase once you deliver better.) Upsell them?   Second money's always easier than the first money.   How well do you do those things?   #1 Figure that out.   #2 Circle the one that SUCKS the most   #3 Use Secret MLM Hacks to figure out what it is that you're doing.   If you're new here and you’ve never seen what a funnel is, do it in the order that the modules that are presented. That's going to help you understand WHAT a funnel is.   It will help you get that first thing off the ground.   YOU HAVE AN SLO… WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT?   After you've gone through it and after you have an SLO (self-liquidating offer) up… After you've started creating systems around these things, start ranking them.   I already have a business built. So much focus is on the building… But what about post build?   Q: What do you do next?   A: *THIS*   How well are my systems inside the business?   I rank according to those things (lead, convert, deliver, upsell). That is what guides my decision making.   Which is ultimately why I start thinking about how could I go and create an upsell.   I'm going to list out a bunch of ways I could make an upsell… Things that are possibilities.   I'll choose some of them. That literally becomes my TO-DO list for the next month. That's what guides me in this. That way it's a market-driven business.   I'm listening. I have my ear to the ground.   You make money on your strengths. But I'm talking about ranking your systems and fixing the weaknesses.   If you don't have systems, it's extremely weak. That's what makes people feel like, “Oh I'm so lost. I don't know what to go do.”   If you’re liking this, I appreciate it like crazy. You can go to SMHReview.com (Secret MLM Hacks Review) and leave an honest review.   If you're like, “That sucked”, tell me! But if you think this is awesome, tell me that also!   If you’re having a hard time thinking that you can be duplicatable… It’s because you aren't.   Your systems are.   The reason I'm so duplicatable is that I give a lot of these guys the same things that I brought them in with.   A SYSTEM is duplicatable.   I am very unduplicatable.   THERE’S ONLY ONE ME!   I'm not trying to duplicate people. I am trying to duplicate business systems.   YOUR MLM BUSINESS EXPERTISE   People ask me, “Do I teach my downline how to do funnels if they're used to belly to belly?”   My SLOs have to do with funnels because it's my expertise.   If you are an expert on protein shakes, build a self-liquidating offer around what you're good at.   It's the reason why you can create a unique recruiting offer. It's unique.   What are you amazing at?   I am not a scientist on the supplement that my MLM sells. I'm not. I don't understand much about it. What I know is I...   Take it and it's good for me Make money when I promote it   … That's pretty much the only science I understand about what I actually sell.   Selling has NOTHING to do with how well I know the product.   There are people in my downline and their expertise lies heavily in what we’re selling.   They're like scientists. They're so smart. It's ridiculous.   They're like, “Should I go create something around funnels?”   I'm like, "No, because that's my thing. I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels."   I'm not saying it's competing. They can do to it if they want… But you can be unique.   What are you good at? Build an offer around that.   Build your SLO around what YOU’RE good at and similar people will be attracted to you.   THE SAME MLM BUSINESS…   One of the biggest things people ask is, "Stephen that means that eventually, everyone in my downline will be selling the same thing I am."   No, they won't, because they go through the same process that I'm teaching them.   If someone's like, "I'm super good at copywriting."   I'm like, "Sweet, I'm not." Go get copyformlms.com and make that your $57 thing.   That's what brings people in, liquidates ad costs, build systems around it, then pitch them in your MLM.   There's room for all. You don't have to be a funnel freak in order to be good at this.   It's just understanding the general concepts and principles of offer creation. Making it unique to you, and understanding that what you control and don't inside of an MLM.   You can do this on your own. This is the map and one of the ways that I look from a 30,000-foot view to figure out where the weaknesses are in what I've built.   I sell with my strengths. But in order to remove me from the business, I need to fix systems that are weak.   If you’re getting leads but not converting them… Then that's the question you lead with.   Questions invite revelation.   So now the question that you ask yourself is, “How do I convert my leads better?”   That takes getting to know the leads better. How are they coming in? What pre-frame are they becoming a lead under? What is it that other successful sellers are doing?   RATE YOUR BUSINESS   Start asking those questions and digging and finding, “Oh, that's what they're all doing”. And you just build something that's automated around that.   The onboarding training that I give my team walks them through their first 30 days in my downline.   Most of my leads for my downline come from my podcast, which is another reason I tell you to FREAKIN’ PUBLISH!   It's so funny how much authority comes from publishing. They'll just be listening to you.   Let’s say you’re struggling to come up with SLOs for your MLMs children's books...   What if you created a product around how to teach kids to read? Something that's associated and complimentary, NOT competitive to what you're going to sell.   You might have a great team but what if there’s a major problem is lead generation? What kind of SLO could you create?   I'm going to go drop an episode and training on SLO ideas. What you're looking for is a problem.   What are the problems people struggle with, in your MLM, after they buy the product or join the opportunity?   Solve those problems.   It's super easy to have a lot of people come to you because most people in MLM don't think about it that way.   You're just adding more value.   Q: How would you promote your funnels if you're just starting out with no proof of personal success yet?   A: Success is not based on testimonials, but testimonials help.   You can launch something without testimonials. But I would build a system to capture testimonials as you go.   Every funnel I launch, I build in a sense of vira-bility (how easily will it go viral on its own?)   MLM BUSINESS RESOURCES   If you guys go to bestmarketingresources.com, you can see some of the resources that I use.   Go look at the video about UpViral. That's one of the ways that I increase my spreadability.   I believe I have a video on there about proof. That's one of the ways I increase my conversion rates by 10 - 20% every single time and it works super well.   I am NOT the business. I am NOT the funnel.   What I am good at is systems. I build systems.   You just have to know which ones to build. And this is one of the ways that I go do that.   Someone said to me, “Steve, my MLM offers only subscription purchases, which makes the lead generation more difficult.”   No, it doesn't. That is in your head. Just going to call that out right there.   “New buyers can only subscribe for at least six months. They cannot buy only one product as samples.”   Yes, but they can buy your own product in front and then get six months of your thing for FREE.   Russell just launched a book about network marketing and different funnel types.   I'm going to go create is what's called a Bridge Page. Because I'm going to make my own offer around it when you buy through my link.   MLM BUSINESS AND AFFILIATE MARKETING   The affiliate marketing model is the EXACT SAME model as the MLM model.   There's no difference. I don't how many times I can say that in this.   Look at how affiliate marketers sell their stuff. They don't own the cart. How are they getting so many sales?   They have to tell somebody to buy on someone else's page. How do they get so many sales?   I built a bridge page funnel. That’s what I did.   I don't own the cart, I have no power over it, I can't change anything on it. It's something that ClickFunnels is promoting.   For the One Funnel Away Challenge, all I did is create a page in front with a video that said, "Hey, on the next page you're going to be pitched by Russell to do this challenge. It's a 30-day challenge to help you get a funnel out the door. What it's going to help you with is X, Y, and Z.”   “But in order to add more value, here are some things that you might need to get your success, faster and help with what you do after you've done these 30 days. I've come up with some of my own products, my own ideas and I decided not to sell it, but I could have."   "You're going to get all this stuff PLUS all the things that Russell's giving you if you buy through my link. I usually sell each of these for a couple of hundred bucks, and what he's going to sell you is only a hundred dollars.”   “Here's how you get it. Click below and it's going to take you to my affiliate link, buy it through my link and once a month I release all of those bonuses to the those who bought through my link."   BRIDGE PAGE - WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT?   It asks for their email, because I'm a marketer, and it puts them on a list.   Now I can create an email sequence. Each email will highlight one of those products or bonuses that I'm giving away on top of the thing that I don't control.   That's why you CAN sell a subscription based thing and not own any of the carts.   I'm going to figure out all those followup problems and solve something for it ahead of time. Then I can say, “Here is one of the issues I found people need help with afterwards” and it makes it really easy.   This is one of the easiest ways to sell a product.   Create a bridge page. It's a single page. The one I did for ClickFunnels has already made $110,000 in the last six months.   I actually made it in three hours in a hotel room while I was on a trip. Just keep this simple. Keep it real simple.   All you're doing is you're creating a lead system, you're converting them, you're figuring out ways to deliver it better, and you're upselling them throughout.   This works if you’re selling...   A product Your own product The opportunity   One of the easiest ones to do for a subscription based thing is say, "Hey, when you buy this, you're going to get six months of the product for free."   You give that in addition to that main thing and you out value everybody else.   THE EASIEST WAY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO NEXT   Q: Is it easier for me to go convert somebody who says, "Stephen, I'm interested in your MLM, but what about X, Y, Z? This, this and that. Help me, help me, help me"   I'm not trying to be rude… But I'm not building a life coaching business.   I'm building a business around the product that I sell. If you don't like those you're recruiting, that's why.   You're not being picky enough. Don't recruit them just because they have a heartbeat.   It’s easier for me to widen the pot and find people with a smaller amount of education needed.   The belief bridge they have to cross is much smaller.   Go to bestmarketingresources.com. I put a lot of resources that I use on there because a lot of people ask me, “What are you using?”   You don't have to use ALL those. They just accelerate you. Some people are like, "You need more than ClickFunnels?"   Maybe you don't NEED it, but I want to accelerate.   I WANT YOU TO RATE YOUR BUSINESS   So…. To recap…   #1 I'm going to rank my business both in terms of my position, and how I'm treating it and the MLM opportunity. How well do I...   Get leads from my MLM opportunity? Convert leads to my MLM opportunity? Deliver for my MLM opportunity? Upsell?   How well do I...   Get leads for the product? Convert the product? Deliver the product? Upselling them?   Those are the MAJOR functions every business has. Rank yourself on that.   Do the same for your self liquidating offer. You could get really specific on this and put the actual name of the product that you're selling.   Then do it for the next product and then do for the next product and rank it and rank it and rank it and rank it.   That gives you a very clear map of what it is that you should be doing.   You're NOT the business, you're NOT the funnel.   You build something that actually is automatable and duplicatable.   What do you hand off to people when they join you? You're systems, not you.   I'm not willing to babysit my downline, I made that declaration a long time ago.   I will be there and I will create really valuable stuff but I'm not there to make them successful.   That's their decision. I am not the builder of their business. I'll give them tools so they can do it on their own.   JOIN SECRET MLM HACKS   I know it's tough to find people to pitch after your warm market dries up, right?   That moment when you finally run out of family and friends to pitch. I don't see many up lines teaching legitimate lead strategies today.   After years of being a lead funnel builder online, I got sick of the garbage strategies most MLMs have been teaching their recruits for decades.   Whether you simply want more leads to pitch or an automated MLM funnel, head over to secretmlmhacks.com and join the next FREE training.   There you're gonna learn the hidden revenue model that only the top MLMers have been using to get paid regardless if you join them.   Learn the 3-step system I use to auto recruit my downline of big producers WITHOUT friends or family even knowing that I'm in MLM.   If you want to do the same for yourself, head over to secretmlmhacks.com.   Again that’s secretmlmhacks.com.  

Oh I'm Sorry, I Love Myself by The Drunken Knights

18:04 - Drew But I don't remember ever thinking to myself that I wanted to kill myself, but something in my head was saying you can't continue to keep doing this. So something has to be different. So I think the manifestation of that was something that was pretty scary that evening.   INTRO   In this episode, I talk with Drew Kincius about stress, money, anxiety, and the frightening night when it all became too much.  We will get into the details of what brought Drew to that point of overwhelm, but first, a little bit of background.  One of my first meetings with Drew was at a co-working space here in Indianapolis where he is the emcee of an event called One Million Cups, which is a monthly meetup that exists to support entrepreneurs.  Drew led the event with a disarming vulnerability.  In a one-on-one interaction, he is an active and engaged listener, you can see it in the way he listens intently, brows furrowed 42:32 - Drew Kincius I just, I like to get to know people, figure out what, what they're, what makes them tick and what really motivates them and then figure out a way that I can help to, help them grow and help them do what they love and grow their passions.   In addition to One Million Cups, Drew and his wife, Colleen, are passionate about contributing to their community through casues like Veg-Fest.  Drew works for a company called BeLithe 05:09 - Drew Kincius Yeah. So, I am the creative director at BeLithe and we are an organization that is, I like to describe us as, we're transforming individuals and companies through agile methodology.   He is the parent of pets with special needs 04:32 - Drew Kincius Yeah we have a dog named Ethel, who's recently gone blind but she's super great. And then we also have two cats:  Biz and Heidi, who is missing one of her back legs and then Biz has really really strong anxiety.   And he has a range of interests outside of work 06:44 - Drew Kincius I'm an avid runner. I run four to five miles every morning. It's almost like meditation for me, it just allows my thoughts to go wherever and then get centered again before I'm done. I also drum. So for the sake of all those lovely animals and my lovely wife, I've bought all these kind of fun mash drum heads and quiet cymbals I can still play and not annoy everyone. But I always say I'm not a bad drummer: it could be worse.   Drew has a great capacity to care for people and causes, and he gives a lot of himself to his work, and this capacity and passion eventually became a problem for Drew.  While living in Bloomington, Drew began to take on more and more responsibilities at his workplace.  He oversaw the new construction of space at the winery, which was exciting.  Then, upon opening, Drew was the general manager AND he ran the kitchen. There was a lot of pressure and no work-life balance. 09:15 - Drew Kincius Once again, a great experience but just a lot of pressure and there was no such thing as work life balance. I mean that's kind of what I was doing and that's it. So I think that really started a trend for me of I appreciate that I care about things. I appreciate that I put my heart into what I care about, but not being able to hit pause occasionally and see what else is going on in the world and just being so hyper focused on something that it just wears me out pretty, very quickly. So once again, that starting there was, it was, it was great. In terms of, I guess, I don't know when I say becoming an adult or whatever phrase you want to use there, but I got used to the idea that that's just what you did:  that you worked 10, 12, 14 hours a day, right, consistently.   Compounding this stress was the pressure of the hospitality industry in general   30:59 - Drew Kincius You have to be on. You have to be consistently performing. If you're a server or your bartender and you have an off night that directly affects your pay. If you're not feeling particularly social that one evening, that is a tremendous amount of stress even if you're the most extroverted person on the planet, that's stressful because we can't all be. Go go go go go. All at the same time.   After ten years in Bloomington, he decided to come back to Indianapolis. Drew moved in with his parents and began to work in alcohol production, learning how to make wines and beers.  He took a second job as well.    12:10 - Drew Kincius I was working two jobs that did not pay very well, working 60 65 hours a week not really having a any sort of plan or path to be able to eventually leave my parents. So that was a frustrating way to start. I guess a frustrating way to be introduced to Indianapolis.   It was a frustrating way to begin, but Drew soon moved to manage coworking space, his first 8-5 Monday through Friday job.  Yet, similar to his experience in Bloomington, Drew began taking on more responsibilities, creating new roles and expectations for himself.    13:27 - Drew Kincius And then, just like how the winery. There was a certain role and then something I added onto it. The coworking space added an additional space to it. So, there were two now that I was running instead of one. And I took it upon myself, back to the altruistic side of myself, to say OK well, not only am I going to run this space as a general manager and just make sure that the rooms are booked and that the Wi-Fi is working, but I'm going to be the director of community outreach or, I gave myself some some fancy title that barely fit on a business card.   There was a particular stress to working as a manager of a coworking space 22:11 - Drew Kincius The job that people that run coworking facilities have is very stressful because people don't realize this, but you're working for your company, you know you're, you're helping your clients and your customers but you're actually working in the exact same space they work too. So imagine pouring drinks for someone and then, like, grabbing a beer with them at the same time. It would just be a really weird dynamic. It's hard to tell people, hey I have to work on something even though you're my customer. It's a strange dynamic there.     This stress was mounting, both the stress of a full schedule and also stress around money issues.  And that stress began to take its toll physically. 15:03 - Drew Kincius So I, a couple of times actually in 2017, I had gotten, I had gone to the hospital because I had felt like something was going on with my heart and I'd had a couple of weird episodes in a couple. I don't know maybe one 5 years ago and one two/three years ago. I would just wake up and feel like somebody was sitting on my chest and some people, some people I've talked to have suggested maybe it was anxiety. Some people have said acid reflux and some people said all emotional or it was purely physical. But I think it was a little combination of both.   Musical transition 16:01 - Drew Kincius I just remember, I had come home one day and I don't think my day was particularly stressful. I just remember the culmination of not feeling like I was able to make the kind of impact that I was making that I wanted to make.    The role that I had I was just really really frustrated and, and I took that frustration out on my significant other in a verbal argument sort of way. And then, I just remember, and it's a little it's foggy that night, but I but I distinctly remember just not having control over myself anymore and not in this, like ,I want to break everything but almost this there's so much going on in my head that I can't, like my brain can't handle what's going on internally. And so it's almost like something shut off, just as a survival tactic.    And so I just remember walking outside. We live right off a College Avenue, which is obviously a pretty busy street. And I just mean, we're walking outside going into the grass and just like laying down and then I remembered that I just got so frustrated at myself that I actually went and I started actually walk towards the street without the intention of stopping and just hanging out in traffic and seeing what was happening.   17:43 - Drew Kincius And I just hesitate. Suicide is a very real and a very, it's, it's something to not be taken lightly and it's, it's a, it's finality that doesn't ever go away. But I don't remember ever thinking to myself that I wanted to kill myself, but something in my head was saying you can't continue to keep doing this. So something has to be different. So I think the manifestation of that was something that was pretty scary that evening.   18:22 - Drew Kincius Luckily my wife I mean she, she saw what was going on. And she she's not very big. But when endorphins kick in, and it wasn't like I was really fighting her, but she just kind of pulled me aside and then we walked back towards the house and then I just sat there in the grass and I don't think I ever felt as empty as I did sitting in the grass. I was completely disconnected with what was going on around me. I mean, I still remember my shirt being stretched out on one side from her having to like tug me away from. I didn't run into the street and I wasn't yelling or making a fuss. I just, it was it was like I was a zombie going towards, going towards the street.   [00:19:17.690] - Drew Kincius So that the next morning, I emailed my, I just knew I wasn't in the mental state to to go into work, so I e-mailed my employer and as I mentioned this earlier to you, but I was very clear with them and I said:  I I don't know if I'd call it a breakdown or whatever it was but I did not. I had a bad night, so I won't be coming in. And I was very open about that and they were very, their response was really great as well.   19:48 - Drew Kincius  And they said don't worry about it. Like, come in when you come in.   Musical transition   23:20 - Drew Kincius And I did talk to some of the coworking members that were my friends and share that I was struggling but it was hard to explain that exact evening with people because it wasn't, that moment was there and gone. That's not what I cared about anymore. It was all the stuff around it that it caused that moment which is still real.   Musical transition   24:11 - Liesel Mertes When you had a moment like that, is there something that enters into your process where you wonder is this going to happen again? Like does that, did that kind of creep on the shadows of wondering like, oh is this going to be tonight or tomorrow that you were also having to deal with in real time?   24:34 - Drew Kincius Yeah, and I mean leading up to that, then there were moments when I would just sit in bed like lay in bed and just be really really sad. And that happened a lot after that too. And because I was in a very public facing role, I didn't feel comfortable with, I would shut down when I got home. Which is really unfair to my family. But I could be open and vulnerable with them. And so, at a certain point I decided that I need to be open and vulnerable with everyone else and not just fall apart when I get home. Because, once again, that's not fair to the people that I care about to say, oh I'm on during the day, and then forever, you know when I get home, then I just, I'm trash. I just shut down.   As Drew moved towards becoming healthy, he began to see a counselor.  26:02 - Drew Kincius I hadn't really been to a counselor in three or four years, so that was a moment where I said, oh yeah. Just like with your physical health, maybe your mental health should be something that you proactively consider instead of just being reactive if you're having a massive heart attack and you're being reactive. There's probably habits that have led to that and that's, that's what it felt like, not to create some silly phrase, but it was, it was, it was like I had some sort of attack right but it was more about my soul and it was more about my emotions and it was like physically something locking up. So from there on, I was just a lot more open. But with with friends. Especially with my wife, I had had this martyrdom complex of being the provider and being the person who needed to right the ship and make sure that everything was doing what I needed to do.   This openness and vulnerability is especially important to Drew 32:48 - Drew Kincius it just made me realize that a lot of people that I see is very strong individuals who seem to have everything that they want and have things tidy it up, you don't know what's going on internally and you don't know what they're struggling with because they're struggling with something whether or not they admit it.   As he moved towards healing, Drew also took proactive steps within his life structuring 27:02 - Drew Kincius But I just started to say no to things. I started to take stock of the things. I was in a band and I started to dread going to rehearsal. So why am I doing that? There are organizations that I was a part of that I enjoyed being a part of these organizations but I didn't really put the time into it that they needed to to create the impact I wanted. So, just respecting dead space and respecting just not having so much utility in my life was one of the big aspects   Drew also changed the way that he talked to people 29:06 - Drew Kincius I know I've mentioned this to you before, but if you walk up to somebody and say, How are you? They're going to say, "Oh, I'm fine" or, "Oh I'm great." But, but they're not universally sad or happy or whatever the phrase is. And so, when you ask a question like that of a question you're going to get a vague answer. And so, that's really helped me to say things like, when a man is, somebody, what's the best thing that's happened today? Or, if I know someone is struggling with something, just ask a question like, how are things, not how are things, but, but hey I heard about a loss in your family or or just just saying, I'm here for you if you need me. But not setting that, not setting an expectation of saying I have to help you. And if you don't call on me I'm gonna be upset.   Musical transition 33:39 - Liesel Mertes As you think about that version of you from a couple of years ago, sitting in that driveway, what would you speak to yourself or someone in a situation like that, either at that sort of an apex feeling moment or leading up to it?   34:05 - Drew Kincius The idea that, although you are one of what, seven and a half billion people on the planet, your impact, if you quantify it, may seem small but it's still very very important.   4:21 - Drew Kincius And I was looking at myself in that vantage point as one, not, you know, I'm thirty one, thirty, thirty one, would have my injuries and there's all this stuff I haven't done, I was thinking very glass half empty. I should have really been thinking about all the things I had, how appreciative I should have been. And just to ask for help, you know the person that I was closest with, my wife I did not feel comfortable with asking her for help or being very open with her about a lot of this.   34:57 - Drew Kincius And so me just having this giant break down in front of her, she knew that I was struggling already, it wasn't a secret but that opened up the door for me to just say, I'm still, I'm, if I'm struggling with something and ask for help, there's absolutely no shame in having to do that. And the yeah, Drew from two years ago was pretty excited about himself. I like me as a person still, but I'm a lot more excited about who I'm empowering in and the actions I'm taking to help make the world a better place, which is a very pie in the sky thing to say, but I'm not interested in me and how I can boost my standing. I'm interested in helping other people figure out what their calling is and how they can make an impact and be at peace with who they are and thrive.   36:05 - Liesel Mertes Thank you for that. And if you could offer any words to someone like Colleen in that setting to say, to someone who says, I I care about someone who I think is going through something similar, whether it's my co-worker or my significant other or my son, what words you offer to that person?   36:34 - Drew Kincius Call for backup. And she did that. I mean, there was a point when I came home from work and my parents and my sister were randomly at my house because Colleen had talked to them and said sometimes, something, something's going on here, something's not right. And the biggest takeaway from that is is they, they came over and said, we are here to help but we're not going to tell you what you have to do. But you need to understand that, that you that this has to happen sooner than later. Because I have so I had so many distractions in my life. And I think that's why I stayed so busy, because in the dead space is when you really started to think about what's going on. And if there's things that bother you, they started to creep up to the surface. But if you're just only thinking about tasks and you're only trying to get things done, you can   37:29 - Liesel Mertes Then you're just in execution.   [00:37:30.930] - Drew Kincius That's right. Push that kind of stuff side. And so, so when I say ask for backup, I mean you never know if somebody doesn't feel comfortable with talking to you about what some their issues are. To have other people reach out. And it can be something as simple as just a quick phone call and just saying, hey what's up. And not starting it with, hey I've heard specifically that in this exact instance you are struggling right now. That's a lot to throw on someone. They get defensive. But if you just call and say, hey what's going on? And if you, if you mentioned something that you're struggling with, something it's not going super wrong in your life. The likeliness of somebody else opening up about that same thing is gonna be a lot stronger because they there's empathy there.   38:22 - Liesel Mertes You know what I hear in that was there was an important, importance of people reaching out relationally,. not telling you a certain thing you had to do and meeting you with their own vulnerability. Does that seem to kind of capture the people that met you well? Some of the things that they were doing?   38:41 - Drew Kincius Addiction works in that similar way where, if you tell someone they have to do something, they will never take ownership in the process of trying to remove that addiction from their lives. So by saying this needs to happen but, but allowing me to figure out what that next step is, it allows me to take ownership in that process.   39:06 - Drew Kincius And so patience is very important too, because I'm sure if my family had a choice or if my wife had a choice, in that moment, they would have just physically taken me and put me in a car and just went to someone to talk out my feelings. But once again, they'd be them mandating that for me and I would always say, well you made me do this and you made me do that. Which is, I'm not saying that's the right thing for me to do, but most human beings, although it comes from a good place, they treat that as as as aggressive or some sort of attack or something like that.   39:40 - Liesel Mertes You know, whether you're 4 or 45, you don't really want to be told what to do.   39:44 - Drew Kincius Right. When I was a kid, my mom would say, you need to take a nap. And I'm like, I'm fine, I don't need to take a nap, I don’t know what you're talking about. And I'd be crying, clearly exhausted, and then I would take a nap and wake up and it was unicorns and butterflies and everything.    Musical transition   41:25 - Drew Kincius You know we're all struggling with something. We're all, we have very, very, busy lives. The world expects a lot out of us, but people are still people. And you'll be pleasantly surprised that if you actually talk to humans as humans not only what you'll get out of it but for those people who are in a high stress situation, like that dealing with people all the time, you might be making their day or you might be helping them get through their day because you care about the...more than once, again, just over an output of what you need   Musical Transition   A few reflections on Drew’s story, both for those that are struggling with feeling that it is all too much and for the coworkers, friends, and family that surround them.  Reach out relationally. If you see someone struggling, give them a call, grab a meal. And here are some helpful pointers for the interaction.  Don’t just ask a vague, “How are your doing?” question; you will get a vague answer. And, as Drew said, maybe don’t start out the interaction with making it all about their problem.  Connect on a human level.  Perhaps ease into the conversation, maybe share a story of your own struggle or weakness, making a way for them to be vulnerable as well.  If you are a support person, whether at work or in a personal context, be patient and be an advocate for the affected individual.It is tempting to prescribe a path for healing, to try to force someone to follow your suggestion.  For Drew, it was important to feel ownership and agency as he choose his journey towards healing.  Beware of pushing too hard.  If you are feeling on the brink, like it is all just too much, I offer you Drew’s words of insight: if you are struggling with feeling hopeless and overwhelmed, there is no shame in asking for help.  Who are the safe people in your world that you can share with?  Beyond your social sphere, there are resources available. Many workplaces offer you access to heavily subsidized or free counseling through the Employee Assistance Program, or EAP.  You may have forgotten about your EAP, or the info is buried in your employee onboarding packet.  So, I encourage you to ask your HR representative about access.  These services are completely confidential and can be so very helpful.    Outro  

A cancer diagnosis is scary and totalizing. Hospital visits, financial stress, and lingering uncertainty affect the entire family unit. Brad Grammer shares about learning to cry, stupid stuff people say, and the importance of counseling. Along the way, lessons emerge on how to support families well as they grapple with cancer. 00:04- Opening quote by Brad Grammer Brad Grammer Spend more time just asking questions and listening just to find out what that person really would be encouraged and benefited by. Maybe they don't get encouraged at all by giving advice about how to deal with your cancer. They just want you to listen and have somebody to cry with, you know.   00:24- Intro I think he's been sick. She just seems sad all the time. I think something happened at home. What should we do?   You want to help someone when they're going through a hard time. But it can be difficult to know what to do or what to say. Hi, I'm Liesel Mertes and this is the Handle with Care podcast, where we talk about empathy at work.   On each episode. I welcome a guest that has lived through a disruptive life event. We cover topics from death to divorce to that scary diagnosis and in each story, we give you actionable tips on what you can do to show empathy and give support as a manager a co-worker or a friend.   Thanks.   01:18– Meet Brad Grammer Liesel Mertes Today's guest is Brad Grammer. Brad is an old friend of our family and he's been around at some really important moments. For example, when Moses, my youngest son, was preparing for his first open heart surgery, Brad was sitting in the waiting room with us. Also, as we prepared for Moses' open heart surgery, we had this event called Mohawks with Moses where we gave Mo a mohawk and there were a lot of young boys like 4 and 6 year olds that joined in. And Brad was one of the few adults that actually opted, in a show of solidarity, to get a mohawk as well.   Brad himself is no stranger to grief. And today he's speaking about his wife Laura and her journey with an aggressive form of leukemia. But first, before we dive into our conversation, let me offer a little bit of background. As I mentioned, Brad is married to Laura and he is the father of two grown sons. Brad and Laura love adventurous foods.   Brad Grammer Something told us about a Mexican restaurant that serves a big huge meat platter for like 30 bucks and you could easily feed a family of five or six just from that one plate.   Liesel Mertes They love travel and watching sports.   Brad Grammer And sometimes we just sit and relax and don't do anything watch sports. My wife's a big sports fan. So is she. Oh yes yes. For football's special teams local and national international. We're talking about soccer.   Liesel Mertes She's even watching cricket.   Brad Grammer Yeah exactly. Yes. Yes.   Liesel Mertes Brad also loves taking long evening walks. These evening walks are helpful to decompress because of Brad's role as a social worker, which can take a particular toll.   03:09- Life as a social worker Brad Grammer For the past two years, I've been a foster care case manager and my job is the foster children are my clients. So my job is to see them each week, engage with them, identify what are the kind of, understand that their backgrounds and what their traumas are. And we've had some training in things like fair play and trust based relational interventions so we like practice these playful activities and engagement with them to help them learn how to develop trust with an adult after they've gone through their own traumas their own betrayal.   03:45- A litany of hard things Liesel Mertes While Brad is going to be speaking primarily about his wife, Laura's, cancer diagnosis, her cancer is just one part of a decade of disruption.   Brad Grammer It probably began about 11 years ago with my wife getting was diagnosed with leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is a bad form of leukemia you get as an adult. And that set off a whole year of treatments. That was intense and very difficult. It's a very difficult cancer to fight and deal with and many people die not because of the leukemia itself but because of the treatment plan the treatment plan is so harsh and intense that it can damage so many things like different organs that all of a sudden give out.   And so there's that in and of itself is just kind of a crazy year of all kinds of things that happen. And that was followed by the death of both of my parents, the loss of relationship with my younger brother the loss of my job. Individuals who we had committed to be in a relationship for life, you know, working together on our lives together and experiencing betrayal with them and losing relationships with several people that I thought we were gonna be friends forever. And I lived in a very urban environment where lots of things happened.   So I'm experiencing regular traumas of, you know, just having an 18 year old shot and killed in front of my house and having my own friend, a pastor friend, shot and killed in his church...seeing his blood and his flesh all over the steps of his church and trying to help his church walk through the grieving process of that. Having people in my own congregation when I was a pastor, people that I loved, commit suicide or die from some other kind of some kind of addictive behavior or trauma in their life. So this is just an ongoing thing that happened for ten eleven years and things still happen to this day.   But it's just there doesn't seem to be as intense as during those 10-11 years where it just seemed like that it was one month to the next month to the next month. Something was happening every month that was just all these different tragedies and traumas and feeling completely unprepared initially facing these things. How do I deal with this? What, how do I survive? At that point, you're just talking survival you're not even talking about dealing with it well. You're just like, how do I even survive? How do I even know that I'm going to be able to get up the next day and still breathe going through all of this?   That was it was quite overwhelming. And and then kind of looking back on those years, be able to see how how do you not only survive it but then how do you process it in a way that that you're not just a dysfunctional adult, now you can't do anything and can't function at all because there is definitely period of time where I thought I wasn't gonna be able to function anymore as an adult and would I be able to keep a job, would I be able to stay in relationship with anybody? Because I just wasn't handling that trauma well and figuring out how to be come healthy and how to heal from those things was a very lengthy process.   07:11– The diagnosis of Laura’s cancer Liesel Mertes There's so many pieces of that story that I want to touch on. Let's...let's begin:  you commented on those early stages of trying to find any sort of equilibrium, the shock, the sense of that. Which brings us to where we began in 2007. What was your life stage with Laura and what did it look like in those first couple of months of reckoning with the news of this very aggressive cancer and how that was affecting your life roles and your position? Tell us a little bit of that.   Brad Grammer Yeah my wife at that time was working in a school; she was dean of the school she was working in and I was a pastor of a small Sunday evening congregation at that time and we had two young boys:  ten and eleven years old. And so here we are really liking our roles, enjoying our jobs and, and all of a sudden get slammed with this news. My wife had become very ill in October; we thought she was just having like flu symptoms and would go to the emergency room because she was just really in this intense pain. And then they kind of misdiagnosed her as maybe having rheumatoid arthritis and sent her home but after she went to her doctor about a week or two later and got blood tests, they found that she had leukemia.   08:33- Immediate hospitalization Brad Grammer I think part of the shock of that is you don't get any time to think about it. Within two hours of being told we were in the hospital, you started treatment in the hospital. They told her she'd be there for 30 days that she wouldn't be able to work for a year. And me being the person who runs the finances of the home, I'm thinking I'm gonna have to sell my house because she made two thirds of the income. And we kind of live we need her income to be able to survive.   So we're gonna have to sell the house. So for the first couple weeks I think she was in shock, just being jarred with this news and having to be thrown into treatment immediately because if she didn't receive treatment immediately she could die within a week or two. So it was like, it had to be quick. It had to start right away. And for me I'd have to go home and cry myself to sleep for a couple weeks. Fortunately I was somebody who already understood the value of having a therapist in your life, somebody that you can trust to go to and talk. And so I hadn't been to him in a while so I'm like well this is the time to go. So I went to him.   09:37- The importance of counseling Brad Grammer It's time to back on the couch exactly because I learned, as an adult, an adult skill and many adults haven't learned this. But when you hit an area or a season of time that you don't know what to do, you ask for help just like what we teach our kids. If you don't know how to do this one task, then ask the adult to help you. Well, that's what we do as adults. Ideally, we should be asking for help when we're hitting a difficult season of life. So that's what I did.   10:06- Be the hope Brad Grammer  I went to him and and he asked me why I was cried myself to sleep at night and I was thinking about her dying, my wife, and how my kids are going to be affected. And so he said, "Well do you want her to die?" "No!" I was offended that you asked that. Please clarify. "Well, you know Brad, she's alive today and you have her today so each day you can just take one day at a time and face the day and know that as long as she is alive, there is hope and you keep engaging and you never have to tell your boys about the possibility of dying even though she was getting a 20 percent chance to live."    We just don't share that information with them; it's too much for kids to handle. It's hard enough for me as an adult to handle that. So, I took his advice. It was invaluable advice just to, because I didn't realize, I think...I don't know if it's an American way of living, but I didn't realize how much I'm living in the future before it comes. I was thinking, planning, what's coming next. And that experience forced me to face the moment, live in the moment today. And that helped me to be the hope that my wife needed when she was overwhelmed and shocked by all this in this treatment because her body's being thrown into this chaos as well as just emotionally dealing with like, "Am I gonna live or die?"   In my response I'm not saying that I did it all well. You know, you make a lot of mistakes when you're going through it, especially because I, like most adults, are unprepared for when things like this happen. And so we're kind of learning as you go along. So I learned that it was important that I be the hope when she felt despairing and to always believe that she was going to live unless there was absolutely no evidence to show that she was going to live. That I needed to be the one to keep hoping and that until her last breath went away, I was not going to believe that she was going to die.   And that's what my counselor encouraged me, like you don't need to think about her dying. It's like, if it happens, then you can deal with it. But until then, you don't have to be thinking about that and all your focus is:  she's alive today. How can I be there with her present today? If I was thinking about the future, that would weigh my heart down so much, it would it would prevent me from hearing her from seeing her, from knowing what does she need each day as she was going through this process.    I think sometimes I can be so hopeful that I wasn't able to like just sit and grieve with her about what was happening. And I think that's sometimes why I've missed it with her, as just being attentive to her. I'm just feeling sorrow, feeling pain, comforting her with this hugs and then just being with her. Sometimes, I was so, I was on so much adrenaline trying to attend to the needs of my job, my kids and her and trying to balance all this out but sometimes I feel like I did neglect what she was feeling and just trying to pay attention to that.   So I vacillated between being good at being present and hopeful and encouraging and then missing her sometimes because I was too busy trying to keep it all together.   13:30– Feeling hopeless and what to do about it Liesel Mertes Where did you feel hopeless? And what actually spoke into those feelings as you walked with that?   Brad Grammer I think that, for me, the hopelessness was that I, I don't think I can get through this and I don't have what it takes. And how, how am I going to recover from this? Whether it's even after my wife had this treatment for a year and we had just a beautiful gift that somebody gave us to go away and travel and do this trip and just and she was able to travel. The doctors at that time weren't sure if she was gonna relapse, there's a 50 percent chance of relapse the first year after treatment. So it's like, he was kind of saying like, "Hey, if there's anything you want to do in life, this is the time to do it."   So we asked him if we can travel to this one place in this one country. And he said Yeah and somebody had just given us this gift, so it didn't cost us anything. And I remember, just while my wife is having a great time, I was having this, basically a breakdown, an emotional breakdown. I was crying every day and then...I actually think that when I feel hopeless and despairing, it's important to remember to cry because that is part of what my heart feels. And that's one of the ways that you take care of your heart is that you need to plan in time to cry. It's very important because something bad has happened. There's something really sad that has gone on and it's very important to not try and act like I can handle this.   You know the American mentality. I can pull myself by my own bootstraps and I can, I can, I can still make it. That's really important to like allow yourself to be weak and to cry and invite people into that life. There's got to be at least a couple people that you can invite into that. For some people who maybe don't have those kind of relationships, what they find is having a support group for whether you've like, there's a there's a support group for people with leukemia and lymphoma and there for people with the disease as well as those that are caretakers.   They were, I didn't go for very long, but I just remember the great piece of advice that they gave us, like get away, take a break, go on a retreat by yourself. And I just couldn't do it because I was like, "But what if my wife dies while I'm away?" like I would just think. And they were just saying, you got to do it anyway. And they were like, at that moment it was a great piece of advice, I needed to get away.   16:01- The importance of 2 AM friends Brad Grammer And that's part of what helped me turn me up in the time where I was just like hopeless and having, for me I did have friends who are like, "You call me at 2:00 in the morning if that's when you're you need to call," because, sometimes your pain and grief, it's not convenient time wise. It does happen in the middle of the night. So I had a couple of friends I could call anytime of the day or night. That's very important when you feel weak and hopeless. That's again, the adult skill. That's when you asked for help. That's when you let people know. I remember one time I was just crying in the hospital my brother in law and sister in law just, you know, held me and cried with me, you know, and that is hugely encouraging for me. That may not be for other people you know but for me that helped gird me, to know that I wasn't in that pain alone. Somebody was willing to feel the pain with me they weren't afraid of the pain and they're willing to feel it with me. So those are the kind of things; I think it was more than a human contact, more personal connection, is what strengthened me at that time where I just felt like I couldn't go on and where I felt hopeless. For me, it was just purely relationship.   17:18– Practical ways to help:  meals, rides, gifts, and health insurance Liesel Mertes On top of this human care and interaction, there were some really practical tasks that people assisted Brad and Lara with that were especially meaningful.   Brad Grammer It was really beautiful because both of our workplaces were jarred quite a bit by this. Because our work communities loved us and cared about us as a family as well as individuals. And so, one thing that they did, it was just so amazing, is that both my wife's workplace and my workplace appointed, they had an appointed person and so if I needed anything, I called one of those people and said hey I need this. And that's all I had to do and they would set off and contact people to do whatever, whether and they set up a meal plan. And this is a meal plan for a whole year wasn't just for two weeks when you're set up for a whole year.   Liesel Mertes And so you said, "Please, I prefer ethnic food."   [Brad Grammer Exactly. That's all I want more than anything. But that was, so meal plans were all set up. I sometimes, I, my wife she needed, she had to be either in the hospital every day or go to the hospital every day. So if she wasn't, if she was at home then she needed a ride to the hospital. A lot of times, I could do it. But there are times I just couldn't right and Laura needs a ride. And that's a particular need and the fact that she just doesn't want anybody because she wants somebody that's comfortable with her throwing up in their car.   So, and you know, you want to feel comfortable with this person to some degree in order to throw up in their car.   Liesel Mertes It's like benchmarks of intimacy.   Brad Grammer Right. Exactly. Throwing up as a little bit more intimate issue than just getting a general ride and you know my boys needed rides at school, sometime needed to be watched.   Some ladies were so beautiful, they just would come and just clean my house. They didn't even ask me. They said, they would just say, "Hey, we're coming over this day and we're gonna come clean your house." It even, just, during the Christmas holiday season I had somebody just offer to do this and I said of course and they just took the boys Christmas shopping for us as their parents. It felt so thoughtful.   One of the most amazing things this one person did is a lady that said, I don't, "I'm trying to figure out what I can do to support you. I thought I'm going to do what I'm good at." So she normally is in H.R. and businesses and she said let me just handle all your medical bills. So I would give all my medical bills to her, because unfortunately, you know insurance companies would deny a certain percentage naturally just because they're trying to not pay for everything. And so, they would deny bills that are meant to be covered by the insurance companies. So she would handle all that problem and all she would do is, that like she'd hand me a bill and say pay this bill.   And you know I had a stack maybe six inches or more tall of bills that, there are bills where like a million dollars from that year. And fortunately, we had insurance. So very grateful for that. But that was such a huge gift something I would never have thought about. Like I just thought that was something I would have to be responsible for but that was such an amazing gift. Just to take that detail that really was quite burdensome and to manage it all and just all I had to do is just pay the bill whatever she gave me.   Liesel Mertes As someone who has lost so many hours of my life to talking on the phone to figuring out those insurance bills, crying on the phone, I listen to that and I go, oh my gosh, yes, that was like a priceless gift. Huge!   Brad Grammer Yes. That's, you, yeah, I mean, it was something that you just don't normally think about. But that was the best way to serve.   21:01- Learning to ask for help Brad Grammer You know, one thing I was thinking about is that I would communicate to people is what a friend of mine who actually is going through cancer treatment at that time...he was a pastor himself and told me to be sure and just tell people what you want. Anything. It doesn't have to be even a legitimate thing. If you want a gift card to Starbucks, just say so. You know, so like, I would ask for, you know gas cards because we were driving in the hospital all the time and they're quite far away from home. And then, or I just ask for Starbucks cards. I was set for Starbucks for a year. I was set up, I got Starbucks   Liesel Mertes Sometimes there's nothing that communicates comfort like a latte!   Brad Grammer For me getting up in the morning and sitting in the hospital room, sometimes that was just the best part of my day, was just to have a nice latte while I'm just waking up with my wife. You know, and she's dealing with another day of treatment and I was just thinking, like that was so amazing. Because  not only would people do that gladly and happily, that it showed just the support, the level of support. I got a gift card from Thailand from people who live in Thailand, a Starbucks gift card. And I was like, What? But just to show that people were thinking of you all over the world was a huge encouragement, just to get those little things.   So, I remember just that's an important thing to tell people be sure and just let people...people want to do things for you. And people, they're walking through this with you and they feel helpless. So when you say little things like that, if they feel like they can do something and this is their way of supporting you, and that's a huge thing. To make sure that people, because some people, my wife is one of these people, she was pretty independent, pretty self-sufficient. She can handle her life pretty much and so she wasn't used to asking for help. I think I tend to be the weaker one; I ask for help more so it was easy for me to ask. But, I know for some people, it might be hard because they're just not used to doing that. But, just to remind them that people really do want to support you and help you. And that's one way you can do is just, something even simple and easy.   23:16 – Stupid advice, comments, and small talk Liesel Mertes In many ways Brad was well supported but he was also missed. As you think about this arc of what happened, whether it was Laura's diagnosis or the death of your parents or, you know, this trauma. What are some things that rise to the fore where you go, this was really painful in how this individual responded or I was so missed here.   Brad Grammer There was, I think when my wife was sick with cancer, people come up with all kinds of things like, well you know you read that, like, if you just didn't drink too much milk...this will really help with the, you know, that cancer diminishing cancer cells and stuff. So people come up with all kinds of ideas and and they will offer that information without thinking, like maybe the person doesn't want to hear that information or maybe their information is very inaccurate and not helpful at all. And so, that can be kind of discouraging, just to have people kind of throw information at you without checking to see if you even want to hear it.   You know, I think, probably one of the things I would really encourage people to do is spend more time just asking questions and listening, just to find out what that person really would be encouraged by or benefited by. Maybe they don't get encouraged at all by giving advice about how to deal with your cancer. They just want you to listen and have somebody to cry with, you know. I remember one guy and I think it was kind of a trigger for me. I was just livid with him. He came up and asked me, "Have you been able to get enough time to exercise?" I'm like, exercise?!?! Inside, I was going, to exercise. I'm like, I'm going to the hospital everyday, I'm taking care of my kids, I'm doing my job. I don't have time to breathe and I'm getting five hours of sleep a night. Maybe I don't have time to do anything.   And, but from his perspective, he was thinking and I and I do remember kind of going off on him in a little bit and he responded by saying exercise helped him when he's really stressed. Exercise is a great stress reliever. Well part of that is just his ignorance about knowing what my life was like, how every day was just full and very intense and difficult. And you know, there's some things that just you have to put to the wayside. And he just unaware because he'd never gone through something like this before so he was only reverting to what was familiar to him.   So, it would have been good and important for him to be able to ask me questions first to see what my daily life was like and that would help him to see, like, oh I shouldn't make this kind of comment, you know. And it doesn't have to be a hurtful comment, like you said, it was just a pretty innocent thing. He was asking about, it was such a trigger for me because it signified, like, you have no idea what I'm going through then you don't care because you didn't even ask what my life is like.   26:12- The importance of listening Brad Grammer  And so, I think just really listening and hearing what a person's life is like each day can be way more valuable than giving any advice or asking questions like that. That's, I think, for me where people most miss. They assume, maybe, that you're, you're dealing with it better than you are and there's an assumption that, that you could have just a normal conversation when, in actuality, it's hard for you to even have a normal conversation. And the best thing you could do is just ask questions and listen.   26:50- Words of insight Liesel Mertes You mentioned the importance of learning how to walk with these experiences and integrate them into your life in a way that allowed you to be a healthy version of yourself instead of someone who had just endured something or gotten through and, how, what were, what are the things that you would offer to someone who is walking in the year, the two years, the three years after something like this has happened that have been important for you as you move beyond that immediate stage of loss and tragedy and what's it like?   27:31- Tell your story Brad Grammer There's quite a few things. I was actually thinking even just this conversation with you this morning is healing because even though there's so many things that have been years later, just to be able to look back and talk about it is very encouraging. It's part of life. I think you're probably well aware of this as you've been talking about people and what they're going through, how important is to reprocess your story again, talk about it again. Because sometimes when you, something else will come to you and you realize, Oh I think I think I maybe need to that or you know, so like right regularly revisiting your story with somebody that you trust, just to be able to, can help, just to be able to not only remind yourself of things that you've learned that have been a good thing that help you  to continue moving forward so that you know what to do. If you just don't talk about it then it's a lot harder to identify what do you need to be healthy in doing this.   28:36- Let yourself cry Brad Grammer  I think regularly grieving is a good thing for the long term. Like that's I know, I have a friend who when he first started facing his sexual abuse, I think just giving him permission to hurt over that was a big important step. But when he started crying, he cried every day for three months and it was really intense crying. Sometimes, he would lose his hearing when he would cry. It was a hard crying. I think a lot of people are afraid of that and part of the reason they're afraid of that is that they feel like they'll never stop crying and that it will kill them. I mean, it's, it's an irrational fear but that's part of what they feel. But your heart really needs it. And so, like then, just to encourage people, you won't die and you will make it through it and you will stop crying. So, just giving yourself permission to cry as much as you need to and eventually you will, you will stop crying, you will start to feel healthier, you start to feel stronger.   29:41- General tips on anxiety and self-care Brad Grammer There's lots of things I've been doing, just little things. Because after a lot of trauma I've been through, one of the things that was hard for me is just to be out in public. I would get anxiety attacks and I never understood that before and, even me helping people. But now I understand it. It's a, it's a really irrational thing. It doesn't always make sense but it feels like impending doom. It feels like you're not, something that, really bad is going to happen. And so I understand those attacks now. So I'd be one to know, like how much time I need to be alone and be away from people is real important. Regularly reading things, like fun reading but also like reading that talks about the specific aspects of what I've been through, whether it's the grief, depression, sorrow. But doing what I can to learn to help myself and getting exercise was an important part of   Liesel Mertes Screw that guy!   Brad Grammer I know exactly, it's like, I hate that he said that but I, but I think it still is important, like as I'm in the healing path, it's real important that I do even just if all I can do is walk. Like, even through my own cancer treatment. I was so exhausted by it all but if I could just walk that was still something good, good for me to be able to.   31:06- Spirituality and community Brad Grammer You know, I'm a spiritual person. I identify as a Christian so praying was really important to, say to regularly pray and read the Bible. So I would get so much encouragement just from what I would read. And what I would pray and then praying with other people and visiting with people who will, who will really hear you and really know you. Like it's important to spend time not just with people but with those people you know who who do feed you, who do build into you, who are a strength for you.   So that means sometimes I would really limit a lot of my social involvement and I would just be restricted to those important people. All those components together were part of the healing process and part of helping me to be able to be stronger to handle the next tragedy that's going to happen.   31:58- It takes time to heal Brad Grammer And also not putting a time limit on when I need to heal. I think that stresses some people out as they feel like they need to be healed within three to six months or something. And sometimes it takes years to recover from something and that's OK. I mean, our culture does not have patience for people and does not respect that. But to honor being a human being you must respect the fact that there are some things that just take a long time to heal from and it's OK. Yeah. You don't have to shame yourself for that.   32:35- The perils of small talk Brad Grammer Because we don't really have any guidance or education on these things. People don't know how to handle it. And so they every time somebody sees you they'll ask you how are things going. And some days that'll just trigger, you know, like I feel horrible. I feel like I'm going to die and I want to punch you right now.   Liesel Mertes Or, you know, you just feel it, the compulsion to default to:  fine.   Brad Grammer Yeah. Exactly. Just, just to get him out of your face because you just don't even want to deal with it. And I remember I was going through, funny enough, I was going through a Starbucks drive through and getting, with my gift card and I just remember, I was just feeling so horrible inside because my wife was just doing so poorly and I'm just really struggling. I was not in a good space and, and I was just being honest with the guy and he does that to me like, "So how are you doing today?" I said, "I'm doing really shitty." And he goes like, "Why? Are you having a bad day?". And I lost it. I'm like, "I don't have the luxury of having a bad day. My wife has cancer!" and he was like, "Oh I'm so sorry." He's like, panicking,   Liesel Mertes Now, was this in person or through the drive window?   Brad Grammer Through the drive thru window. And he was like, "Here's your coffee, goodbye."   Liesel Mertes He should have comped you that drink.   Brad Grammer I was sat there thinking, like, I wish I could go back and just ask forgiveness for that because I lost it with him and he had nothing to do with it at all. He was just doing like the motions of the social niceties, you know. But I think like those social niceties like, like if somebody knows that I'm going through a hard time I'm probably not the best question to ask is, "How are you doing?"   Liesel Mertes The social niceties, which are really just meant to kind of grease an interaction become painful   34:20– Learn to ask better good questions Brad Grammer Exactly and like, and be able to equip people with different kinds of questions is, is important on a social interaction. But we don't, where did we learn that skill? It's not like you really have somebody who will teach you that. But ideally, it would be great if, if there's somebody that could teach us like, OK when somebody with a really hard time, these questions are actually better, yeah, than the social niceties that don't work. Like the social niceties, what they come across as is belittling the person's life and making it seem like it's manageable when that person feels like my life is not manageable. I am our of control. I feel horrible and not feeling that they're free to say that. And because it's not acceptable to be honest in many places, maybe the work environment in particular, it's like it's OK, to say like, I'm having a rough day but that's it. OK let's stop right there.   Liesel Mertes But it certainly won't affect my productivity...   Brad Grammer Right exactly. I will of course be the most the best employee ever as a result of my trauma.   Liesel Mertes As you look back at the younger version of yourself, if there were words that you could offer to that, you know, still finding his equilibrium Brad or someone who's going through something similar. You've had a lot to offer, but just, as a sense, what would you say to that younger version of yourself?   35:47- Get a therapist and go to a support group Brad Grammer I would say definitely go to a therapist or go to a support group for the thing that you're going through. You don't realize how important that is, just to have a listening ear, a compassionate response, somebody who can say, "Oh me too I'm going through the same thing," how invaluable that is. Because a lot of times, maybe we can work out the details of like you know how we're going to do dinner who's going to give a ride or...but it's that emotional support is typically where we are unprepared emotionally to handle the trauma that we're going through or the tragedies.   36:23- Ask people for help Brad Grammer So it's really important to always pursue people ask for help. Don't try and be the independent, I can handle this myself. That will not get you through this time at all. It'll only create problems for you later if not immediately. So always seek out help. Oh, and if you're not a person who normally is used to asking for that kind of support, it may be difficult to push through it. You will always benefit from it. And I would also remind myself that people make mistakes. So we have to be ready to offer forgiveness at some point for people who make mistakes. But to always remember that they they are trying to care for you and they are trying to show, in their awkward and sometimes childish way, they are trying to offer something.   37:14- You won’t be perfect Brad Grammer And so to get to, to not feel like I have to have this pressure to act perfectly and give them grace and just be this perfect person, but that just, at some point to know that, lik,e you know, people are really ill equipped to handle these things in life.   Liesel Mertes Thank you Brad for joining us.   Brad Grammer Like I said, thank you for even asking and having me here. Like that, there's a healing element that happens, Just having somebody pursue and ask questions. It's a beautiful thing.   37:55 – Closing thoughts Liesel Mertes Brad is a teacher at heart and he certainly gave us a lot of actionable tips that he wove throughout this story of his journey with Laura towards healing. Here are three closing thoughts.   38:07- #1, find support networks and the Cancer Support Community Liesel Mertes One if you or someone you love is going through cancer. Reach out to available support networks. Find a counselor or a support group. And if you don't know where to start, a great resource for those of you in Indianapolis is the Cancer Support Community. I was just at their building today. They're located off of 71  Street near Eagle Creek. And the Cancer Support Community offers free resources to those with cancer as well as their caregivers. There's a yoga studio, community gardens, cooking classes and one on one counseling available. The Cancer Support Community can be found online at cancersupportindy.org   38:52- #2, there are many ways to help, find one! Liesel Mertes Number two, if someone in your office or community is journeying with cancer, there are so many ways to help. Organized meals, offer rides, give Starbucks gift cards or help to process those medical bills. Reach out and offer what is in your power to give.   39:16- #3, beware of social niceties Liesel Mertes And finally, number three, be wary of those easy social niceties. We so often default to easy clichés or trite phrases or giving advice when it's not actually wanted. Take more time to actually listen and weigh your words before offering canned comfort.   39:44- Outro Thanks for listening to the Handle with Care podcast. Handle with Care is produced by Brian Wheat at Village Recording studios. Original music is composed by the talented musical pairing, Duo Futur.   If you like what you hear. Please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the show. It helps other people find us. Thanks for listening. This is a Liesel Mertes and I will be back next time. As we build empathy at work.  

Talking Rockets win over the Jazz and rough defeat over the Warriors. The Battle for the East is on. Talk a little about our newly acquired Texans as well.

Welcome Aboard! In this episode of Between Science and Superstition, Dan and Ana break down the tenth episode of The Twilight Zone, Judgement Night. We cover an interview Rod Serling had about censorship and how it connects to this episode. Also we talk of WWII's treatment of civilians and how the US treated a Nazi who sold out his uncover operatives to America. Our Website: BetweenScienceandSuperstition.com Our Socials: facebook.com/BetweenScienceandSuperstition twitter.com/BSASpod instagram.com/betweenscienceandsuperstition/   And find us, individually, on our twitters: twitter.com/mrdanrennie twitter.com/_AnaEdits   Intro Music Licensed from www.purple-planet.com

There's a lot of hype about what it means to build a personal brand, but in reality there are a few simple things that anyone can do to establish themselves as an expert in their space. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, BlitzMetrics CEO Dennis Yu shares the simple process he says anyone - from successful CEOs to younger professionals just getting started in their careers - build a strong personal brand. Dennis is a master at building easy-to-follow, repeatable processes, and his approach to personal branding is no different. In our conversation, he breaks it down in a way that anyone, regardless of their marketing or technical skills, can follow. Some highlights from my conversation with Dennis include: Personal branding is really just a sum of stories that you collect that you sequence together. Four or five years from now, personal branding won't be a thing because it's just what we do as part of communicating, as part of marketing, as part of growing, as part of operating. Dennis's approach to building personal brand involves the creation of a series of one-minute videos that are lightly edited in tools like Apple Clips and sometimes in Premier or Lightweight Aftereffects or other tools so that they can be distributed then on LinkedIn, on the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter. Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner is a great example of someone with a strong personal brand because he obsesses about creating content to answer peoples' questions and solve their problems - but he's also an influencer because doing this has built a very large audience.  The secret to creating effective one-minute videos is to share stories that are empathetic, that are educational, and that bring people along in a sequence towards an overall mission that anchors your personal brand. When Dennis works with clients to create a personal branding strategy, he starts by building what he calls a "Topic Wheel." Then, he identifies experts in those topics and does one-minute videos with them. The videos aren't about him - they are about the people he is interviewing, who are all recognized experts. The Topic Wheel has three rings - why, how and what. Why is your mission, how is how you do things (educational content), and what is your offers. This is very much like a circular sales funnel. The outside layer of the Topic Wheel - the why - is personal branding. There are many tools that you can use to create one-minute videos, from Apple Clips to the Adobe Suite, regardless of your skill level with video. Once you've created your video, think about all the different ways you can reuse or repurpose your video, and distribute it out across a variety of platforms. Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Visit the BlitzMetrics website Visit Dennis's personal website Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn Listen to the podcast to learn more about the exact formula Dennis uses to help his clients build their personal brands. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast, my name is Kathleen Booth and I am your host. This week, my guest is Dennis Yu, who is the Chief Executive Officer of BlitzMetrics and the author of Facebook Nation and, and, and I could list so many other things. Conference keynote speaker, expert on personal branding, Facebook, et cetera. Dennis Yu (Guest): Kathleen, you're too kind. Dennis and Kathleen having a blast recording this episode Kathleen: I was so impressed reading everything that you've done, when I saw your bio. I was really excited that I got to meet you in person a few weeks ago at DigitalMarketer, so thank you for joining me for the podcast. Dennis: Thank you. Kathleen: Before we start, I have a really important question. I was reading your bio and I saw that you have run 20 marathons, but you have run a 70 mile Ultra. What were you thinking? Dennis: I know, what was I thinking? It's my first one and my last one. I said to myself after running all these marathons because you know the thing is, it's a slippery slope because you run one and then you do more and then people are like, "Oh, you should run this Ultra marathon because you're gonna have this spiritual experience." I thought, all right I'm up for that and I ran a 70 mile race. It took me 12 hours. I set the course record. It was just outside of Microsoft's headquarters and when I finished, it was so bad that I had to be put in a wheelchair and wheeled to my gate at SeaTac airport because my legs were so stiff. Kathleen: Oh my God, I was gonna say, when people talk about spiritual experiences, all I can think about is when you're dying and you see the light. Dennis: Yeah. I didn't get a spiritual experience, I got a lot of pain. Maybe I didn't see past the pain, who knows? Maybe I needed to run 100 miles. Maybe that's what it needs to be. Kathleen: Oh my God, I am so impressed because you talk about how people run marathons and then they wanna run more. I ran one and only marathon the year I turned 40. Dennis: That's smart. Kathleen: I was like, I better do it now or it's never gonna happen. It's a good thing I did it because after that, I was like, no way, I'm too old for this. I'm glad I did it and I checked the box. That's awesome that you did that. Building A Personal Brand One of the reasons I was excited to have you on the podcast is that as part of the presentation you gave at DigitalMarketer's Agency Training Day, you touched on some of the work that you do building personal brands. You actually have a really cool process behind this. I think a lot of people talk about personal branding, but I've never heard anybody actually express it almost as a definable process. So I just want to dig into that and learn more about it and hopefully come away with an idea for people who are listening who might be interested in building their own personal brand, what goes into that? Dennis: Yeah, a lot of people think personal branding is this Tony Robbins, keynote speaking, motivational figure head who's doing the private jet and mansion lifestyle. I think personal branding is really just a sum of stories that you collect that you sequence together. If you're an agency, if you're an entrepreneur, it's not that you're showing only these highlight moments of the figurehead. It's the sum of what your people are doing, of your customers, of anyone that you engage with, someone you just had lunch with and they said something that's interesting and you pull out your cell phone, you say, "Kathleen, wow. That was so awesome. Can you just repeat that again? I want to share that on social." So you need a process to do that. So we're here in Miami and the last couple of days, we've been capturing one-minute videos for a fintech company that provides loans to small businesses. The kind of marketing they were doing is the kind of stuff that you'd expect that they would do. We go the CEO on camera. Literally, I was holding an iPhone and I was recording the CEO, asking him, "What's your favorite restaurant here in Miami? Tell me about your parents and the kind of business that they started and how that influenced you to run this particular kind of company. Tell me about what kinds of things stress you out at night." Then we drove to different small businesses, one is a pet store, another one is a food truck, another one is a computer repair place in the strip mall, and we interviewed these people, asking them about their why, how, what. Then I would put all of that in the bucket of personal branding. In fact, you know how a lot of people are talking about influencer marketing, content marketing, social media marketing? Now, those things have expanded to be so big that they mean nothing. It's just like digital marketing has expanded to be so big that you really can't define it anymore. Just like the phone was 50 or 60 years ago, or the internet was 20 years ago. It started off as this niche thing that people were specialists in and once it becomes so big, you can't really define it. I think personal branding is in that teenager stage where now everyone wants to do personal brand until the stage where, four or five years from now, personal branding won't be a thing because it's just what we do as part of communicating, as part of marketing, as part of growing, as part of operating. Because we see that's where things are going. We have everything we do, from a client standpoint or from our own internal operations or how we train people, encapsulated as one-minute videos. Everything's a one-minute video. For example, one of our guys this morning recorded a one-minute video on how to quickly see all of your tasks inside of Basecamp. In one minute, he said "Literally, did you know if you press control K plus whatever, it immediately shows you this screen with all of your tasks of the day and your schedule?" I'm like, "Pssh, I didn't know that." Or a one-minute video about this restaurant that's two blocks around the corner and how awesome it is. That's cool, that's very specific. Personal branding isn't this, I aspire to climb Mount Everest or I want to live a life of riches and make six figures every month. It's individual stories of other people, and thus our approach, which I think you find interesting and other people do too, is that we have a particular process on how we collect one-minute videos. It has to be particular because all of our work is being done by young adults. So these are 22, 23-year-old kids, if you will. I'm over 40, so I know younger than 40 is a kid. They go through our training. Maybe they served four years in the military and now they need a job and they wanna be able to make 35 thousand dollars a year, whatever they were making before, right, because they have a kid now or whatever it might be. We have everything check listed out, it's not that it's about personal branding, it's that the collection of one-minute videos. So instead of saying personal branding, I'll say the collection of one-minute videos are lightly edited in tools like Apple Clips and sometimes in Premier or Lightweight Aftereffects or other tools so that we can distribute then on LinkedIn, on the blog, on Facebook, on Twitter. Then amplify them for a dollar a day to be able to drive views, leads, and sales. That is mechanically what we do. It's not about me trying to motivate other people. We have a number of high profile personal brands like entrepreneurs that are billionaires. We have some of these guys as clients and boy, it's very shiny. But that is not what personal branding will be in five years from now. It'll be so defacto that anyone who's doing any kind of marketing, by definition will be doing personal branding and social media and SEO and all of that, not as separate functions, but they're all now the same thing actually. Personal Branding v. Influencer Marketing Kathleen: Yeah, it's very interesting. I have so many questions for you from what you just said. The first thing that comes to my mind is it's fascinating to me to have this conversation at this time because you use the word influencer earlier. There is this really interesting evolution of what it means to be an influencer now, especially with people from younger generations who grew up with Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook. They're very comfortable being in front of an audience and being very personal. Their definition of privacy, I think, is different than other generations. So I guess my first question is really, how do you draw the line between influencer and personal brand? Dennis: I don't like the word influencer because it's got that taint, look at me, I'm an influencer. You might as well replace that word for thinker. Oh I'm a thinker. I guess you're not allowed to think, Kathleen, because I'm a thinker. I'm an influencer and you're not. I even wrote an article on Influencive, which is the site for people to talk about being an influencer. The title of the article was Why I Am Not an Influencer. I think it got 23 thousand shares. Kathleen: It's like a dirty word now, especially after the Fyre Festival. Dennis: I tagged Michael Stelzner, who is one of my mentors. He is the guy in social media marketing. He runs social media marketing world, he's the founder of Social Media Examiner, he's got the biggest blog, biggest conference, makes the most money, has the biggest audience of anybody in the world of social media marketing. He told me how he was not an influencer and really he was a servant leader and how he does everything to take care of his team. I thought, wow, he is the exact opposite of all these people that are beating their chest. Look at me, look at me, look at me, it's all about me. Yeah, I would define him as an influencer because he influences the behavior of other people. He has the biggest audience, so by definition he's an influencer because he has the best education. His approach has been to be an influencer in the world of social media marketing to actively do research and find out every day, what are the things that people are searching for? What do they care about? He is so scientifically in tune with the data of what an audience wants that that's how he was able to grow Social Media Examiner to getting millions of visits per month on the site. There are a lot of people that are social media consultants, there are a lot of people that have a blog, lot of people with podcasts. We had an episode on his podcast, I think it was ... what was it called? He even chose the title because he knows what people want, so he came up with the title, What Marketers Really Need to Know About the Facebook Algorithm. The thing got 50 thousand downloads in the first month. I thought, holy moly. Mike and I chatted for half an hour and he got 50 thousand downloads. People are wondering, wow this guy is so big, will he interview me? I hope I'm next. Oh, will he let me speak in the Social Media Marketing World? That's what all of the moths are doing when they come to the flame. I ask him, because we spent the day together after Social Media Marketing World? After all that kind of stuff, he and I just hung out. I said, what question do people not ask you? He said, "They don't ask me how I was able to grow Social Media Examiner from nothing to the largest property in this space. The answer is because I use the data and I create content that satisfies that because I look at what the search engine queries are." 2% of his traffic comes to the homepage for Social Media Examiner. Kathleen: Yeah. Dennis: The other 98% is on every little micro-topic like why is my Facebook ad disapproved or how do I make a video or how do I use my Google Analytics and what's a good bounce rate? Those micro, micro moments. I define him as an influencer because it's not the tip of the iceberg of him speaking on stage in front of seven thousand people. It's his conference, so he can do that. It's the stuff beneath the water in the iceberg of lots and lots and lots of little stories and his process. Where he and I have massive alignment is we have deep process. The way he runs that conference that has seven thousand people, the way he organizes volunteers, how he trains them, how they come in a few days before, how they line up and they wear name tags and they know exactly what to do. Every single part of the process. You guys run and event, so you know what I'm talking about. The level of detail that's required. Can you imagine being a conference organizer? If you were to approach influencer marketing or personal branding the same way that you run a hospital where there's lots of processes and there's lots of detail. I think personal branding and this influencer marketing thing will have to evolve from witchcraft and Ouija boards and voodoo dolls to actual established processes for how you become a doctor, anything that requires an actual process like running a factory. I believe that's where we'll be in five years, but right now, people can get away with nonsense because there's not a lot of accountability. So it's easy to say, oh personal branding, well what the hell does that mean, right? You can't say hell, that's not good. What the heck does that mean? Kathleen: You can say hell on this podcast. Dennis: All right. Kathleen: Yeah, there's a lot of throw it at the wall and see what sticks. This is the sense that I get, then there's also a lot of copycat like oh, I see so and so doing this and it seems to be working, so I'm just gonna do that because that must be what works, because it worked for them, right? Dennis: Yep. Kathleen: I think in some cases that can work. Somebody might have stumbled upon a good tactic, but I think the thing that I've at least observed with people who talk about wanting to build their personal brand but then they don't really do it is they don't have a plan. Therefore, they're not consistent with what they do, so there's a lack of follow through. There's a lot of one off, here and there things, and ultimately that prevents them from getting traction which is why I thought your approach was so interesting to create the process because when you have the plan, you at least have something to follow. Then you know if you're on track or off track. Dennis: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kathleen: I was gonna say, you mentioned in the beginning, meeting with the CEO of the fintech company and getting him to do one-minute videos. I'm really curious to know if you find any sort of, again going back to the idea of a generational divide, is there any kind of reticence, especially amongst the more established business leaders you work with, to get as personal as you're looking for them to get? One Minute Videos Dennis: Yes and no, because if you broad brush with the stereotype and you say, "Oh, those people under 30, they were born with a phone glued to their hand and Snapchat and all that." Actually they're digital nomads or whatever you want to call them. I don't think that's necessarily true. At the 40 thousand foot level, yes. Three days ago I was in Denver and I was with the CEO of a new company, it's my buddy Mark Karloff, he does MNA and buys himself billion dollar companies. I wanna say he's 56 or something like that. I said, "Mark, for your company, we're gonna have to make these one-minute videos to help explain what it does." It's the Hoover for law firms to be able to serve, it's called Proof Serve, you have to serve people documents, right? That's what happens in the world of the lawsuits, right? A lot of law firms have to do the serving in different states. He wanted to get more law firms to enroll and I said, "Well, you need to collect one-minute videos of the paralegals and what they do day to day because they're the ones who are choosing who's serving. You need to talk to the different people that are doing the serving so that you know that they are legit and not these crazy people that just signed up. You're trusting them to deliver your documents for you. It's an important case, you can't afford these documents to get lost." Collect one-minute videos so that people can see how real it is, so they can see that there are other personal injury attorneys that are doing the exact same thing, that they trust in their neighborhood, to collect at it's scale across all of the hundreds of customers that he has. Because other than that, what would you do? You'd create a glossy commercial or you're do a website. You'd sign up for InfusionSoft or there's all these marketing technology, but those are all ways that I believe people who, whether they're old or young, they try to hide behind the technology instead of connecting with people directly. I don't think that's an old or a young thing. Are people willing to connect at a human level to show empathy because they really care about their employees, because they really care about their customer? I think that you have a spectrum where the people who are 40 plus are actually more likely to really care because they're more likely to be more mature, they have more business experience, but maybe they don't understand exactly the mechanics of having to press record. The young people, maybe they make more video, but they are less likely to make video that is uplifting other people, that is sharing deep knowledge based on experience. If you're over 40, like you and me, you're gonna have a lot of stories. We have a lot of experiences to share and it's not just take a look at this food that I'm having, that I'm at the beach. Two days ago I stayed in this penthouse in Miami downtown on the 50th floor. I made some videos from the top. If I was a 20-year-old, I would more likely make videos showing how amazing this penthouse is. But instead, I made videos showing how this looks glamorous, doesn't it? Look at this view, all the way out to the ocean, there's South Beach, and there's downtown. Do you know this is an Airbnb that I paid $200.00 a night for and it's paid for by the client? Did you know that I flew here on Southwest airlines and I sat in the middle seat for four and a half hours all the way from Phoenix? I didn't tell you that, did I? Do you wanna know what it's really like? Do you wanna know some of the things that I struggle with in growing my company? That's exactly the opposite of what you'd expect of someone who's out on a balcony and overlooking the ocean in a penthouse at the 50th floor, right? Kathleen: Yeah. Yeah, that's so much more real. Dennis: [crosstalk] between older versus younger, it's not that the younger people are more willing to make video. It's who can share stories that are empathetic, that are educational, and that bring people along in a sequence towards an overall mission that anchors your personal brand. So anyone who's going into personal branding and I have to ask them, "Do you have a mission that's bigger than you, that's authentic? Not just because you want to help the world in some vague way, but you want to help small businesses save on their tax bill. You want to help local university students overcome crack addictions because their parents left them." It doesn't have to be some Mother Theresa kind of thing. We all have some kind of bigger thing that we're doing, like us, we're training up young adults. A lot of them that maybe they didn't go to college, where they just graduated from high school or that they came out of the military and they just had a kid that popped out and now they have to work. They're not trying to be a CEO, they're just trying to pay the bills, right? When you tie your mission to that, it's a lot easier to then build a sequence. If the personal brand is just look at me and my food, it's pretty shallow because you can't build a whole story around it, you can't get all these other people around it, you can't build the infrastructure that's necessary, what we call the topic wheel. What you saw when we were DM in Austin, we explained the structure of the topic wheel, about what anchors your brand are all the different topics and the topics move out to the individual stories of all the people you're connected to. Start With Your Mission (and Build a Topic Wheel) Kathleen: That's fascinating. So I love the idea of starting, if somebody's thinking they want to build their personal brand, of starting with figuring out what your mission is. Once someone has been able to successfully identify that, you talk about the topic wheel, the question I think people listening probably have is then, are all my videos about this mission or is it just a certain percentage? How does that fit in to this topic wheel? Dennis: The topic wheel allows us to all be humans, because there's something that you might do to make money, but you also might like to boogie board at the beach, you might also like Italian food, you might also have a parent who is disabled, you might also have a particular hobby, right? We start the topic wheel with six topics, we call this why, how, and what. So on the outside, we have different people that are telling stories around six particular topics. One of my topics is education, so Doctor Karen [Freeburg] is one of the people in my topic wheel because she is authoritative on education and we have lots of stories around that, we made one-minute videos around that. There's other people in education that are part of that particular topic. Another topic of mine is digital marketing and I'll put in people like Ryan Deiss because he's authoritative in the world of digital marketing and I've got plenty of interviews with him, where we've made one-minute videos where I'm not trying to get him to talk with things about me, although he has, but I'm interviewing him like a journalist. It's not about me, but it's about his knowledge and his experience, and I'm making it about him. Maybe I'm interviewing Tony Robbins or maybe I'm on CNN talking about the Facebook controversy or whatever it might be. Those are all different topics that are not to show that I am an awesome person or famous, but to precede the authority because I am spending time with people that other people recognize are legit in that space. When I make one-minute videos with these people and I boost it out there on Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube and all this, that allows me to re-market for my topic, all the way into my product which is when I can sell courses on digital marketing, I can sell packages on implementing the things we talk about. The idea of why, how, and what is, why is your story, it's your passion, it's a particular moment in time. It could be when I was 18, I dropped out of high school and I wanted to be a professional athlete working for Nike. True story and I have a one-minute story talking about that and how eventually, they didn't except me, but then we got Nike later as a client to do digital advertising for them and how I learned that what the 18-year-old Dennis thought Nike would be like versus the 40-year-old Dennis was completely different. That Nike was this big corporate and it wouldn't have worked out for me as an athlete because it's long travel on the road. I guess I do a lot of travel on the road, but if your career only lasts a couple years as a pro athlete versus a 20 year career as a digital marketer. So those stories, the why stories are the outside ring of the topic wheel. Then move to the middle ring, which is how. Expertise, tips, how to do stuff, checklists, right? Remember, Kathleen, you saw all these checklists that we were showing, like how do you [crosstalk] manager? How do you get a drive in golf down the middle of the fairway or how do you tie your shoes with one hand or how do you juggle the ball? How do you do all the things that you know how to do, especially when you interview these other people who are experts. They've got tons of how do you do a very specific thing, right? So you're marketing from the outside of very specific stories. Not just, oh I was once really sad and now I'm successful, but specific things that had happened, specific moments in time where you point the camera, you can follow the scene of what happened, right? The beauty of the Pixar is that they focus on specific scenes. So the why we market to the specific scenes of the how, which are specific, let me show you how to do something very useful, like a recipe. Let me show you how to make my brand of chocolate chip cookies with macadamia nuts. I really like macadamia nuts. Kathleen: That sounds so good. Dennis: I know a lot, for example, about how to make a perfect batch of popcorn. I have a movie theater popcorn maker in my kitchen. Kathleen: That is so cool! Dennis: Do you ever walk to the movie theater and you're like, "Mm." You're almost willing to watch a bad movie just to eat the popcorn, or no? Kathleen: I, 100%, think that popcorn is the highlight of the movie. Then, so I have to ask you one important question then, this is a slight digression, but are you an add the butter oil to your popcorn person or are you a eat it as it comes out of the maker person? Dennis: Yes. Whenever people ask an either or question like do you want to eat the fish or do you wanna eat the burger? Yes. Kathleen: Yeah, I like adding the extra butter, myself. Dennis: Yeah, I add the extra butter to the popper, then when it comes out, I actually have the movie theater quality bags, right? I wanna simulate the whole experience. I've got a butter pump and I'll pump the butter in there too, on top of that. Kathleen: Dennis, you're a man after my own heart. I'm all about the extra butter. Gotta do it. Dennis: See? So then when we get together, maybe just outside of Baltimore, we can make some popcorn together. I'll ship you a popcorn maker, you'll see what I'm talking about. I'll show you how to do popcorn the way Dennis likes to do popcorn. Kathleen: I love it. I love it. Send me that one-minute video. Dennis: I'm gonna make a one-minute video, yeah. Yeah, and then we're sharing expertise on how is this different than microwave popcorn, which is garbage. Kathleen: Yes. 100%. Dennis: Yes, very different, and how movie theater popcorn tastes so good because it has coconut oil, did you know that? Kathleen: I did not know that. That's interesting. Dennis: If you try to use olive oil or butter, the flashpoint is so low that you burn it and that's why movie theater popcorn can go so high because coconut oil has a really high flashpoint. Kathleen: Oh, interesting. Dennis: We could make several one-minute videos about microwave popcorn and then you'd come away from that thinking, wow, that's really cool, I didn't know that. So I'm sharing how. Then I get specific again, into the very center of the onion tootsie roll, multi-layer thing, into the what, which is how you sell. See, conversion is about ... We all understand conversion, buy my stuff, it's on sale. The thing ends on Friday, it's got these many features, it's better than the competitor, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. There's only a limited quantity, but all these different ways of trying to get people to buy, right? All the things that you say, features versus benefits. That is the what. Everyone understands what. The trouble is when they get to marketing, they're so eager they can't help themselves. When they're supposed to be making why content, they somehow end up selling it again and they pollute the whole thing. It's like mixing chocolate milk and Coke together. I like both of them, but I'm not going to drink them in the same can. It's nasty, right? Or we ask them to, let's make a series of how videos. So around your product or service, maybe you're an agency, you wanna get more clients, you do additional marketing. Okay, talk about how you set up PBC Canvas. Talk about how you optimize, talk about how, but do not ... Resist the urge to start selling because that's the what. So if you keep these things separate from the why to the how to the what, then you actually have a funnel, which is a circular funnel. That's the topic wheel, it's every day content meaning you don't have to keep replacing it. It doesn't go stale. I believe if you do it right, from the very outside are all these people that you're interviewing. That's personal branding. The outside layer of your topic wheel is personal branding. Personal branding is not some separate thing about ... I was thinking, it would be fun Kathleen, we could rent a Lamborghini, how about? You and I, we could rent a Lamborghini for one day and just make all kinds of silly videos and drive around real slow. Kathleen: That's like Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians and Cars Drinking Coffee. That's what he does. He does a different car each time and they just drive around and talk. He has a whole show that is just that. I love it. Dennis: Yeah, this is my garage. There's many ways of doing it. Kathleen: Yeah. Dennis: But that's the superficial kind of personal branding. That's look at me and look at my lifestyle. If you have actual depth, if you have a structure, you have a process, then you're gonna build the topic wheel because it's the personalities that are the outside that are sharing knowledge, that are organized by topic. The topics then go to the very center, which is your company, your figurehead, the product you sell, whatever it is that you're trying to monetize. When you link why to how to what, you use the what to fund all the why and the how, so it's a self-funding funnel. Because all the people that do personal branding, guess what? It costs money, just like SEO costs money. It costs money to produce video, it costs money to edit, it costs money to put traffic against it, right? So what's gonna pay for that? Kathleen: Right. Dennis: Are you just gonna spend money for the heck of it? Kathleen: Yeah, exactly. Dennis: I don't see ROI off of this. I ask any of these people to do personal branding and they can't answer this question. I say, "What's the ROI of your personal branding?" They can't answer the question. Why not? Kathleen: That's a great point. Now, that was a really fantastic explanation of the topic wheel. I think that gives everybody a very clear framework, at least, within which to begin to break down what are they gonna talk about on video. How To Create Your Videos Kathleen: So I feel like there's, what am I gonna talk about? Then there's making the video, and then there's distributing the video. So let's talk for a second about making it. Earlier, you mentioned a couple of different tools and my ears perked up because I started to experiment with making videos and I'm gonna just say, I am the least technically competent individual on the planet when it comes to video, but I discovered one of the tools you mentioned, which is Apple Clips. I think it is the best thing since ... I was gonna say since sliced bread, but I don't actually like sliced bread, so I think it might be better than sliced bread. It is the greatest thing ever. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the types of tools that the average person out there can use to do this and produce a decent looking video. Dennis: So, there are 30 different tools that we use. Kathleen: Wow. Dennis: But that's a mix. We organize them into people that are just everyday people like you and me. Intermediate folks that are specialists that have maybe a year or two of training. Then we have our pro level, the full Adobe Suite, where you're doing things in Premier and Aftereffects. That's pro. I don't think any of us, unless that's what we do for a living, we have 10 people full-time as pro video editors. They are doing things according to standards that we have. But should you and I be learning how to do that? No. Kathleen: No. Dennis: You and I should be learning how to use Apple Clips and Otter.ai and the different video tools built into Facebook ads manager, through transcription. We should be pushing things out to fancy hands and Fiver for lightweight editing. Some of the editing that you can do, for example, Apple Clips allows you to transcribe live and it's pretty accurate. Kathleen: I did that last week and it blew my mind. Then I didn't realize you could also go in and edit it's live transcription so that if it messes something up, you can correct it. It was so easy. Dennis: There are apps that are built into Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook has 10 different tools that are part of Facebook Mobile Data Studio that allow for editing for free. Adobe has Adobe Express. There's lot of these tools and every day, I get three or four more tools that people say, "Hey, try this editing tool. On your app, it'll add these really cool filters." I even bought a ton of apps on my phone that will add motion, that will add just super cool effects, that you can lose hours of your day downloading dozens of these different apps that do different kinds of things. I would say just use Apple Clips and one or two other ones, and not- Kathleen: I think that's great advice. I may or may not have spent six hours last week downloading apps and doing exactly what you just described. Then I discovered Apple Clips and that rabbit hole ended. Dennis: A lot of folks, I know will say, well I'm not a video person. They're secretly afraid of all these tools, like I don't really have time to learn all these different tools. You know what? You have something called an iPhone in your pocket, okay? When you hit video and you hit the red circle to record video, that camera is so smart. The way it does multi point filtering and focusing and light, that if you literally do that and you have decent sound and you don't point it directly into the sun, then you will get good enough video that you can pay $5.00 or $10.00 that someone who's a pro can do the editing for you. I've learned this the hard way because I've probably spent 100 hours, 200 hours of my time playing with all these different apps and figuring out exactly which effects I like from which app. That's a waste of your time. With that said, Apple Clips, Otter.ai, the native tools inside Instagram and inside Facebook Ads Manager, that's all you need to know. The pro stuff, for example, at TNC, I flew in one of my friends from Facebook to speak. Same thing at Social Media Marketing World, I brought three other people to speak at the conference. I had professional videographers that I flew in that recorded on expensive equipment, everything miced up properly, everything sent off to our VAs in the Philippines, that do the video editing. So we do understand the pro side, but you gotta know when you're doing a lightweight video that's just walking along do a cell phone style video at the beach reflecting on some thought that you had, versus on stage, speaker reel, high authority, in front of 10 thousand people giving a keynote address. You're not always using one tool. Sometimes you need a butter knife and sometimes you need a chainsaw. Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense. I love that you just mentioned all those specific tools because I'm totally gonna go out right after this and check them out. Dennis: We have a guide, I'll give it to you. Kathleen: That's great. Oh yeah, a link to it in the show notes. Dennis: All the cool videos and then how they fit into our process. Just because you can use a tool, doesn't mean it's worth anything because you've gotta figure out how it fits into a process with all the other tools and who does what because it's unlikely that one person knows how to do everything. So then take the finished video and turn it into an ad and write copy against it in a headline and to be able to look at the performance of it and to be able to go back and re-shoot. Usually whoever is the one recording the video is not the one who's editing the video. So that requires a process step. Anytime something's gotta move between different people, it requires a process step, right? How to Promote and Distribute Your Videos Kathleen: Yeah. Now assuming people figure out a way to get these videos made, whether they make them themselves or they get help, they're gonna wind up with all of these one-minute videos. How do you then ... What is your process then for getting them in front of an audience because obviously that's the objective? If the tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, it doesn't matter. So can you talk a little bit about that? Dennis: So once we've gone through video production, which could be as simple as me doing a video on my iPhone and automatically saves to my Google Drive. By the way, that's my little secret, everything goes to my Google Drive. I also have Dropbox and I have the Apple, whatever that's called, the iCloud. I have everything saved multiple places because I'm paranoid about losing it. Whether it's as simple as that or whether it goes through complex editing because it's speaker footage from multiple cameras, like a professional interview. We then distribute that in multiple formats. We take the long format, so it could be a 40 minute interview, and we'll put that in landscape format on YouTube on a channel. Our buddy, Matthew Januszek, who is the CEO of Escape Fitness, he's interviewed all the top names in the world of fitness. It could be Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee Haney, the CEOs of 24 Hour Fitness and Lifetime Fitness. All the people because he's the guy. He does professional interviews. So the full length episodes, we'll show on YouTube. Then, we take one-minute snippets that are square, just the highlights, think of it as like movie trailer compared to the movie. The trailer's only a minute, it shows you all the big explosions, all the big scenes, but you don't really get the whole story, just enough to tease you, right? You know, movie trailers. Kathleen: Yeah. Dennis: Then we put the movie trailer on Facebook and we boost those through video views to build re-marketing audiences, to then sequence them to other pieces within the topic wheel. We take vertical, 15 second commercials, and we put those on Instagram as stories. We take the same one-minute videos that I mentioned on Facebook and we post those to Twitter and we can promote those posts. We have an annual bid at three cents of engagement, we never select Twitter's automatic thing because they'll bid it to $2.00 and spend all your money. We also will post it organically to LinkedIn, to our profiles. That way, you can create one piece of content, chop it up into 30 or 40 other little pieces of content and be able to use it across all your different channels and obtain multiple, multiple value. Gary Vaynerchuk posted something on LinkedIn a week ago, showing how he does that in his content pyramid. It's the same thing that a lot of us that are prolific agencies do on behalf of our clients because often you can't get the client to do this everyday. If you put it as part of their process and teach their support people, every time they repair that HVAC and get the customer right there, saying, "Oh, how is it?" That's obviously the best time. Wedding photographers, get them right then when they're happy, when they just got married, don't try to get the feedback two weeks later and get their review later. Try to get it right then. If you can't build it into the process, then you have to collect it every three months or every six months and you try to collect it all at once, with multiple people and you can chop it up. The odds are, it may be, Kathleen, you and I were expert interviewers but we're not going to be able to get 60 minutes of quality content because it takes 15 minutes to warm up. In the middle, they'll say some things that are good, but are you gonna force someone to sit through a 60 minute video to be able to catch those pieces in the middle? No, you pull those out and use those as carrots. Kathleen: Yeah. Now, how often should somebody be posting these videos? Dennis: As often as you have good content. So I think of Facebook, you can get away with once per day, maybe twice per day. If you're in news and media, sports media, you can do maybe six, seven times per day. The Washington Post and some of these other local news guys will do 40 times per day, local sites, 20, 30 times per day. But most brands, once per day. But don't feel like you have to post once per day. What we'll do is, maybe we'll be at Social Media Marketing World and wander around in the hallways and interview a lot of people, just for one-minute interviews, not some scheduled thing, but just by walking around in the hallway, we'll run into people that we know. We'll collect a bunch of one-minute videos, all in one day, and then sprinkle them out over the course of several months. So I was on CNN in Atlanta, talking about the whole Facebook controversy and Russian interference and senator we run ads, the whole congress thing. I was in front of three and a half million people, live, where they were, in the studio, asking me questions about all this Facebook nonsense. I made the most of that because I got that four and a half minute clip and chopped it up into a few different pieces. I'm now able to recirculate that as different pieces of content, and I've taken some of those highlight components and I've sprinkled them in to my speaker reel, to our company mission reel, to other reels where we're teaching about personal branding. If I can mix and match from all different kinds of videos that we have an reassemble that. Do you know the analogy of Mexican food, Kathleen? Kathleen: No, tell me. Dennis: You can take meat, cheese, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and rearrange it into a chalupa or a tostada or an enchilada or a taco or a chimichanga or whatever it is, but it's the same ingredients, but just in a slightly different format, right? Kathleen: That's so funny and very true. Dennis: So that's what we're doing with our ingredients. So the wrong materials come in, meaning like the 30 minute interview with the client, right? Or you're doing it on behalf of a client and you're interviewing the customer and you have a continuous shot of 30 minutes where you're asking them a series of questions and saying, "Hey, don't worry about what you're saying because we're going to edit out the good pieces or whatever it is. If you stumble, just pause for two second and restart, and then we'll chop up different pieces and we can reuse those pieces into whatever combination that we want." So we think about the Mexican menu or the Chinese menu, you now have the ability to produce any kind of marketing material that you want. So a sales piece about a new product that you have, maybe you could reuse stuff that you already have. 80, 90% of what you have is what you can reuse and then the 10% is the stuff specifically about that new product. Then you don't have to create all this stuff from scratch again. Maybe it's because I'm lazy, but when we do this, it's like I don't want to have to keep redoing things about who we are and what we've done and who our best customers are. For example, when we first got Nike as a client, I thought that was incredible and making videos out there at the Nike campus, interviewing the executives at Nike is stuff that makes us look highly authoritative, but it also looks good because I can quote them. I can bring them to speak on stage like at the Adobe Summit where Nike says, "Hey, yeah, we use Blitz for social analytics." Well, how awesome is that? In front of the other people who are using Omniture, saying oh, yeah, Omniture doesn't do that. It's Adobe Analytics now, but oh yeah, we use Blitz for social analytics. I can reuse that, I guess we could call it a testimonial, but I can use that snippet in so many different places. Think about things that have been said to you, that have been said about you, that have been said about IMPACT, about your business partners, about the people that you have met. Think about all those amazing situations, imagine if you could wave a wand and you could reuse them anytime, anywhere, how powerful would that be? Kathleen: Well, and it certainly sounds like, from what you're saying, that it's making me realize, there are probably a lot of businesses that have a ton of gold nuggets in their B roll and in their video archives and it's like, half the battle is keeping it organized and knowing what you've got in there so you know when to pull those pieces back out and incorporate them. The other half, really what this is telling me, is that if you're gonna be serious about this, especially if you're gonna do it as a business, it probably makes sense to invest in in-house video expertise because you really just need to incorporate this into the fabric of your everyday life within your company. Outsourcing Your Video Process Dennis: Amen. You don't have to be a big agency, big budget, big team, or a big marketing group. We literally started with hiring VAs from the Philippines as $3.00 an hour. So you hire one person full-time. Do you know what that costs you for a year? Kathleen: No. Dennis: $500.00. Kathleen: Wow. Dennis: So $500.00 a month, Kathleen, for someone who's working for you full-time, 40 hours a week, college educated, a real human, they care about you deeply, they're better than Americans in the standpoint that they are loyal, they will stay with you, and they're happy, they're joyful, and we will send them stuff at the end of the day, say 5:00 PM, you know it's the other side of the world, so their time zone's upside down. When we wake up in the morning, it's ready. Kathleen: That's so crazy. That's the part that I think is actually kind of cool about working with folks in Asia is that if you're organized and you can get stuff to them at the end of the day, it's freaky how fast you can move. Dennis: Let me tell you my secret which is not so much of a secret anymore. There are one million Philippino's that do digital marketing at onlinejobs.ph. When I found this site 10 years ago, I could not believe my eyes. I said, "Wow, I can hire this guy at $1.50 per hour? Why don't I just hire this guy for fun, just to see. It's only $1.50 per hour. I'll buy him for like 50 hours, just see what happens," right? Kathleen: Right, can't hurt. That's a good tip. Side note, I absolutely love the people from the Philippines. I spent a lot of time there. Before I went into marketing, I did international development consulting and my last year that I did it, it was right before I had my son, I went to the Philippines, I think six times. That is such a cool place and the people are some of the best people. Dennis: We go there twice a year and it's just incredible. They love us and I love taking them out because I feel like I'm a big shot. We'll take them out to eat to the nicest places in Manila, send them off on a full day massage. I'll look at the bill, like we'll go to the nicest restaurants, right? Even Makati, which is the most expensive business area. Kathleen: That's where I used to stay. That's beautiful, yeah. Dennis: We're doing the penthouse thing and they think we're ballers. At the end of the meal or at the end of whatever it is, we'll go take them out karaoke. We have seventy in the Philippines. I'll look at the bill and I'll work it out, that's like four bucks a person. All right. Kathleen: Let's do it again tomorrow. Dennis: Yeah, maybe it's five bucks or whatever it is. I'm thinking, wow, you could live like a king for nothing. You could have an entourage, if you wanted to, I'm not saying do this. But you know this Kathleen, for $200.00 you could have six guys with machine guns follow you around the entire day as bodyguards. Kathleen: Yeah. Dennis: I've wanted to do that just for fun because I go there twice a year with our people. I was thinking, it would be cool if I had six guys with machine guns, all dressed up, walking with me as I'm walking downtown. Then have a couple people that follow me around with video cameras, just to see what would happen in the mall. This people think this guy walking in the middle here must be a celebrity. Kathleen: Yeah, this brings us full circle in our conversation because it goes right back to the very beginning where you talked about if you were in the penthouse standing on the balcony and if you were an influencer, you'd take a picture of yourself with a glass of champagne living the life. Instead, you were very real about, I flew Southwest. Your Philippines example's great because that's where you could be like, "This is just how I roll." Dennis: Yeah. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: I love it. I could literally sit here and talk to you all day, but I'm sure you have things that you need to be doing and I want to be respectful of your time. The last two questions I have for you are questions that I ask every guest that comes on this podcast and I'm really curious to hear your response because you do know so many people in the world of digital marketing. Today, when you think about the concept of inbound marketing, company or individual, who do you think is really killing it and doing it well? Dennis: Nathan Latka. Kathleen: Ooh, there's a name I haven't heard before. Dennis: Oh, you need to look him up. I think he's number one or number two in business podcasts on iTunes. Kathleen: How do you spell his last name? Dennis: L-A-T-K-A. Kathleen: Okay. Dennis: I first met this kid because he signed up for one of my podcasts or webinar like 10 years ago. He's just some 17-year-old and I'm like, "Who is this punk?" He kept hitting me up. I saw that he had started a company that did Facebook ads and Facebook apps, and he grew it to millions of dollars and he sold it. Then he started to take his money, invest it in other companies. He would go to a taco truck, for example, and say, "Hey, I'm willing to write a check right now to buy your business. Let's make a deal." Then he started turning the camera on, then he wrote his book that became an actual best seller. Then he started interviewing all the people that were entrepreneurs and running SaaS companies and asking them about their revenue and their conversion rater and their cost per conversion and their lifetime value and all their stats. How much revenue, how many employees they had, what's their turnover, and turned it into the dominant podcast for SaaS entrepreneurs. Now he's on TV all over the place. I think we had lunch, I think it was three years ago, we were in Austin. He was living in downtown Austin, one of the high rises. We were remarking about Donald Trump and how Donald Trump, whatever you say about Donald Trump, who cares what your politics are, he knows how to get your attention. Kathleen: Yeah, he sure does. Dennis: Gary Vaynerchuk knows how to get your attention. I consider them the same person. Dennis, what if I became the Donald Trump of digital marketing? I'm like, "You know dude? You're exactly the kind of guy with the personality and the shine and the intelligence and the speed to be able to do it, but just like with Donald Trump or Gary, you're gonna have a lot of haters." If you're willing to deal with the haters, you will kill it. You are so good. That's what he did. The next day, I saw on Facebook, all this commotion and it was Michael Stelsner and the other folks saying, "Who does this Nathan Latka kid think he is?" He sent out this email to his mailing list of all his customers saying, "You know what? If you don't engage on my emails, I'm gonna delete you from my list." All these influential social media people are saying how dare he do that? He can't do that. He can't be saying things like that to his customers. He can't be saying that to Michael Stelsner. He did. He's like, "You know what, Michael? You don't like my stuff, you can leave." I'm like, Nathan, dude, I know we talked about that, but I didn't think he'd actually do it and he did. Look at how successful he is. Kathleen: That's cool. I can't wait to check that example out because I get a lot of interesting answers when I ask this question and it's always really fun to discover somebody completely new. Dennis: Look at his videos. It'll just be a minute, you're in line at Whole Foods and you open up and do a search on Facebook or Google or YouTube, and you're like, "Okay, I'll just watch a little bit of this video." Then before you know it, you've lost two hours watching his videos. Kathleen: Oh dangerous. So in other words, don't watch them when I'm under a deadline on something, I guess. Dennis: I'm warning you. He's so good. Full disclosure, he's a client. Kathleen: Well, thank you for alerting me to him. That's gonna be an interesting one to check out. Now, the other question I'm interested to hear about from you is digital marketing is obviously changing so quickly. Technology is fueling a lot of it. How do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself on the cutting edge? Dennis: I don't. I know it's kind of a flippant answer because you could say, "Oh yeah, but I know your network and you know these people and these people and these people." Here's my little trick. When I was a younger man, I thought that I could work harder than everybody and keep up with the news and read harder and work harder and I've since discovered, since I turned 40, that I can't do that. So all I do is I associate with the smartest people out there. So the reason I go to conferences is not because I want to be on stage or because I'm trying to get more clients or because I wanna be famous, it's because I want to hang out with the people that have that knowledge so that if I have a question, I know who I can chat up and they will answer my question. So I don't at all pretend like I'm somehow the most knowledgeable person about everything going on in digital. You and I know there's so many different thing and so many different niches, it's just, even if you had 500 hours in a day, you couldn't keep up with all the things that are going on. All the different tools for video editing, no way I could keep up with that. But I do know that if I have a question about anything, I can literally pick up the phone and I know who to call and I know I can get the answer. Kathleen: Yeah. Dennis: So that's my secret. It's not what I need to know, it's who I need to know and that list of who is my topic wheel. So the people that pay us money, the people that we've worked with to be able to create influence is also who I count on for my expertise. So the way I make money is also the way that I'm able to educate. Even if I didn't make money off of these people, I would even pay money to hang out with the people like Michael Stelsner and Nathan Latka and David Burg and Ryan Dice, but we're being paid by these people. Isn't that incredible? Kathleen: That's a pretty great gig if you can get it, I'll say. Dennis: Yeah. Kathleen: Yeah, for me it's my podcast. That's why I do this. People who listen, know I am always saying I would keep doing the podcast, even if nobody listened. Thank God, people do, but I learn so much and today is a great example of that. I feel like I've learned so much from you, so thank you. You Know What To Do Next Kathleen: If somebody is listening and wants to learn more about you or Blitzmetrics or has a question about personal branding, what's the best way for them to find you online? Dennis: They can go to blitzmetrics.com, of course, and they can also look me up on LinkedIn, but please do not friend me on Facebook. I've been at the five thousand friend limit for the last eight years. Don't ask me for a blue check mark, don't ask me if your ads were disapproved, but absolutely, if you want to reach out to me on LinkedIn or go to my website, happy to chat with you there. Kathleen: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Dennis. If you are listening and you learned something new or you liked what you heard, of course I'd love it if you'd give the podcast a review on iTunes or the platform of your choice. If you know somebody who's down kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork because they could be my next guest. Thanks so much Dennis. It was great chatting with you. Dennis: Thanks Kathleen.

Hey Everybody!Welcome back for episode 2 of Seattle to Unknown.  This week we dive into tips for choosing the perfect luggage for you, pros and cons of wheelie bags v backpacks, and what to look for when picking a bag.  We discuss our personal bag picking odysseys and talk about the long-standing belief that backpacks are superior to suitcases in every way (spoiler alert: they're not)

Smiling faces, kissing couples, pictures of people in awe of each other and life....This is how media can portray happiness, but what if it's all a smoke screen? What if the picture of happiness is a facade? Tune in and let's talk about it. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/Loveyourhealth/support

9. The day was going fine until I decided to post a mirror selfie. Oh - I'm changing the name once again.

Hello and welcome back to the Fourth Estate Militia Actual Play.    A plan is hatched to become the Heisenberg’s of Redmond but first Improv gets some brain improvements, Kennel has no idea where his loyalties lie, Horatio gives a lesson on inter-gang politics, and Juliet gives up violence for a new life as a farmer… okay, she drives around her new hideout and shoots people.   It’s time to begin Episode 30, “Oh, I'm a sky jellyfish!“

In this class session, Quentin shows us not only how to think outside the box, but how it leads to making an impression on your audience.

what's your key word for 2019?

Brian is HIV Positive, and he tells his heartfelt and beautiful story to us in the only way he can. With his giant freaking heart of gold. He admonishes the friends, family, and community that have helped him along the way. You will be inspired and encouraged. DO YOU LOVE THE PODCAST? JOIN US WITH SUPPORT. Support the podcast by leaving us a Rating & Review on iTunes or your podcast app. Do your Amazon shopping through our links. Donate to the Podcast. Join the CounterCulture Society and become a Producer through our Patreon. FOLLOW US: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LosingOurReligionPodcast.com. RECEIVE WEEKLY EMAIL CONTENT: Join our email list. Music Featured in this Episode: LOR Theme Song by Rat Queen and Manager by Digi G'Alessio. This podcast is made possible by the producers of the CounterCulture Society and created and hosted by @ZacGandara.

Summary: In this episode we'll discuss how organizations can keep up, and what is expected in order to stay ahead of their competition.     Resources:   Blog: Services for a Connected World  Silicon Foundry LinkedIn: Steve Gotz Twitter: @stevegotz   COMMERCE NOW (Diebold Nixdorf Podcast)   Diebold Nixdorf Website   Transcription:   Amy Lombardo:                00:00                     Hello again. This is Amy Lombardo, your host for this episode of COMMERCE NOW. This year we've seen some significant technology trends, and we know the knowing your audience and increasing the level of personalization is key to the success to this ever changing digital world. But this can be easier said than done, right? So, in this episode we'll discuss how organizations can keep up, and what is expected in order to stay ahead of their competition. So, listeners I've got a real treat for you today. I'm joined by Steve Gotz who is an expert in working with executives to create impactful corporate innovation strategies. He has over a 20 year background working with a range of global organizations such as AT&T, General Electric, and Symantec, and one thing that you'll be most interested in is his recent work with Umpqua Bank, which we'll touch on a little bit in this discussion. So Steve, thanks for joining me today. Steve Gotz:                        00:49                     Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Amy Lombardo:                00:50                     Wonderful. So let's start a little bit with your background, and just really what keeps you up at night. Steve Gotz:                        00:57                     I think what keeps me up at night is relevance. So, my background. Quick intro. So, 20 years working with big companies like you said in industries that are undergoing change, and a really interesting thing is it doesn't matter what the industry is. Corporations are really in a race for relevance, and whether you're an entertainment company, whether you're a movie studio, whether you're a bank you have to think about ways to be relevant to your customers today and into the future. Amy Lombardo:                01:23                     So, that's an interesting comment. Okay. Race for relevance. Could you dive into that just a little bit more for me, or maybe give me an example of some recent work you've seen on how someone has caught up or stayed ahead maybe of the race for relevance? Steve Gotz:                        01:35                     Yeah. So, I think a really interesting one that I can point to is AAA. The automobile club, right? So AAA is an American institution, and their business model up until now has been predicated on your car breaking down on the side of the road, you're picking up the phone, you're calling them, and them sending somebody there to help you. Now, a couple of years ago they recognized that they're sitting on a dinosaur. That business model isn't going to exist 10, 20, 30 years from now. We have autonomous vehicles, when we have cars that don't break down with us behind the wheel, their business model needs to change. Steve Gotz:                        02:11                     So, what I think they've done is really interesting, right? So they're investing in infrastructure and thinking about how can AAA be relevant inside of the home, and I think that's a great example of an incumbent corporation that's saying, "You know what? We're going to face this head on, and we're going to drive this change. We're going to drive this disruption rather than waiting for us to be disrupted by the market." Amy Lombardo:                02:32                     That's such a great example because AAA is something that I just rely on so heavily in my own life, but I haven't thought about yeah what would be next for a business like that, or thinking back to the stories of like Kodak or Blockbuster or something. Why it did or did not work for them because their business models needed to change with the rate of pace of change here. Steve Gotz:                        02:53                     Yeah. So, the last couple of months for me I've spoken to maybe 200 executives. So these are CEOs, Chief Digital Officers, Chief Technology Officers, entrepreneurs about what's changing in their business, and what's really interesting is we've kind of gotten through this first era of innovation. So, every corporation talks about innovation being one of the most five, one of the most 10 important things that they're focused on. But if you look at the number of ideas that have come from an innovation lab that have found their way to production inside of big corporate, that number is pretty small. But I see happening now and with people are talking about is this second wave of innovation. This more impactful, this more intentional strategy to say, "We are going to build things that are going to change our business." Steve Gotz:                        03:41                     And change our business in a way that is going to make us relevant into and beyond the 21st century, and this is different, right? So I think you said at the beginning. When I started my career, I started at AT&T labs in the music industry, and this was at the beginning of the rise of digital distribution before we had iTunes. When we took this, basically AT&T invented something underlying technology to iTunes, right? Secure digital distribution. And when we took it to the labels, the music labels at that point, their response was really telling. The response was, "We're not interested in this. We sell things. We sell things that spin. We're never going to sell our music over the internet." Steve Gotz:                        04:20                     So, this was in the late 90s, and that was your classic Kodak response from an incumbent. Fast forward 20 years, and when I talked to bank CEO's, they don't talk like that anymore. What they talk about is, "Yes, absolutely. We need to change. We need to create new experiences, and here's how we're going to do that, and here's where we are doing it." Right? So, this idea that the banking industry is facing a Kodak moment, I'm not an advocate of that line of thinking, right? I think the banking industry is responding very differently than some of those other traditional industries that have been disrupted. Amy Lombardo:                04:54                     Right, okay. No, that makes sense. So, in some of my research on you, the work you've done, you've talked about this idea of the innovation theater, and is that what you were speaking to earlier, which is kind of this innovation 2.0? Steve Gotz:                        05:08                     Yeah, that's exactly it. So, if you look at kind of the last 10 to 15 years of innovation, it's very clear that companies are recognized they need to be more innovative. However, the tools, methodologies, and frameworks they've deployed, they resulted in what some people call innovation theater, right? It's really pretty, you go into the innovation lab, you see an interesting application. But then when you pull back the curtain to say, "Well, what's the path to production?" Right? How many customers are using this? That's where you tend to realize there's not much substance there. I think a lot of people have recognized that, and now they're thinking about, "All right. How do we do that?" Steve Gotz:                        05:45                     Right? So, we're seeing this kind of growing kind of drive. An increasing number of corporations that are sending out new company builders, new organizations designed to create things, and scale things up, right? Don't just show me something in the lab, show me how you take what's in the lab, and get it in front of all of our customers, and make us more relevant. Amy Lombardo:                06:08                     Right, right. So, the example Steve you're giving about this innovation theater, almost like the innovation smoke and mirrors, I'm also kind of thinking in banking terms now of what Chase has done with the everyday express branch, and Capital One with the café branch, I mean these are realistic examples of innovation- Steve Gotz:                        06:30                     Yeah. Amy Lombardo:                06:30                     That has now been brought to life, and the results and at least the studies show that consumers are gravitating quite well to these concepts. Steve Gotz:                        06:38                     Absolutely, and especially around banking. The Capital One café, it's a really interesting idea, and I think it kind of gets to this point that physical is still important, right? Being able to bridge digital experiences with physical experiences, that's kind of the next competitive battleground. And I think Capital One, Umpqua Bank, I think we ... And even Amazon with Whole Foods. I think we see an increasing number of organizations getting much more sophisticated at spanning the omni channel experience. Amy Lombardo:                07:10                     Right, right. So you mentioned Umpqua, and that is such an interesting case study here. So, tell us a little bit about the work that you did with that bank. Steve Gotz:                        07:18                     Right. So, Umpqua is really interesting. I got connected up with Ray Davis in 2015, and Ray is kind of an iconic figure in the banking world. He grew Umpqua from $100 million in assets to about $24 billion in assets, and he was really driving the industry, and created a unique customer experience, right? So, for Ray they're not called branches, they're called stores. In those stores, there's a very unique experience when you go in. A store are part of the community, a store holds coffee hours. People could use the store as a co-working space. So, Ray and Umpqua is really kind of the leading edge of the ideas that we're talking about today, and so much so the now Capital One is kind of borrowing some of the ideas that Umpqua pioneered a historic concept. Steve Gotz:                        08:04                     So, I got connected up with Ray in 2015, and in the first conversation he was like, "Look, the bank I built for the last 20 years isn't the bank that I need for the next 20 years, and I need some help to figure out what that new bank is." So, the mandate was figure out how to pivot the bank, right? Ray is a gentleman who likes to name things what they do, so it wasn't a digital adventures lab, it was Pivot us. Easier to pivot the bank. So, we started down this path, and what we got to fairly quickly was the banking relationship is a unique relationship. Money is such a loaded topic for people, for consumers, and 20 years ago the banker was your neighbor. Steve Gotz:                        08:41                     The banker knew your first name, they knew your kids, they gave them a lollipop when they walked into the store, right? There was an experience attached to that, and when we fast forwarded today, and we the state of digital he said, "It's impossible to create that really personalized digital experience right now with the technologies that were available." So, the question was how do we engineer the human in? How do we create that personalized experience through a digital channel? And that's what we set out to build from. Amy Lombardo:                09:11                     I think that's so interesting that you say that because a few years back we had this interesting study, that was how consumers could differentiate their toilet paper brand over their bank brand, and I say that. And of course, the source is escaping me, but- Steve Gotz:                        09:29                     Right. Amy Lombardo:                09:30                     But it was all around the fact that banking had become this emotionless interaction. No, really it was more the transaction. You need to move into an interaction here, and your examples here of putting the human element bank in is a perfect way for banks to be thinking about this. Can you give our listeners some specific technology examples if those are relevant and okay to [inaudible 00:10:00] out here? Steve Gotz:                        09:59                     Yeah. So, before I do that going back to your idea of kind of toilet paper brand and banks. Amy Lombardo:                10:07                     I know you didn't think that what was going to come out of my mouth. Steve Gotz:                        10:12                     If you kind of step back a little bit, and you kind of look at how the industry go to where it is today, what you see is in the pursuit of cost efficiencies, the customer experience has been lowered significantly. In the last 20 years, the industry has done what it should have done, right? Which is use technology to be more efficient. But in the active being more efficient, they've created a customer experience that's not that great, and by lowering that bar so far it's now become really easy for two kids in a garage in Palo Alto to create a new mobile banking experience that can run circles around most of the existing incumbents, right? Steve Gotz:                        10:55                     Now, the opportunity is to change that. There's no reason that two kinds in a garage in Palo Alto should be able to create a better experience. Incumbents can do that, which is where we get to this idea of, "All right. How do we create new teams? How do we create new environments to build these things?" And that's kind of really what we did at Umpqua. Ray's mandate to us was don't go give us some prototypes. It was figure out how to keep us relevant. So, that started with the customer relationship. We said, "How do we take that in-store experience that we have today that really personalized experience when you walk into the store, and create that, and then catalyze the experience in an additional channel." Steve Gotz:                        11:35                     So, when we looked at the technical landscape, what we said is, "The future of the industry is chat based. It's dialog based systems." So, let's think about how we engineer the human in, and do that at scale. Let's think about how we can deliver a chat interaction, a highly personalized chat interaction with a human. So, what we started building is eventually we started using WhatsApp, and some of the existing chat platforms. But very quickly we ended up building our own application primarily for security and privacy reasons, right? So, if you're using Facebook Messenger as a bank to service your customers, if you're using WhatsApp there are potential privacy implications that come along with that, that we were uncomfortable making. So, we ended up building our own technology stack. Steve Gotz:                        12:24                     And essentially what we did was we put a device in the hands of our employees, of our associates in the store, and said, "You now have the opportunity to chat with customers." So rather than make this a call center initiative, we pushed it out to the edge, and the response was phenomenal both from customers, and from our employees. Amy Lombardo:                12:44                     Now, was that a cross-channel application to where that chat feature was available both on mobile, and online? Steve Gotz:                        12:52                     Yeah exactly, and the idea of it. So everybody talks about getting customers to come into branches, and the question is we can't get customers to come into branches now. I don't think we're going to get them to come into the branch in the future. One interesting kind of dynamic that we observed is if the customer knows who they're going to see in the branch, who they're going to interact with, there's a higher tendency to come in. So, the idea was we can use the chat, right? We can use the online interaction with the customer to pull them into a physical experience. So, if the customer needs to have a more in-depth conversation. Maybe the retirement planning, 401k, 529 plan. Steve Gotz:                        13:30                     We can say, "All right. Maybe it makes sense just to sit down and have this conversation in the store, and we can get something scheduled." So, the human interaction becomes a really interesting way to pull people into the store for more engaged conversation. Amy Lombardo:                13:43                     I love the example you just gave me because it speaks so much to what we believe and strive to deliver to bankers, and retailers here at Diebold Nixodrf by delivering connected commerce. This idea that you have this seamless journey throughout various touchpoints that it doesn't have to seem like, "Oh, I'm only engaging in the branch. Oh I'm only engaging on my mobile phone." It's the same experience, and you're giving a perfect example of it right there. Steve Gotz:                        14:09                     Yeah, and I think the idea behind connected commerce is really powerful, right? It's the bank ... The bank almost becomes an orchestrator on the behalf of the consumer, right? The bank captures the intention, the bank understands what the consumer needs to do regardless of the channel, then it helps them do that, right? This is the core of what we saw a couple of years ago. This is what banking used to be. Now we have technology to deliver that experience in new and different ways at scale with efficiency. Amy Lombardo:                14:39                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay, so you just touched efficiency, and that was this one question I was writing down here. So, I've been looking in all these reports as to what are going to be these top pain points for bankers in 2019 and beyond, and what seems to be the top three of all those lists is around creating better operation efficiencies, back end transformation, etc., etc. Can any of your line of work? Do you see that holding true? Is that something that bankers are talking to you about as well? Are there some strategies in place that you can comment on to accomplish that, but still now lose that personalization aspect? Steve Gotz:                        15:13                     Yeah, yeah. So, I think there's ... A lot of people focus on kind of consumer facing, kind of innovations and efficiencies because that tends to be where a lot of the top line growth is. So, sometimes I think back offices operations doesn't get as much attention as it should, but I think there's an equally large if not more number of opportunities in the back office to do things better, faster, and cheaper while you maintain that front office customer experience. And I think ... Again, the idea of what we're talking about here, which is companies can create structures. Companies can create new types of environments to solve our problems. We can look for places where this happened, and I think one of those places would be with Liquid Labs, and the auto group in Germany. Steve Gotz:                        15:59                     So, the auto group is one of the world's largest retail conglomerates, they own a lot of properties. Six years ago they set up an organization called Liquid Labs, which is really designed to solve hard problems for the organization, and the model there was Liquid Labs would have a budget, they would go to a business unit and say, "Oh we see you're losing $150 million." And these numbers are hypothetical. "We see you're losing $100 million dollars a year on return shipments because we've had issues with the address. We can fix that problem for you, we can fix it in a discoverative way, and if we succeed you now have a new capability that improves your efficiencies." And in fact that's exactly what Liquid Labs did for the auto group, and they drove significant efficiency improvements just with the very strategic application of technology. Steve Gotz:                        16:47                     So, banks have those kinds of opportunities in spade. When we arrived at Umpqua, the number of operational efficiencies the word technology brought to bear was substantial. So, the question is what's the right portfolio, right? What's the right portfolio mix between kind of front facing, consumer applications, and back office? Let's make this engine as efficient as we can make it. Amy Lombardo:                17:12                     So, do you have a thought on that of what is that perfect balance? Is that the next project for people to turn to you on? Steve Gotz:                        17:19                     Well yeah. This is I think why kind of proclamations are dangerous. I think this is one of those places where I think it really depends on the organization, and the state of the organization. When we got to Umpqua, they have just been through a core transition, starting to think about other projects that need to get done. So, there were some strategy decisions and said, "You know what? We're going to really focus on that customer experience while we give the organization time to figure out what's going to be the internal digital transformation strategy." So, that was the right mix for Umpqua. I think you have other organizations that are fairly sophisticated on the front end where they could use focus on the back end efficiency. So, that's a long way of saying it depends. Amy Lombardo:                18:05                     Okay. Fair enough. All right. I'm going to throw this one out to you Steve. Steve Gotz:                        18:08                     Okay. Amy Lombardo:                18:08                     So, we talk a lot about this idea of retailing banking. It's not just banking, it's retail banking, and really these two industries converge together. Would you agree with that statement? Have any thought around is banking really retail banking? Steve Gotz:                        18:23                     Absolutely, absolutely. It's retail, and in my view the bank has a role in that, right? Today and into the future. The bank is an orchestrator of commerce, the bank is at the center of that experience. That's a powerful idea that I think is just coming to. Amy Lombardo:                18:38                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right. In any of the work that you do, do you find executives challenged with branch closings, and just trying to find that optimal footprint here, and just some of those challenges that are keeping them up at night around branch locations, and branch size? Steve Gotz:                        18:54                     Yeah, so this is a perennial problem, right? And the problem of a branch is a catch 22. Everybody knows this. The branch density is very high in America. That's for a reason. You ask Americans kind of how they choose their bank. At least up until a year or two ago, branch location, branch convenience- Amy Lombardo:                19:12                     Okay. Yeah, exactly. Steve Gotz:                        19:14                     Was one of the top choices, right? Now what's interesting is it's often the top choice, but when you look at the stats about how often do people go to the branch, they tend not to go in. So, they say it's important, but they don't go into the branch. So, this is the catch 22. You start shutting down your branches, you start kind of reducing your branch density, you start losing those deposits because customers have a fixation with the branch. The way we thought about tackling this was, "Okay. They say they want it, but they don't really go in all the time. So, what do they really want?" And what they wanted was a lifeline. What they wanted was a safety net, a connection. Steve Gotz:                        19:54                     So, we're like, "Okay. If we can give them that same kind of feeling with a dedicated digital banker, maybe the physical doesn't matter as much. Maybe we can reduce the density of the branch network, move to a destination branch strategy, take all of that OPEX off the books while keeping the people, right? And the people are important because they're really key to creating this personalized experience of that digital channel. And if we can do that, we can start right sizing the branch network while deepening the relationship with the customer at the same time. Amy Lombardo:                20:24                     Right. Oh my gosh. I have the perfect example just in my home life. Several years ago, my husband and I, we were going through some sort of refinancing, and we had to have a check physically signed by this particular ... The institution that was through our loan. I'm looking online and I was like, "Okay, I live in Ohio, and the closest is in New Jersey." And there was no options other than take this check physically to New Jersey. Nowadays I'm like, "Well, now we have check box features, and video tellers that I could have made that work." But several years ago luckily we just ironically we have a family member that lived there, and we happen to be visiting, and we went out of our way to go to this bank branch. Amy Lombardo:                21:09                     But it was such a hassle, and just to think how technology has come and crossing those channels, that had been no problem today. But that seems like eons ago, yet it was maybe only like two, three years ago. Steve Gotz:                        21:25                     I mean we've trained consumers to kind of have this unnatural connection to the branch. Amy Lombardo:                21:31                     Right. Steve Gotz:                        21:32                     Actually, that's not entirely accurate because at a certain point it was natural. Before a lot of the digital technologies we have today, that branch network was really valuable. We're getting to this point now where it's not so valuable we can right-size it, but the burden is on the industry to weening customers off that expectation, to show customers that we can deliver you the exact same experience through our digital channel, and it doesn't matter if the branch that you normally go to around the corner isn't there anymore because you're not going into it that often anymore. Amy Lombardo:                22:02                     Right. But of course it's just finding that balance of how often do you still need that physical interaction to potential create that emotional connection versus, "I just need the quick, easy transaction here." Steve Gotz:                        22:14                     Yeah. So the idea behind Pivotus Engage, which was the platform that we've built as over time if a customer can chat with the same person over, and over again they're going to develop a relationship, right? A professional relationship, and they're going to start trusting this person. And this is important because bankers used to be trusted. Over the last decade though, that trust has waned. So we're like, "How do we get back to that?" It's the same person, same conversation, interacting with the customer over time, and at a certain point the customer is like, "Yes, I need help here. I need help there." Right? Steve Gotz:                        22:47                     You can almost see the switch flip in the relationship where the customer starts to trust the banker on the other side, and that's when magic can happen because when you're in that trust space relationship with the customer, you can then advise, you can then recommend, you can then orchestrate commerce, right? Which is what we're talking about. Amy Lombardo:                23:07                     Yeah. Steve Gotz:                        23:07                     Then you can be able to play with that relationship, and if you can get there, that's where I think exciting things happen in the industry. Amy Lombardo:                23:14                     Okay. So, Umpqua came up with this or you helped with this engagement platform, and really the idea in general around experience platforms. Of course, there's obviously the personalization aspect, but what also is necessary to enable them? Steve Gotz:                        23:32                     I think you'd be from the top down of the organization. So technology is easy, right? I mean building the underlying tools to create new experiences. That's easy. Our experience is most people that are working in the bank, they want to do more. They want to help their customers. The want to support them. I think the critical element is the will, the drive, and the impetus from the top of the organization. From the board and the CEO to say, "We're going to do this." Right? "We're going to make an investment in creating new experiences for our customers. We're going to make an investment in retrofitting our technology organization so that we can create these new experiences." Steve Gotz:                        24:11                     I think without that kind of top down commitment, you end up with what we were talking about at the beginning, which is innovation theater. Amy Lombardo:                24:19                     Yeah. Steve Gotz:                        24:19                     Because the kind of change we're talking about, it takes time, it takes commitment, it hurts sometimes, right? Because people have to change. That only happens if that commitment is there within the C-Suite. Amy Lombardo:                24:31                     Got it. So, and maybe that's a good closing point here, and just getting that buy-in from the highest level. Is there anything else maybe you'd want to share with our listeners here on ways to think about how they're transforming their business? Steve Gotz:                        24:48                      Yeah. So, I think what I would leave people with is there's this emerging zeitgeist in Silicon Valley, which is we're entering the age of the big company, right? We're entering the age where having a good idea isn't enough. To actualize that good idea you need data, you need distribution, you need customers, you have capital. All of those things live within the four walls of every company out there, every bank in America who has these things, and I think the opportunity is to find creative ways to leverage those assets in new and different ways, right? I think it's somewhat presumptuous to suggest that the banking industry is facing its Kodak moment because I don't think it is. Steve Gotz:                        25:28                     I think the banking industry has never been better positioned to control its own future, and that's what I'm excited about, and that's what your listeners should be excited about. Amy Lombardo:                25:36                     Very good. Well Steve, this was an awesome conversation. I got a lot out of it, I hope our listeners do as well, and thank you of course for taking the time to be with us, and to our listeners for tuning into this episode of COMMERCE NOW. To learn more about this topic, log onto www.dieboldnixdorf.com. Until next time, keep checking back on iTunes or your podcast listening channel for new topics on COMMERCE NOW.  

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How do you prevent fear from getting in the way of your connection? Sometimes your fears are obvious - other times they’re more subtle - but no matter what they can potentially drive a wedge between you and your partner. In the fourth episode of our “Core Relationship Principles” series, Chloe Urban and I show you exactly how to choose intimacy over fear, how to deal with the natural fears that arise, and how to identify your patterns so you can be aware enough to determine whether you’re choosing intimacy or fear in your relationship. After listening to this episode, you’ll have some solid strategies for moving past fear and embracing intimacy in your relationship even when it’s scary. And you’ll also get to hear us navigate a triggered moment during the episode itself! Can you find where it is? If you haven’t listened to the first 3 episodes in our “Core Relationship Principles” series you can do that here: Episode 126: Core Relationship Principles #1: Mutual Support without Codependence – with Chloe Urban and Neil Sattin Episode 132: Core Relationship Principles #2 – Finding Play, Humor, Fun, and Lightness – with Chloe Urban and Neil Sattin Episode 145: Core Relationship Principles #3 – Fostering Curiosity and Dismantling Limiting Stories – with Chloe Urban and Neil Sattin As always, I’m looking forward to your thoughts on this episode and what revelations and questions it creates for you. Please join us in the Relationship Alive Community on Facebook to chat about it! Sponsors: Along with our amazing listener supporters (you know who you are – thank you!), this week’s episode is being sponsored by two amazing companies with special offers for you. Babbel.com is the world’s best-selling language learning app makes it easy for you to learn French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Danish – and many more languages. Is there a language you’ve always wanted to learn? Try Babbel for FREE at Babbel.com and use the offer code “ALIVE” to get 50% off your first 3 months. This week’s second sponsor is James Avery Artisan Jewelry. Gifts from James Avery help tell your story – one that you and your loved one will remember for years to come. James Avery also sources their gemstones responsibly – something that’s especially important to Chloe and me as we make choices about jewelry. You can find James Avery Artisan Jewelry in their shops, in many Dillard’s stores and online at JamesAvery.com.   Resources: I want to know you better! Take the quick, anonymous, Relationship Alive survey FREE Guide to Neil’s Top 3 Relationship Communication Secrets Guide to Understanding Your Needs (and Your Partner’s Needs) in Relationship (ALSO FREE) Support the podcast (or text “SUPPORT” to 33444) Amazing intro and outro music provided courtesy of The Railsplitters Transcript: Neil Sattin: Hello and welcome... Chloe Urban: To another episode of Relationship Alive. Neil Sattin: We are your hosts... Chloe Urban: Chloe... Neil Sattin: And Neil. [chuckle] And I'm being joined today by my lovely wife Chloe Urban, whom you've heard me talk about quite a bit, and we are here to continue our series on core relationship principles. And basically, what we're using is the vows that we made to each other when we got married as a framework for the core principles that are important when you are in a relationship with someone. And we were very intentional about the vows that we made to each other, and they were based on our work with each other and the course that we created, Thriving Intimacy, as we were really trying to get at the heart of how to help couples succeed. And of course, we want you to succeed, we also want ourselves to succeed as well. If you're interested in listening to the first three episodes in the series, they are episodes number 126, 132, and 145. So that's where you will find the first three principles, and we are here in episode number 169. Chloe Urban: Wow. That's a lot of episodes. Neil Sattin: It is a lot. Chloe Urban: Very exciting. Neil Sattin: Yeah, as I was typing that number, I was thinking, "Holy mackerel, [chuckle] that's a lot of episodes." [chuckle] Chloe Urban: So that brings us to our fourth principle... Neil Sattin: Yes. Chloe Urban: Which is also our fourth vow that we made to each other on that glorious, beautiful wedding day that we had. And the vow/principle is that we vow to choose intimacy over fear. So Neil, what does that mean to you to choose intimacy over fear? I have a lot to say about it, but I'm curious. Neil Sattin: I'm sure you do have a lot of say about that. Chloe Urban: [chuckle] What comes up for you? Neil Sattin: Well, when I was thinking about this vow in preparation for our conversation today, the first thing that jumped out at me was how easy it usually is to find yourself in a relationship with someone. Chloe Urban: [chuckle] That is very true. Neil Sattin: Now that doesn't always mean that it's easy to find someone to be in a relationship with, but once you find someone in that whatever that special sauce, that little magical click happens, [chuckle] and you're in the circuit with each other, then you're in it. That's, I think, one of the things that characterizes, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, the very beginning of a relationship, is that it just unfolds naturally. The process, though, of deepening your relationship and staying together and staying connected over time where you don't get stuck, where you don't get stuck in staleness or in problems, where you're able to go deeper and deeper and transform, that is what, to me, is intimacy. Intimacy is a process, an ever-deepening process, of knowing each other more deeply, knowing each other's truth more deeply, and that deepening intimacy is what allows us to also deepen our trust in each other, to uncover the things that are obstacles to a deeper connection with each other, and to get through those obstacles and experience greater joy and connection. And I think we've experienced that a bunch, right, where things have been going great and then they start to not go great [chuckle] or get tense or contracted. Chloe Urban: We never have that. [chuckle] We... I don't know what you're talking about. Neil Sattin: Well, I do appreciate the universe that you're living in right now. [chuckle] But of course we want to give everyone the sense that this... That there's reality on this. Chloe Urban: I'm completely joking, by the way. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Right, there's reality here, which is things can be awesome and then things can kinda suck at times. Chloe Urban: Yeah. Neil Sattin: And so, what we've learned is not to take the suckiness as a sign that everything is horrible and that we're doomed, but as a sign that it's time to move through something or to take something on that helps us get even more connected to each other, to build the intimacy. So I know I'm talking about intimacy as a noun like it's a thing, and like it's a process, a verb, and hopefully, I'm not confusing you, hopefully, you're getting a sense that it is kind of a multi-dimensional word that's really important to succeeding in a relationship. Neil Sattin: And then when it comes to this vow of choosing intimacy over fear. The truth is that I think most of the time when we get stuck in a relationship. It's typically because there's something about our fear or our partner's fear that's getting in the way of being in the moment with each other. There's a risk involved, there's a risk that's required to be taken when you find yourself in a place where you're stuck because the stuck-ness usually happens because you're repeating something over and over again. And so in order to stop repeating it, you have to be willing to do something different. And even that doing something different in any of us can cause fear. Because we're breaking from the norm. And you don't... When you do something different, you don't necessarily know what's going to happen. Neil Sattin: And I think that's the biggest irony is that a lot of people choose what they know. They'd rather choose to do the same thing over and over again or to just try harder at the same thing, but knowing that the results are somewhat predictable. You have to take a risk if you want a different result. And I'm talking about stuck places, but this is I think also true, where you want to really thrive, where you're not even necessarily stuck, but to accelerate or to amplify a joyous moment that also sometimes require risk, requires facing fear. And so for me personally. And Chloe, I hope you're... You got something really profound to say after this... Chloe Urban: Oh I'm ready. Neil Sattin: [chuckle] Okay, good, but for me personally, this vow and this principle of choosing intimacy over fear is all about a commitment that I have to recognize when my fear is standing in the way of deepening our connection. Whether it's my fear of being vulnerable, my fear of being in my truth my fear of hearing your truth. My fear of being in the soup together and not necessarily knowing what's going to happen and being willing to be in that unpredictable space to say, "You know what, even though I feel that fear I'm going to move through it because the intimacy that we get to create on the other side of it is worth facing the fear, it requires courage. Chloe Urban: It does require a courage. Lots of it actually. And I really love what you were saying and it's so interesting because there are so many different places to take this. I think For both of us, we value so much intimacy and even though that can be really terrifying as you were just speaking about. To me, intimacy is something that's really required to actually have a deeply fulfilling and thriving relationship, and I think actually a lot of people don't have deep intimacy in their relationships, even if they've been together 30 years who... Who really takes the time and who has the courage to fully share all of their... Their truths, even if they're terrifying to share. Chloe Urban: I think that's one of the pieces here around really being willing to be seen. To share, to see the other person you might be terrified to share because you're actually terrified of what might come back at you, you know, you were saying that the fear of sharing yourself, but also the fear of what might actually come out of the other person's mouth, and that you might actually have to be in a dance of like, Whoa, their truth right now is actually really uncomfortable for me and then how to work through it. Chloe Urban: To me, this vow is just absolutely paramount and so important it, as you were saying, requires really stepping into being vulnerable and it requires us to kind of work with our brains a little bit and to be willing... Like fear it's... Fear really comes from that primal space of protection of working with our... Basically our survival brain. And what that brings up for us and it's so interesting and can be so distorted in a lot of ways, we have these fears around giving and receiving love or around being seen, or seeing others clearly or being abandoned or even being safe with a person. Chloe Urban: You know what, maybe for me safety has always been a big piece in my life because of my past, and actually places where I actually wasn't safe in relationship or in sexual connections or to really even my parents were amazing and yet every parent [chuckle] has their moments of not being amazing and even if it's just like I gotta go to work and I can't be with you right now. There's a way in which we can internalize and then that trauma shows up in all these different ways. And so for me, this piece here of choosing intimacy over fear, it's really like, How do we overcome our traumas, overcome our survival brain, around, Is it actually safe for me to be me. Chloe Urban: Is that actually safe in this moment for me to share my deepest heartache? Or my deepest desires? And will they be received? And if they're not, how are we going to work through it and do I have trust and faith that this relationship can hold that and that in the soup pot of intimacy which almost [chuckle] feels like a soup pot, it's like it. It's all of it. The soup pot of vulnerability, the soup pot of like, what it is that I desire, and what it is that you desire. And where they work together and where they actually don't, and then how do we come together and allowing the other to fully see and be in that conversation. That's where it gets juicy and that's where we get to decide together what are we going to do, what are we going to do if we don't match up in this total moment? When I'm sharing my deepest desires or my deepest fears and we're not exactly on the same page, and it... To me, the keystone here is the courage that you were speaking about, what is it to be that courageous. To show up that fully together. To really want to be seen, held, loved, all of it, and then to really want to show up for that in your partner. Neil Sattin: Right, right, and I really want us to give a practice for you listening. So that you can start to tune in to those places where maybe fear is holding you back or getting in the way. And recognize them so that you can make the conscious choice because so much of the vow that we made, and the principle that we're illustrating here is about taking something that you might just take for granted. Well, of course, I'm in a relationship, I'm choosing intimacy over fear, right. But when it really comes down to it is that true? Are you making that choice in your day-to-day life? Chloe Urban: Right or are you just sort of on auto-pilot? Neil Sattin: Right. Chloe Urban: And I think we go in and out of auto-pilot a lot. And there are moments where it's like, Whoa. Whoa, whoa, we've been on auto-pilot about this thing for months. How did that happen? Because we are...we want consciousness in this relationship and yet, you know. we get busy or these things happen or we actually didn't realize that that fear was running us in that moment. And so it's just, it's so important to continually keep looking. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Chloe Urban: One thing that really comes up around having a practice. For me is, what is it to notice your patterning when you begin to want to hide your vulnerability. Like if that makes sense, does that make sense? Neil Sattin: Not yet. [chuckle] You know on a deep level it makes sense though. Chloe Urban: So what are your patterns? What are your patterns? Where are your ways of hiding your vulnerability of hiding from the deeper grief or yearning or desire, or joy or whatever, it is, what is it that shows up in you? For instance, you know this well, this is mine. [chuckle] This is one of my big patterns is getting edgy kind of like agitated. I get like... All of a sudden I start feeling like my heart starts to race a little bit more, and I get a little sharp. I can kind of be... Neil Sattin: A little critical. [laughter] Chloe Urban: I can be critical, I can also... It might be self-critical or towards Neil or towards the situation. It can... It just... That's when I know if I were to actually stop and instead of acting on that edge and going there if I stop and I'm like wait a second. What's underneath this? What's actually going on here? And getting curious which of course is what we are always talking about the importance of curiosity, but like, "Oh I'm going to that habit, that pattern, that place where I'm actually hiding the deeper thing here. And sometimes what I've noticed is that when I go under, there's grief sure, there's yearning there's longing there's desire it might be that I'm absolutely terrified of sharing with Neil, what I actually want or I'm actually terrified because I don't know what I want and it's very vulnerable for me to admit that I'm actually scared to know what I want, and actually speak it fully. Chloe Urban: There are all... It's fascinating when you actually catch yourself in a pattern like that, and go under a little bit, a couple layers under and see. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, that is so not what I thought it was or that it so it has nothing to do with you right now. And actually, it has everything to do with my fear or trauma patterns, or habits or actually being really uncomfortable to speak my needs, because somehow I've made it that I'm not allowed to have needs or I'm not allowed to have wants and or desires or that they're not important. And then I'm going against myself. So there's all... There are many, many, many, many things it could be, but really what comes up is like, Okay, find... really start to look at yourself over this week. What is it that makes you go into the patterns? And Neil has something to say here. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I have something vulnerable to share. [chuckle] Chloe Urban: He has something vulnerable to share. Neil Sattin: This is vulnerable because you are so clearly on a roll here and I'm so hesitant to interrupt you and yet this is the time in the show when we need to mention our amazing sponsors. [laughter] Who are helping us produce Relationship Alive week after week, so that we can be here with you, week after week. And so, let's just take a moment to talk about our sponsors and then we will continue giving you the process for how to tune in to where you are maybe choosing fear instead of intimacy. Chloe Urban: And I'm going to breathe right now. [chuckle] Knowing that just because he interrupted me that it's okay and that this is not personal, and that what I have to say is of value. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Okay, we'll be right back. [pause] Neil Sattin: Okay, thank you again to Babbel and James Avery for making this episode possible. And when we left off, Chloe was getting really passionate about this practice for first exploring what your patterns are, can you identify the ways that the things that you launch into? She was saying that for her it's getting kind of edgy maybe critical of herself or of others. For me. It's probably more akin to these are the times when I start to check out or want to just do something else or maybe I shut down, maybe I start to get kind of sleepy. These are some of the things that happen for me because I think when I start to get to my fear edge, I tend to dissociate, a little bit more rather than necessarily leaning in. Chloe Urban: Right. You almost have the more flight pattern whereas I have the fight pattern. Neil Sattin: Right. Chloe Urban: Which is just normal with the brain. Usually, you'd go to one or the other. Neil Sattin: Right? And it actually hasn't always been that way for us. I think earlier in our relationship you had more of the flight pattern. Chloe Urban: Yeah. Neil Sattin: And I was more of the fight pattern. Chloe Urban: Yeah. Neil Sattin: And when we're talking about fight or flight, and of course there's also freeze. We're talking about the ways that our biology is programmed to handle the experience of fear. Chloe Urban: Right. Neil Sattin: So, when Chloe was talking about your primal brain, the need to feel safe, the need to feel seen, the need to feel like you're not being abandoned the need to feel love, all of those things. If they get triggered because you're not feeling those things, then it's going to send you into a fear pattern. So, this identifying what is it that you do that you keep bumping your head up against that's a sign that in this stuck place, you're resorting to automatic behavior instead of being in choice, being in creativity and if you've been listening to the podcast a while you know that being in choice, and creativity that's the sign that you're in the frontal part of your brain and you can only be in the prefrontal cortex, if you are not in this triggered state. Neil Sattin: So, Chloe how do we...Once we identify... Oh yeah, this is the thing I do or this is the place where we're stuck this is the loop that we get in then how do you shift that so that you can actually... You have a way of getting unstuck, or even like when I'm imagining it, it's almost like you can see kind of a record in a groove, just for all of you. Hopefully, you know what records are, [chuckle] but it's just spinning and spinning, but it's not actually changing and you almost have to nudge it sometimes to get it to jump into a new track. So what are some ways to shift the pattern within? Chloe Urban: Yeah, so a couple of things I would say, the first thing is just stopping for a minute actually pausing. And then getting really curious and a question that I might ask myself would be something like, “If this feeling or this contraction isn't what I think it is, then what else could it be?” because then you're really setting the stage for you to get curious in yourself, of like, Whoa, for me if this edginess or anxious tension I'm feeling in my body wasn't what I thought it was. What else would it be? All of a sudden it opens up this whole other realm of possibility. For instance, it might be there's so many actually opportunities [chuckle] just in this last week to talk about, but they're... For instance, it might just be like, "Whoa I'm starting to get edgy or antsy or feeling really agitated what is going on here”. Chloe Urban: One instance, I'm thinking about was actually I just needed to cry and it actually had nothing to do with what Neil or the kids were saying or doing, and yet it was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm actually my... My friend might be sick, and I need to, I just need to cry for a minute.” Like there's a fear there that there's some grief there's something that has nothing to do with this particular situation, and yet, I'm trying to go on with my life and just pretend like nothing's really under there where there's grief or fear, but fear in a different way like fear that has nothing to do with this situation, and it's actually an unexpressed emotion under there for myself. Chloe Urban: Another situation might be that, oh whoa, I'm actually really just wanting to connect with you right now. I just want a hug. And instead of just knowing that I can ask for that and trusting myself to know that that's what I want, I'm going to agitation and what if I could just stop and be like, Hey babe I'm actually feeling a little vulnerable, right now and a little disconnected and could we... Could I have a hug or could you hold me? And just being willing to be in that vulnerability. There are so many, so many, so many things it could be, and yet if we're just going to our fight or flight pattern or freeze pattern and not getting underneath what's going on, the pattern won't change. And then you're really robbing yourself of intimacy. Neil Sattin: So often what we're responding to, isn't even what's really happening in the moment, it's our story about what's happening. [chuckle] And so, as I'm listening to you talk about some instances from the past week. Yeah, I'm thinking about how easy, especially as we start to veer into our... The fear part of our brain, it's really easy to start misinterpreting everything. That's going on and seeing it through the lens of our fear. So what you mentioned Chloe is a perfect example of feeling your agitation and being willing to ask like What else could this be getting at like. Oh, what I really want... What I really want right now is to connect. And then risking the vulnerability of asking for connection and hopefully your lucky husband [chuckle] is there to provide you with that connection. Chloe Urban: Right? And even there, if it's not the right time or he's actually not... He or she isn't feeling it, or they aren't feeling it. There's a place here, an opportunity of creating real safety with the intimate container there of like, you know, babe actually, I'm not available to fully show up in this hug right now or to hold you right now, but I can... I want to give that to you, but can we do it in 10 minutes? I just need to get in the right frame of mind or I actually need to write this email that's going to be totally taking me away from being present, so that you're honoring the request and you're being... And you're creating safety to receive a request or vice versa. So you're really creating a place where you're not just giving over if it really doesn't feel right to you, in that moment, but you're honoring and showing up for... I'm going to show up for that when I can here. And then you get to play in the soup pot of intimacy, and vulnerability and seeing how you can both work with what's happening there. Neil Sattin: Yeah, I like how that soup pot like we keep mentioning that. I think maybe we're just getting hungry because [chuckle] well, Thanksgiving is happening tomorrow here in the states, so we'll all be enjoying or many of us, hopefully, will be enjoying a nice meal. I was also thinking about a place where this can come up is if you are feeling a little disconnected sexually. Chloe Urban: Oh yeah. Neil Sattin: From your partner. And how risky it can feel to... In that situation to make a request, and a great way to handle being stuck in terms of your sexual intimacy is to just put a date on the calendar when you are going to be there with your partner. And of course, that is a huge risk because... It could be that with that date on the calendar like that's all you need, you both show up, you take your clothes off and you're good to go. [chuckle] I don't know that that's true for a lot of people. It's true, in the beginning, a lot of the time, but when you get 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, years into your relationship, you may need more than just showing up and being naked together. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: What you really probably need is to show up, be naked and be really present with each other and be willing to face the fear that if we put this date on the calendar, it may not mean that we are making love with each other, it may just mean that we show up with each other and that we're honoring each other. But being willing to step into that moment and make the commitment to that date happening, whatever actually unfolds is potentially a huge source of fear for you. What if I don't live up to my partner's expectations, I know that they really want to have sex and I'm not sure I will or vice versa? I know that I really want to. And what if they don't want to? And so wherever you or your partner fall in that spectrum, there's vulnerability that things might not work out either the way you want it or the way your partner wants it. Neil Sattin: Deep down though, if what you're choosing is intimacy, deep down, it's all about the deep connection. You can have a profoundly deep connection being in bed and grieving together, about how messed up your sex life has become, you know. [chuckle] Chloe Urban: Well, and actually, it brings up for me, not just the active scheduling or having sex or... but what if you're in the act of actually making love and something comes up and all of a sudden you're there and you're like, “Whoa, there's some fear here. I actually have a deep desire to ask for this thing and I'm terrified to ask” or I actually... “Whoa, some trauma circuit just got opened”. And the way you're touching me right now feels really not okay, and I need to be able to actually have the courage to say something about it and that takes deep, deep vulnerability. And it also is a risk in that it might "kill the mood" and then how to just be willing, both of you to be in the vulnerability of whoa here we are, we're in this moment. Chloe Urban: Wow, it's a little rocky. Oh, there's fear, there's grief, there's something here. Let's do whatever we can do to show up intimately, and be vulnerable here in this moment for each other, so that it doesn't necessarily have to derail the whole experience and yet like Whoa, I actually just needed to cry for a minute. Whoa like... And showing up in both honoring and calling each other forth to be in the intimacy instead of the fear. Neil Sattin: What I love about what you were just talking about, is that it shows that, very often sex and intimacy are aligned, those are some... Those can be some of our most deeply connected moments. And what you were just talking about shows that even in a moment of physical or sexual intimacy, it's possible that there's a deeper emotional intimacy that's possible, if you show up in the moment in a way that's not necessarily about the sex that's happening, it's about whatever has surfaced for you. Chloe Urban: Right, and it's not... Again, on auto-pilot, to me, auto-pilot really feel... Fears like a... Feel... [chuckle] I can't even say it, feels like a fear-based kind of situation, where you're just on auto-pilot, you're kind of auto-pilot sex. I think we all know it, it's just... Neil Sattin: What? [chuckle] Chloe Urban: You've never gone on auto-pilot having sex? Neil Sattin: Not with you. Chloe Urban: Really? I don't know about that. [chuckle] There are ways that you might not even notice that you're going on auto-pilot, for instance. You might be sitting there or being in the moment of sexually connecting and you realize, "Oh I always look away when I have an orgasm. Isn't that interesting? Why do I do that? Why in that moment can't I be present? And what is it that I'm hiding from there?” Maybe it's because it feels so vulnerable, to just give over and surrender. And even the act of doing that if you were to fully be present with your partner might lead to you crying or being in a state of, whoa this is so edgy to be willing to feel pleasure, that kind of surrendered pleasure. Having someone fully witness me and be there. Chloe Urban: And want to be there and actually want me to feel this or vice versa, or whatever it is, there's... There are just these layers and that those moments to me when we get there, together, it's like the most profound and connecting, it's like we can ride that wave for days. When... When we call each other forth and when we're willing to just go there and not be in auto-pilot mode. Neil Sattin: Yeah. So I think what it comes down to for me in terms of this exercise of examining where we get stuck, where we're on autopilot, where we're in the patterns and being willing to ask ourselves a question, like what else could this be, or what am I really longing for right Now? It all is hopefully allowing you to get a little perspective on your relationship and on your situation and to ask yourself. If I were going to... If I were going to lean in right now. What would that look like? And if I were going to lean in a way that was also, this is a phrase that I use a lot on the show. If I were going to lean in a way that was an invitation to my partner. So it may be that you have a deep desire, a deep longing but if you make it a demand, then [chuckle] typically our partners don't respond to that too Well, occasionally if the timing is just perfect. Chloe Urban: Would you just hug me already! [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Right, exactly, and... Here. There you go. Chloe Urban: Aww thanks, baby. Neil Sattin: You're welcome. So if you can ask yourself, "What would it look like to lean in right now? What would it look like if I weren't afraid in this moment?" It's a variation of the... If I knew, I couldn't fail, what would I do. Right now, what would I ask for? What kind of presence would I request from you? And what risks would I take? These are conversations that hopefully you're having together. So again, you're taking a risk, but not jeopardizing the safety of your relationship, you're always being mindful of how do I take this risk and at the same time in the larger picture, keep myself safe, keep my partner Safe. If I recognize that what I'm asking for is a really big ask from my partner, then how do I do it in such a way that I let them know that it's... That it might be a big deal, or that there may be some more conversation that we have to have in order for this to be possible so that you're always maintaining a sense of openness. Chloe Urban: Always because we... That's just not possible. But yes. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Wow. That was hard, that was really hard to hear. [laughter] Chloe Urban: Did I just derail you? Neil Sattin: A little bit. Chloe Urban: See you get to see this moment right here. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Chloe Urban: I interrupted him and I'm really sorry and I got sarcastic. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Chloe Urban: And I guess where I was coming from is like... Neil Sattin: Tell me. Chloe Urban: I was just thinking, “Wow, this is really setting a stage for people to feel pretty shitty about themselves if they're failing and failing and failing at doing this.” Neil Sattin: Oh okay. Chloe Urban: And all I was saying was this really isn't something you're always going to be able to catch yourself on and be gentle with yourself about that too. Neil Sattin: Right? What I was about to... Chloe Urban: I'm sorry. Neil Sattin: Say was just that, that it is a dynamic if we're... I think, for instance, we make a vow in marriage, a commitment to choose intimacy over fear. That doesn't mean that we always do, but we hold the value strong so that we can recognize. Oh, that was a time when I didn't. Chloe Urban: Right exactly. Neil Sattin: And what do I do about that or... So what I'm saying in terms of always being open. Chloe Urban: Yes. Neil Sattin: Is not that you're a bad person if you're not being open. It's more like if you hold the value of openness, then you can recognize when you are contracting when you are closing and I think intimacy, the most intimate moments are our most open moments with our partners. Chloe Urban: For sure. Neil Sattin: So that's really what I'm talking about. Chloe Urban: Makes total sense. Neil Sattin: And I'm glad you were letting everyone off the hook because I was just getting a little righteous. In terms of... Chloe Urban: If we can always be open! I'm like well, okay, [chuckle] yes, and yes and yes, and yes, and... We're going to fail a million times. And Neil and I fail a million times a week at this and it's just about coming... I'm talking micro-moments of like, Whoa, that was where I just like could have gone... That could have gone a really different way if I had leaned in, or if I had been willing to let him see me or vice versa or all the different places. There are so many micro-moments in our lives. Neil Sattin: Yeah, so this is also really important. And then maybe this will be a good place to stop. Chloe Urban: We'll wrap up. Neil Sattin: Yeah. Which is that part of choosing intimacy over fear is the fear when you recognize that you've gone a little bit off the rails, you've gone maybe more toward the fear than the intimacy and being willing in your partnership to stop. And re-group, and regulate and then say, "Hey like, "Wait a minute, we're going way down the rabbit hole. Can we come back? Can we center ourselves?” Chloe Urban: Right. Neil Sattin: Can we figure out what's truly important right now? Chloe Urban: Right. Neil Sattin: That's also extremely vulnerable, risky and intimate. To be able to stop something that's [chuckle] spiraling off in the wrong direction. Chloe Urban: Even if it's like whoa can we take five minutes and breathe and just maybe we don't even need to have this conversation, is this actually really important for us to be talking about this or are we just going to derail totally? Neil Sattin: Right. Chloe Urban: One quick little thing, I want to say before we wrap up is, I'm also seeing this piece around helping your partner choose intimacy over fear. You may notice that for instance, I start getting agitated and Neil might be like, whoa I see that she's going into her patterning and she might not be able to catch herself right now, and actually inviting like, wow babe I'm actually seeing you go into that place. What do you need from me right now? Like what could I offer that could shift this, where could I actually support you so that we don't actually have to go into this patterning that we're doing? It could... If you have permission, that's obviously you want to really establish consent with that, of being open to saying, Oh wow, I'm noticing you're doing that. How can I show up for you right now? So we don't have to go into that old place. Neil Sattin: Yeah, yeah, because that, again, is a very vulnerable thing to do. So I do... I hope that you have the ability with your partner to invite that from each other because it's so powerful in the middle of a moment to feel that offering what can I... What can I do for you right now to help you be here with me? Chloe Urban: It's really an act of kindness and love. Chloe Urban: When you see your partner go into those old patterns. Know that it really is them hurting in some way, or that they're hiding something or they're feeling vulnerable and their fear is kicking in, to try and hide it. So to actually offer, What do you need. Isn't... Isn't about being self-serving, it's not about like, "Oh now I'm really uncomfortable.” Because, say, they're being critical, it's like, "Oh my goodness, they're being critical. That must mean that they're hurting or that there's something vulnerable underneath. And how can I extend a loving, compassionate, open-hearted message that I'm here for them and that they can actually share what's going on, and I can show up for that and that right there can dismantle a huge long extended fight or tension in the relationship just by dismantling the pattern as it begins instead of going down the road that you know we all know can lead to some really hard... Hard conversations. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: Right, right. I think what you're getting at is that in the end, when you meet a stuck place with love and compassion and generosity. Then that will disrupt the pattern because most of the time it's our... It's not our loving patterns that are causing the problem, it's not because we're loving too much, or being too compassionate, maybe with the exception of sometimes when we're just being extremely co-dependent. [chuckle] Chloe Urban: Right, right, right. Right. But then, that just automatically brings the intimacy back in. It's right there for you to dive into and actually connect on a deeper level and have more understanding of one another and show up. Neil Sattin: Right. My experience is that it brings the life back into a moment that was starting to become more and more closed. I'm getting back to that open versus [chuckle] closed thing, but... But that's what it feels like for me it's as the conversation starts to go off the rails my whole world starts to shrink really. And that's why it can sometimes feel like such a major effort to reorient in a moment like that. And it's that... In retrospect, it always feels almost kind of funny like, wow, that was just so challenging and hard to do everything that it took to reorient the train back to the pathway we wanted. Chloe Urban: Oh my Gosh. Sometimes it can... It's like... I actually feel like that is almost the hardest [chuckle] part of a relationship is steering the train back when every part of you just wants to just go down that really hard road and it's like Whoa, it's so humbling and so challenging to just... It's like Steer... Steer that train, that ship whatever you want to call it, back into a place of connection and love and it can just be so hard. Neil Sattin: Yeah. But... Chloe Urban: But so rewarding. Neil Sattin: It's not impossible... Right, it's not impossible. Chloe Urban: Not Impossible. Neil Sattin: And that's... It feels impossible in the moment until you just get over the... When you overcome the momentum of going in the wrong direction, then it can feel really easeful and light again. And that's that opening that I'm talking about is it's like, oh typically for us that's when one of us starts laughing or cracks a smile or whatever or where we actually do just touch each other, or hug or one of us cries, or whatever needs to happen in that moment to bring us back together into more of a harmonious place. Chloe Urban: Right. Yeah, we do our best at least. [chuckle] Neil Sattin: We do. We do. Just like we did today. [chuckle] I love you. Chloe Urban: I love you too. Neil Sattin: And I hold so much love for you listening here as well, thank you so much for sharing this time with us this week to go through relationship principle number four. Chloe Urban: Yay. Neil Sattin: And we've got, what, five, at least five more that we have to do. We have a mysterious 10th principle that we're still working on. [chuckle] Chloe Urban: It's coming. Neil Sattin: It's coming. Well, this came up for us because when... After we celebrated our first anniversary we decided that we wanted one more vow, and we just weren't completely sure what it is. So we're still working on it, but that will, in the end, I guess that means they'll be six more at least. Chloe Urban: Right. At least. Neil Sattin: But no rush. There's a lot to take in with each one of these and we look forward to being back here with you to discuss the next core relationship principle at some point in the future and in the meantime, as always feel free to reach out. You can find us in the Facebook group. Like I mentioned at the very beginning of this episode or you can always drop me a line. Neilius. N-E-I-L-I-U-S @neilsattin.com. We cannot respond to most of the emails that come in because we get a lot but we will read what you have to say and if you want to share some insights with us that would be great. And I think, I think that's it from me. How about you Chloe? Chloe Urban: I just so appreciate being on here and being able to share with you all and it just feels really good. Thank you for having me back on. Neil Sattin: It's always great to have you here.  

http://www.searchforschlock.com/media/podcasts/sfs-141-Airport79.mp3 Download MP3 Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Chris. Reminding you to never watch an Airport movie alone. These films are advanced level bad and not for beginners. In fact, you probably shouldn't watch Airport 79 at all. Oh I'm sorry The Concorde... Airport '79. We can't forget the all-important dot dot dots or it's quite possible you'll confuse this film with another airport disaster movie. Actually, that'll never happen ever! Dear lord was it a chore to get through this one. Not a single moment of the action nor acting "performance" by any one of the cast could do anything to save this piece of crap ... or this run on sentence. Never fear though we drone on for an hour and a half anyway. Mostly about the other films in the illustrious Airport franchise. Join us! ... but do not for the love of god actually watch this movie!Original post located at searchforschlock.com.

When you get up this morning what was the thing that you thought just got in your way? Did you think Ah I'm so busy I just can't organize dinner? What's going to be for dinner? Oh I'm so busy I have to get the kids ready. If I just had a little bit more money I could organize for somebody to be doing this thing that I don't like doing. We are always going to have stuff that get in the way. But today's guest Maxwell Ivey is an inspirational and motivational personal coach. And what I love about it is he also runs a business buying and selling carnival equipment and amusement park rides. Something a little bit different. But Max gets what it takes when you're in retail. Max also has something else that he wants to talk to us about. It's about how we work on our goals, how we work on getting things done. But sometimes it's with a physical handicap and sometimes it's with a mental handicap. I'm not going to tell you anything because Max has got a fantastic story to tell. What I will jump in and say is I am already liking this guy because he has a greyhound cross Dalmatian called Penny a gray Mason. I really want to see a picture of that. You've got to put that on the blog Max. I have a greyhound called Kav who I just had to kick out of the studio because he makes so much noise sighing. I don't know about your dog Max but my dog gets like an old lady comes to me. For more click here 

Show Summary: (Full Transcript Below) On White Cane Day, Blind Abilities is proud to bring you part 2 of Dr. Amy Kavanagh: Accepting the Cane and Guide Dog Possibilities. Amy has adjusted to her limited vision since she was born and when it came time for the White cane, she thought it was for other people to understand or recognize that she doesn’t see very well. Never thinking she needed a cane for her own good and never thought about using a Guide Dog.   This all changed when she made a couple of phone calls to GuideDogsUK – it was life changing! Her new-found independence and her ability to gain so much information from the White Cane was revolutionary and put to ease some of the constant struggles that held her back from reaching her full potential.   Join Dr. Amy Kavanagh and Jeff Thompson as they explore Amy’s long road toward accepting the cane and her introduction to GuideDogsUK.   Stay tuned for the next episode in this 3-part series with Dr. Amy Kavanagh’s journey and her revolations when she accepted her blindness. Check out Part 1 - Just Ask Don’t Grab – Meet Dr. Amy Kavanagh, Blogger, Activist, and Volunteer with a Message - #JustAskDontGrab Contacts: If you want to learn more about GuideDogsUK, check out the web site at http://www.guidedogsuk.co.uk   You can follow Amy on Twitter @BlondeHistorianand follow her blog, Cane Adventureson the web.   A very big Thank You to Chee Chaufor your beautiful music!   Thanks for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Get the Free blind Abilities App on the Google Play Store   Full Transcript:   Amy Kavanaugh: Somebody said to me, "Oh Guide Dogs, they do the long cane training, why don't you contact them?" So I was like well, you know, whatever I'll try, I guess. And I sent off an email and I had a phone conversation that frankly changed my life. Jeff Thompson: Dr. Amy Kavanagh. Amy Kavanaugh: It's like I've now got this new sense that is tactile and teaches me about the world, that I just realized how much information I was missing out on. Jeff Thompson: Accepting the cane, and the possibilities, at Guide Dogs UK. Amy Kavanaugh: I used to, you know, feel my way with my feet doing like a little penguin shuffle everywhere. I'm opening up and doing proper steps now that I have a cane. Jeff Thompson: From realizing that the cane was just not a symbol for others, but a tool to navigate the world around her. Amy Kavanaugh: Yes, I'm on a waiting list. So you know, I'm good friends with my cane. I'm always going to be super big pals with my white cane. Muddling along for now, I'm getting my independence back, that's the main thing. I can wait, it's okay. I don't mind. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I'm Jeff Thompson. In part-two of this three-part series with Dr. Amy Kavanagh, Amy talks about her discovery of the white cane and her introduction to Guide Dogs UK. Be sure to check out the first part of this three-part series titled "Just Ask, Don't Grab" and stay tuned for the third part of this series with Dr. Amy Kavanagh, where Amy takes a look at her journey and the revelations she's found once she accepted her blindness. Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities, and download the free Blind Abilities app from the app store and the Google play store, and check out the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device by saying, "Enable Blind Abilities." Jeff Thompson: So without further ado, here's Dr. Amy Kavanagh. We hope you enjoy. Amy Kavanaugh: It's so silly, I get like really emotional. Jeff Thompson: And as we left off from part one. Jeff Thompson: Creating hash tags is not your only occupation! Amy Kavanaugh: No! Well it feels like full-time at the moment. Jeff Thompson: Oh yeah, it's great. And you have a blog, and I saw your Cane Adventures blog, which is a great blog I love your reading, and I got hooked up on this one about guide dogs. Can you explain about the guide dog situation that you're... You're in wait, aren't you? Amy Kavanaugh: Yes, I'm on a waiting list. So, Cane Adventures is a blog, and a recent post that I did, which is really important to me actually to get that message out there, is all about my experience with Guide Dogs UK. Amy Kavanaugh: So Guide Dogs in the UK is the equivalent of the seeing eye dogs in the States. And as far as I understand, it's a slightly different setup in that I believe in the States there are lots of different schools where you can get different types of seeing eye dog or assistance dog. In the UK, it's mainly this one big charity for visually impaired people. Guide Dogs are the providers of seeing eye dogs for the blind. That's our main one. I think there's a few others, people who have perhaps dual sensory loss, and there are definitely growing charities for autism assistance dogs, dogs for deaf people, medical alert dogs. America is definitely I think leading the way in assistance dogs, and the UK is playing catch up a bit. Amy Kavanaugh: But we do have a good solid old, since World War two, institution in Guide Dogs. It is very well known to all British people and it kinds of helps a bit. I think I've spoken to a few friends online that have seeing eye dogs and the different schools mean that sometimes harnesses are different, the rules are different in different states about access and stuff. Whereas in the UK it's a little bit more kind of universal, there is one look of the harness and types of dogs that Guide Dogs use. So it's kind of very consistent brand. Amy Kavanaugh: Anyway so my experience with, again, through social media I desperately wanted training with the long cane because I knew that it was something that would help me. And mainly I thought it would help me by being a symbol, being a symbol of my visual impairment. I commute through central London, it's extremely busy, it's a city of like 8 million plus people. I go in and out of one of the busiest stations in the city, 200,000 people a day use the station that I use. It feels like they all use them at the time that I'm using it. And I thought well I'll get this white cane, I guess I'm kind of a blind person, I'll use this white cane thing. And I thought it was just going to be for a symbol of showing people that I'm disabled, but now I know it's much more. Amy Kavanaugh: Anyway, I was trying to find out how I could access the training, and in the UK, again, this training is normally provided through your local social services. Based on where you live, your council, or kind of your local municipal area will have a team of social workers who provide training and assistance as part of our local government. Unfortunately our government currently has slashed the budgets to these social workers, and they are massively overwhelmed, underfunded, and did not have the resource to train me appropriately. I really struggled to access it. Amy Kavanaugh: So as many people are unfortunately having to do in the UK, I turned to a charitable organization for support, and somebody said to me, "Oh Guide Dogs, they do the long cane training, why don't you contact them?" So I was like well, you know, whatever. I can try, I guess. And I sent off an email and I had a phone conversation that frankly changed my life. Jeff Thompson: Really? Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah. I had a lady phone up and say to me "I'm calling from Guide Dogs; can you tell me a bit about yourself?" And this was like a pretty low point in my life and it just spilled out of me. I think, much like you Jeff, I ranted on the phone to her about everything I was struggling with and was finally kind of honest with myself about what I was finding hard as well. And she just listened, she just listened, and she didn't do what so many do many people do with the kind of platitudes of, "Oh well you'll be fine," blah blah blah "Oh I'm sure you'll be alright." She just listened and she said "You're struggling. You are struggling. You need some help." And for someone to say that to me, to recognize it, was so powerful. I am a crier and I cried on the phone at this complete stranger, and I even get wobbly talking about it now, if I'm honest. Jeff Thompson: Well struggling is a hidden emotion kind of. Like no one sees it, you're just scared to make moves, kind of. Amy Kavanaugh: Yes, and you feel it very strongly but it's often inside, right. It's in your head. Jeff Thompson: Yeah, indecisiveness and yeah. Amy Kavanaugh: And for someone to A, be able to recognize it just over the phone, to hear someone and to go, "I know what this person's going through. I know what that is." To see it, and to hear it, and to say, "We can help you." It was incredible. It's just so silly, I get like really emotional. Jeff Thompson: I'm going there with you, I'm going there with you, I know what it's like. Jeff Thompson: You mentioned something earlier, it was ... As my mind goes blank as I was just drifting off into that thought ... When you said you were going to get the cane for a symbol, I use the scarlet letter B, like I'm blind or the cane tells everybody, "Hey, hey I'm blind. I'm visually impaired, look out." So that's going to help you, but did you accept it that you needed the cane? Amy Kavanaugh: I mean, not for 28 years, no. Jeff Thompson: Just 28. Amy Kavanaugh: Just 28, yeah. Jeff Thompson: It's great that, it's kind of ... I'll use the word amazing myself, or ironic would be the better word ... that you called Guide Dogs UK, and they got you to get mobility training with the cane. Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah. Jeff Thompson: Was that like, whoa, wait a second. Was that a moment? Amy Kavanaugh: Oh, for sure. So I made that phone call, that first phone call, and had that lovely conversation where, as I've done on this call, I cried. And they said, "Oh we'll have someone come to your house and see you." And this was still ... I did have my job by that point because I was still ... The first few months of my job I had learned my way, and luckily where I work is very close to my first university and also to the big British library where I used to do all my research. Amy Kavanaugh: So I was like right, I've got that down, I can do that, that's okay. And I knew my sight was getting worse, and I did have that confirmed recently that my uncorrected vision is worse, down to the sort of 6/6 state which in the UK is what you would consider registered blind. But we did, annoyingly but also sensibly, your registration is based on your corrected vision. They take it from my glasses even though they become redundant sometimes because of stuff. Amy Kavanaugh: Anyway getting besides the point, at that point I went to work, I came home from work, I didn't leave the house without my partner, that was it. Like the only thing I was doing on my own, and mostly ending up in tears and then kind of hiding it a bit at work, was my commute to work. That was the only journey I did on my own and that was, I thought I was ... Two months in I thought, "I'm going to have to quit. I'm going to have to ... I can't do this. I can't do this." I couldn't even go to the local shop by myself anymore and just, I would come home from having traveled on the underground and just cry, and cry because I'd been frightened and pushed by people. Amy Kavanaugh: London traveling, as you may have experienced if you've been to London, we're not the most patient and polite of travelers. And we push, and we pull, and we get a bit grumpy in the underground stations. And with no visible indication I had a disability, when I was bumping into people, or classically you know the train spaces are very small? Because the tunnels were made for Victorians, and the main line I use is one of the really old ones, so the trains are super small and they get very, very crowded and you are like face to armpit with people and there's no air conditioning. Jeff Thompson: Thanks for that imagery of face to armpit. Amy Kavanaugh: It is! You are, I'm like 5' 2" so I am always face to armpit with someone. Amy Kavanaugh: When people move in busy environments, even though I've got this residual vision it just blurs to me because it's just such, so dense and so much information my brain can't process it. So people would move, and move down the carriage, and I just wouldn't see that there was a space there. And people would push me and get really grumpy and like, "Oh come on move, move, move." And I just would cry when I got home because I used to think "I can't see, people get so angry with me because I can't see that they've moved." And so when I had this first meeting with a mobility officer, I'd had to go part-time at work because I just wasn't managing the journey, it was too much. My anxiety was just going through the ceiling, I was having panic attacks on the trains and having to get off [inaudible 00:11:12]. Amy Kavanaugh: And I had a symbol cane in the UK, so it's like a little short one, I think you call it an ID cane sometimes. So you don't actually use it for mobility, you just kind of hold it. I do think they're kind of pointless, I know that's slightly controversial but people don't really get what it is and so they still don't really react properly because it's like, "Why has that lady got like an orchestral baton that's white?" So I wanted to use a longer cane because I knew people would understand what that was. Amy Kavanaugh: And Tommy, my mobility officer, he came, and he did a whole great big like three-hour chat with me at home, and I sobbed all over him, like honestly like a big ugly crying, because he was so nice. And again, much as I've rambled on for you, he asked me like, "Oh you know, what are you finding hard?" and it just spilled out of me for like and hour I just talked at him, I was just like, "Oh my .... You know ... This is, I can't go to the shops, I can't ... I'm so frightened, I keep falling over, I can't manage, I can't do this, I don't know what to do, I can't have my job ..." And just he said at the end of this tirade that I'd put in his direction, "That sounds hard." And it's just three ... See here I go again. Just three words but they made such a different because again, it was somebody listening, and somebody seeing me struggle, and somebody hearing me say, "I can't do this." Jeff Thompson: And both times you communicated with Guide Dogs UK, they listened. Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah, and it was radical because I'd had, like I said, I had that whole experience of asking for help previously and people saying, "No." Amy Kavanaugh: At university, we have a scheme in the UK where you can get a travel pass that is free if you're disabled and you can use trains and buses and things for free at certain times of day, and I applied for that like four times and they kept rejecting me. And I think we all, as disabled people, experience that bureaucracy where they say, "You're not enough, you're not disabled enough. You don't deserve the parking permit. You don't deserve the extra time in exams. You're disabled, but you're not disabled enough for us to help you." And it was the first time really in my life someone had said, "We'll help you. You don't have to prove yourself to us. You don't have to fill out forms. You don't have to do a test. We believe you, and we're listening to you." Jeff Thompson: Can you explain, calling them with the expectation of getting a guide dog but now they're going to hand you a cane. A lot of people don't understand that having a guide dog, you still need good mobility skills. Amy Kavanaugh: Well I didn't think I'd be allowed the dog, and this is why I'd never, ever contacted them as an organization because I thought, "Well they won't give me a dog, that's only for the totally blind people." So I did call them asking for help with the cane and they said, "Yeah, no we can do that, that's no problem." So I was just so grateful for that, totally. But then as the application process went through, where we were talking and that first conversation in person with this mobility office, where he was talking about, "Yeah, a cane will help with this stuff." He said, you know "What about the dog though?" And I said, "Well I can't have a ... I can't have a dog, I'm not allowed a dog." He was like "Why, why would you not be ... You're registered visually impaired." And I said, "But I can ... I can see your face, I can see your glasses, and your ... I'm not allowed a dog." And he said, "Well, let's just see how we get on with that." Amy Kavanaugh: And so he ordered me a cane, started teaching me how to use it, and that ... Oh my ... It's so hard to describe to people. I, like I say, I thought it was just going to be a stick I was waving that meant people could see me, right? That's all I thought it was for. It is like having another sense. It's like I've now got this new sense that is tactile and teaches me about the world, that I just realized how much information I was missing out on. And it's almost like it helps me see the world better. Amy Kavanaugh: And it's so hard to explain that to people who don't use a cane, but every little vibration, every little movement, every tap, it gives you something. It gives you that information and especially I think as well for me, where I do have my residual vision. That blurry path in front of me, I suddenly know where the crack in the pavement is. And I suddenly know where the curb is and it's like, it's like someone's turned up the volume on my life, using a cane. And I get so much balance from it, I know you don't use it to prop yourself up, but simply the information that it gives me enables me to be more balanced. Amy Kavanaugh: It's just so revolutionary that I wished I'd been using it for ten years, so yeah, I'm glad I am using it now. My cane anniversary was last Monday so, it's a year and week old. Jeff Thompson: Well congratulations on that, that's a bit of freedom right there. Jeff Thompson: Now with your experience with the guide dog, getting some introduction to it, that might be a whole nother revelation. Amy Kavanaugh: Well yeah, I've done a little bit of working with dogs. So after we started the whole process with the cane training, and the mobility training, and all of that stuff, my mobility officer Tommy gradually introduced this concept of applying for the dog. And he said, "Why don't we just do it. why don't we just go through it, and then we can see where we go from there." Amy Kavanaugh: So we filled out the paperwork, it was similar to the conversations we already had about my mobility and what I was finding hard, and what I would like to achieve, and what the cane was helping me with. He said, "I'll just put you through to the ... We'll just do the next stage." He's very clever, he's very good, he's like, "Oh we'll just do the next bit." And that involved an assessment where one of the team who works with the dogs came and assessed my mobility. And he had a training handle, that was like the harness that the dog wears, that he was kind of holding one end, and I was holding the other end. And he said, "Well, let's just see how this feels. Let's walk along the street and see how it feels to be guided by this handle." And so we did that, my partner was with us saying you know the places that we could walk and try it. We got a lot of funny looks you know, "What's that poor blind lady doing? Does she think there's a dog in that harness? It's just a man on the other end. They've tricked that poor blind woman." Jeff Thompson: There's a shortage on dogs. Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah. It's like that joke lead that has like the stiff collar at the end? It was like that. Oh look at the invisible dog. So I was like, "Oh that feels different." And there was one, an instance where I was like, "I don't know about this, I don't think this going to work." And then we were walking back along the street back towards my house, and as I've said before, because of my ocular albinism I'm very sensitive to light. And it was summertime of time of year, I think it was kind of the autumn, when the sun in the UK is very low in the sky. Well you know on a nice sunny day everyone else is loving it in the autumn, but that sunlight is really low in the sky and straight into my eyes. And I can't see anything even with my sunglasses on, it hurts too much, or it's just too overwhelming, I've got no vision at all. Amy Kavanaugh: And then the trainer just goes, "Well, close your eyes. Just close your eyes." And I was like, "Well I do that when I'm traveling in the car, or if I'm sat somewhere and it's too bright." He said, "Just close your eyes and follow the handle." And that was revolutionary, you know? That I could rest my eyes, that I could travel with my eyes close, like a blind person. And I knew where I was going, I followed this handle and the handle moved when I needed to step to the left, or to the right, or up and down a path. Jeff Thompson: Did you get to the point where you could actually have a, not a conversation in your head, but be thinking like, "Oh today I have to do ..." You know like everyday people do as they're walking along, they're kind of thinking about their daily schedule. Just like when you started using the cane, you get to a point where, you're just doing normal walking, thinking stuff. Like planning your day, or thinking, "Oh did I leave the coffee pot on." Or ... But before you have those skills, that technique, or that freedom, you're just worried about the next step. Amy Kavanaugh: Oh for sure. And that used to, like I say, my slightly tragic internal monologue before was constantly like, "Can I remember the way? Where is it? Where is it? Where do I go? Is it this way? Is it that way? Oh no. Oh am I going to bump in to someone? Oh what's going to ... Where are they? What's ... Oh, is that moving? Is that car coming?" And now that voice, because I have those cane skills, it's still there sometimes especially if I'm in a new place, or if it's super busy. But now there are places I just do it like I'm on auto-pilot. And it's made me realize that probably most people walk around, and they don't have a constant internal monologue of, "Am I going to fall over? Am I going to fall over? Am I going to fall over?" Because that's just, that was all I was thinking, or "Am I going to bump into that person? Am I going to fall down these steps? Amy Kavanaugh: And now, I can walk through one of the busiest train stations in London and I'm thinking, "Oh yes, I think I might watch that on telly tonight." And you know, "Oh yeah, I'm already on the escalator that's fine. Okay I'm just going to walk ..." You know? Jeff Thompson: That in confidence or that fear just keeps, it's consuming. Amy Kavanaugh: Oh and it does consume you, and it's exhausting, it's exhausting constantly thinking, and planning, and worrying. So tiring. Jeff Thompson: And then someone grabs you. Amy Kavanaugh: And then someone grabs you, yeah. Amy Kavanaugh: But then after I had the invisible dog, and talked a bit more about the practicalities of having a dog ... Now I am a huge dog lover and when I did have ... Was working from home a lot with my PhD I used to volunteer at an animal shelter in London which is very old, very well-known animal charity called Battersea Dogs' Home, it will take on the most problem cases. And I used to go and volunteer, and again it was one of those times where I'd sort of said to them, "Oh I can't see very well. Oh maybe I shouldn't do too many walks with the dogs." And they were very good about it, and they didn't really question it too much. And they did all their risk assessments and everything and they said, "Okay well what you could be good at doing is the anxious dogs, who haven't been around people, they just need people to sit quietly with them and pet them, could you help us do that?" And I was like, "Could I help you do!? Yes I can do that." Amy Kavanaugh: I then fostered some of these very, very anxious dogs who just needed company. Older dogs, sick dogs who didn't need a lot of walking and exercise but just needed to be with someone. And they would sit in my office and I would pretend I was managing to do my PhD work and just pat them and make them feel better. So I did that for a couple of weeks at a time. And so I have had dogs, and problem dogs who were sick everywhere, and poop everywhere, so that I was used to. That part of it didn't bother me or my partner, we're dog people. Amy Kavanaugh: And I think a lot of that initial process is ... Lots of visually impaired and blind people, they have never had a dog in the house, they've got to get over the whole picking up the poo thing. So that for me was not a barrier at all, and if anything it was something, I was super conscious of because I was like, "Do you just want a dog, Amy? Is this ... Do you ... Because you would like a dog, this is not the solution for you just getting a dog. There are lots of dogs you could adopt, this needs to be the right reason. It's a mobility aid, it's not a pet dog." Amy Kavanaugh: So as part of that process, Guide Dogs gave me the opportunity to go to the training school and do a residential visit with them where they put a group of us up in a hotel and we did training and we worked with several different dogs in training. Amy Kavanaugh: And we had a dog stay overnight in our room with us, and we got to hang out with the dogs, and we groomed them, and we got a sense of how it would feel to be guided by a dog, to work with the dog, and how that is very different from the cane. And I absolutely loved it because that internal monologue that we're talking about, of that fear and that anxiety, that I still do have with my cane. Because the cane is great at finding objects that you have to work your way around, and that takes a lot of brain power, lot of thinking, lot of skills, lot of concentration. Whereas the dog just walks you right around that object. Yes you have to focus on your working relationship with the dog, on the commands, on understanding how the dog works, on following the rules of the way that the dog knows how to guide you, and it changes your mobility quite significantly. But that stress of, "Oh, what if I bumped into here? What's this? Okay, it's a street sign. Okay I can walk around this. Is it? Oh it's some construction work." Jeff Thompson: "Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me." Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah. You go faster, it's smoother, and that internal monologue can focus a little bit more on what you want to eat, when you're going shopping, you know all this stuff that everyone else is thinking about, and I loved it. Amy Kavanaugh: It was a great process, the best thing about Guide Dogs is that they are really invested in you making the right decision for you. And it's not like ... You don't have to pass some test, and I think it has been like that in the past. I think they did used to be a little bit more like, "Look at this chart. Cover your left eye, cover your right eye." But I think they realized that it meant it was denying a lot of people like me a service that would make a big different to their lives. And the modern version of that is about being independent, reclaiming your confidence, getting out there, being able to do things just like everyone else can. Amy Kavanaugh: And so I sat down at the end of the weekend and I talked to all the different trainers and like the support team and they said, "You're going to go away and think about it, we won't accept and answer from you right now because that's not appropriate." So I went away, three days later I really thought about it, you know a couple of sleepless night, "Is this the right thing for me? I can't fold up the dog and put it away in my handbag. I can't stay out all night partying with the dog. I might get access refusals, which will be a new concept, you know, taxis will not take the dog, restaurants will not let me in, people will try to distract the dog." No one is trying to pet my cane, although they do like to grab it occasionally. Amy Kavanaugh: So I had to take on that whole decision, and they really support you through this, but they say it has to be the right decision for you. And it has to be the right decision for us as the people who are going to give you this working animal. To know that it's going to benefit you, that you're going to be committed to it, and that you're going to follow the rules, understand them, and get the best out of this working relationship. So yeah, I made that phone call at the beginning of January, and I said, "Yes, I think I would like to go on the list, what do you think?" And they said, "Yes, we think that's a good decision." Jeff Thompson: And you'll get that cold nose once in a while. Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah, don't mind that so much. I think it might be a very spoiled dog. Jeff Thompson: That's great that you have experience with a dog because my wife has a dog, she takes care of the dog, maintains the dog, sees that it's fit, does regular checkups, she's an animal type of person so it's a great fit for her. And always complained about how the cane gets tangled up with people near the bus stop and all the shrapnel that you can find on the sidewalks and stuff. I'm not knocking it, but for her it was just a great transition for her and she really likes that. Amy Kavanaugh: Yeah and I think it does suit some people and it doesn't suit others, and that's fine. I kind of met people who were like, "Yeah I had a guide dog for a while, it didn't really work for me. I prefer the cane." People prefer the flexibility of the cane, it does give you that ability to decide that you just want to stay out or go wherever. Having a dog can reduce your access in some ways, but it really opens it up in others. Amy Kavanaugh: You can get a dog to do an unfamiliar route with you, you know your Google Map's in your ears, the dog will just take you from curb to curb, and you will be safe. And I rarely have the energy, and concentration, and skill to be able to do that with the cane. You're stopping every three meters to look at your phone, am I in the right place, listening to the instruction again, "Okay right, travel a bit further, bump into someone, avoid something, Oh I forgot ... " You know, whereas that dog is going to take you that smooth part of that journey, and then you can focus on your direction, asking for any assistance. For me it feels like it's going to fit and suit me that way, and also, I'm very keen to be an advocate for them as well because they have supported me so much. Jeff Thompson: I have to toot their horn too, Guide Dogs UK. I met John Greedy when I was down in Teignmouth. A friend of mine Jo Fishwick, she has a charity there that's called VI Talk. And they actually at Teignmouth, there's a Cliffden Hotel there that they bring people there, so they can do that one week of interaction with the dog. It's a two-week program, they actually interact, and they actually release the dog to the owner, operator I guess, guide dog user. Jeff Thompson: So it was neat to be there at the same time that they were doing that, and I had an interview with them and I put it on the Blind Abilities podcast, and he's been doing it for 21 years and it was just so ... It was just so nice to talk to him and hear about how he goes about it, his interaction with the dog. And I don't know how many dogs he's done but over 21 years, he gets these dogs and hands them off to people, but he said, "Are they active people? Do they have low vision? Totally blind? Do they live in this type of environment?" So the criteria that they fit and match these dogs with is extensive in the sense that they're giving the right dog for the right purpose. Amy Kavanaugh: Absolutely, and that is why the wait is quite long because for me, I need a specific set of requirements. I am a short woman, so I don't need a great big dog with a great big long stride that's going to be dragging me along too fast. I currently do not walk very fast because I used to feel my way with my feet doing like a little penguin shuffle everywhere. I'm finally opening up and doing proper steps now that I have a cane, but I'm still pretty slow because I'm just so used to walking slowly because I thought, "Well if I'm moving super slow, I'm not going to injure myself as badly." And now that's speeding up a bit so they need to match me with a dog that isn't going to race me down the street, it's got to be a dog that will be able to handle one of the busiest cities in the world, that's going to get me on that public transport, not be phased by huge crowds of people, have the enthusiasm and determination to work in those busy spaces, a real problem solving dog. Amy Kavanaugh: I have heard they tend to be the naughtier dogs, the London dogs, because they need that kind of, spirit cheekiness to have that confidence to go into those busy environments. So they can misbehave a bit so you kind of have to keep an eye on that really, as best you can. It's going to be an interesting dog, I'm looking forward to meeting it. Amy Kavanaugh: And actually I have to take things into account, like I said, I'm starting this new job and I was doing some route practices for this new job. It's full-time, going back to full-time work which is a big step for me, and I will have a lot of external meetings. I might have meetings in parliament with the government in Westminster, so I was learning my way to get there from work recently on Wednesday. And the dog is going to have to deal with all the tourists in those busy central London areas, and the fact that I've had this slight life change, unfortunately there might have been a dog in the works that was suitable for how my life was nine months ago, now my life has changed a little bit. There'll be a bit more work for this dog, so that might make it a bit longer I don't know. But it's got to be right, because if it's not right it's not going to help me in the way that I need it to. Amy Kavanaugh: So I'm good friends with my cane, I'm always going to be super big pals with my white cane, muddling along for now. I'm getting my independence back, that's the main thing. I can wait. It's okay, I don't mind. Jeff Thompson: Such a great time talking to Dr. Amy Kavanagh and stay tuned for part three as Amy talks about her journey through blindness and the revelations she discovered when she was ready to accept her blindness. And a big thank you goes out to Chee Chau you can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau And as always, we want to thank you for listening, we hope you enjoyed. And until next time, bye-bye. [Music] [Transition noise] When we share -What we see -Through each other’s eyes… [Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence] …We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities. Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com on Twitter @BlindAbilities, download our app from the App Store. Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.  

It's got a long, storied history, but Greek wines still deserve more attention from today's curious drinker. Explore islands, indigenous grapes, and must-try reds. Wines discussed: @3:27 Gaia Wines 2017 Wild Ferment Assyrtiko (Santorini) @11:40 Nasiakos 2016 Mantinia Moschofilero (Mantinia) @16:16 Alpha Estate 2015 Hedgehog Vineyard Xinomavro (Amyndeon) Transcript: Welcome to Wine Enthusiast's What We're Tasting Podcast. I'm your host, Jameson Fink. Join me as we discuss three fantastic wines and why each one belongs in your glass. This episode, we're looking at wines from Greece with Executive Editor Susan Kostrzewa, who covers and reviews wine from the region. What We're Tasting is sponsored by Vivino. With the largest online inventory, Vivino finds the right wine every time, including wines from Greece. Download Vivino to discover and buy your favorites, and stock up at Vivino.com/wineenthusiast. Greek wines aren't getting enough due, and I think as modern wine drinkers we should be connected to a country that has such an amazing past, so Sue, thank you for being on the show. Susan Kostrzewa: Thanks for having me. Jameson Fink: Are Greek wines just not getting enough due? Why aren't they more well known, or are they better known than I think they are? Susan Kostrzewa: I don't think they're well known enough. I love Greek wines, and they've been making wine for 4,000 years. So you'd think with all that time we would have found out about them by now. But I think part of the issue is a pretty simple one. It's kind of surprising, I guess, in a way that this could hold something back, but the names. The names of the grapes, the names of the producers, they're in Greek. Jameson Fink: Yeah, right. Susan Kostrzewa: You know, it's all Greek to you and me. But it honestly, I think, for so many years the producers of Greek wines were labeling all of the wines in Greek. So only really Greeks in the US, so Greek restaurants, Greek people, Greek immigrants were drinking that wine. They were the ones who could read the labels. It scared everybody off, so that was one very simple thing. I think that kind of deterred regular wine drinkers from getting into it. Then you also have the whole retsina thing, which for many years in the US, retsina, a not very well-made retsina was what was being exported into the country. So a lot of people have literal and figurative hangovers from the retsina days. There's great retsina being made now, and I'd love to talk to you about that, but I think there's still, I run into a lot of people who when I say I'm rating and reviewing Greek wine, I love the Greek wines, and were like, "Oh, I hate retsina." It's the first thing they go to, so I think there have been some starts and stops along the way that have deterred people who should know about it from knowing about it. And thank God, like the psalms are the ones who started the trend in the US again. They were the ones tasting it. They were like, "This is amazing. You should know about it," and sort of gained momentum from there. Jameson Fink: Yeah. I mean, I'll be guilty as charged. I mean, I remember when I was a buyer at a grocery store, we had like one Greek wine. It was a retsina, and of course I became more knowledgeable after that. I remember actually when I was still working in there, some new wines were coming into the marketplace, and they were exciting and interesting indigenous grapes, but it's sort of like, I don't know if it's maybe like Chianti with the fiasco, the straw kind of bottle that people still associate like a whole region or a country painted with that kind of broad stroke. But I don't know, nowadays, and I think you mentioned what? Sommeliers, and of course wine buyers all over are doing with Greek wines as sort of championing them and getting them in front of people, which I think is the biggest reason. So the first wine I want to talk about is one this definitely been a darling of the sommelier scene, and maybe not to its detriment, but maybe we're not seeing enough of other wines, but it's Assyrtiko, which comes from the island of Santorini. So the first wine I want to talk about is the Gaia wine's 2017 Wild Ferment Assyrtiko from Santorini which is 92 points. First of all, can you just tell me what is Assyrtiko and what makes it special on Santorini and in the world? Susan Kostrzewa: Assyrtiko is a white wine variety, it's indigenous to Santorini, which Santorini is basically a huge block of volcanic rock. And this is the variety that loves that volcanic rock. And even though it is being grown in other areas of Greece, I think its original and best home is Santorini. So Assyrtiko is a fresh, very linear, kind of sea salty, delicious white wine. Crisp, like I said, great with food. I think it's very unique, it's got a touch of smoke, and sea salt, and all the things you would associate with volcanic soil. And the other thing that's interesting about it, is they've never had phylloxera on the island, so there's some very old vines on that island. They're bush vines, they're low to the ground. If you've ever been to Santorini- Jameson Fink: Of course I've been to Santorini. Susan Kostrzewa: Yes, of course you have. Which, by the way is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Jameson Fink:  It is, yes. Susan Kostrzewa: Whether you love wine or not. Jameson Fink: The bluest of blues there. Susan Kostrzewa: It's amazing. And one of the things that's so cool about it is the first time I went I remember being with a big group of wine journalists who were all very knowledgeable and we were rolling by this sort of field. And it's super dry, and it's not a hospitable island as far as greenery goes. It's very hot and dry. And we were driving by this vineyard, and we're kinda looking at it, and we stop and we're all like, "What is this? This looks like a brush windswept field." And they're like, "This is the vineyard." And it's all these bush vines that grow their trained basically to protect the grapes from the super windy situation on the island. And it looks kinda crazy, and thread bare, and scrappy. But in the midst of this amazing vineyard are these great wines that are being made. So it's very unique. Jameson Fink: Yeah. That was exactly my experience. Like we're gonna go look at a vineyard, and you still have in your head oh, it's gonna be manicured rows with posts and what not. But yeah, the vines are woven into like a basket. Susan Kostrzewa: Yes. Jameson Fink: It's like nothing I'd ever seen. I have a million pictures of wine makers picking it up and lifting it up kinda like a man hole cover almost. It's really remarkable. And yeah, it sort of recalibrates your expectation. The climate there doesn't permit having training vines like that, they just wouldn't survive the wind and the heat. Susan Kostrzewa: Definitely, yeah. So I think it's one of the most unique places in the world as far as wine vineyards and unique wines go. So I'm a big fan. And I hope I'm pronouncing this correctly, I believe it's Gaia. Jameson Fink: Oh yeah, I pronounced it wrong. Susan Kostrzewa: Again, this is my beat and I still have a hard time pronouncing some of these. Jameson Fink: I gotta stop pronouncing these wines, I gotta make everyone do it unless it's something very simple. Susan Kostrzewa: But Gaia, the wine that you were mentioning, Wild Ferment Assyrtiko, Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, who is the wine maker there has really, he's really championed doing these sort of unique and experimental approaches to Assyrtiko. But he's also an awesome spokesperson for Greek wine. So you asked earlier about why we don't know about Greek wine, I think the producers themselves are on the road now. And they're doing an amazing job, they're the best people to champion what is happening in their country. And he, the wine maker here and the owner, is fabulous at doing that. So all of his wines are great. Jameson Fink: Yeah, I've also had ... Interesting things about Assyrtiko, I've had some older bottles, like it can age really well, which I thought was surprising. Susan Kostrzewa: Definitely. Jameson Fink: And it's not necessarily a heavy wine, but it's got some substance to it, it's not a super light, I don't know like Pinot Grigio. It's got somebody to it and a little bit of richness, but still super refreshing. Susan Kostrzewa: Yeah, I mean they're making sparkling Assyrtiko, their Assyrtiko blends with like Sauvignon Blanc that are really good. And then Retsina, their Retsina's now being make by which are made out of Assyrtiko. It's a very versatile grape. And like you say, it does have weight and complexity. It's pretty ... To me, it's again, one of the more unique wines that's being made in Greece. Jameson Fink: And another, let's keep going about island wines, one of the things that I think I clumsily said when we started is that you see a lot of Assyrtiko on wine lists, which is great. But also it's sort of like when's the next hurdle when we're gonna see more Greek wines from other islands and the mainland too? But I wanted to talk about Crete for a little bit, what are the wines like there as far as indigenous grapes? Are they doing reds, whites, both? Susan Kostrzewa: Crete may be the oldest wine making area in Greece. Again, I think when we talk about 4,000 years we talk about minoans , we talk about this incredible history of wine making on Crete. I was just there recently and spent a lot of time there. And everything is incredible, everything is old. Every olive tree is thousands of years old. They have an amazing history of wine making in general. But yeah, they make whites, they make reds, Vidiano and Thrapsathiri are two of the whites they make that I love that are just delicious, and refreshing, and again very unique to the island. Kotsifali's one of the reds. How do they differ? I mean every region of Greece is quite different. There are a lot of micro-climates. Crete is hot, and the wines are a little bigger, and a little more robust than say when you get up into the north where you're talking about very high altitude, pretty high acid wines. So a little fuller bodied, still great acidity, but a little bit more of a reflection of their location. And I actually did a piece recently on Crete for the magazine, and talked a lot about this new generation of younger wine makers, who are coming up in Crete and really pushing a lot of innovation. Because these are very old varieties, some of them were almost extinct, a couple of the producers I talk about rescued nearly extinct ancient grapes from extinction and brought them back, and are now doing all this cool stuff. So to me that's an area that's really exciting, and we haven't really seen as many of those wines in the US yet. But I think that's going to change. Jameson Fink: Yeah, and what I think is exciting too is when you have these ancient vines, or varieties and you see kind of younger people sort of rehabilitating their reputation, or literally rehabilitating them from the brink of extinction. You see it all over the world, and it's really exciting. Especially in a place with a history like Greece where you see old world wine history, and then you see people with new ideas and new energy kind of bringing them back to life instead of chasing a more faddish grape. Susan Kostrzewa: Well I think what's really exciting about what's happening in Greece now, and I've been covering the beat, I think it's probably been about eight years. When I first started wine makers were just starting to get back into really believing in their own grapes. They were planting a lot of, they had been planting a lot of international varieties, which by the way do really well in northern Greece, a producer we'll talk about, they do a beautiful job with Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs, and Chardonnays. But what was really exciting was to see the younger wine makers, and some of the older ones getting excited again about indigenous grapes. And that to me was the beginning of the real quality story with Greek wine, is these are the varieties that are in their sort of blood. And they really know, it's the perfect place for these to be grown, and they really believe in them. And I think the quality is in those bottlings now. Jameson Fink: Hey, we'll be back to the show very shortly. But since you're here, I know you're already a fan of wine podcasts, why don't you check out our other show called The Wine Enthusiast Podcast, download it wherever you get podcasts. Let's talk about another white wine, we'll move on from Assyrtiko, it's Moschofilero? Susan Kostrzewa: Yes. Jameson Fink: Okay, so the second bottle I wanna talk about is the Nasiakos 2016 Mantinia Moschofilero, probably butchered that again. Susan Kostrzewa: No, you got it. Jameson Fink: Okay. That's 92 points. So tell me about this white wine grape, because it seems like if you're gonna start somewhere in Greece, this might be the white wine to start with. Susan Kostrzewa: Yeah, that's a very good point. I think Assyrtiko, it's interesting because it might be the first point of contact that most people have with Greek wines, but it's actually, to me it's a little geekier. Whereas Moschofilero also delicious, but a little bit more versatile as far as style, and just a little easier to enjoy just patio wine. Again, it depends on where it comes from, it's Mantinia, which is in the Peloponnese, it's mainland Greece is where it's traditionally from. And you know, it's very floral, it's got again, it's crisp, it's really balanced. But it's got orange blossom, and grapefruit, and sort of floral aromas. Almost could be like a Riesling, or an Albarino style wine. And to me, those are some of the best wines that again, are made in Greece are the Moschofileros, they do them in sparkling, still, all sorts of different dessert wines. It's really delicious. And this particular one is fabulous. This producer makes incredible Moschofilero. Jameson Fink: And I always think about that, I remember going to a wine dinner for a Greek winery a few years ago. And they were just showcasing Syrah, and Cabernet. And it was kind of weird in a way because I feel like this is probably for, I always have this tension in well, we kinda wanna give people grapes they're familiar with if you want them to enter a world of Greek wine or whatever it may be, or wines from Sicily or something like that. But then there's such this heritage of indigenous grapes, like here's a Syrah, here's a Cabernet. It's like you have this treasure trove of indigenous grapes. So is there kind of that tension there to pursue indigenous grapes? And it's not like they're bad wines, but Syrah or Cabernet, you know? Susan Kostrzewa: Well like I said, I think there was a pressure years ago to plant international varieties, again Chardonnay, Syrah Chardonnay, et cetera. Because people felt well no one knows these wines, so let's push the international stuff. Then I think what the benefit became is they were making a very good quality of international grapes and they started blending them. And that's a great entree. I mean it is scary, especially if you're just a beginning exploratory wine drinker, you're not gonna go maybe first for something that is called Thrapsathiri. Jameson Fink: Right. Susan Kostrzewa: But you might go for a Sauvignon Blanc Thrapsathiri blend. Jameson Fink: Right. Susan Kostrzewa: So I think that actually ended up being a good thing. And there are some really great blends, really delicious blends. And it helps people along. And then they might say, "You know what? Next time I'll just try the Thrapsathiri, I liked this wine, I'm not afraid of this anymore, I'm gonna try the single variety. So I do think there was a pressure. I think now it's sort of subsiding in that I think more people are just doubling down on the native varieties. But it's good that they have some of these other blending options. I think it makes for some really nice wines in some cases. Jameson Fink: And do you think, now we're at the second wine is from the mainland, I was also thinking when I think of Greek wine it's Crete or Santorini, is the mainland sort of still under appreciated even though it's huge and there's so much wine being made there. But kinda are we just in love with the island wines, and the mainland's like, "Hey, we got a lot going on here too." Susan Kostrzewa: Yeah, I mean it's easy to connect with the idea, the visual of Greece is always the islands, and the beautiful ocean. But most of Greece is mountainous. It's one of the highest altitude, highest elevation countries in Europe. And people don't always realize that most of the grapes in Greece are grown in these high altitude, maybe 1,100 feet vineyards on the mainland. So yeah, I think there is some ... Jameson Fink: I know, this is a real podcast. There's thunder, there's lightning. Susan Kostrzewa: There's this dramatic. Jameson Fink: The gods, the Greek gods. Susan Kostrzewa: The gods are here with us as I talk. I better get this right. Jameson Fink: Yeah, we'll get this right. Susan Kostrzewa: This could be the last you ever hear of me. But anyway, I think they're underappreciated and I think again, you've got mainland Moschofilero, you also have some red wines, which we can talk about as well. Those are made in northern Greece in the mountainous areas of northern Greece. And you know, we need to talk about them more, there's great stuff going on. Jameson Fink: Let us talk about one right now. Susan Kostrzewa: Excellent. Jameson Fink: The Alpha Estate 2015 Hedgehog Vineyard Xinomavro, 90 points. So kind of along the lines of Moschofilero is this kind of the red wine grape to start exploring if you're getting into Greek wines? Susan Kostrzewa:             That's a good question, because Xinomavro is kind of akin, people compare to Barolo, to Nebbiolo. So I think if you're a wine lover and you're a food lover, you're going to be really excited about these wines. Do I think it's a quaffer? Not so much. And I hate to call any wine that, but I think as far as approachability, Xinomavro might be your 2.0. Jameson Fink: Right. Susan Kostrzewa: And I think Agiorgitiko, which is another red, and I hardly get that right. But anyway, that might be a little more approachable. So Xinomavro, I love these wines, I think they're so elegant. They're incredibly age able. So this is the kind of wine that you can store for 10 years plus and it has all that great acidity, it's gonna age really well. But yeah, I think it's sort of maybe for somebody who's got a little more of an advanced taste in reds. Jameson Fink: So one thing we haven't talked about, which I think when talking about one of the great pleasures of wine is pairing it with food. Let's just back up and talk about Assyrtiko again. One of the things I remember being on Santorini is having the best tomatoes in the world and seafood. What are some of your favorite Assyrtiko pairings? Susan Kostrzewa: Well Assyrtiko again, when I think of a great pairing I think of food as you said on the island, which is like the tomatoes, I think about seafood, grilled seafood like sardines, any of that salty seafood goes perfectly with this. Capers, caper salad, all that. All that style of food. A point that I wanna make just 'cause you're making me think about this, that I talk a lot with Greek wine makers about this, and this often happens, Greek wines often are associated with Greek food and that's a great thing. But they also do very well with other types of cuisine. And I think one of the foods that I think is delicious with Greek white wines would be sushi. So sort of more delicate seafood dishes. Indian food, there are a lot of flavors that do very well with these wines. And I think it's kind of fun to explore that as well. And I think that's something that as Greek wine has become more popular in the US you can find the wines in restaurants that aren't just Greek restaurants. Jameson Fink: Yeah, that's a good point. It doesn't have to be I'm in a Greek restaurant, I'll drink Greek wine, and then if I go somewhere else that has any other kind of cuisine I'm like nah. Because I mean we drink champagne at pizza places, we do lots of interesting experimentation too. So I think that's a really good point. And that's something that will help Greek wine grow too, just not ... Of course if you're there in Greece, or if you're at a Greek restaurant I mean, yeah, it's only natural. Don't drink Barolo in southern Greece or northern Greece. But I really think that's a great way to get people excited and interested about pairing. I'd love Assyrtiko right now, it's super hot and humid out. Even just a summer salad with fresh produce would be great with probably almost any Greek white wine that was of a lighter style, or a medium bodied. Susan Kostrzewa: Yeah, definitely. And actually one of the things I've found is these wines, Moschofilero, you can pair them with obviously poultry and pork, and all that stuff. But they can handle some of the red meat like lamb, I mean you'd be surprised. Again, lamb is pretty traditional to Greece. But I've had Assyrtiko with lamb, and the high acid cuts the fat, it's really delicious. To me it's just fun. And again, they're great wines, they're very versatile, but they're really food-driven. So that would be my recommendation to everyone. If you've never had a Greek wine, I would recommend that you probably have it with food. Because they can be a little high in acid for people just to sit and drink if they've never had. But they do very well with that. Jameson Fink: And I guess I have a little sidebar about food and wine pairing, I love white wine with meat, whether it's lamb, even steak. I had recently steak with a different wine, different country, but a rich, dry, Austrian Riesling. And it has that sort of big rich steak dish, and big rich red wine. But when you have something that's a little livelier like a white wine, especially in the summer. Especially with like a steak salad, it's super refreshing to drink a white wine, or a slightly chilled red rather than ... That doesn't mean oh I'm having a pork, or a steak, or a lamb then I have to have a red wine. Susan Kostrzewa: Right, yeah. I mean that's the exciting thing about all these combinations. I think there's a lot more freedom than there used to be. There was always freedom, but we will tell you also, as I've bene lucky enough to taste and pair a lot of wines and foods in my career, I realize now it's really important to just try new combinations and not necessarily worry too much about what you've read, or think is the right combo. And that's, like I say, the Greek wines I've had a blast just tasting lots of different foods with them. And it's been a really fun way of learning more about the flavors, and seeing how they change, and just having a good time with it. Jameson Fink: Yeah, I don't think you need to bring your little chart to the restaurant and sort of look at it underneath the table, like oh I'm getting a steak, what am I allowed to have? Susan Kostrzewa: Right. Jameson Fink: I think that's a good thing where we sort of ... There are matches that are classic for a reason, but I think it's great that we've kind of moved beyond these rigid rules. Because a lot of it depends on how it's cooked, what it's served with, where you are. Are you in a nice air conditioned cave, or are you outside on a 90 degree humid day? It's like, "Oh I'm outside, I'm eating a steak, I have to have Cabernet." But you can definitely just chuck those rules. Susan Kostrzewa: Actually you just made me think of something when you were talking about drinking wine and the context of it, and the atmosphere in which you're drinking it. And I was thinking when I was recently in Greece I was on Mount Olympus, which is in northern Greece outside of Thessaloniki. And it was a hot, hot day. My instinct would've been to go for again, refreshing white wine, something sort of nervy and easy to drink. And we ended up drinking some incredible Xinomavro on the mountain with lamb. And it seemed like ugh, it's heavy, and it's gonna be too hot for this. And I have to tell you, it was so awesome and delicious. And I think in the case of again, going back to Xinomavro it has a freshness to it, it's got this kind of really nice backbone and freshness to it. And I actually, it made me reset my brain about red wine in the summer. Red wine and hot climates. It can be really awesome, and really delicious. And it also doesn't hurt to be on Mount Olympus. Jameson Fink: No, it definitely does not. So even if you can't get to Mount Olympus for some Greek wine, I will encourage all of you to explore the country, it has an amazing history, centuries old, more than centuries old. Susan Kostrzewa: Millennia. Jameson Fink: Millennia old. And these are just three wines that are great to start, but explore the whole country, try the indigenous grapes, and maybe get a little crazy and try some of the blends that have some of the grapes you might be familiar with too. But get out there and explore Greek wine. So Susan, thank you for being on the show. Susan Kostrzewa: Thanks for having me. Jameson Fink: And thank you for listening to the What We're Tasting Podcast, sponsored by Vivino, wine made easy. Susan Kostrzewa: The three wines we discussed today were the Gaia Wines 2017 Wild Ferment Assyrtiko , the Nasiakos 2016 Mantinia Moschofilero, and the Alpha Estate 2015 Hedgehog Vineyard Xinomavro. Jameson Fink: Find What We're Tasting on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you find podcasts. And if you liked today's episode, please give us a five star rating on iTunes, leave a comment, and tell you friends. What We're Tasting is a Wine Enthusiast podcast. Check out Wine Enthusiast online at winemag.com.

Learn about what is involved in true concurrent engineering and get practical tips for including stakeholders early on in the design process with Bill Brooks from Nordson Asymtek. When  project collaborators come together up front, then they move forward together. Hear how Bill spends the time up front to get everyone aligned during the PCB design process to ensure fabrication and assembly processes progress with minimal issues.   Show Highlights: Bill had an interesting childhood. His Dad was an inventor and worked on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. He introduced Bill to the electronics industry. He also started a board shop in the garage and created his own hydro-squeegee, using peanut oil. Bill’s career started when he worked as an Electronics Technician for almost two years. When his employer started hiring designers to do PCB layout work, he grasped the opportunity. Back in the day, people used to sign their PCB artwork. There are a host of stakeholders involved, the designer is like the glue that holds everything together. Some of the stakeholders are: Fabrication, Assembly, Testing, Marketing, Managers and Engineers. When do you get the stakeholders involved in the PCB Design process? The IPC standard is to have a design review upfront, before design. The designer is the only one who can control moving the design through the process and make the board survive. We involve many stakeholders from the outset. Divisions like purchasing takes care of primary suppliers to ensure they can provide what’s required. We do system integration in-house. Partnering with other companies has become a big deal and it’s working very well. What does Concurrent Engineering mean? Considering all aspects, together, upfront, then moving forward together.  Spend the time upfront to avoid wasted time and effort later in the process. Educate people who have control, they take care of everyone and everything goes smoothly, works correctly, and is right first time. Bill’s Dad used to say ‘the hurrier I go, the behinder I get.’ You need a disciplined management team to do the work upfront, be quick but don’t hurry. A ‘quick and dirty prototype’ is a myth. Use software to load projects into a common depository - keep it current and work in cohesion with regular refreshing. Bill and their team use Playbook, which enables managers to have a full overview of every division’s progress and enable proper scheduling. Designers after hours: in 2008 Bill was introduced to sculpting. Started attending classes, commencing a 6-year love affair with sculpting. He now teaches on Saturdays. Rick Hartley encouraged Bill to do mentoring. Bill is now part of the International IPC Executive Board and has received an award for his contributions.   Links and Resources: Nordson Asymtek The Green Art House AltiumLive 2018: Annual PCB Design Summit   Hey everyone this is Judy Warner with Altium's OnTrack Podcast. Thanks again for joining. Today we have another great guest - do you ever get tired of me saying that? Another great guest because we just have them every time, and we'll be talking with Bill Brooks today from Nordson ASYMTEK, and before we get started, I just wanted to remind you to please follow me on LinkedIn. On Twitter I'm @AltiumJudy and Altium is on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter - and also if you'd rather watch this on video we also have this on Altium's YouTube channel under videos, and you'll see all of our podcasts recorded there as well. So today we have Bill Brooks, has been a great contributor to the industry, as well as being a very talented designer in his own right. So I thought you would enjoy learning about his long history in the craft of PCB design, so Bill welcome; thank you so much for joining us here. Bill comes from just up the freeway here from our office in La Jolla, so it's handy to get him over. So Bill won't you talk about your professional history? I think you, like many printed circuit board designers; you were kind of set up to be in this industry, but you found your own path. So, tell us a little bit about that? Yeah I guess when I was a kid I didn't know where I was gonna go... Yeah me neither. -my dad kind of introduced me to the electronics world, and right out of high school actually, I was still in high school - my dad was working in the aerospace industry and he decided to start his own printed circuit board shop. He looked around San Diego at the time, and there weren't a lot of shops to go get boards made and he said: well, I can do this. And so he looked up the information and we started making printed circuit boards in the garage. Good times, that was a long time ago where you could set up a board shop in your garage. Yeah it was - today it'd be completely illegal. Yeah right. [laughter] I think the neighbors complained, he created his own hydro-squeegee and he was using a fusing oil, which was I guess peanut oil, and he bought this big 50 gallon drum of peanut oil and he used a check valve, and he put this - - he used air pressure to push it through a check valve and to spray it so he could put the boards down to get them hot after they had been coated with solder and then squeegee ''em out as he pushed on the pedal on the floor. And it would just make this nice beautiful- It's a handheld hot air leveling machine! -Yeah it was very dangerous, in fact, I think he got burned a couple times. Oh I'm sure! -but the neighbors just loved it because they’d look down at the corner of the cul-de-sac and they’d see this giant plume of black smoke coming out the back of the house, going: what's he doing over there? But dad was kind of an inventor and he liked to invent things. So he didn't go out and he was kind of a 'shade tree mechanic' - he'd figure out how to get something done on a dime and do it himself. And I guess that same ingenuity was something I picked up, I figure out how to get things done. So how did you end up going down the design path, from building boards in the garage? Hmmm it was kind of convoluted. I thought I wanted to be an Electronics Tech and eventually Electronics Engineer, and I started down that path. I got a job with a company that was making television headend equipment; the transmitter part of it, there was channel 52 UHF subscription television, Oak Systems and I started working as Electronics Tech for them and I did a lot of work for them for, oh at least two years as a Tech, and they were hiring in printed circuit board designers to do the layout work. And I had already learned how to do layout work with my dad's shop when I was younger and I looked at that, and I said: welI can do that. How much do you make? And I think I was making like seven bucks an hour at the time, and they were making like 10 or 11. And I said: I could do that, and I told my bosses I want to do that - I can do that!  And they were: okay we'll get you in the other department and I started working in the drafting department. So I got a $3 an hour raise and I started doing layout work instead. And it kind of set me down that path. So that's how I got started anyway. So Bill, a lot of people that have been around a while, both you and I have been around a while. There's no college to learn what you've learned. So how did you pick up, we were discussing this earlier; you've done so many aspects - RF, some electronics and mechanical, how did you pick up all those skill sets, sort of along the way? Yeah that's kind of a long story really. My dad started me when he had his shop, and gave me a printed circuit board to do as a way to teach me how to do layout- Okay. -and we went to the TI Handbook and found a circuit for an audio amplifier - 10 watt audio amplifier and he said, why don't you try to build that? And so I made a schematic, I took the schematic from it, and I laid out the board and we manufactured the board and I bought the parts and I put them on the board, and I soldered them and turned it on and talked through a microphone - it worked and I went: yes that's hot! It's so funny. I remember in seventh or eighth grade, we had a science fair in junior high and everybody made their science project; we had a bunch of tables all set up and my dad said, well why don't you make something - - an electronic metronome? It has to do with music, and so I drew a schematic and I put the whole thing up there, and I built the metronome and I turned it on so it'd go 'tick-tock' 'tick-tock' you know, and I thought that was amazing. It was a really great and one of my friends said: Bill that was so cool, how you did that because I didn't have to do any of the work and I still got credit for it and I said well it was it was a challenge. So I took it on I put it up there but I didn't win a darn thing! The guys who made the volcano that spews out all the stuff - they got that prize. So people didn't appreciate what I was doing. I felt a little bit geeky and kind of out of the norm as I was growing up. But I was fascinated with electronics. I was almost intimidated by it. My dad was a very good R&D guy, and he worked in the aerospace industry and he actually worked on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, it traveled all the way past Jupiter and it's outside our solar system headed on for Aldebaran now I think. That's crazy. So that's kind of a neat thing and I think on one of his print circuit boards, if you find down in the little corner you'll find his initials there- Out in the outer regions of space. -yeah and I talked with Dr. Walker Fillius, he was the principal on the project at UCSD and after my dad passed away and he sent me back an email and he said: you know someday these little green men out there they're gonna find that and wonder: what does that mean? Why did they put that there? And a lot of people did that back in those days, you used to be so proud of your artwork you'd want to sign it and they did. Right, that's funny. Yeah. So from I have to say, I think that was probably really invaluable experience for you, very young, to put together that design affected manufacturing, affected assembly, affected performance. Like at a very young age, you saw that whole overarching process - sort of on a small scale - but still; and not everybody gets that experience even today, few designers. Few designers have ever been in a shop and actually made a print circuit board. A lot of them are dealing with the drafting side of it; they don't see the whole process. Right and it makes such a difference to decisions you make as a designer. Absolutely. Right and so I can see how that sort of set you on a path to be a little bit more globally minded about the whole soup-to-nuts kind of - - from design to reliability or how something is actually functioning. It has a lot to do with curiosity, it's funny; I've been listening to a book about Leonardo da Vinci and one thing that was amazing about him is, he had this insatiable curiosity, to almost distraction, I mean he would look at things and go: why does it work that way? And he'd start, he'd set himself a task to figure it out - and he didn't have a college or someplace to go learn those things - he had to do it himself. I've done a lot of the same kind of things in my life. I get fascinated with something and I go: well, I can figure that out, I'll go figure it out - all it takes is being brave enough to try and not being afraid to fail. Failure is just an opportunity to learn more. So I think it was Edison once said , he did like hundreds of different ways to try to do a light bulb and he said, well now I know a hundred different ways not to make a light bulb, it's okay- I still finally need way to know how to do it right? -but those those skills and the curiosity drove me into expanding my knowledge base. Getting into printed circuit boards, I wanted to learn how to take the thing I knew how to make, and turn it into something that was a product. I wanted to find out how to make that product appealing to somebody so that it made them happy with the product and not unhappy with it. And that kind of dovetails with what we were talking about before. We have, as designers we're kind of the glue to the whole design process. We may not come up with the initial idea that needs to be created, but we take that idea and we turn it into reality and we not only have to turn it into reality, so that it's electrically functional, but it can be manufactured in a reasonable way that's not super expensive, that's reliable, that survives harsh environments or abuse. It has to be testable so you can provide for test points and things of that nature. There are a whole bunch of stakeholders involved. People who are - their job is keyed on being able to take what I create and turn it into a product that they can actually sell. The marketing people have to make sure that the product meets the customer’s needs. I have to be aware of that when I'm designing it so, I don't design in some function that makes it fail there. I have to be aware of those things. So the designer - they're kind of the key glue to the whole group. But I find that very refreshing and I think most professional designers, from our early days of making a simple 2 layer board say, it's so much more complex now. So we tend to like head down, into our specialty right and I think, as you have said some engineers/designers have never been inside of a board shop. Right it gives you myopia, you can only see just your part of the whole process. And I can understand that because, I don't say that from a critical perspective, it's a very complex process. We're time constrained, resource-constrained, so it's hard to put your head up for a moment so- You just named some of the stakeholders. -I would say fabrication for sure, assembly, testing... You mentioned a marketing department, probably managers too. Managers all have cost and time constraints, they have time to market that they have to be worried about. The engineers of course, typically are going to be concerned about, can they get the parts or are the parts available; are they gonna be end of life parts? Yeah that's a whole fun bag of fun there. The hardest part for some designers is, they'll get the board 90% done and then the engineer comes back and goes: I can't get that part anymore, I need to put a different part in and that's bigger than the one I gave you before. And so you got to go back and fix the circuit, so you can fit that bigger part in there and make it work. And it gets quite challenging. So when do you recommend to get those stakeholders on board and collaborating? That's a great question and funny - if you go through the IPC; I think it's 2221-standard - it's like the very first - almost first paragraph and the thing it says: make sure you have a design review up front first, before the designing begins. Why do they say that? Those people all are going to bring their expertise, and their wants and desires, and their concerns to that meeting. Well they're gonna be a part of that and give that information to the designer who really is the only person who has control over what it ends up being. The creator - they are the creator; they take all the information and they create something that can be built, tested, cost-effective, survive, functional, not have EMI problems, EMC problems... it has to pass safety agency requirements like TV and UL you know? Yeah. Or stand somebody handling it and giving it an ESD shock - thousands of volts - how's it going to survive that? You know, we do Hipot testing, there's a lot of work that goes into making a board that just is not - just connect the dots. So you're now working with Nordson ASYMTEK, which makes assembly equipment correct, or is there more than that? Their key thing, the company I work for they're making robotic equipment. The equipment allows manufacturers to do high-speed manufacturing very reliably and typically they're dispensing fluids. They have a few divisions that do board inspection. They have one that does plasma cleaning- Mm-hmm. -it's very common, I think it's MARCH - - I think is the name of it, something like that, but primarily we focus on fluid dispensing; got lots of patents on fluid dynamics, how to dispense a dot of material that's the exact amount of the material, in the right viscosity, of the right mix of materials, and at the right place , at the right time. Right. Very, very challenging stuff - we've come up with some really high tech equipment that are making our customers real happy. That's great, so when you do, on a practical, where the rubber meets the road stuff - when you embark on a new design - do you get the stakeholders together? I mean how do you do that? We get a large number of them involved. We have a purchasing department that cares about who our primary suppliers are. They review them; we go qualify them, make sure that they're going to be able to supply what we want, when we want it, at the price we want it. We use third-party vendors to make the boards, assemble the boards, test them. We put everything together in-house. They call us a system integrator kind of thing - and I guess that's one way to refer it. So the final assembly stuff all happens in the factory; and then we ship overseas and here in the United States and Europe. So you used a term which I've heard before and just tell me what it means to you, is the term 'concurrent engineering'? I was introduced to that a while back, and to me it was confusing at first. Of course I've been in the industry a long time and there used to be a model where engineering would be a little black box and inside, all the engineers do all their stuff in there, and it was black magic, and they got it all done and then they went; pop - and they threw it over the fence and said: okay, you guys figure out how to make it. And that's as far as they went. Engineers were done; okay, I'm working on my next thing have fun. And the manufacturing engineers get it and go: oh my god, how are we gonna build this thing? And they almost had to re-engineer it to make it producible. So that model was going along for quite a long time here in the United States, before they started analyzing what the Japanese were doing and looking at their manufacturing process. It was very organized, and they introduced just-in-time, which has affected the whole supplier chain. But partnering with other companies to be able to be successful has become a big deal and they can reduce the number of staff that they need to do what they need to do. They can have highly qualified people doing what they need to do - they don't need masses of people - and then they can subcontract things out get them delivered on time, put them together and get them out the door and they're very very good at it. Concurrent engineering means thinking about everything up front. Not just your part of putting it in a black box and playing around with it until you're happy and then flipping it out and saying: you guys figure out how to build it. You want to bring the people that are stakeholders in up front. And then together, you move as a group. And the people involved in the engineering part of it have to understand those people's jobs, because they're their customers. Right. They're the ones -  they're gonna use what they create. So we spend more time up front to make sure that they don't have to work harder, that they don't have to redo it, that we don't waste money and time out there with failures and have to come back and make changes and send it back out, saying: how about this one? No that's not good enough you've got to do it again. Oh how about that one? No that's not good either. So you educate the people that have control of it - they put the intelligence into it to take care of them and everything goes smoothly, and we make a lot more product, a lot less expensive, and that's right the first time. You and I were swapping some little statements right? So one I remember you saying - - I don't remember who you cited: the hurrier I go... That was my dad... -that was your dad. Yeah 'the hurrier I go, the behinder I get'. [laughter] Yeah and that's so true I mean it's funny if you have this: I'm the only important person in the world, and what I'm doing is the most important thing and I don't care what anybody else thinks or wants to do. You can create something, in fact, I've seen some amazing sculpture, of components that were soldered together and in the most amazing ways and it was an electrical circuit, it worked, functioned. Yeah - but if you touched it, it would fail, if you moved it, it would fail. It wasn't built - it was just to see what would happen to the electrons when they get moved around that way. So people - and there's a desire - typically management, has traditionally figured, well - if you whip the horses harder and make them go faster you'll get there sooner. I have seen that by the way being a board manufacturer and selling to and working with designers. The constraints are brutal sometimes... They can be. -and it's like, well if you want me to put out good work, you need to give me a little bit more margin right and so I think, to your point is, you had also said that it's really a myth, the idea of a quick and dirty prototype. Yeah it really is - it's kind of a myth - I've worked in environments where there was a philosophy that said: we can be faster if we just slap something together and we go build it and we bring it back and see what it does. I think the people that had that idea probably didn't have any simulation tools. They didn't have any way to predict how it was going to behave - so they would make one and go try it, and then they'd find out how it didn't work and make another adjustment. So I remember working on a board that had 17 or 18 different iterations of them trying different things... That's so expensive and such a time suck! -Very expensive and it takes a lot of patience - you just kind of have to work with them and keep going and keep going. But we win when you get a management group who - I happen to work for one - it's very, very smart people, they'd like to do it right the first time. So they spend the extra time upfront. They do the research, they analyze what's going on, and then they go build it. When they build it and bring it in we're like 98 percent there, most of the time. Very few times maybe we get one or two little blue wires and we're good to go and take a few changes boom -  you're out the door. And that's a good thing and CAD tools help us do that too, by the way. Yeah well, and that's a really insightful management team I think, to know that if you take the disciplined time to do it up front, it really saves you so much on the back end in regards to time, money, and resources. I always like John Wooden's quote; he used to say: be quick but don't hurry, it's the same thing - like be nimble and quick - we don't want you dragging your feet but don't be hasty. I think part of it is just having a good work ethic, the self-discipline to say: you know what, I'm here, I'm gonna focus on this, I'm gonna get it done, and I'm not gonna let Joe come over and talk to me over a half hour about the thing he was doing up on the mountains last weekend, or stop and shoot with people at the water cooler or whatever. I'm gonna stay focused on it and when I'm not here then I'm doing other things, but when I'm here I'm focused. And I think that the managers; they should analyze the people and look and see what kind of people they have, and try to work with them to get them to have that work ethic. We've got lots of distractions in our world, plenty of them, things that can take us all over the place, so it's just a personal discipline I think. So we talked about, in those cases - I'm thinking about the people that are designers that are listening to us that may not have such an insightful management team as the one you work with and I'm sure you've worked for other less insightful management teams. How do you recommend that you tactfully, and professionally, push back to say, I need five more minutes to get this right  - how do you do that? Well to frame it as pushback, is probably not politically nice but it's a communication. I think one of the things that you don't do, is you don't go off into a dark room somewhere and then pop out with a design later on and they're going: what's happening what's, happening, what's happening. So you have to have a lot of open lines of communication with your team. We use SVN as a way to load our projects into a common repository and then the other engineers that are working, can download that and refresh it, make it current so the master is in the SVN file. So I'm working on basically a copy that I refresh every time I do some work. And I do that regularly, I don't wait very long and I'm refreshing it - I'd do it many times an hour sometimes. And sometimes maybe I go for a couple hours and then we'll refresh it, but it's mostly based on how much change I have made to it. The idea is to keep it current and keep the lines of communication with the other people concurrent so that they're aware of what's going on if they're busy working on the schematic while I'm working on the board we can do that in parallel, and I can do my parts get them done and then they can say, oh I found out I have to change this part, or I need this other circuit in there and I've just uploaded it - you can pull it in and and make the changes. And we do that very often. Which is really great and I know here at Altium, R&D is working very hard to make sure that people can work concurrently and building those subversion networks and, even going beyond that, as we delve into Nexus and other products is to enable that, so you guys are seeing each other work in real time. Often times this is kind of a neat thing about that tool. We typically, the group I'm in is the new product development group, so we take the 'pie in the sky guys' stuff and we turn it into a product. Then we have Reliability Engineers who have to design a testbed to test the product. So oftentimes when the schematic gets to 90% they've got a copy of it and they're looking at it while we're designing it... And there's the concurrent engineering isn't there! -Exactly. It really is a tool that enables that concurrent chain. It enables it - so we're able to do that and then the guys in production want to know what's going on with it, so they can pull down a copy and look at it, and then the next time we have a review meeting they'll bring their thoughts to the meeting and they can say: we like what you did over here, but we'd like to change this because it helps us be more efficient, and we can run that back there because we need to do that; we listen to them... Which is so great. -having that dynamic - real-time communication - it's really huge in being successful the first time. Yeah that's great, it's great to hear. So but... tact is used to push back. -tact yes. I used to joke with my boss; did you ever see the movie The Money Pit? Yes. And the: we're gonna fix the house and the farmer shows up and says, how long is it gonna take? Two weeks, two weeks. We used to do that. Looks like, wow this will take two weeks. Most people can accept two weeks, but we've got a new tool now at work; Playbook - and it allows them to get all the stakeholders involved in helping us schedule the project. So people who say I'm gonna have my test part of it ready at this time, and I'm gonna have the board ready at this time, and I'm gonna have my schematic ready at this time. The managers can see the whole thing without having a good run around and bug everybody - it's all right there. If there's a problem with a schedule - update it so we know what's going on. Tell us, and they get it; they see the impacts, they see when things are going to happen and they can strategize and make plans on how they're gonna pull something in or adjust something to be successful. That's great to create the level of transparency right? Yeah so pushback is really more... Well you know, that makes it sound like the manager's a bad guy. They've got a job to do and they've got to get a product to market in a timely way, at the right cost, so I'm just saying is sometimes to your earlier comment like the whips to the backs - at times it feels like that and sometimes you have to stop and go: okay... How can I communicate better? Yes, how can I communicate this in a way that makes me me your ally here? Exactly. I want to help you win, we're on the same team by the way, and me getting this done right the first time... You can help me be successful in doing it the first time, and you, and you, because I want to get all the things that you need into the design. That way you're happy with it and you can make it and you're not gonna go; damn that Bill Brooks - why did he do this? Oh gosh we love the finger pointing don't we? Yeah I've lived through a lot of that. Well Bill, this has been really good and really practical, I think where the rubber meets the road. And this part of the podcast, I sometimes like to call Designers After Hours. I want to particularly focus on what you do after hours because you are a very creative kind of - use both sides of your brain - but you have a very strong right brain. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do after hours when you're not designing boards? Gosh - let's see; was it 2008? I went through a divorce and I was trying to find something to do with my spare time and I got introduced by another engineer at Datron World Communications where I used to work; and he was taking classes in sculpting and he showed me a picture of a sculpture that he was creating; this head of his wife, and I had met his wife - she was wheelchair bound and it was so neat to see the love, you know. He is caring for her and she needs him to push her around and whatever. But he was making a sculpture of her and I thought that was really cool and the likeness was amazing! I thought, you really did a good job, I was really impressed with it. How in the world did you learn how to do that? Because I'm taking classes in Carlsbad. Bullshit - what? Nobody teaches that right, I don't see classes for sculpture anywhere. Where do you find that? And he says, no it's real, you should come check it out. So I made a point to go down and meet the teacher and the teacher introduced me to it and I thought, this looks like too much fun I’ve got try it. And that started about a six-year love affair with sculpting. And now I'm currently teaching it so - there's a place called The Green Art House in Fallbrook and every Saturday I've got a class there and I teach sculpting and it's fun. And we will share this link by the way, because your mind will be blown. He doesn't just do a little hobby sculpting - these are amazing sculptures he makes! And oh my goodness, and then I start prodding him about painting... Oh yeah I would love to take a painting class. Bill says, oh yeah I do that too. About two years ago - maybe almost three - I was at a gallery where I had my bronze sculptures that I had made from the sculpting studio and I was trying to see how they would be accepted in the public and so forth. So I had them in a gallery and I met a guy there, Richard Struggles who's a teacher, and he teaches how to paint and so I got brave one day and I thought: I could do this. So I went down to Michael's and I went through the paint department found the primary colors and some paintbrushes and a canvas and I said I could do this and I just bought it and took it home and I thought I'll find a picture I like and I'm gonna try it. Well about three hours later I said, you know it's not bad - it doesn't look too bad, I bet if somebody taught me I could do better. So I asked him, I says I see you teaching people, can I come? He said sure come on down. So that started me learning how to paint and I've done about eight or nine paintings. One of them's a triptych; it's some cheetahs it's hanging in my mother's home, behind her couch and it's real pretty and a lot of horses. I know I love horses I owned a horse and so I love your sculptures and your paintings of horses. I used to have horses too - so I know that bond and the connection with the animal - it's amazing. So anyways, just for giggles we will share Bill's amazing artwork there because he does have a good after-hours gift there. Will you please share with me any -  I know you've shared with me some links and things we'll make sure we put those up for our listeners that could glean more information from Bill. Bill's also taught PCB at our local college here, and he has mentored many people as well as being mentored throughout his career. I can blame that on Rick Hartley. Rick Hartley who we just had on the podcast today. Yes he was, in fact, he cornered me. We were doing an interview right after the Top Gun at PCB West, and he said: Bill, you've got a lot of experience. Have you ever thought of mentoring? And I said, no I never thought about it, to me making boards was just a way to get a paycheck. Get paid, go home, buy food take care of family do all that stuff. And that seed it planted, made me seek out the IPC Designers Council and I joined the local group in San Diego, eventually became part of the board, and then I joined the International Group and actually became part of the Executive Committee and also the Education Committee. And I think I've got an Emeritus Status now with them. I mean I've been with them a long time and I've contributed as much as I could. In fact they gave me an award once for contributing to the industry so it's good fun. Yeah we'll provide all the links we can. We thank you again for joining us Bill. Thanks for joining us today in office and again this has been Judy Warner with Altium's OnTrack Podcast and Bill Brooks with Nordson ASYMTEK. Thanks for listening, we'll see you next time. Until then, always stay on track.

Highlights of the PAC-12 Sustainability Conference held at UC Boulder on July 12th 2018. This podcast episode includes presentations and interviews from: Jamie Zaninovich – PAC-12 Conference Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer Richard Gerstein - UNIFI Chief Marketing Officer Mary Harvey – Former U.S. Women’s National Team Goalkeeper, Olympic Gold Medalist and FIFA World Cup Champion Jason Richardson – Retired NBA Player and NCAA Champion Paisley Benaza – Ph.D. Student and Communications Strategist at Arizona State University Arielle Gold – Professional Snowboarder and Olympic Bronze Medalist Consistent with its reputation as the Conference of Champions, the Pac-12 is the first collegiate sports conference to convene a high level symposium focused entirely on integrating sustainability into college athletics and across college campuses. All of the Pac-12 athletic departments have committed to measuring their environmental performance, developing strategies and goals to reduce their impact, monitoring their progress, and engaging fans and communities in greener practices. The Pac-12 Sustainability Conference signals an elevated approach to enhancing sustainability efforts within collegiate athletics departments, designing new collective initiatives, and sharing best practices to transform college sports into a platform for environmental progress. Transcript of PAC-12 Sustainability Conference Highlights: Jamie Zaninovich – PAC-12 Conference Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer We're very proud of the thought leadership platform we have at the PAC-12 and I think everybody in this room fits in really well and speaks to what we're trying to do in this space as leaders in the collegiate athletics sustainability movement. I think one other thing that's really exciting about today is the diversity we have in this room. For those of you that will engage with each other throughout the day, we have multimedia rights holders, we have sales teams, we have marketing professionals, we have sustainability industry professionals and of course school reps representing both sustainability offices as well as our athletic departments. It's really a only of its kind event that brings together this diverse group within college athletics and sustainability. So, thank you everyone for participating. We have a great program for you today. I won't get into it in detail, but we hope it will spark a lot of conversation around new ideas and expanding existing ideas in the collegiate sports sustainability space and hopefully extend that throughout this global movement. We really challenged our program committee this year to outpace what we did last year, which was very difficult for those of you that experienced Bill Walton and others at last year's conference. Let's say it was memorable. But I think it's safe to say that they went above and beyond to find an incredible group of speakers and panelists for this year's event. Today you'll be hearing from professional athletes, former professional athletes, NBA champions, NCAA champions, former and current Olympians, as well as Colorado's own Arielle Gold, who recently brought back a bronze medal from the Olympics in the halfpipe snowboards. And Arielle, as you will learn later today, has now dedicated herself to helping effect climate change which she experienced firsthand in her experiences in the Olympics. So without that, Mary referenced that we have an announcement today. As you might've seen on your way in, or in the backdrop, or on these pillows, or on a free pair of a Repreve branded socks that everyone will get today and are very cool and already flying off the truck. We have a very special announcement today in that we're announcing the formation of PAC-12 Team Green, which is a first of its kind, collegiate athletic sustainability platform which will serve to promote all the phenomenal greening efforts in the PAC-12 and around our campuses. I think it's safe to say this is a historic day, honestly, in collegiate athletics. There's never been a college conference that has embraced a collectively like our schools have a sustainability initiative like this. While our league office and member institutions have already been executing phenomenal sustainability initiatives for years, PAC-12 Team Green will now allow us to have a collective home and brand all of those efforts, including amplifying them on our own media company, the PAC-12 Network. So, from our PAC-12 zero waste challenge campus recycling competition, to our constant efforts leading sustainability activities at our multiple sports championships, to the formation of our sustainability working group, which is again one of its kind, a working group that's been working for a year which is composed of both the sustainability professional and athletics professional on each of our campuses. We are united now under PAC-12 Team Green to further cement and strengthen our leadership position in sustainability in collegiate athletics. But wait, there's more. As part of the launch of PAC-12 Team Green today, we are also honored, thrilled, so excited to announce our new partnership with Unifi Manufacturing, as the founding sustainability partner for our PAC-12 Team Green platform. Unifi's goals and missions align perfectly with those of PAC-12 Team Green and our conferences. They have led the way in innovation as a leader in the emerging circular economy movement. We are thrilled to welcome them as the first and only founding partner of this new exciting platform, PAC-12 Team Green. As part of this multiyear partnership, and as an official partner of PAC-12 Team Green, Unify will serve as a prominent partner at all PAC-12 championships, will provide funding to all twelve of our campuses to promote zero waste efforts and will work with PAC-12 networks on the creation of custom content to further promote some of the industry leading sustainability efforts being executed on our campuses.  Richard Gerstein - UNIFI Chief Marketing Officer So, while universities are playing a big role, surprisingly professional sports are also leading the way on sustainability. In 2015, the Mariners recycled or composted 87 percent of all waste generated at SAFECO Field. In 2005, only 10 years earlier, the rate was 12 percent. Nearly everything used at Safeco Field is recyclable or compostable. They put bins out, replace garbage cans with recycling bins, and cleaning crews hand separate plastic and compostable waste after every game. As a result, they've diverted 2.7 million pounds in 2015 of waste from landfills, and just as importantly saved $125,000 in landfill costs. This can be good for the bottom line as much as it's good for the world. So what if every PAC-12 stadium was landfill free? And Nike's making a difference in professional sports, as all the replica NFL jerseys are made from recycled polyester. And they're doing the same with the NBA replica jerseys as well. But I would, ask why shouldn't that also be true for the PAC-12? So my hope for today, is that together we can challenge the norms, overcome the obstacles, and set audacious goals. So let's ask, "what if?" What if just one PAC-12 school demonstrated the power of a circular economy and converted it's student apparel to 100 percent recycled polyester fiber. So let's say we converted 415,000 shirts for one school. We would take 5 million bottles out of landfills. We would save enough electricity to power 51 homes for a year. We'd save enough water to provide 630 people with daily drinking water for a year. We would improve the air quality by avoiding 140,000 kg's of CO2 emissions. And the great news is, it doesn't take a $50 million dollar capital project to get it done. However, it all starts with recycling. Unfortunately, we are woefully low as a country and I wish I could tell you that our universities, with all our millennials, do better. But in most cases, they don't. China recycles at more than double our rate, but by asking "what if?" I truly believe we can make a difference demonstrating the power of the circular economy, and the people in this room have the ability to lead that change. So we have a great day ahead of us. It's all about asking "what if?". So, I encourage you to think beyond the expected, beyond the obvious and set a goal and path towards becoming known, not only as the conference of champions, but as champions of sustainability. So I leave you with a reminder of those that have come before us, from the halls you will all return to at the end of this week, and what they achieved by simply asking, "what if?". Mary Harvey – Former U.S. Women’s National Team Goalkeeper, Olympic Gold Medalist and FIFA World Cup Champion Interviewed by Josh Prigge – Founder and CEO of Sustridge Mary Harvey, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are, a little background on your personal life and what brought you to be doing what you're doing today. I'm a former athlete. I'm a former member of the US Women's National Soccer Team. I played eight years for the US Women. I'm also a PAC-12 graduate of a couple of schools. So my undergrad was at UC Berkeley, or Cal as we call it in the athletics world. Then I got my MBA at UCLA. But the other thing that is germane to why I do this work, is growing up in northern California. I was quite young, but still old enough to remember the drought of 1977. So, conservation of water was something that I've never forgotten. And that combined with early experiences with recycling that I had due to a neighbor that was actively involved in it. This really shaped me at a very young age around why environmental protection is so important. So fast forward, I chose to get involved in it as a volunteer. I'm the vice chair of the Green Sports Alliance, which is a marriage between sports and environmental protection and a labor of love for all of us. And finally, I've had the incredible opportunity to work as an advisor on sustainability for the successful 2026 World Cup bid to bring the 2026 FIFA World Cup to Canada, Mexico, and the United States. So, let's talk about a little bit about that marriage of sustainability in sports. Why do you think that's an important issue? How can sports help drive sustainability forward in our society? Well, lots of lots of ways. Sport has a very special place and it touches people emotionally, so it has a very special place. As a result of that, people convene. So people convene in stadiums and ballparks and on fields. People come together. And when people come together and are connected by the love of something, it's also an opportunity to associate that with other things that are also powers for good to drive change. So, when you look at, either mega sporting events like the Olympics or the World Cup, or collegiate football, or even just local recreational sports, you're convening groups of people together and people who have a shared interest. But also as a byproduct of that, we have an opportunity to talk to them or educate them in a way that's appropriate. Right? They're there to watch sports or enjoy sports, but talk about how we can collectively make a difference. And that's what sports offers the opportunity to do in a fairly effective and an efficient way. Now, how about sustainability leaders? What can they learn from athletic leaders? What do you think sustainability professionals can learn from professional athletes like yourself? What do you think are some of those similar traits and qualities of sustainability leaders and professional athletes? Well, I think it's about driving performance. As an alumna of the US women's team, we talked about what drives performance on a daily basis and how do you get there, how do you maximize it, what affects it, and how you achieve it on a sustained basis. So performance is always going to resonate within the athletics community. Translating that into sustainability, there are lots of ways to do that. So, be it metrics where you're looking to perform against diversion rates or whatever the metrics are that you have set for yourself. But also it's an opportunity to look at the financial performance as well. So there's a strong correlation between measures that improve your sustainability performance and savings. There are many opportunities to decrease some of your cost drivers by implementing sustainable practices. But at the same time, we're finding increasingly, that there's also opportunities for driving revenue. So things that were considered waste 10 years ago are now raw materials for another process. So as you look at that, and the opportunities for that. For example, the oils that are used for the fryers in restaurants is now an input for the biodiesel process. So those things all have value. So it's also about capturing value, which drives performance around sustainability. We've been hearing a lot about waste at a lot of these sessions today. We heard a lot of great examples of these universities leading zero waste and, and also how to communicate the financial payback and the economic opportunities behind a focus on zero waste. And making it fun. We just heard about tailgating and best practices around diversion rates, and hearing about key learnings. And they said, "Listen, it's got to be fun. It's got to be easy for fans and it's got to be fun." And if you combine those two, people really take to it. The engagement from fans, even though they're not yet in the stadium, is a lot higher. And it's one of the important points here today, is it's not just about reducing our impact but it's also about the community and building community, engaging the community and also hoping that they take these practices home and those values start to permeate throughout the community. What else have you seen that at the conference today? Any highlights? Any points that you'd like to share with our listeners? I love the keynote. I thought we started off very strongly with a keynote from the CEO of Unifi around "what if?". Applying "what if?" to sustainability and environmental protection specifically. So, what if we were going to try to bring close loop into all these different things like single use plastics? What if we were trying to eliminate single use plastic items? These are propositions that people have posed and done and achieved, so it is possible. So we look now at, what if we were able to successfully get rid of ocean waste? What if we were able to get rid of single use plastic items? What if? I thought that was a great way to frame it. I think that that's going to be a fantastic partnership. And having that leadership from the top is just so important. Throughout my career in sustainability, I've learned that leading sustainability in an organization is a lot harder when you don't have that top level leadership. And having Jamie Zaninovich here talking about things that he's obviously passionate about and what he wants to see happen in this conference is exciting. And, and to have that top down support is crucial. Critical. I'm doing a session at the end of today which is around when it became personal or when it, when this started to matter to a person. I will be up there with Arielle Gold, snowboarder Olympian. We're going to be talking about at what moment did protection of the environment and being more responsible happen for you? I can articulate it growing up in the late 1970's. I learned every drop of water was precious because we didn't have it. So I actually asked Jamie that same question. I'm going to call on him tonight during that session and say, "When did it make an impression on you?" And he has a story. Sure enough, the guy who grew up to be in a position to then make an impact and say, "You know what, PAC-12 is going to be about sustainability. So much so that we're going to have the PAC-12 Green Team." I've never been so proud to be a PAC-12 alumni because from a conference that looks at this as not only the right thing to do, but tremendous opportunity that can be derived from it. So, you can trace that influential person who makes that key decision, you can trace that back to at some point in this case. He had a moment where it started to matter to him, so that when somebody years later walked into his office and says, "Hey, I want to talk to you about sustainability," he's going to listen. And now numerous positive impacts are coming from that - what happened to him that many years ago. Mary, it was so great to chat with you. Such an incredible insights. Before we let you go, I would love to hear your top highlight in your time working in sustainability and your top highlight from your years as a professional athlete. The top highlight working in sustainability, I would say was the opportunity to work on the united 2026 bid. Because the bid books were public. We were writing a sustainability strategy that the world would read. It's a promise. Your writing basically a promise when you write a bid book. And so having the opportunity to say "what if?". Right? That whole idea of what if eight years from now we could put on the most sustainable World Cup ever in three countries and transform cities on environmental protection and sustainability. The opportunity to work on something like that was once in a lifetime and now it's about doing it, which is even better. We saw the last Super bowl did a great job. They had a great diversion rate, a waste diversion rate, and the World Cup being several years out, we're all very much looking forward to. And how about your top professional highlight as a player? I would say winning the Olympics, to be an American and win a gold medal at the Olympics, it hits you in a very special place. To be part of a group of women who would go on...we were kids back then. We're in our early, late teens, early twenties. To be part of a generation of women who in life since then have gone on to be changemakers in so many other ways. But the genesis of it was even before 1996, which is the 1991 Women's World Cup final. For an American to be an Olympian, and especially Olympic gold medalist, it's unbelievable. As a soccer player, it's about winning the World Cup. And so to be a part of the 1991 Women's World Cup team that won the first Women's World Cup ever, I'll never forget it. And it was a tough final. We got out of there with the win, but it wasn't easy. But look at the change it's invoked. So I'm really proud of having been a part of that.  Jason Richardson – Retired NBA Player and NCAA Champion Interviewed by Paisley Benaza – Ph.D. Student and Communications Strategist at Arizona State University So, Jason, so what does it really feel like when you're that guy and you're on the court and you're actually the spectacle that we're watching? It's pretty tough at first. When you first get into that arena. You're coming out to the stadiums and it's 20,000 people out there. You're like, "Wait a minute, what did I get myself into?" But at the same time, you're out there to do a job. You practiced all your life for it, you worked all your life for it. Eventually to crowd just starts to fade and all you see out there is your teammates and the other five opponents on the basketball court. Can you talk to us about that rivalry feeling and does it stick with you? Pretty sure everybody knows the rivalry does stick with you no matter what, how old you get, how far away you become from it? To this day, I hate Michigan. There's no question about it. Those colors make me sick. Which is crazy because I actually grew up a Michigan fan. I grew up a Michigan fan all my life. We watched the Fab Five when I was younger, the football team won the national championship, the basketball team won the national championship in '89. And when I had opportunity to go to college, my whole family thought I was going to Michigan and the night before I announced Michigan State. Ever since that day I hated Michigan. So a lot of people in this room are either recruiting for their schools, recruiting students for their programs. What was it about Michigan State for you to make that last minute switch? I think it started off with coach Izzo. When I was going down there as a sophomore getting recruited on unofficial visits, he felt like a father away from home. And then all the guys on our team we're like brothers away from home. It was just an open family and that made me decide to go to Michigan State. So the key is family and I think PAC-12, with all our universities and brands, I think that's a theme that is throughout all of our schools. Bleacher Report, which is like an ESPN for online, they did this whole story on the bottled water obsession taking over NBA locker rooms and it was really interesting to read. And you could see here they have superstars and they have all these different brands of water - Fiji, Dasani and sparkling water. So what did you get out of that? Well, it's actually funny when I read this article. I was a part of the team in Philadelphia where they tracked our water, like we were little kids. It was actually pretty amazing and it forces us to drink water and guys started asking, "Hey, can we have Fiji here? Can we have Smart Water here?" And you started realizing all the bottle of the water that were just coming through the system. It was very interesting seeing this article because now you're seeing your favorite player grabbing these water bottle. As a kid thinking, "Oh, Lebron James is drinking Fiji water." Just imagine how many kids are asking about this water. Now you're getting all these bottles involved that are getting put out there. If you look at it from a sustainability standpoint, all of the bottles of water are contributing to that plastic trash. How do you think that players could think about sustainability and not just branded water because that's a luxury thing, right? I think it definitely is a luxury. I think last year over 90 billion gallons of water bottles have been distributed or used, and I think that's the big problem. Players are like, "Oh I'm drinking Fiji, I'm drinking this water." And now it's a branding issue because now you're getting all these bottles out there. I think the more you educate them, I think guys will be more open to doing stuff like recycling and reusing bottles. So I think that's something that we have to think about and maybe it comes from the universities, where we're educating athletes to become advocates for sustainability in that they don't become these single use bottled water drinkers. The MLB told me that they really were hard pressed to find an athlete to basically take the mantle of sustainability. So maybe it has to start from the universities. Maybe we have to train them younger so that they don't feel like they needed branded designer water. So, any closing thoughts? I think sustainability is great. Being from the Midwest, we didn't know anything about recycling. We just throw everything out and the garbage man pickup everything, and that was it. Not until 2009, I started learning about it. A teammate, Steve Nash, was very heavily into it with the NBA. We had a thing, I only think the NBA d does it anymore, called Green Week. He taught me a lot about how to be sustainable and stuff like that. And it was great for me. Once I started going to other teams, I started asking questions about it. I got traded to the Orlando Magic and they had this big banner and it was the first NBA arena to be certified LEED. And I asked questions about it like, "What do you know about this?" I was like, "Hey, Steve Nash, he helped me out with this." But I started hearing more about it. Just last year the Sacramento Kings became the first arena in the world to be 100 percent powered by solar panels, which is great. Hopefully we can push more NBA arenas to be LEED certified.  Mary Harvey - Former U.S. Women’s National Team Goalkeeper, Olympic Gold Medalist and FIFA World Cup Champion Arielle Gold – Professional Snowboarder and Olympic Bronze Medalist Mary - Now let's get to the winter sports. Arielle, tell me a little bit about when this got personal for you. Arielle - So, I'm a professional snowboarder. I'm halfpipe snowboarding, and I grew up actually in Steamboat Springs, which is just a few hours away from here. I spent pretty much my entire childhood doing things outside. I always had a love of the outdoors, in particular snowboarding. And one of the great opportunities that snowboarding has afforded me is the chance to travel around the world, pretty much year round. One of my first big trips that I went on was my first Olympics, which was in Sochi, Russia. I was 17 years old. That was in 2014. And I remember going into that Olympics with obviously very high unrealistic expectations. It's the first Olympics and you want it to be kind of that dream experience. I got there and remember going up to the half pipe for the first day of practice, and it was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not the best. Unfortunately our first practice actually ended up getting canceled because the half pipe was so soft that we couldn't even ride it. And the following day we showed up to practice hoping that the conditions were going to be better, once again, it was really warm and they were actually spraying these blue chemicals all over the halfpipe to try and preserve the snow long enough for us to just have a practice session, which is usually about two hours. That didn't necessarily work very well. So, we ended up going into the day of our event having had next to no practice, just kind of winging it and hoping the halfpipe held it together long enough to have a good contest. I unfortunately was doing my second run of practice and doing a trick that I've done hundreds of times, and ended up hitting just kind of this ghost of bump in the flat bottom of the half pipe, which threw me onto my stomach. I ended up dislocating my shoulder and wasn't able to compete. So essentially, that's how my first Olympics ended. Had to have that put back in, go through the whole process of trying to get healthy again, getting home and rehabbing. But one of the biggest takeaways I had from that was obviously seeing those conditions firsthand and realizing that there was something wrong. We were really far up in the mountains. A lot of people actually go up there to back country snowboard, so that was definitely not a year to be doing that. Mary - So we have these experiences as athletes or as kids. Then we go on to, in your case, life still competing, and in my case life after competing. With this moment you described, how have you taken that experience and brought it forward in things that you say and do with respect to the environment? Arielle - Well, one of the first things I did when I got home from Sochi, was I started researching what I could possibly do to kind of reduce my own environmental footprint. Obviously I travel all the time, so I know that I have a larger footprint probably than a lot of people do. So I just wanted it to do whatever I could to try and reduce that impact as much as I could. One of the first things I did was start speaking with a group called Protect Our Winters, which was actually founded by a professional snowboarder, Jeremy Jones. So a lot of professional ski and snowboarders are pretty involved. What they do is essentially provide a platform for athletes like myself to use their influence to have a positive impact. So I started out really basic - going and speaking at middle and high schools in the Colorado area, speaking to kids and just kind of trying to raise a little bit of awareness, especially in the next generation, because they are the future. That's kind of what I did for the past four years is just some of that lower level, just kind of speaking around these schools and just trying to spread the word as much as possible. I'm doing my own duty, trying to recycle and ride my bike as much as I can and kind of doing all of those basic level things that we should all be doing. It should be second nature at this point. Then, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go back to this past Olympics a few months ago, which was really an exciting experience for me just to kind of have the chance to get a little bit of redemption after the way that the last one went. We were fortunate to have some pretty incredible conditions in Korea, so I had one of the best halfpipes I've ever ridden and was able to come home with a bronze medal. So that was definitely a bit more of the result that I had initially expected. And one of the great things about that, aside from just enjoying that overall experience, is coming home and just having all of these new incredible opportunities arise such as speaking at this conference. I just got an opportunity to speak at a conference in Argentina. Just doing all of these different things that I probably never would have had the chance to do had I not been able to go back and get a little better result. So, just being able to use my platform for something positive is something I've always wanted to do and always respected other athletes for doing. Mary - If you look closely, everybody's got something. There's something that happened, an experience, something you lived through. And we heard earlier today about when you're talking about engaging athletes or engaging people, it's about getting to know them and finding out what moves them, what drives them, what they're passionate about. And if you can find that anecdote. So, the anecdote that Arielle shared, my anecdote, Jamie's anecdote, whatever the anecdotes that were shared today. If you can tap into that, that's 100 percent authentic. And you will find that when you tap into people's authentic experiences, insecurities about what car they drive or whether or not they're the best ambassador for sustainability - those things start to not matter because that experience is 100 percent authentic and true to them. And you'll find, hopefully, if we can get more athletes to come off the sidelines and start to talk about that, it probably starts with understanding that piece of it. Arielle, what are your thoughts? Arielle - One of my favorite quotes, and I may butcher it a little bit, was actually one that came up in one of the PowerPoints that I presented to some students at a local school in Colorado. The quote essentially says, "The forest would be a very quiet place if the only birds that sang were those the sang best." So essentially, what that tells me, and hopefully what all of you will get out of that, is that you don't have to know everything about something to be passionate about it. And that's something that I've always been a little bit apprehensive about, especially going into something like sustainability and climate change. So for me, just to have this opportunity to speak to all of you and have the opportunity to share my own personal experience and try and kind of fuel the fire a little bit, is what I'm grateful to have the chance to do here. Mary - Now, to wrap things up this evening, I'd like to just mention that this sustainability conference is a wrap and the next PAC-12 Sustainability Conference will be on June 25th and 26th of next year at the University of Washington. So go Dogs and we'll see you all next year.  

Have you ever been to a Scent Work trial, and the atmosphere was just...wrong? Everyone seemed stressed and miserable, and a dark cloud hung over everyone and everything? There are plenty of reasons why this can happen, but you as a competitor can help prevent it! In this episode, we discuss what Scent Work trial officials dread, and in so doing, showcasing what they would deem the "ideal competitor", the competitor who refrains from doing some of the very things that can drag a trial down. Now, that is not to say all the blame or responsibility lies at the feet of the competitors. Nothing could be further from the truth! But, this is a topic not many competitors think about, or give enough credence to. You, as the competitor, are a crucial part of the puzzle to ensure your Scent Work trial goes well! So let's figure what you should do, and pitfalls to avoid. ----more---- Scent Work University is an online dog training platform focused on all things Scent Work. SWU courses and webinars are not only for those who are interested in competiton, but also for those dog owners who are simply looking for something fun and engaging to do with their dogs. Check out Scent Work University today! Interested in another dog sport, or looking for help getting your dog to learn some manners? Dog Sport University is sister online dog training platform, give it a peek and see what it has to offer you and your dog. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the Scent Work University All About Scent Work podcast. In this podcast we'll be talking about all things Scent Work. We'll be giving you behind the scenes look as far as what your instructor or trial officials may be going through, we'll be giving you training tips, and we'll just be discussing everything that goes along with doing Scent Work with your dog, whether you're interested in competition or not. In this episode we're going to be talking about what officials would consider an ideal competitor at a Scent Work trial, and how you may be able to work towards becoming one of those ideal competitors. All right, let's get started. Before we get started, I just want to take a really quick moment to introduce myself. My name is Dianna Santos. I'm the Owner and Lead Instructor for both Scent Work University and Dog Sport University. These are online dog training platforms that are designed to connect outstanding trainers with as many dog owners as possible. Both SWU and DSU are designed to provide quality, convenience, and flexibility. We hope that you'll check them out to see if there are any online programs that may be suitable for both you and your dog. Without further ado, let's dive into the podcast. If you're competing in Scent Work, more often than not you've been at a trial where things just didn't seem to go all that well. Things went left. Everyone seemed stressed. The atmosphere wasn't all that great. Maybe there was some toxic people in the parking lot. Maybe there were just some other competitors who just didn't seem as though they were in this for the right reasons. With this podcast what I want to talk about is from an official's perspective what it is that competitors can do in order to ensure that the trials don't ever get to that point. Now that's not say that all the responsibility lies in the shoulders of the competitors. That's not true. It is absolutely true that the competitors can be there in the right frame of mind, that officials could be there in the right frame of mind, and maybe the host isn't. Or maybe the host and the competitors are, but the officials aren't. It is definitely a group effort. If one of those elements is not working the way that it should, then it can affect the entire experience. But what I'm hoping in this podcast to achieve is an understanding of just how important the competitors are to this whole formula, and that there are things that you can do to help improve the experience for everyone, and also it can help your overall performance because depending how it is you conduct yourself not only during the search but also in between the searches, could also affect the way that the official, be it your judge and even your hide placer, then conducts themselves throughout the day but also how they're approaching everything that they have to do. Because here's a little bit of a hint. They're just people too. Again, the purpose of this podcast is to talk about some things that, again, I just don't think that enough people are thinking about or considering, and just to give you a behind the scenes look, if you've only done competing and you haven't been an official before, just some of the things that officials may be considering or even going through when they're actually officiating these trials. Right out of the gate what I would like to do is to talk about some of the things that officials dread. This is again a general statement. This is not supposed to be covering everything under the sun, but just some things for you to keep in mind that as an official if they see these things happen, their skin starts to crawl, the hair goes up on the back of their neck, or they just go, "Oh, it's going to be one of those trials." The reason why I want to start off with this is so we can kind of see just how unhelpful these things are in the first place. But you also may listen going, "I never do any of those things." And that's a good pat on the back for you. There really isn't that many people who do these things. I mean, just to be perfectly blunt. With the majority of trials that I've either officiated, overseen, or worked at, I would say the very mass majority of the competitors are very pleasant, they have a lot of sportsmanship, they are there to have a good time with their dogs, they're there for the right reasons, and they're doing it the right way, which is fabulous. There are going to be a few people who are just not doing any of those things. The purpose of starting with this first section is to just talk about when officials see something and they go, "Oh no." If you happen to catch yourself doing those things, just know that that is something that usually puts off alarm bells for an official and that could also affect your performance overall. It could also affect the way that you're experiencing the trial as well as everybody else. The first thing that as a judge, what I've noticed, what I've officiated that makes my alarm bells go off is when someone comes up to the start line and I say, "Oh, hi. Welcome to your so and so search. This is your start line. Here are your search area boundaries. You have this amount of time in order to find this many hides," if it's possibly known. "Do you have any questions?" And the person just stands there and goes, "Of course not." It's like, "Okay then. You may start when ready." This is a tough one because as an official you may just say, "Well, maybe they're nervous." But we also see you walking up the start line. So if you're talking under your breath really angrily at your dog or at yourself or just life and then you're futzing with all of your stuff at the start line, we're trying to give you some information and then you bark at us, we're like, "Well then. Okay. You can go whenever you're ready and we'll just hope for the best." It just puts everyone's guard up and it gets everyone really super defensive. The competitors that officials really dread are the ones who are very snarky, who bark a lot, who are very short, who don't want to even acknowledge the fact that you as an official may be taking extra time out to make certain that they don't have any questions, that you can set them at ease, that you can let them know like, "This is your search area. You don't have to go over there." Like, "If your dog wants to go over there for a little bit, maybe that's where odor is going, but there isn't a hide there." And then lo and behold, those typically speaking are the competitors who end up going off into osh gosh because they weren't really paying attention, and then they're all angry when their dog either times out or they false alert and you're like, "I told you that that wasn't part of the search area to begin with." The first big category that I would say for things that officials dread are competitors who are very short and they just seem angry. I mean, they just seem angry and nasty and just unpleasant. I think that's something that everyone can relate to, that trying to deal with someone who's like that is not fun. But as officials it's our responsibility to always be professional and to just take a deep breath and be like, "Okay, well start when ready," and to just let them do what they need to do during their search, and to also be understanding that for some people when they do get stressed or nervous, they do kind of sound really short and curt and just unpleasant. It's not that they have any malice behind it. It's just because they're nervous. But understand that your official is not a robot. So if you were to do that and you were competitor number 30 and already 15 other people did the same exact thing to this official who's been out there in the elements for hours on end, working their butt off trying to make sure that this trial goes well, and now you come in and you start snapping at them, there is nothing to say that this person is not going to be like, "Okay, well, I just, I give up. Go on and search and you had better hope that you don't drop any treats." All of the empathy and the connection as a human being is lost and then it truly does become you are just in there as a sack of meat doing stuff with your dog and they are just this very judgmental person on the outside, and that's not ideal on any level. If you do happen to find yourself getting really stressed and worked up about something, I would urge you to take a nice deep breath before you go to your search. That'll help you and your dog anyway. But definitely try to make certain that you aren't being really super negative to your official. It's just not a good idea just generally speaking. But just know that these are people too. It just can affect the entire atmosphere of the whole trial, but it really could negatively affect your search. The other thing that officials dread overall are competitors who do not seem to know the rules at all. Now it's very confusing right now in the world of Scent Work, particularly in the United States, in that Scent Work has exploded in popularity which is wonderful, and there are now eight, count them, eight titling organizations in the United States alone, which is great. That means that there's more opportunities for everyone to play, there's lots of different things that maybe I prefer to go over here and do this thing, but now I can go over there and I can do that thing as well. All that is great. The only problem is is that there are differences from organization to organization. Some organizations are newer than others and they're still figuring out what it is that they want to be able to do within their organization to meet their standards. Maybe they wanted to try something, it looked great on paper, but now it doesn't look so great in practice. They may also be updating their rules. Regardless, when you sign up for a trial as a competitor, it is your responsibility to know the rules that are effective for that trial forwards and backwards and sideways and underneath. It's just you have to understand the rules. As an official it is extraordinarily stressful when you have competitors throughout various stages of the trial clearly showing that they have no idea what the rules are. There's a big difference between someone who just doesn't know what the rules are but just kind of goes with the flow. And it's a whole other situation where a competitor hasn't taken the time to understand the rules, they don't know the rules. They also don't care to know the rules, oh and by the way, they're really upset because they wanted to be able to do what they want to do and it doesn't matter if it's in complete contradiction to what the rules are. It's everyone else's fault but this person. That is something that just makes the officials hair catch on fire because you want to be able to help someone so that they could be successful. Because here's another little secret. Most officials who are very good, vast majority of them, want you to succeed. They want your dog to succeed as well. If you do happen to seem a little lost, they will be happy to help you. But that's really complicated if you don't even know the bare basics of what the rules are for the trial they are entered in and that you don't seem to care to want to know and that you now want to be able to do what you want to do, even though that's not what the rules allow you to do. I'll give you an example. There was a trial that I ... for an organization that I work with. An official contacted me and they told me, "I was officiating this search. I gave my little run down for the search before the person went in to do the search. They were doing their search and not even 10 seconds in they called alert. It was a false alert. That wasn't where the hide was. So I told them, "I'm sorry no, but you can reward your dog over here." The person said, "Oh okay," and they just keep walking and kept searching in the search area. So the official went up to them and said, "Oh I'm sorry, the search is done. But if you want to reward your dog where the hide is, this is where the hide is." And the person said, "This isn't what we do in class. If I call false alert in class, I get to keep searching." It's like, "But this isn't class. This is a trial, so if you want to bring your dog back over to the hide to reward them that'll be great." This person, the competitor lost it. I mean yelling and screaming and turned into hysterical crying. It was bad. It was just bad. This official, and I give them a lot of credit, calmed them down, explained to them the difference between trialing and training, and by the end of it the person was fine. But now this official was completely flustered for the rest of the trial because this had happened. Whereas if the competitor had simply read the rules and maybe even asked a question during the briefing, then all of this could have been avoided. As an official, it is super stressful when it's clear that people have no idea what the rules are. Now, I want to stress that being confused it's not something that you should be ashamed of or you should be worried about. If you are confused about something the day before the trial, make some notes and there's often times a lot of Facebook groups or other social media or even just contact information for the actual organization itself. Contact those people, reach out, and ask those questions. Try to get clarification. If you don't get clarification or it doesn't answer all of your questions, then bring them up during the briefing. Please have your questions answered before you actually start running. Now that doesn't mean you get to not read any of the rules and just show up at the briefing and just start asking, "So, what is it that we have to do?" Like you do have to actually read the rules and understand them, but if you have a question, ask as early in this process as you possibly can because if you're trying to ask those kinds of questions while you're trying to search, your official isn't going to be able to answer you. It's just not a good thing for you or your dog to be doing. You should be concentrating on searching, you should be concentrating on reading your dog and figuring out what are they doing, not trying to say, "Oh, I don't know what the rule is for such and such." Again, as far as officials, something that happens almost at every single trial is there are people who aren't reading the rules, who aren't familiar with the rules, and they are not taking the steps to actually familiarize themselves with the rules ahead of time, and they're almost expecting everyone to pick up the slack around them. That's not how it works. So please, if you are competing in any venue, particularly if you're competing in multiple venues, read upon the rules the week before you go to the trial. And then if you have questions, post them to some of those Facebook groups. Contact the organization directly. You can even contact the person who's hosting the trial, and if they don't have the answers, then they can reach out to someone who does. But it's your responsibility to really know what the rules are so that you and your dog can be successful. Something else that officials dread, typically judges because they're the ones who see this more often than not, are the competitors who are really super disorganized. Now, I want to say this with a caveat, that things happen where maybe you were keeping track of your spot in the run order and suddenly three dogs just flew through and you thought you had 10 minutes and now you have one minute. I mean, you were watching it like a hawk and everything was great and then all of a sudden it's your turn to go into the staging area. You have your whole routine all set out, but now it's all befuddled. So you're all frazzled yourself, you're trying to get yourself all together, and you rush to the staging area because you don't want to make anyone wait and you're all just out of sorts. What you want to do is you want to breathe and just take your time. As an official, personally I can usually tell the difference between someone who something like that happened where it was something completely out of their control, they were trying to do the right thing and now they're suddenly in the area going, "I guess it's my turn," and they're trying to get themselves together, and someone who wasn't paying attention to the run order, who didn't have a routine down, who doesn't really have any kind of consideration for themselves, their dogs, or the other people around them, there's a big difference between the two. Regardless, if you are all befuddled, try your best to breathe and just collect yourself as much as you can. When this starts turning into something that an official dreads is when you are stressing up and up and up and up and then it starts turning into this little cyclone of stress and just chaos. An official would be a lot more understanding from you if you are trying to breathe and you just say, "Oh, just give me just one second," and you're trying to get your long line together, whatever the case may be, but you're breathing and you're trying as opposed to, "Oh, well, everyone must do this for me now, and can you go get my treats and can you go get this and can you go get the other thing." I was like, "No, that's not going to work." You want to try to be as organized as you can. You also want to try to be as calm as you can. Now officials should notice when someone is a little stressed and they should be able to step in and offer some reassurance, maybe remind you to breathe, we don't want you passing out in the middle of the search area, but that's not necessarily their responsibility. Their responsibility is not to make sure that all the responsibility it taken off of your shoulders and they have to set you up to succeed. They should be there to support you, but you've got to do some of the work as well. As an official, if I see someone coming up and it is just a whirlwind behind them, and they have no care in the world and they're just assuming everyone will pick it up after them, that's not going to go well for me. It's not that I'm going to score them any differently. They find the hide, they find the hide. But it just, it creates a very different atmosphere, and it doesn't happen a lot. This is something I will say, is that people who are purposefully disorganized and just completely inconsiderate of others, is very rare, it doesn't happen all that often, but when it does, it's really, it's just kind of gross. It leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouth. So try to avoid that as best as you can. If something happens outside of your control where suddenly you're pushed up in the run order and you feel like you have to rush a little bit, just breathe in between, do the best that you can, and just show that you're trying. That's all you have to do. But if it's simply, "Well, now everyone else has to figure this out for me," well, that's a little bit different. Probably the biggest thing that causes officials to dread what it is that they do are people who are not trusting their dogs when they're searching. Now, there's a variety of different reasons why you could be doing this and it's actually a really common thing to happen. The reason being is that having an official saying no is really stressful for the person, and I could understand that. But as a judge, you can see because you are at a different vantage point than the handler more often than not, so you oftentimes can see the dog saying one, two, three, four, 10 times, "Here it is. I don't know how else to say this, but here it is," and that can be frustrating within itself, but I think a lot of officials can recognize the fact that where they're standing is offering a different vantage point than where the handler may be. That's an entirely different scenario than when the dog has said one, two, three, four, five, 10 times, "Here it is," and then the handler also recognizes it, doesn't believe the dog or doesn't accept it and says, "Show me," over and over and over and over again. The show me thing is the worst. It is something that I think across the board every official who hears it, their jaws get tight and their shoulders get all tense and they're just like, "Oh, why are they saying show me?" It's so frustrating. I would urge any competitor if you have the urge to say show me, do something else, anything else. Maybe you just call alert. That'd be nice too. But if you really don't, if you're really not sure, then maybe just move off a little bit, see if the dog leaves with you, try anything else but don't say show me. It is just, it's the bane of almost every judge's existence. If that was one thing that would just go away from Scent Work, officials would be so much happier. Now really quickly I wanted to go over some of the ways that a trial can go from really fun and exciting and enjoyable for everyone to really super stressful. The first is when competitors start second guessing the searches. What I mean by this is you go in, you do a search with your dog, your dog has found, let's say there's two hides, your dog has found one hide and they're working and working and working trying to find the second, and you see them do a change of behavior in one corner but then they get drawn over to something else and you can't really tell and you're not really sure, so you bring them back to the corner and you call alert and the judge says, "Sorry no, that's actually here, which is near the corner but it's not in the right corner." Long story short you walk out of that search not feeling all that great. Your dog found their first hide. They clearly struggled with the second. You aren't really sure what was happening in the space. Maybe they got distracted. Maybe there was some pulling of odor. You called away from the hide. You are not really happy. That's understandable. That's totally fine. If your immediate response is they set a really bad hide, it's very difficult to keep that within you as a person for the next couple of hours, because you're not supposed to be talking about the searches at all regardless of what organization you're competing with. You're not supposed to be saying, "Hey, did you struggle in that search?" It's just supposed to be a thumbs up or thumbs down, and then when the trial is all over, then you're supposed to be talking about details. When things start getting really stressful is when people don't follow that rule and they start saying, "Hey, did your dog have any difficulty in the interior search?" And if someone else says, "Yeah, we only found one hide," which again these conversations should not be happening, but they do, that spreads like wildfire and by the time the trial is over and you're having the debriefing, you have a very big swath of the trial competitors are furious because they have all these theories about why the search didn't go well and they think that the person who set the hide had no idea what they're doing, the judge was being unfair, whatever the case may be. Then sure enough during the debriefing, the person who set hide, be it the Co for NACSW or PSD for USCSS, judges for AKC or UKC, whatever the case may be, they then explain to you what it is that their thought process was when they set the hide, what they thought would be happening in that space, what actually happened in that space, and then what they saw for the handling. Suddenly everyone has answers to all their questions. Suddenly it makes all kinds of sense. It wasn't this grand conspiracy to make everybody fail and everyone goes home and they're fine. The only problem was is that for all those hours in between the entire atmosphere of the whole trial went down in the dumps. It's just everyone's angry, everyone's stressed, everyone's upset. I've seen this firsthand. It's happened to trials where I was actually the hide setter. If the competitors had just waited and if they hadn't talked about the hides, which again you're not supposed to, and if they didn't get themselves worked up in such a lather, I could've explained to them what was happening because once I did, they were fine. This is something that I see a lot, and again, I cannot stress this enough. Please don't talk about the searches at trials. It's against the rules and depending on the organization you could actually be written off for a written warning, you could lose your cues for the search that you're talking about, and anyone you're talking to could lose their cues for that search. And if you continue to do it, depending on the organization, you might just be kicked out completely because the whole point of trials is that you don't know what's going on in the search. If you knew all the details about the search, then you wouldn't have to have trails at all. You could just keep practicing at home. Now I understand that as competitors it can be very stressful when clearly you saw that your dog was struggling, clearly you saw that your dog had picked up odor somewhere but they couldn't get to it and you didn't call it correctly. I get it. I've been there. Wait till the end when the person who sets the hike and actually explained what happened, it makes a difference. The other way that I notice the trials go from good and fun and enjoyable trials to trials that are more stressful, are people who are constantly looking at the clock. Let me just let you all know, just as a general rule, your officials don't want to the trail to be going on any longer than it absolutely has to. Your officials want your trial to be smooth and efficient and they would like to get home a little early as well. They are exhausted by the end of the day. I mean, they are mentally tired, they're physically tired, it's a really hard job to be an official. That is exacerbated when you hear the mutterings like let's say for lunch and you'll hear people saying, "Oh, I can't believe how long this is taking. Oh, can't they speed things up," and, "Oh, I was hoping to do something later on today," and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You want to try to avoid that stuff as much as possible. Know that your officials are doing their very best. Now are there officials who are slower than others? Yes. Typically speaking the people who are posting the trials will know that and they'll talk with the officials and be like, "Okay, look, even if you're giving information to the competitor, it should be over a series of seconds, not minutes, and if you're going to provide them a quick, little feedback thing as they're leaving the search area, it's got to be quick." We're not trying to rush anybody out, we're not trying to make this into like a production line, but we do have to get through a lot of people in a short period of time. The main thing is just as competitors just know that the apparatus behind the trial, their goal is to have it be efficient, and also everyone's goal is for you to be happy. Everyone's goal is for you and your dog to have a good time. If at every single turn it's complaining here about how long it's taking, complaining here about how you thought the hides were unfair, complaining here about the weather, complaining there about the time of the day, it just goes on and on and on. Suddenly this really, happy, fun, awesome thing we should all do be doing together turns into this just sludgy, gross, depressing, stressful, yucky thing, and on top of that your officials are mentally and physically exhausted. And it can really burn them out. I would just urge you that as competitors, please know that everyone at trials 9 times out of 10 who are working or volunteering, really do want everyone to be done sooner rather than later. They want it to be efficient, they want it to run smoothly, and they want you to have a good time. If there is a bottleneck, because it does happen, things happen, they're trying their best to fix it. Just know that, and if you start going like, "Oh my god. I can't believe it's whatever time," take that time to just hang out with your dog, read a book, take a nap, talk with friends, whatever the case may be. You're there. You're fine. You are always free to leave. I mean, you could if you absolutely had to. But more often than not, if you just take the stress out of it and just go, "Okay, I have this whole day to spend time with my dog and with friends and with other people who love Scent Work," then it's not that big of a deal. The other thing to try to keep in mind is that for your officials, I know I've mentioned this a couple of times already, but it is a very difficult job. The people who are being approved for these positions more often than not, again, they have the expertise necessary and they also want you to be successful as a team with your dog. They don't want to say no. They don't want you to fail. If an official really is out there going, "Ha, ha, I didn't get any cues. This is a great day," then I agree with you, they shouldn't be an official. That's not the point. I hope you'll keep that in mind when you are going to your next trial. At this point you're thinking, "Great. Now you made me feel really bad about being a competitor. You made me think that I am just this terrible, awful person. I'm never going to a trial again." I don't want you to think that. Again, the things that I'm pointing out do happen at trials, but it's a very small percentage of people that do them. The purpose of this podcast is just for you to see what not to do and that it not only negatively affects the officials, it negatively affects the overall trial, which means that it's negatively affecting your experience as well. If you do happen to notice yourself doing any of these things, you want to catch yourself and see if you can change course. And then you're also saying, "But you titled this podcast The Ideal Competitor. What am I supposed to be doing?" Let me just give you a really quick rundown of what an official would love for you to do in order to be an ideal competitor. Number one, know the rules. Know the rules forwards and backwards. Ask questions ahead of time, but be familiar with them by the time that you get to the trial. Number two, be considerate and kind and just nice. That goes a really long way, and do that with everyone and anyone at the trial. Make sure that you're breathing. This can help you and your dog actually do better when you are competing because it takes some of the nerves off of you, it takes some of the stress out of your leash, it can help set your dog at ease. It gets oxygen into your brain, which is good. We want you to be able to think, and again, not pass out in the middle of the search, but that will also open you up to be more receptive when your official is giving you directions or when they're asking you questions or they're seeing if you have any questions. You also doing those things can then let us know that you're trying. Again, this is that reciprocal relationship back and forth, it's a give and take. Please know that the majority of the people who are working at trials, be it officials, be it trial hosts, be it volunteers, are there to ensure that you and your dog have a good time. They have your best interest at heart and odor is something that we honestly and truly are guessing at. Even people who have an incredible amount of experience can never guarantee what is going to happen in a space and they can never guarantee that is going to be the same the very first time they set the hide, to when the dog goes, to when the first competitor goes, to competitor number 15, to competitor number 30, to competitor number 50. All those dogs may actually experience a different odor picture by the time they get into the search area. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold our officials to a high standard. We should. That doesn't mean that our officials shouldn't be experienced. They must be. It would be better for you to go into a situation thinking at least as a default, "This person is not trying to set me up to fail. This person has done their best. Now let me figure out during the debriefing what it is that may have happened." And also know that there may not been anything with the search at all. It could've been an off day for you, it could've been an off day for your dog, or there may just been a gap in your training. That's okay too. All trials are supposed to be as a test of your training and to provide you with information. Sometimes the information is, "I'm not going to show under that judge again," and that's okay too. But it's a completely different outlook and approach than, "Those people are terrible and they're trying to ruin me and my dog and I hate them." Like that is an entirely different approach. An ideal competitor would be going in thinking these people are having my best interest at heart, they're trying their best, they have the expertise and the background necessary. I'm going to go into the search. I know that my dog and I have the training and background to do it. We're not just winging it. And if something goes awry, then I'm going to be open minded to figure out why that happened. And it could very well be something that I did. It could very well be my training. Or it could've just been the Scent Work gods decided, "No, thank you. We're not going to let anyone find the hide today." The other thing as an ideal competitor, you will really toe the line when it comes to talking about the searches in that you won't have something else to talk about. Generally speaking an even better rule is to just not talk about Scent Work at all. Don't talk about class, don't talk about the trial last week or last year. Talk about anything else but Scent Work. I know that sounds counter-intuitive. We're at a Scent Work trial. Why shouldn't we talk about Scent Work? Not only does it defeat the whole purpose of the trail, not only can it get people all lathered and all worked up, but it can also impart undue stress and burden onto other people who may not really know that when you are going on and on about this terrible experience that you had, it was really the very first time you ever tried to do Scent Work with odor at a class ages ago, they may think that that's that very same trial and now you've put all this baggage and stress onto them and their dog. That's just not fair. Try to avoid that as best as you can. The last part of being an ideal competitor is that you're there for the right reasons and that will bleed over into all these other aspects. You're there to have fun with your dog. You know that this is a game. You absolutely can have respect and admiration for the amount of training and time and effort that you and your dog have put into this activity, but that you are not finding dead bodies or bombs. You are finding birch, anise, or clove, or some other target odor. This is a game and an opportunity to bond and have a good time with our dogs and to be around like minded people. If you go into a trial with that mindset and you are opening yourself to having a good time, then you're the perfect competitor and officials will love you from now until the end of time. It makes a huge difference. I hope this podcast helped a little bit so that you can see from the official standpoint just how important everything that you're bringing into the trial as a competitor really is. You are a very important part of the puzzle, and the entire apparatus of a trial is designed with the sole purpose of both you and your dog having a good time. A lot of these newer organizations were started up with the very basis of we want more dogs out playing and having fun. That's the whole purpose of this. If we all can do our part, then we can ensure that that happens. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found this podcast helpful. Happy training and we look forward to seeing you soon.

The title says it all . . . or does it? Kindred and Riley discuss a movie starring Shah Rukh Khan, and also talk about the Fourth of July a week late. Kindred relays a Third of July story and Riley reminds us all about the true meaning of the Fourth, being very sweaty. Guys, thanks for listening and we think you're all pretty dang cool.

Ian Allan is a psychic and intuitive Witch living in Johnson City, TN. He owns and operates Appalachian Witchery, where he teaches classes on Appalachian Folk Lore and Magic, he offers tarot and psychic readings, as well as magical consultations and spell creation. WE TALK ABOUT: unique Appalachian spiritual culture divination, water witching, dowsing, folk magic, ancestor veneration, books of shadows the definition of real magic the difference between magic and manifesting MENTIONED ON THE SHOW Rumours - Fleetwood Mac Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler The Spiral Dance by Starhawk Talking Appalachian by Amy Clark Power of the Witch by Laurie Cabot with Tom Cowan LaurieCabot.com Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham The Witches' Voice GUEST LINK - IAN ALLAN Appalachian Witchery HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Ian: My name is Ian Allan. I live in Johnson City, Tennessee, was originally raised in a small coal-mining town in southwest Virginia. Not West Virginia, but Virginia, the southwest corner called Wise. Grew up in a kind of traditional Appalachian family. Became more knowledgeable, I guess would be the world I would use about dreams that I was having and feelings I would be getting about people I would meet at churches or in public atmospheres that would start becoming true. And so I became pretty obsessed with occult sort of ideas from a very young age and it just kind of started developing from there, around the age of 13, is probably when I really started working on developing certain gifts or abilities, if you want to use that word. And it just kind of went on from there. I became a public tarot reader in which I, about 11 years ago, I have been doing all of that for over 20 years at this point now, but really stepped in to the public sphere about 11 years ago and started reading for the public and offering classes on different topics relating to witchcraft as well as, specifically, Appalachian folk magic. Slade: Okay, so I'm just curious when you meet someone for the first time in real life and they ask you what you do, what do you say? Ian: Um, well, previous to March, I would pretty much say I teach Appalachian folk lore and magic. I also read tarot cards. It's not something I've ever really been shy about telling people. Slade: Okay. Ian: I... Just last October, had an interview with the local newspaper and my picture's in it and it's titled Appalacian Witchery. So if people have read the paper, they saw my face, they read an article about me. It's not something I've ever really hidden. It does, obviously, get a lot of weird looks or eye rolls sometimes, but that just kind of comes with that whole idea of being a witch. People don't want to think that we exist sometimes or that we're just crazy people. So it's something I've gotten used to. I've gotten a thicker skin over the years. Slade: One of the reasons I ask that question, and I've started asking it of a lot of the people that I interview is because so many of the people who listen to this show and the people that I work with in particular, are in some kind of process of sort of coming out of the broom closet, or coming out of the psychic closet. Coming out of some kind of closet, right? It's helpful to hear other people's stories and also hear sometimes that we don't all just walk around, you know, like carrying a sign, you know? Ian: Oh yeah! Slade: You know, there's a very, varied nuances to how we answer that question and how we go about in the public. And you've been confronted with the very real reality of having the local newspaper feature you, whereas I'm kind of anonymous locally but yet more globally visible, you know what I mean? So it must be a little bit different being like, but you're the town witch, you know! Everyone's gotta have one, right? Ian: Exactly. Exactly. Historically, yeah. Every village had a witch or shaman who could do herbalism, who would also do magic on the side. So yeah, every village, every town, usually had someone that they would go to, and I'm okay with being that. And I'm not the only one here in Johnson City. Believe me. There are plenty of witches here. I guess I am probably one of the more outspoken ones who hasn't hid himself away, or herself away. So with that does a certain lack of anonymity within the public locally. And I'm okay with that. I like taking care of my community. People who you wouldn't suspect would come to me for readings, for discussion of spell creation and that sort of thing. People who are, you know, ministers' wives, ministers themselves, but, that's days... kind of like, I always view it as a... almost like a psychologist sort of thing where, if you come to me, you come to me and it doesn't leave this room. No one's going to know your name, no one's going to know what we talked about. Slade: Right. Ian: It's definitely helped word of mouth, I guess, for my business, if you want to look at it that way, but it's more of a, I like taking care of my local community. Not that I don't care about my global community, I do care about them but, growing up in the 90s, there was that whole 'think locally'.. 'think globally, act locally', adage, so I've always kind of tried to live by that adage. If I can affect my small town in some way, then they'll start affecting the world at a larger rate than I could by myself. Slade: Yeah, well listen, there are people who listen to this show from all over the world. I mean, Australia, Singapore (I have a lot of fans in Singapore for some reason - hey guys!), Europe... You know, places where, even maybe there's people in Canada who don't really know about the Appalachian region and culture that we're talking about. You are from a city called Johnson City, which is in northeast Tennessee, kind of in the corner with North Carolina and Virginia. So if you would, just kind of explain for everybody a little bit about what Appalachian magic and folk lore is, as, you know, how you would sum it up. Ian: Okay, well, the first thing that I always do in my classes is discuss the word that you're pronouncing. You're saying, Appa-LAY-chia, I pronounce it Appa-LATCH-a. Slade: Mmhmm. Ian: And there's a reason for that. There's kind of an imaginary line, like the Mason/Dixon line, about the pronunciation of the word of the mountains that we live in. And below this imaginary line, so probably somewhere below Washington DC, northern Virginia, sort of area, you're going to hear it pronounced Appalachia. Above that they're going to say Appalachia. And part of that is, you know, it's just dialect. But it was a way for people back in the 1800s into the early 1900s to know who was an outsider and who could be trusted. Because the carpet baggers who would come down to the south, into the Appalachian mountains, or the coal miners or the coal companies who would send in people from the north, they would say Appalachia and we learned they weren't fully to be trusted because were exploiting us. They were stealing our land, they were stealing our property. Stealing our coal, taking our trees and then leaving us in poverty. And so, words, first off, have a lot of power. They have a lot of meaning, so... and it's not wrong to say Appalachia, because the people in the Appalachian mountains into Pennslyvania, Vermont and Maine, they DO pronounce it Appalachia. So their pronunciation is right for them, but when you're talking southern Appalachia, it's more proper to use that pronunciation of Appalachia. Slade: So I sound like a carpet bagger! What the hell. I'm from Tennessee! Actually, you know what would be funny is if I wasn't looking at that word written down and I was surrounded by my family (because my dialect changes depending on who I'm speaking with) I wonder which way I would say it if I wasn't thinking about it. I'm going to be listening for it now and like, how my family says it. Anyway. I didn't mean to interrupt. But go ahead. Ian: Oh no, that's perfectly fine because what you just talked about is like, if you were hanging out with your family, how would you say it? That's what we call code switching. We all have different ways of talking and different words that we use, depending on who we're talking to and what event's going on. There's a great book by a great professor of mine who I, from the University of Virginia's college at Wise. Her name's Amy Clark. She wrote, or she edited a book called Talking Appalachia, and it's a book of collected essays about, or people from around the Appalachian region who wrote about code switching, basically, how they talk and why they talked the way they did. It's a fascinating thing if you're into linguistics. Slade: I was a linguistics major originally in college, yeah! Yes I am interested in that! Ian: Yeah, so, that's a good thing and I've totally rambled off of your first question. So, your question was more about Appalachian magic and folk lore, correct? Slade: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of people... So we've identified a little bit of the area physically, geographically, that we're talking about. Why don't you tell us where the magic part comes from, or maybe what's unique about Appalachian magic? Where did this fusion of stuff come from? Ian: Okay. So Appalachian folk magic is really kind of a conglomeration of Scot beliefs, Irish beliefs, English beliefs, German, and a little bit of Turkey, practices, as within this area because it was pretty isolated and even to this day, they consider the Appalachians isolated, from the rest of the larger United States. But, these groups of people started settling here in these mountains and they would share some of their beliefs with one another and they kind of just created a mixing pot, a nice mix in a cauldron, if you want to keep good doing the witch stuff, beliefs and culture and created something that was more unique. I think it's probably the most American of practices. Because I mean, you do have folk magic in New England, but it was very much colonial English practices that they continued because that was who settled there. In the mountains, you had more, more people who came from sort of the lower echelons of society, so to speak, come in to the mountains because they said, 'Oh! No one settled here. There's plenty of land. Let's move here and create our own wealth, not realizing how rocky and sandy the mountains were, not really fit for a lot of farming. So then their life, the hard scrabble life, created different myths, different practices, different folk lores... Things like the wampus cat are definitely Appalachian in origin. That's sort of how all this came about was. Different people from different, but similar backgrounds, coming together to live and then just having to share with one another because of how isolated the area actually was at the time. Slade: Hmm... Okay, okay. So you mentioned the wampus cat. What are some of the topics that you teach classes about when you teach Appalachian folk lore? Just kind of tell us, what are some of the topics? Ian: The first one that I always like to teach, and I usually teach it maybe twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, as just kind of an introduction to Appalachian folk lore and magic, and that just covers a broad series of topics, such as who settled the area, where do we get it, some folk remedies. I discuss some of the legends like the wampus cat or, as he's now become named, the Wood Booger, which is not the most flattering of a name for a creature in Appalachia, but, you know, whatever. Call it whatever you want. It's a big hairy man, kind of like a big foot running around in our woods. And then we talk about divination techniques and in some of the other classes I do a class just on divination techniques that are unique here to this area, which, of course, are also similar to other things that people do in the broader world, like dowsing is a big thing within the mountains, especially what they call water witching, and that's where a person has a special ability to find water would take a specific type of wood, and the wood varied, depending on the family. My grandfather used peach tree wood to dowse for water to dig a well. Whereas other families I've known, they use ash or even elder to dowse with. But then of course, water witching is, has been done all over the world and also pendulum, using things like a wedding band on the woman's... taking a piece of hair from the woman's head and dangling her wedding band over her pregnant belly would indicate male or female. I teach a class on just specifically Appalachian techniques. I also teach classes on how to read playing cards as a divination tool and tarot cards. I teach some modern witchcraft classes. Slade: Well, let me take you back into the past a little bit and come back up to where your knowledge is now, but... So for a long time I've really been wanting to talk to someone on the show about witchcraft and magic because I come to all of this new age stuff from an identification as a witch at a really young age and so my family is very much Appalachian and I've got some Appalachian witchery, you know, a few steps back, like grandparents, but I very much grew up in suburbia. So for the most part, I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, so, you know, a decent sized city suburbia, so my identification as a witch (I have to tell you this story because i haven't told it to other people), but I was probably about 8 or 9 years old because I actually looked it up to see when the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours came, because that was 1977. I loved that album. I remember, it must have been soon after that because my family was going on a car trip somewhere, like maybe to Florida or something long like that and I think my mom had told me that I could buy a magazine at the grocery store. So I got her to buy me a Rolling Stone magazine which she was kind of like, Why do you want a Rolling Stone magazine, you know, you're 8! But it was because there was a feature on Stevie Nicks, and in that magazine, I got it because it was just HER and it was cool pictures of her and I was like, Oh, Stevie! Ian: Oh yeah! Slade: So I'm in the back of the car driving through Georgia in 1970-something and I'm reading Stevie Nicks talking about white witchcraft and how, you know, she's a white witch and all this stuff. And I had this total epiphany of like, Ohmygod, I'm a white witch, that's what I am! From that point on, I was always interested in wicca as a teenager and in college, I kind of discovered... I did a Women's Studies certificate in college, just because it was like you could take these more interesting cool kind of classes that were feminists but they were within different things, like some kind of feminist history or something like that and... After you took so many of them, they actually will give you a certificate in Women's Studies and sometimes I was the only guy in these classes but I just liked the topics. I would the syllabus, or the class listed in the roster and be like, Oh that sounds amazing! So anyway, I got turned on through this Irish women's studies teacher of mine to all this really modern feminist paganism, right? So I was reading, one of my favorite books is, there was an NPR reported named Margot Adler who wrote a book called Drawing Down the Moon. It's kind of a collection of all the various different types of modern witchcraft in America, or modern neopaganism. And then probably the big one for me, a big game changer was The Spiral Dance by Starhawk. That was when I kind of connected the whole feminine principle of the goddess, you know, like the lifeforce in the Universe as being a feminine thing, which was instinctively true for me and she kind of made that intellectual connection for me, in a way. So anyway, I'm wondering, what is your version of that? What were your... How did you come to this? Were there other people in your family or did you just.. you know, were you encouraged? Discouraged? What was your story of how you discovered this part of yourself? Ian: Oh yeah! I guess the easiest way to explain it, I have to go back to the 80s, when I was first... Because I was only born in '83, so... It was a weird time, being born in '83 or the late 80s in the area of the Appalachians that I grew up in. Because I grew up, like I said, in Wise, Virginia, and that is on the very tail end of Virginia. It's about 20 minute drive to Kentucky. Coal had started to fail. It was no longer king in the area, and so people were starting to lose jobs. Mines were closing down. The world there was trying to figure out what to do next. Sadly, they still haven't figured it out. But that's a whole other podcast... Slade: Yeah, right. Ian: ...to talk about the devastation of coal companies on the people within Appalachia. That area was very stuck, trying to figure out, how do we move in to a sort of modern mindset when we don't want to? We still want to be very old-fashioned, very traditional, in our community, and I kind of got swept up in that as I was coming of age, thinking, there's nothing here for me. Watching MTV and thinking, Oh, I'm going to be on Real World or Road Rules and that's how I'm going to see the world. Trying to get away from it but very deeply still wanting to connect with where I was being born. And the word 'witch' was never used in my family as far as describing my aunts, or my great aunts, or my great uncles, or any of that. Because they were very Christian, and that's also something I try to stress in my classes is, I use the word 'witch' because I think it's the most apt word, and witchcraft is the most apt word for describing the practices people did here. But they were very staunchly Christian. And so, everything they did came through the power of prayer to Jesus or to God. They weren't real hip on the Catholics either. Slade: Right. Ian: There are many a sermon I sat through connecting Catholicism basically to Satanism. So growing up, they weren't real hip on Catholics, even though my dad is from, well, he's an army brat but his family ended up settling in the Fairfax area and they ARE Catholic, so half of my family is Catholic and the other half is very traditional southern and Free Will Baptists in the mountains. But everyone in my family still did things. They would interpret dreams, they would talk about ghost stories. The professor I mentioned earlier, Amy Clark, in her English composition class, I think it was Composition 102, she made us do an oral history report and I went and interviewed my great aunt Fern, and collected all sorts of folk lore and stories about the road I grew up on. Because growing up, it was mostly all my family that lived on this road. She shared a story about how my grandmother and her cousin Ione used to go stay with this lady out on this back road called Red Wine. And everyone thought she was a witch. Things would move in her house without her touching them, and my aunt Fern didn't really know a whole lot because she was never invited to go sleepover there, so she just got second-handed stories.. There were definitely stories growing up that I would hear and then there were also the herbal remedies that my grandmother would make, or other people in the family would make for people being sick. I started having dreams from a very young age, where I was like, Oh, this is actually real. This is happening. And they were more literal dreams. They weren't the ones I would have to go interpret like, Oh, there were three cows in my dream. What does that mean? It was like, Oh, I'm walking into a church and here's someone that hasn't been in church sitting there and they're getting ready to give a testimony about how they've been sick and then that Sunday we'd go to church and that would happen. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting. And I also just really loved stories about witches, about vampires, about the monsters... That was where my interest as a very young child was at. Like, I remember specifically in second grade, my best friend Ashley had wore her mother's winter cloak to school and we went to library. I took her cloak and put it on like a cape and was running around like I was a vampire. I very specifically remember that because I got in trouble for that. Because it was a library and I was not supposed to be running around having all this fun. While everyone else was there checking out the Hardy Boys books, I was in the weird section checking out the children's versions of Frankenstein or Dracula, those sorts of books. So I would try to watch anything on TV that my mother would allow me to watch about witchcraft or whatever and I became... obsessed is probably the best word for it. Kind of became obsessed with it, especially the Salem Witch Trials. Halloween is still my favorite holiday to this day so I always looked forward to the fall and specifically, October, because then, you know, when Discovery channel and the History channel were actually about science and history, they would show specials about the history of witchcraft, or the history of vampirism. Even if they repeated the same thing ten times that month, I would watch it every time it came on. Slade: Yeah. Ian: And then when I was 13, we took a trip to... It was a whole big family trip. We drove with the entire family, some uncles, some aunts, up to Gettysburg to see the re-enactment, probably on 4th of July, around the 4th of July because I think that's when they do all their re-enactments. So we went there and then we were following my mom's brother on up to Connecticut where him and his wife had moved to, and I realized that Connecticut was very close to Massachusetts. I convinced my family to take a day trip to Salem. So one day we all piled in the car, drove I think 5 - 6 hours to Salem. And I was... I guess awestruck is probably the best word for it. Because I was like, Wow they're talking about witchcraft like it's something that anyone can do. That it's actually real and tangible and I remember seeing this woman walking down the street in long black robes with her staff and black hair flowing. And then I discovered who that was, and it's a woman named Laurie Cabot, the official witch of Salem. I was like, Wow, witches are real! I bought my first deck of tarot cards when I was there and then we came home and I just started reading tarot cards with the little white book that came with it, for friends and family. That slowly started to develop more and more, and then I purchased a couple of books on wicca and witchcraft, one being Laurie Cabot's book, The Power of the Witch. And then a book by Scott Cunningham, I think it was Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. And then I discovered, Oh! There's a shop in Kingsport called Dilly's Curiosity Shop. And they had books and herbs and candles. It wasn't JUST a witch shop. They had tons of stuff on the New Age movement, on Hinduism. It was just kind of a hippie, new age sort of store, and once I became old enough to drive, you could usually find me there every weekend or every other weekend, spending my hard-saved allowance on books and candles and things that I needed. So it really started from there, was when I really discovered, Oh wow... So about 13. Wow, witchcraft is real and, you know, this is what my family's been doing and what I've been doing naturally for years. Starting to study it from there just kind of helped develop it more into something that wasn't just an occasional, Oh I'm having a dream, or I'm getting a sensation from meeting this person, or I feel like I need to leave some food outside for whatever gunk might be creeping around outside to protect the house. That sort of thing. It wasn't just something that I did spontaneously anymore. It became more of a honed practice. Slade: Yeah... Yeah I was going to ask you, actually, let's see, I'm going to come back to that and ask you a little bit about your personal practice but... I'm interested in, first of all, all those books were taking me back. I used to work in one of those stores, like your're talking about. It was called The New Moon. I basically was the person who chose the books for the magic section. All the people who worked there, we all kind of had our different area of expertise. There was somebody who did all the crystals and stones. There was a guy who was a Druid and he did all of that. There was a guy who was into Buddhism, so all that section of the store, he would advise the owner what to buy. My thing was goddess spirituality, wicca, this whole thing. So the books that you're naming off, I'm like, Yeah, yeah we had that book, we had that book. I'm interested, you know, when I was talking about Starhawk. Starhawk always defined magic, which she took from someone named Dion Fortune, as the art of changing consciousness at will. So I kind of wonder, what's your definition of magic? What is that, to you? How does it work? Ian: Yeah. It's a question that, you know, most people want to know a definition too. And as I said, I've studied and practiced for 20-something years, so I've read all the definitions, Dion Fortune, Starhawk, Aleister Crowley, and I think, yes, they're all pretty accurate. The art of changing consciousness at will - I like to take it a little step further and it's more than just changing your consciousness. It's also... Because changing your consciousness is one thing. But being able to change physical reality is a whole other, and I know they... As you get deeper into the magic conversations and topics, we talk about micro and macrocosms and how if you change your consciousness and you are changing physical reality but being able to literally change your physical reality is part of my definition of magic. So it would be more like the art of changing physical reality and your consciousness at will, in alignment with natural forces. Because I don't believe that there is anything really supernatural about anything that witches do. We are using natural energies and natural forces. We're just using it in a way that most people aren't aware of the ability of how to manipulate those energies to effect the change we want to see. Slade: She goes on in her definition, she talks about the art part as using sensory imagery and symbols that evoke emotions and then the will is kind of directed energy and intention, and together, those things sort of mix and shift, because we're kind of swimming around in this emotional-thought-energy soup, or whatever. You know what's interesting to me, see, is that sounds like people talking about Law of Attraction and talking about manifesting. I started blogging 12 or 13 years ago and the vocabulary that was popularized by The Secret sort of eclipsed some of what we call magic. It was like, no longer fashionable to use the word 'magic', now it's 'manifesting'. Do you have any observations about the relationship between those things? Is that something that you notice as well? Ian: Okay. So yeah. I definitely believe that there is validity in the Law of Attraction in its relation to magic. I am definitely not going to be your love and light person when it comes to this conversation because I think most of what we get with Law of Attraction is bullshit for the most part. When it comes down to - you have cancer because you wanted cancer - you wanted to be sick, I think it's especially (and I don't want to name names because I don't want to start any internet wars with anyone), but there are people who purport this Law of Attraction and about being in alignment with it, or stepping out of it, and you have to step out of it to know when you're in alignment with your Law of Attraction. It's very victim-blaming to me. Slade: Yeah. Ian: The way that they discuss it sometimes. And it's not helpful. And it's not been official, for the people who were in crisis mode, because then they think, Oh well I did this to myself. And yes, there is a part of it that I believe we do to ourselves. We make choices, whether they're conscious or subconscious choices, we make them, that create our realities. I mean, that's true. If I choose not to do something, I'm going to have the consequences of that action. But the manifestation of magic is definitely, you do certain things to attract what you're trying to get in your life. If I'm trying to get a job, I'm going to put my energy into my resume of attracting the job I want. And as a witch, I will take it a step further and anoint the edge of my resume with an oil blend I've made to attract a good job for me. Or the best job for my highest good. I'm going to do that and send the resume in and I guess now, most things are electronic. I know some witches who, electronically, they have a very faint... what's the word that I'm looking for... it's on the back of paper that you put on... a watermark! A very faint watermark of a sigil that they created. And, a sigil, you know, is just an image that you create and you imbue with a certain energy. So they would create a job sigil and put that onto the back of their resume before they emailed it out. And so, for me, that's more how the Law of Attraction works. It kind of goes back to the ideas that I grew up with. Being raised in a Christian home, but a magical Christian home. You know. God helps those who help themselves. So if you're acting in alignment with something that you want, then the Universe is going to provide that. But you have to do it in the accurate way. And so, for me, I don't like using the term Law of Attraction just because of all of that baggage that I feel comes with it. And how simplified things like The Secret made it. It's not just, Ooo I'm going to sit in my house and make a pretty dream board and hang it up and it's going to manifest. At least in my experience, it's been, You can do that, but if you don't put in the work to try to manifest it, the Universe isn't going to give it to you. I think the Law of Attraction has been simplified and that it has... Because the new age movement has a lot of money behind it, especially when you're being published by people like Harper Collins or the bigger publishing companies. They can definitely get you more exposure than Llewellyn could get you. I don't think you'll see many Llewellyn books on the best seller's list the way that you will, you know, Penguin or Harper Collins. Those sorts of publishing companies. So definitely if it's going to feed the capitalist society, then they're going to pounce on it. And so, yeah, I guess that's my answer for your question on Law of Attraction! Slade: That's cool! I'm very happy to hear your take on all that because it does... I think it always sort of... I feel the contrast in it and I'm always aware, kind of, of the intersection of that terminology, so... I'm one of those people who I use other people's vocabulary in order to reach them. Like you were saying, for instance, there are a lot of really Christian people who use Christian vocabulary to talk about magic, so if I'm going to talk about magic to them, I'm going to use their vocabulary because otherwise you shut them down if you start coming at them with, you know, like calling it the 'goddess'. If you're talking to a 90-year old woman about folk lore and she's talking about Jesus, just call it Jesus. You know what I mean? Ian: Exactly. Slade: Just keep on going. So, to me, it's always a language thing. It's interesting. Your whole thing about the word 'Appalachia', I did not know that specifically, so that was a huge epiphany for me to hear that about the idea of how it identified someone from being somewhere else. I was a linguistics major and I'm always interested in language and, to me, as a writer, magic and spell-crafting is very much, sort of rooted in a lot of language and when I do assessments of my mentoring students, I actually listen for the way in which they speak about these things. And that doesn't mean the obvious stuff like the symbolism and the archetypes and the buzzwords. I actually am listening for the actual words that they use, like, are they using passive language, are they using a lot of visual language, do they speak emotionally, those kind of things sometimes tell you a lot. It's subtext. Ian: Yes. Slade: To shorten the story. So I'm interested... you touched on a couple of things. The whole thing about the resume was interesting. What other kind of... not the things you necessarily do for your clients that you teach, but just in your own personal life, what kind of rituals do you observe? Or what kinds of magic do you do every day, kind of household magic? Ian: Okay, yeah. So household magic. That's always been kind of a big part of most folk magic. I always like calling it 'folk' magic instead of calling it 'low' magic because it makes it seem like it's something less worthy, because by definition, 'high magic' is like super occulty sort of things where you have to have a special robe and special pentograms painted on the floor. And then, I don't know who popularized the terms 'high' and 'low' magic but low magic was what the common folk did, and you know what? I'm a common folk. I like being a common folk. I don't want all the responsibility of being John Dee and deciphering things for Queen Elizabeth. That's not my interest area. I don't want to go and sit in the White House, especially this White House, and manifest messages for any political figure, especially what we have now. So my daily practice, there is, and this is something that people from almost all backgrounds, culturally, they have, if they dig deep enough, is ancestor veneration. Ancestors play a big part in my practice, and in the practice of the Appalachian people, as well as other cultures as well. I'm not forgetting them. It's big in hoodoo and voodoo as well, in African American and African traditions. But it's also big in European traditions. And so I definitely try to make sure I light a candle for my ancestor's altar every day and just kind of say hello to them. Let them know that I'm still thinking of them and, thanks for being who you were because then I can't be who I am if it wasn't for you. And that's not to say that all my ancestors were great people because they weren't. We all have those rotten branches and the rotten fruit on our family trees, and so, in classes, I do teach ways to kind of, you know, you don't want to invite all of your entire ancestry into your home because you might have a child molester or murderer or serial rapist in your family and that's definitely not what you want to invite into your home. So I teach ways to kind of try to helpfully, try to hopefully help them along on the other side to get to where they need to be. In my practice, I try to light a candle for them every day, just saying thank you, because sometimes, my magic is just me going to the alter and saying, I really need your help. This is the situation. And I'll bring them food. I'll cook them a special meal of whatever it is that they specifically like. Usually it's cornbread or something very southern. Cornbread, soup beans, pork chops, really salty country ham that I can't try to eat because it's too salty, but I will set it at their alter and light the candles and kind of say a prayer to them. It's sort of like the idea of Catholics asking saints for help. That's how a lot of witches use ancestors, and sometimes that's all you need to do to get help. You might get answers in your dreams from one of your ancestors. And it might be even someone that you don't know is your ancestor. A random person will pop up in your dream and give you the answer. Or things just start magically happening in your life, like I was really needing help to get this job and then suddenly you get 4 job offers. That sort of thing. I try to bless my food before I eat it. I do a lot of garden work. So I definitely try to take care of the plant spirits. In my belief structure, every ... I'm what you would consider an animist, so I definitely believe that every plant has its own very specific spirit, the dirt has it's own spirit, so I try to get to know that spirit, talk to it, learn about it. I am the crazy person in my condos that's seen outside mumbling to themselves and I think that's where the idea of witches, you know, muttering to themselves came from, is that we talk to everything. Things that no one else would see, we would be talking to the trees, to the plants, to the birds that were up in the trees, and also muttering spells under our breath for, usually for the good. Not all witches do things for the good of all, but I mean, that's usually my general practice. I don't a daily spell. I'm not... mostly because my life doesn't dictate that I need it. My life isn't that hectic that, I have to put it back together, always! Slade: Right. Ian: I do magically craft things. I make what's now commonly referred to as Books of Shadows, you know, spell books. I tea-stain pages with special herbs for special meanings, like keeping secrets and keeping power in the book and I'll bind them and add in special pictures and I try to sell them. Sometimes I just give them as gifts. I do magical crafts pretty much on the regular, making witches' cords, which is kind of a braided cord with special items like oak leaves or tarot cards, feathers, generally I have a very specific purpose in mind for each of them. I will make one for protection of the house, one to get a job, one to be enchanting, to have enchantments over people to make you feel... kind of like a glamour.. make yourself look more appealing and you just kind of really hang these in your home or your office for whatever purpose it is that you.. I would create it for you and, just looking at it, kind of helps imbue you with that energy because all the energy is there and kind of just drips down, like a rain cord.. And so, that's pretty much basically my daily practice. Like I said, I don't do spells every day just because my life doesn't dictate it, that I need to do a spell every day. But I do sit in communication with the spirit world almost every day. Whether that's plant spirits or my ancestor spirits or both. Slade: You are like me, you're like a like-minded soul in that you want this to be normal and part of your every day life. Like, it doesn't have to be some high ritual, like there's something almost off-putting about that, to me. Whereas something that I can incorporate into my daily existence, I'm a big sweeper. I sweep a lot. Ian: Oh yeah. Slade: You were talking about, that's where the images of witches outside, you know, crazy people muttering spells to themselves, I'm outside sweeping all the time. I'm that weird little old person who's like, I'm practicing for when I'm a little old man out there sweeping the sidewalk. So you've talked a little bit about these magical crafts. Now how does that play into, you do professional magical consultations and you create spells for people. So is there something similar in what you do for your clients? Ian: Yeah. Definitely. Just to get back to the brooms, I'm obsessed with brooms. I have... I don't know how many brooms I have hanging in the house, but I love brooms. I love the magic of sweeping. I have a specific broom for sweeping my front lawn, and then I have a specific broom that I use if I go to a client's house to clean out energy or angry ghosts or that sort of thing, that I only use for that specific purpose. Magical consultations might involve my broom, depends on what they come to me for. A client will, you know, usually contact me on my Facebook page or my number is on my Facebook page too, or they'll call me. And they will set up an appointment time. Sometimes I know beforehand because they want to share a little bit over phone about, this is why I need to come meet you. I'm having a hard time in my marriage, or I'm having a hard time finding a job. In the meeting, I take a lot of notes. I know that's off-putting for some clients. Like, why are you writing this down? And I'll write it down because, while I will remember most of things, I don't remember everything when I go back home, and start creating a spell or ritual for the person. And so, they'll bring me their issue, or their troubles, or what they're trying to magically create in their life. And, the consultation usually involves a reading of some sort. I'll get my cards out and see if there's some, if there is a block to what you're trying to do. Because sometimes we do create blocks for ourselves. Or there are people in our life that are blocks. Like if you're trying to save your marriage but your partner is not wanting to save your marriage and they're completely over that marriage, you don't want to try to force a marriage with someone who's really trying to escape it. And so, it's important for me to do these readings that I'm doing, consultations, because I don't want to trap someone into a marriage that will eventually make both people completely miserable. Or, the job that they're trying to get, we will look at that specific job and kind of look at the future and be like, Oh, you will be happy here so I'll craft something to help you be more enchanting in your interviews, or just draw the energy to you specifically for this job. Or if it's the other way, this job is going to be a terrible fit for you. You will like it for a bit but then it's going to be super draining. I would do something more like a road opener, so to speak, to make them more open to more offers of jobs, to a bigger spectrum of jobs, where they might need to take that job initially, but continuing to be open and going out and try to attract the job that's going to be most beneficial for them. So I will sit down and talk with the person, do a reading, and then I usually try to bring so many different herbs and things with me, so I can create little baths the person can take if they need a cleansing bath, or a bath to make them have more self-esteem, that sort of thing. I can create that on the spot and give it to them. But if it's something that requires more work, like if I have to go purchase certain items that I don't have on hand, then we set up another time to meet. If it's something that I need them to do, because for me, magic is most potent if the person that needs the magic is involved in it in some physical way. Whereas if I'm just at my house, doing a spell for you, I'm not going to have as much emotion in it as you are going to be able to manifest for yourself. Because it's affecting you more than it is me. I can pull up as much emotion as I possibly can, and I do, and I send it out. Not every spell is going to work. It's kind of a 70, 80% chance that it's going to manifest the way you want it to. Because... I'm a big advocate when I talk about magic is, magic is going to take the path of least resistance. So you need to be specific and general at the same time in what you're trying to manifest. I know that sounds like a contradiction, to be general and specific, but if you're just, Oh, I need money, and we do a money spell, you might get an inheritance but your mother might die. And that's not what you're trying to manifest. So you want money, but what do you want that money for? So you want that money because you want to go on vacation. So let's do a spell for that vacation instead of just money. Slade: Interesting, yes. Ian: And that's where the consultation come in handy instead of someone just sending me a message saying, hey I need a spell for this, and me sitting down, okay cool. I'll just write you the spell and do all the stuff in the instructions and you do it. Because it might manifest in a way they aren't expecting or wanting. And so, getting... And that's why I take so many notes. Getting down to the nitty gritty, exactly what the person is trying to create with their lives, dictates exactly what type of spell or magical ritual, if I feel it needs to get to that point would dictate. Slade: Is this something that you always have to do in person or can you do it over the phone and send people things? Ian: I can do it over the phone and then mail all the stuff out. Sometimes there are things that I will do on my end. And then I'll just send pictures of my work as I'm going along so they know I'm actually doing it. Slade: Okay. Ian: Instead of, you know, there are crooks out there who, I would do a spell for you, send me $400! Slade: Right. Ian: And then they sit at home and eat popcorn and watch Netflix. And then send you a message, I've done it! You should see it happening. I try to keep things on the up and up as much as possible. So I will send people pictures as much as I can. I do think sometimes taking pictures and documenting it can sometimes zap a bit of the energy out of it because... that's my own personal belief. I'm kind of going back to the idea of electronics pulling energy, but... Slade: Huh... Well, I think that, well one thing that electronics does do is it allows us to reach people that aren't here. It takes away the distance somewhat, so that you can, you know, speak to somebody that's on the other side of the country. But I would think that, the fact that there is this sort of physical object that you often create, you know, like the cords or a little grimoire or something like that, there's something, you know, the reason I can never be a Buddhist is because I like attaching energy and emotion to things. I find objects that have been imbued with power and emotion and association and intention to be extremely delicious and I want them sitting around on my shelves and stuff, you know? I think that's one of the ways in which magic really differs, but I would think that there would be something to that sort of crafted item that is uniquely special, to the way that you do readings and healings. In working with people who do different kinds of readings or healings, I usually talk to them about the idea that there's a diagnostic part of their session and there's a healing active part of the session. For me, it's all language. It's all words. It's basically, I'm an enabler and I can give you a big pep talk and that is the way that I heal. For other people, it might be something like, doing reiki, or like you said, it might be going clearing spirits or it might be crafting this item, spell, and then you use the intuitive part as a kind of diagnosis. Like, what's really going on here before I go messing with it? What's underneath the layers? I think that your practice is really kind of cool and unique and the reason why I asked about if you could do it at a distance because I know that there are a lot of people listening who are going to want you to now, and you know, gonna contact you and say, Wait a minute! Can you do this over the phone because I really want one. Let me... Before we talk about how people can get in touch with you, I just want to ask you a couple of questions. One is... Are we doing okay on time for you? Ian: Oh yeah. Slade: Okay cool. I'm loving this conversation. I could talk to you all day. You can come back once a month. So what do you most hope to contribute to the sort of greater conversation about spirituality and new age stuff? You touched on the idea that, of course, being published by a major publisher can sometimes falsely put those ideas forward. I'm very much a proud indie author, podcaster, and... If you can put your work out there into the world, what is something that you kind of hope to maybe change about everybody's perception about magic. Ian: Well, I guess it's two-fold. My main goal, when I started Appalachian Witchery, was to try to preserve Appalachian culture, at least an aspect of Appalachian culture that has kind of been pushed into the dark corners. Even people who do Appalachian studies, they don't really, or at least in my experience, because I haven't read every Appalachian studies paper or book known to man, but they don't really discuss a lot of the witch folklore, or the magic that they would do. So I was very worried that it was a part that was kind of being lost in the conversation when we were talking about Appalachia. And so, I kind of wanted to bring that to the forefront because I'm very proud of where I'm from. I'm not ashamed to say I was born in a very small town. I think we had 2000 people in it, and I think the county may have had 6000 people altogether. And then when it comes to witchcraft and magic, just that, I want to de-myst... not really demystify it, because there is power in it being kind of a sacred, hidden spooky sort of thing, but that it is something that... I can sit down and craft you this spell but you are going to be the one that... I need you to actually do part of it for me. So that everyone can kind of understand that everybody has the ability. Everyone has the ability to tap in to these natural forces and kind of take charge of their own life in the process. Because, I mean, we live in the quick-fix prescription society where, I have a problem. Give me a pill. Let's fix it. And I think that kind of correlates into the occult world, the new age world at large. People come to healers and workers and think that we can fix them in one session. And they don't have to go home and do any work on their own. And that's sadly not the case. If you go and get reiki, yeah you're going to feel better. But when you go home, you need to take some of the things that you've learned in your session and start applying them to your life. If you're not applying them, then you're not actually doing the work and you'll start making those decisions again and ending up in the same place. So it kind of goes back to that whole, idea of power of attraction. If you're not willing to make the changes, then you just keep attracting the same thing that you've been doing. And so, for me, when I do the consultations or I do the readings, I really try to embed that idea that, it's good that you're coming to me for getting an outsider's perspective. Because you're getting some advice, some knowledge that you wouldn't have had otherwise, but ultimately the work lies with you in order to make those changes. I can assist you and I can help you at that, but it is mostly personal responsibility. And I guess that's really what I try to stress most. Is preservation of a culture and personal responsibility for your life. Slade: If someone's listening to this and realizing for the first time that they might be a witch because of our conversation, which will happen. What would you advise them to do first? Like, if they feel this real flush of like, Ohmygod, this is amazing, this is the thing for me. Where would a new person go to kind of begin learning about this? Do you have any particular resources or books or things that you would recommend? Ian: The first thing I would say is, if you're kind of acknowledging, Oh wow, I might be a witch, is not to go running through the streets announcing that to everyone. Because that... And we do that sometimes when we discover something new that we're very passionate about. We're like, Oh this is what I am, this is who I am. Slade: Yeah... Ian: And it's off-putting, especially when you're, if we're talking, I might be a witch, is, you will encounter a lot of those people that are going to try to extinguish that light. Tell you you're crazy, it doesn't work, it's just nonsense, so that's my first advice is, don't run out telling everyone what you think unless they're someone you can really trust. And so, finding those people is the next step. And there are resources like The Witch's Voice online, I think it's www.WitchVox.com Slade: Okay. Ian: And they have a dropdown menu on one of the, either the right or left hand side, I haven't been to the website in awhile, and you can select your state or your country of where you're living, and then narrow it down. People post group meetups there, they post kind of personals. Years ago I had one on there myself. Trying just to meet like-minded people to talk and discuss... Facebook is a great resource. I'm a member of a lot of groups, like Pagans of the Northeast, which is all situated north-east Tennessee. There's Friends of TC, which is Friends of the Tri-City, which is what we call the area I live in. Johnson City, Bristol, Kingsport, is a Tri-City area. And then anyone who is any sort of pagan or witch, can post their events, can post meetups there. So finding those people, and you can just go into like, Facebook and type in "San Diego witchcraft" and you're going probably going to find a ton of options, groups, that sort of thing there. Books-wise, I always like to start people out with the basics. One being, I am a Cabot Witch. I've trained with Laurie Cabot and I'm actually going for my second degree in two weeks. Slade: I forgot to ask you about that - yes take a second and explain what that is. The Cabot Tradition. Ian: Okay. Yeah! So the Cabot Tradition is created by Laurie Cabot. It's known as the Cabot Kent Tradition and Laurie Cabot is just a fascinating woman. She was one of the first to be a public witch in America in the early '70s. And she had been initiated and trained by some witches in Boston, I believe, back when she was, I think, 15. They came from Kent, England. When she started teaching publicly, she titled her tradition the Cabot Kent Tradition because she had added some of her own flavour into things, which is always so important to me, when people are trying to teach witchcraft, I'm like, you need to have done it long enough, for one, to teach it, and two, to have your own, sort of ideas and structure and traditions that you've created to teach. Because witchcraft is a very personal thing, and that's something that Laurie brought to it, was that she had spent all these years crafting herself as a witch and had all these years of knowledge. So she started teaching in Salem in the mid-70s and I think by the late 70s, Dukakis, Governer Dukakis I think he was at the time, gave her the official title of Official Witch of Salem. Since then, she has been on Oprah, a bunch of other talk shows, teaching about witchcraft and her tradition. And she, to this day, she's 85 now, and she's still teaching the classes and being present at the rituals, the 8 Sabbats that they follow. The 8 high holidays for her tradition, and for kind of witchcraft at large. We have 8 holidays that we usually follow. Some traditions are a little different than others and they don't do all 8, but... About 2 years ago, I had the availability, the time and the money to go and study in her Witchcraft 1 class and got my first degree in the Cabot Kent tradition, which, when I was 13, that is who I saw walking down the streets of Salem. I was like, Oh! Slade: Ohmygosh. Ian: And so, as I studied more from the time I was 13 on, I realized who that had been who I had seen. I was like, I have to study with this woman. And then 20 years later, it manifested! Slade: Wow... Ian: I had put it out into the Universe all those years ago. And sometimes that's how magic works. I would love magic to be like Bewitched, and we could wiggle our nose and it manifests on the spot, but sometimes magic takes a long time to actually manifest into your life. So I studied with her back in 2016, and then coming up, July 15th I'm going back up to Salem for my second degree in her tradition. So yup, that's a fascinating little very rough history of her that I gave you. Slade: No, that's cool. I intended to ask you about it earlier. It was something that, because the whole tradition thing is an avenue that a lot of people explore. There are different lines of witchcraft, different types of traditions... I'm really speaking from kind of a lone practitioner, eclectic sort of person, which you also do, kind of in your every day life. But I think one of the takeaways for me for someone if they're new is to... like you said, well good on Facebook. There are some things that Facebook does really, really well, and that could be one of them. Is to connect with people locally. There is a lot about, when I go back to my interests in these subjects and where they came from, a lot of what I learned was physically in a certain location, or, you know, was a certain kind of shop, like you talked about. Most cities have that cool little store where there are people working there who are a resource, there are people putting flyers up for events. It is kind of, there is something about the power of where it takes place, you know what I mean? Like, different parts of the world, different parts of the country, have different energy, have different... Because this is so connected to nature. Even though you can use the internet as a tool to kind of find some resources, if you can ground that in people where you are, I think that would be my advice based on your advice, you know? Ian: Oh yeah, yeah. That's perfect advice because, like you said, the way that someone's going to connect to their place is going to be different depending on where they're at. Someone in Singapore is definitely going to have a different sort of, probably even different definition of witchcraft, and practice of witchcraft in Singapore, as compared to me, sitting here in Johnson City, Tennessee. We're probably going to go about it 2 different ways. So yes, if you can find a local spot, then definitely capitalize on that. Read the flyers. Talk to the store owners. Talk to the people that are working there. Because I did, as well, work at a sort of a metaphysical shop for about 8 years when I moved out here to Johnson City. And people definitely talk to the shop workers about what they're doing, what they're looking for, any sort of meet-up or ritual, gathering, that's going on. So they are a plethora of information. But you have to talk to them. You have to ask them. Slade: They're like metaphysical librarians. Ian: Yeah. Slade: But you're right. A lot of people who work in those stores are not just retail employees. They're there because they have knowledge about herbalism or knowledge about crystals or they're specifically involved in the community in something like a local circle or coven, something like that. That's where you'll find them, if you want to meet them. And, you know, they're often identified by their jewellry. Ian: Yeah, yeah. We witches love our very large pieces of jewellry. Slade: Statement necklaces. Listen, I know it always kind of puts you on the spot a little bit when somebody asks you to recommend books or something in the middle of a conversation, so I'm thinking, after we have this conversation, you're probably going to think of things like, Oh! I should have mentioned this book or this website, or whatever. So you can send those to me if they come to you and you think of something you want me to put in the show notes. Because I'll put all the stuff that we've talked about in the show notes and links to different books and sites and stuff so if you want to add to that, we'll have some time here from the time we're recording 'til it goes out. Ian: Okay. Slade: I'll be working on that and you can... It's also interesting that you'll be going on your trip to study with Laurie again probably around the same time that everyone is listening to this. Ian: Oh, wow! Okay! Slade: Yeah, that same week! So yeah, there's going to be a lot of energy behind you. A lot of people are going to be thinking about you and what you're doing up there. And then when you get back, they're probably going to want to contact you. It's been really fantastic capturing this conversation with you. I feel like I'm kind of running long on time. We'll have to have you come back at some point and go down some specific rabbit holes. Because this is a... You're the FIRST witch to be on this show and given the fact that I identify with that word as well, it's kind of like, Dang, why haven't I talked about this? So you're representing for a big canopy of topics here and I appreciate what a good job that you did in making it kind of specific, and unique to you and your practice. But also introducing the topic at large to a lot of different people. This is a big, big topic. There used to be statistics out there about neopaganism and sort of the growth of that spiritual tradition statistically, in this country. And there's a lot of people interested in this and wanting to learn more about it. Tell everyone the best place they can go to find you online. What's your Facebook page? Ian: The best place is going to be my Facebook page. It is just titled Appalachian Witchery and there is a picture of the Blue Ridge mountains, so the mountains are going to look kind of blue and it's going to say 'Appalachian Witchery' in red font. I used to have a website but that is a whole other story about that, that I'm not going to get into, because it was cancelled by the people that owned Square. Slade: Ooo interesting! Ian: Yeah. There's a whole thing about occult business and how they don't support them. And they cancelled my website... Slade: Oh, wow! Ian: That's basically the story. I made them quite a bit of money. Slade: Wow... Ian: And then they decided to delete me and a bunch of other people, based on the content of their website, which was really just me selling my crafts and my classes. You could buy a seat to my class on that website, which made it so much easier for me, because I could say, I can seat 30 people and put 30 tickets up on the website and then they would sell and I wouldn't have to worry about trying to send out emails letting people know that I'd gotten their money and the seat had been saved, which is what I've had to go back to, at this point. Slade: So everybody can definitely see what you're doing on your Facebook page, because I saw where you'd posted some stuff talking about the upcoming class that you're going to do with Laurie and so, I mean, it can do a lot of things for you, and it's good enough for people to go and check out what you're doing. Like you said, you have your number there, so they can email you and call you and set up a consultation. And of course, I'll link to it. It'll be easy to find. This was really great, Ian. I've wanted to talk to you for awhile. I've enjoyed following you on Facebook for so many reasons. I really want to thank you for coming on the show. Ian: Thank you for inviting me. I've enjoyed being able to talk about my practice and things. So definitely, I'm very much interested in coming back and talking more about things. Because I'm not JUST a solitary practitioner. I actually have a group here in the mountains and we've kind of crafted our own tradition here that I would love to talk about. Slade: Okay, cool! Ian: About what we do and how we've kind of crafted this tradition. Slade: Yeah! Maybe we can time it with one of the holidays or something, and put some intention around some of those traditional witch points in the year, you know what I mean, like... Ian: Oh yeah! Slade: That would be really cool to do some content around some of those. Or maybe we'll have you come back for Halloween, since that's your favorite. We'll do some stuff around that. Ian: The witches' busiest month. October. Slade: Yeah. Ian: Yeah! Definitely. Slade: That would be great! Ian: I very much look forward to it.

Linda: Has it already happened? Katrina: Yeah. It still says starting. Get your head in the picture, because otherwise you're revealing the trick about our cushions. When your head when down, it just looked like a weird cushion arrangement behind us. Linda: There's some crazy talking going on over here. Katrina: Get rid of it. Kill it dead. Linda: What is this? Katrina: Is that a cage to keep humans in? Linda: Oh my God! No, he's wearing pants. Katrina: What are you doing? Linda: He's wearing pants, it's okay. But I got excited there for a minute. Katrina: Creepy cage for humans. Linda: Hello! Katrina: I'm just getting a little insight into this YouTube selection. Alright. Linda: Hi, we need to pay attention to this. We're here. Katrina: We're present and in attendance. I was on a plane like an argon, I'm just like a freaking professional. Linda: You literally just walked up. Katrina: I just walked off a plane. There might have been three full-blown temper tantrum on that plane had by one of my children. It was much wine required. Linda: And, this took a little bit of time. Let's just be - Katrina: This took a little bit of time to make the set fabulous. Wait, wait. I haven't even shared this. Only on my business page. I'm going to share it to my own page. Hang on, everybody. Just wait. You're going to have to wait. I'm just going to entertain you. Linda: I'm going to entertain you. Katrina: I'm sitting with what will come out of me, I'm unsure. Linda: We were about to call ... What were we going to call the live feed? Katrina: You wanted to call it "Whatever the Fuck Comes Out." Which is actually very accurate. Linda: Yes, we have this amazing set up going on. Katrina: It is amazing, look at it. Hang on, we've had a cushion fail. Linda: Oh my God. Katrina: There's been a cushion fail already. Linda: Fail. Katrina: Hello, hello, hello people in my live stream. Linda: Hello, kids and hello people in mine. We should introduce each other. Katrina: Oh that's an idea. People could just figure it out. Linda: People could just figure out who we are. It would be pretty cool if I choose you to my people. My people. You introduce me to your people. Katrina: That's impressive between peoples. Begin, begin. Begin while I share this. I'm going to share it into my group and then to my other page. Linda: Aw look, that's us. Katrina: We look amazing. It is what it is. Linda: Katrina Routh is a serial internet breaker. Katrina: That's actually true. She just wrote me a small, beautiful card. And in there it's some flowers and my favourite chocolates, and some vegemite. Linda: She deserves it, let's face it. Katrina: I came home to this little, I'm going to call it an alter, to me. But in the card- Linda: It was an expression of love. Katrina: But in the card she said, "to the woman who breaks the internet every day." Linda: I did, I did. Katrina: It was beautiful, actually. Thank you. Linda: No worries, well thank you. For having me in your space. But I mean, who wouldn't want to have me in your space. Katrina: All the time. Thank you M.D. alright, last introduction. I think I [inaudible 00:03:22] your introduction. Linda: You did. That's all she cares. No, I'm kidding. Katrina: You can figure the rest out. Linda: She breaks the internet, apart of that, she's my soul sister friend and she's a kick ass entrepreneur. I really, really honour and admire how much she's standing on truth and just kick ass on the internet. Katrina: And all. Thank you. For those who don't know the amazing, talented, and fabulous Linda Docta, here she is. I've prepared her in the flesh earlier. Many of you know us both and follow us both, but for those who don't know, Linda is one of the ... I'm going to say it this way, because this is the simplest way to explain just how highly I think of this one. Linda is one of the few people in the world whose post I consistently read because she's an incredible messenger and writer. And you know, I'm a content creator, not a consumer. I don't consumer a lot of content from other people. I do consume some people. I consumer some people, and I consume some people's content. But Linda's posts are incredible. She's an incredible [inaudible 00:04:37]. You're one of the few people who is not afraid to say what's actually inside of her, and to share what's coming from the soul. As you know, that's what I believe its all got to be about. That's just one reason why we gt along so well. We have a relationship that is predominately on, somewhat, almost an embarrassing amount of audio messages per day. That goes back and forth from all around the world. Linda: They do. Even in the house. When was it? Before you went to Melbourne. You were downstairs, I was upstairs. And you were audioing me and listening to my audio. Katrina: So we don't hang out in person that often, but Linda's here staying in my home for a few days before she jets off again. And often, I don't know, I'm over in American and she's in Sydney, or I'm in Bali and she's in Melbourne, or wherever we are. Now you're going to be in other places around the world, and I'll be here. That's how it is. So we don't see each other in person that often. What just happened? Okay, Linda's phone literally just turned itself off. Katrina: Alright, well you're going to reboot your phone and we're going to start again. Linda: What is this? Katrina: That's it, you broke the internet. Linda: I did break the internet. Katrina: You can't go around saying shit like that. Linda: It's okay, I'm going to share your post onto my ... Oh. Katrina: Yeah, but that shouldn't have turned itself off. Linda: I don't know. Katrina: Oh, well that's because of that. The turned off because that turned off. Linda: Yeah, it did. Katrina: Linda's phone just completely powered itself down. Linda: We're just going to do it on one phone. Katrina: Just start it again, I reckon. So, we don't meet in person. Katrina: Would you want to put yours back on again? Do yours. Katrina: We don't meed in person too often, but then when we do, it's like no time has passed because we're speaking on audio all the time, every single day, and that's how I feel about all my soulmate people around the world. You sometimes feel confused as to when you last saw them in the physical world because you're connecting with them in other worlds so continuously, right? But anyway, she came in here, when was is? Thursday last week or something. And I'm downstairs eating my little midnight snack, as I do, standing at the kitchen bench. Katrina: Okay, let's wait until this starts again. And we'll tell the story. And I'll just tell it anyway because it might take a while to get going. Yeah so, I'm downstairs in the kitchen, which is just through there. And I'm listening to audios as I do often at 1 A.M. or something, and so then I'm listening to Linda's audio message, and then I realise she's actually upstairs in the bedroom, in one of the spare bedrooms. I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm so addicted to listening to audios from you that I'm still listening to audios from you when you're in my house, upstairs, sleeping." And then I'm writing back. Even though I'll see her in the morning at 6 A.M. I'm like, "I can't wait for that, I'm going to need to audio now." Linda: Peoples! We broke the internet. Yes, I already did tag that girl. She's tagged. Peoples, we already broke the internet. Katrina: Linda's phone spontaneously combusted itself. Linda: It did. Katrina: Self-combusted. So, anyway. You missed the story over there on Linda's side. Linda: Sorry, guys. Katrina: Sorry about that. Linda: She was just telling an awesome story, and I kind of feel a bit like I should have gone more with my intro about you. Because that was really beautiful, thank you for that. Katrina: You made me an altar. Linda: I did. Katrina: That was pretty next level. I've got to take a photo of it, later. Linda: Oh I've got to post that stuff. But that was a beautiful expression, because what you said about speaking truth, because I'm just a reflection of you. You know that, right? You are a woman who just stands in her power, in her truth. Katrina: Thank you. Linda: And you always have been. You're just not afraid to say what's flowing through you. Katrina: It's sometimes scary, though. But thank you. Linda: Yeah, no it's amazing. I admire that. Katrina: Well it's been agreed we're both amazing. I just think we can finish there. Linda: See you, later. Cheers! Katrina: Cheers to being amazing. Linda: Cheers. And this is funny because I never drink. [inaudible 00:08:37] Katrina: Never, never. Linda: I feel so naughty. Katrina: Continually breaking the internet now. Well my new programme is part of the internet, so it's only appropriate. But, it is so relevant because the more you stand in your power and in your truth, isn't it true that you're just going to attract in those soulmate people who stand in their truth, and so then you honour that person, like I honour you, for the way you sharpen them, you're honouring me. And then it's just going to turn into a never ending cycle of we both think the other one is amazing, which means that it's a reflection of us. Linda: Yeah! Katrina: It just keeps going. Linda: It's like, you're amazing. No you're amazing. You're amazing. Katrina: Exactly. Linda: And then, it ends up being an altar on the kitchen table. Katrina: You end up coming home off a flight from the other side of the country, and you walk in and your soul sister forever finds you an altar on the kitchen table, vegemite included in the altar. Linda: You know what I should have done? I should have just laid myself down on the table, naked. Katrina: You're reminding me of this thing from Sex and The City, where the guy lays ... No, she's about to lay down naked with sushi all over her body. What's his name? The young guy that she's dating? And then he doesn't come home, though. And then she's laying there on the table for hours covered in sushi, and he just never comes home. He comes home like four hours later or something. And she's still laying there covered in sushi. Katrina: Okay, I was going to do a nice segue into the conscious relationships conversation, but instead we're talking about Samantha from Sex and the City covered naked in sushi. Linda: See, we should have called it Whatever the Fuck comes out. Katrina: Well we were just saying, it is the perfect union to the topic of conscious relationships, which may or may not be what we talk about. Because it will be whatever the fuck comes out. Linda: Exactly. Katrina: But that's ... People say to me all the time, I'm sure you hear this as well. But probably one of the most common things I do hear from people in my community is what an amazing friendship, when they see me with my soul sister friends, right? Like I'll get comments on that a lot, like, "Wow, what an incredible, beautiful friendship." Okay, oh my God. Jermaine literally just wrote what I'm talking about. She wrote, "Gorgeous ladies, #soulmatefriendgoals." Linda: Aw, that's amazing. Thank you. Katrina: So I hear that all the time because I do only have women in my life who are deep, soul sister connected friends. Deep soul sister, however you want to say it. And that's definitely ... Katrina: Okay, you have a marriage proposal over there. I think we should address it. Linda: Aww. Katrina: That's not a wall, actually, Maria, that's a painting that my sister-in-law painted for me. It's not a wall, it's a painting. Linda: Do we need to address this marriage proposal? Katrina: Linda's been proposed to. Linda: I've been proposed to. Katrina: On her live steam. Linda: What should I say? Katrina: We'll consider your offer. We'll get back to you. Linda: Let me sit with it. Katrina: What does your soul say? Linda: Stop, stop now. Stop now. Katrina: What does your soul have to say about this? What are we going to talk about? Where is this conversation going? Linda: I don't know. Katrina: Do you think that life just gets better and better and easier and easier? Linda: I think so. Katrina: Do you think that we have almost an inappropriate amount of fun, except that nobody realises that you meant to have so much fun all the time? Linda: Yeah but here's the thing. I go in and out of having a lot of fun and then sometimes I get very, very serious in my work. Katrina: Sometimes you get a litter angry. Linda: What do you mean? Katrina: When the passion really comes out. Warrior Linda. Linda: You've had some amazing audio from me lately. Katrina: I've seen the warrior ninja come through a few times. I've seen the [inaudible 00:12:13] ninja, as well, in fact it was doing back flips in my bedroom the other night. Linda: She calls me an "it." Katrina: I meant the ninja. I'm calling it an it, it's an extension of you. Okay, go, you were saying about getting serious. Linda: No, but I have another story. See, I swap stories. I'm a Gemini, just to let you know. I'm a Gemini, so I start a sentence, and then I never finish. And I start another one, I don't finish that either. So I start three different stories in one go. Katrina: And then meanwhile, I'll be doing the exact same thing [inaudible 00:12:46]. Linda: And then she cuts me off and we never get anywhere. Katrina: So, if you're hoping to take some kind of orderly notes from this evening's session, we're going to need to let you know that's not going to happen. But sit back, buckle up, enjoy the ride, and trust you will receive whatever it is that you'll hear divinely to receive. Linda: Whatever your soul is wanting to receive, it's always the perfect timing. Katrina: Exactly. Linda: What I was saying - Katrina: You said sometimes you get really serious. Linda: No, before that. There was another story that cuts off what I was saying. I need to finish this story, first. Katrina: Just let it come on. Linda: It comes out really fast. So, only today, because you were talking about the ninja stuff. I only got a reminder in my phone, in my memories, that it was only a year ago exactly, I was competing in the ninja championship. Katrina: Was that already a year ago? Linda: Yeah, yep. It was. Katrina: So cool. Linda: So what I was saying before the ninja, that yeah, I feel myself going in and out of having a lot of fun, and fun is one of my highest values. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: And play vibrates the same as prey. Play is one of the highest vibrations, so - Katrina: Explain that. Linda: Imagine having fun, like think about the vibration you're in when you're having fun. Like think about how you're actually feeling, there's no ego when you're just full of joy. When you just ... you're immersed in this bubble of love and joy. An ego doesn't exist in that moment, it's just an embodiment of excitement, fun, love. Katrina: You're completely present. Linda: Exactly. You're fully present. Katrina: An ego can't be there when you're completely present. Linda: No, it can't. Katrina: I just had breakthrough moment, already. Not being a smart ass, either, it sounded slightly like I was. Isn't that a powerful concept. Linda: Is it. It is. And I continue to remind myself to have fun, because sometimes I feel like, oh shit, maybe I'm just caught up too much in my serious side, or introspection. Katrina: You are one of the most fun people I know and I'll give you a case study. Linda: Case study? Katrina: Case study. Linda: I cannot guarantee what she's going to say tonight, so. Katrina: It's not that outrageous. But one time I wanted to take my friends to the indoor ... children's ... my friends? - I wanted to make my children to the indoor, you know they have the indoor play centres, right? It was a really rainy Saturday on the Gold Coast sometime last year, back in [inaudible 00:15:14]. My kids are driving me crazy, I'm like, I've got to go to the indoor play centre, but I was like, I need some adult time. I was actually just losing my shit. And I was like, "Who can I invite to come to an indoor kid's play centre with me?" And all my friends who had kids were occupied or busy already, and I'm like which of my friends who doesn't have kids could I invite to come to the indoor play centre with me? I'm like, Linda. Obviously. Katrina: So I audioed her, I'm like, "Hey do you want - it's called Juddlebugs - I'm like do you want to come to Juddlebugs?" She's like, "What's Juddlebugs?" I'm trying to describe it, I'm like "There's like a netting thing you get trapped in and you fall down, and there's slides and you can shoot people and then there's a foam pit." And she's like, "How have I never heard of this?" Linda: And I was going off on you. How dare you not tell me there's a place called Juddlebugs? How dare you? Katrina: But we had the best afternoon. We got trapped upside down in the spiderweb for an unreasonable ... We nearly did a live stream up there. Linda: We did, almost. Katrina: That would be inappropriate. But you are a fun orientated person and I think I've learned a lot about having fun. Kids themed party for adults, that's an awesome idea, AJ. Linda: Oh, yeah. Was I having this conversation with you, AJ? We need to create, yeah you were only saying that the other day at breakfast, yesterday. Katrina: Yeah, I've learned a lot about having fun from you, but I think that that concept of there being no ego in it, is really, really interesting and really powerful. And it's a reminder that if we can get into being present, then I think ... Okay, fun is one thing, then I think we also, that is the place where we access our highest [inaudible 00:16:53] areas, in terms of, for example, greatest creative flow, right? I know that when I get into silliness, playing, silliness, being frivolous, maybe a little bit reckless, or kind of making a fool of yourself, that sort of thing, sometimes I don't know, I'd be curious to know if you feel this way, sometimes when I get really silly and really kind of frivolous and lighthearted, I'll feel a slight shame feeling afterwards. For self-consciousness, where I feel a little - Linda: Like you're judging yourself? Katrina: Do I embarrass myself, did I make a fool of it? Linda: The ego comes back in? Katrina: Yeah, the ego's coming back in afterwards. But then, at the same time, and I'll notice it afterwards, and it feels kind of like a walk of shame type of feeling. Like, did I really do that? And the thing is though, that I don't allow that to infiltrate me and stop me from going wherever I go in my energy when I'm on a live stream, for example, or whatever it is I'm doing in any situation. Because I know that I get into such an amazing creative flow and I get all the downloads when I'm in that place. But then afterwards, my human mind will come back in and be like, "Oh you probably pushed it a little too far," or, "You're making a fool of yourself," or, "People probably think you're off your head." All my judgements come through. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: But I still do it. I still do it. I notice them and observe them. I'm like, "Okay, thank you for showing up and telling me all the reasons I'm not good enough. I'm going to keep going anyway." Linda: Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to be your own observer. Here's the thing, we all have an inner child within us. We all have an inner child, and sometimes when we get in on this conscious journey of growth and conscious growth and there's ego and then there's a spiritual ego that can come and slap - Katrina: Oh, that's a [crosstalk 00:18:39]. Linda: Yeah, yeah. So I've definitely been wacked left, right, and centre by the spiritual ego sometimes. As you start moving through this experience, you go into that judgement of, "Now I can't be silly because I'm conscious or spiritual." Katrina: Ah, I so nearly put a post up tonight, I'm not even kidding, the only reason I didn't post this on Facebook an hour ago is because I just posted to say we're going to do this. Linda: Well, see, who's a mind reader. Katrina: And I nearly wrote something like, "Be careful not to get so fucking involved that you can't," I don't know. I can't even remember what then ending of what I was going to say is. That like, you become so freaking involved that your whole thing is how involved you are. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Be careful of the ego that is attached to walking around being like, "Oh I've had all the ego deaths." Yeah, but that's ego, so. And we all do it. Spiritual ego. Linda: Yeah, it's a very interesting concept and to ... I love being my own observer of just allowing myself to be with ease, I don't go into judgement that often. I'm like, "Okay, that was a fascinating, internal response." Katrina: Right, that's similar to what I'll say to myself, like curiosity. Linda: Yeah, it's like, okay. Katrina: Observation. Linda: Okay, that was fascinating. I'm interested why I responded internally that way. Katrina: Yeah, that was an interesting [inaudible 00:20:06]. Linda: And still, I've moved away from that judgement , I'm just like, "I wonder where that came from?" Katrina: Yeah, that's actually really similar to ... I talk about that a lot with clients, as well. I definitely still have those self judgmental reactions come through, but the way that I persist them is curiosity or lightheartedness. My two favourite ones. Linda: Really important. Katrina: When I say lightheartedness, let's say you said something or did something, maybe on a Facebook live like this, or maybe in a one-on-one conversation with somebody, and you really feel that you went quite far with vulnerability and you exposed yourself, and then you go out of that situation and you feel like a need to protect yourself or you feel like maybe you went too far and you put yourself in some vulnerable space or place, and then maybe the judgements comes up, like it could either be, "Yeah, well that was an interesting choice, I wonder why I chose to do that, let me get curious about that," or it could literally be like, "Oh, how silly, how cute. That's really funny, I wonder why I chose that." Or it could even be you did something that really caused some sort of sabotage, right? We've both spoken publicly many times about backgrounds of self-sabotage, and then those old patterns can sometimes try to continue to knock on the door. Many times, people ... I don't want to call it relapse, maybe not the best word, not my favourite word anyway. But many times, people will pick up an old sabotaging pattern and then they'll tend to feel like, "I'm bad, and I'm weak willed, and I got to hate on myself, and why did I do this?" Katrina: And instead, and I speak about this a lot with a lot of clients who have struggled with binge eating and if the binge eating comes back ... I have bulimia for 10 years, so I understand it, right? And they'll be like, "Oh my God, this is fucked up, what did I do?" And I'm like, "Wait no, what if instead, it was 'Oh, wow. I wonder why you needed that? Let's get curious about that. What was it inside you that needed that?'" Or also, even to smile about something that perviously felt so heavy and to make it lighthearted. It takes the power out of it and actually gives you back your power. Linda: Yeah, yeah. And conscious, when I say, because we said in the title "Conscious Relationship" it's not just conscious relating with another person or in an actual partnership or relationship, it's also how we're consciously relating to ourselves and what kind or relationship we're having to ourselves. Katrina: 100% Linda: And I think that's even more important to dive into, because if you don't understand yourself, then how can you consciously relate to another human being, if you don't understand your own ways of internal response and dimension and your operation system. Katrina: Yeah, I love that, and it's funny because I think when we said we'd talk about conscious relationships, we said that to each other earlier today, and I think we sort of thought, relationships with other people, but when I was on the plane just before, I was thinking, I feel like this is going to be more about the relationship with self, because the place that we create epic relationships with other people from, even an amazing friendship, an amazing client-mentor relationship. I always say that my clients, so many clients, it wasn't always that way. It could be a romantic relationship, as well. All the different relationships. In order to call it or allowing or flowing to incredible incredible conscious relationships with other individuals, we have to first be in an incredible conscious relationship with our own selves. Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And in a space of non-judgment, understanding, compassion, and full acceptance. Linda: I only wrote a blog about that this morning. That I got inspired by someone who asks me yesterday, "Linda, why haven't you been swept off your feet yet?" And I didn't get triggered or anything like that, it just simply inspired me to talk about it openly and to express myself why that is, and just put a little slightly different perspective on it, as well. And take it into the relating with self, because if we want someone to show up for us, if we want someone to be present with us, we have to be present with ourselves, first. We have to show up for ourselves, first. Linda: Quite often, we're longing for something, we're wanting, we're even needing. So there's a needing ness and you are filling a void within us, that we haven't even actually given ourselves. And if we're not giving ourselves, then how can we truly experience that outside of ourselves? Katrina: Well you learn you receive from others what you're giving to yourself. That's the reality. So if you feel, maybe sometimes you get frustrated or angry, this happens a lot with coaches and with their clients, and it happens with men and women in romantic relationships, it even happens in friendships and family dynamics, also. I guess I hear it fairly frequently in the coaching industry, "I seem to have all these clients who are behind on their payments," or whatever, right? Some sort of pardon like that. And it's always like, "Okay cool, this is great, this is great feedback and information because this is a great opportunity to look at where am I not honouring myself?" Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And yeah, the think with relationships that I think sometimes we all forget, I know give forgotten this or put it aside at times, is there'll always be instability there. The goal is not to get to some sort of place of done, sorted, everything's predicted and predictable. Imagine how fucking boring that'd be, anyways. But it's growth, relationships are there for our growth, right? Exactly, AJ just that's where we attractively show our voids. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So when you have people in your life, any area of your life, who you feel like their causing you to feel something, it's always "Wow, thank you, because this allows me to see an area in myself where I wasn't paying attention, where I wasn't honouring myself." Can I give an example that's a little bit naughty? Of course I can. Linda: Are you asking for permission? Katrina: I don't know. I don't know. When I was on the live stream last week, Chris told me not to swear, I was like, "What?" But it's because we were going to use it for a Facebook ad. I'm like, "Mother fucker." He's like, "You can't swear." I'm like, "What do you mean I can't swear?" Katrina: Okay, so I had an awareness only very recently, actually. I had always thought, not always, but I had frequently felt frustrated that when I have sex with Mare, he would very rarely pay attention to my breasts. All men, I don't mean one individual man, right? But it was a pattern that I noticed. I felt frustrated that men would just kind of ignore my breasts. They would sometimes even just leave my top of and just go down there, and not always, but a high percentage of the time. And I definitely had a story in my head that this is because I have fairly small breast and that's the reason why. And I was 100% certain about that. And then, long story short, I realised that, "Holy shit. I never give my breasts love and attention. I never pay attention," previously never. I was never paying them attention, I was not giving them any love, any touch, any affection, I didn't really consider them ... I didn't dislike my breasts at all, actually I find them very practical for fitness reasons, but if we take that story even further back, though, and I did blog about it. Yeah, Marie, I did blog about it a week or two ago. Katrina: Because I'm actually having breast enlargement surgery in two days. And I'm so grateful I realised all this before that was coming through, right? Because that's coming from a place of desire, not from a place of trying to fill a need. But with this, if you go back even further, when I was a teenage, I had really big boobs. And when I was in my late teens. And people would comment on it often and I would wear low cut tops often, and I wasn't heavy either. I just actually had big boobs. But then I would learn from my mom, about be careful because men are going to whatever. I got the message that I was being too sexual, and I really think when I look back now, I think I manifested them way. Because now look, they're like an A cup or whatever, they're a small B, maybe. But yeah, it was just this interesting realisation of I'm walking around going, "What the fuck is with these dudes that don't take the time to touch the rest of my body because that's what I really want and that's really what opens you up as a women, to have that attention to all areas, not just, obviously." Katrina: Whether or not it's obviously, if it's not obvious, now you know. Welcome. And then I'm like, "Oh my God, holy fucking wake up call. I get to love on myself in that area." And I'm not kidding, within four days of when I started to give attention in that area and then I had a sexual experience and it was like, "Yeah, I'm like ..." Linda: But see, this flows into all areas of life. It's not just what we experience with relationships. It's actually in all areas. So I'm just going to invite you into a moment of introspection and to really reflect on in what area of your life are you feeling that, "Oh I'm not receiving what I'm actually wanting?" And you're kind of blocking yourself from that. In what area of you're life, is it maybe money, it is money stuff? What's your relationship with money, how you speak to money, what do you feel about money? If you're someone who wants to contentiously create that or you want to consciously create a beautiful relationship, or experience certain things. Then you have to look inside, first, and check in, are you giving yourself that? That was a beautiful example. That was a really beautiful example. Katrina: And that's a physical example, but it's also with the emotional stuff. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: And any time we're looking for something to fill a need in us, money is a great example, if I had that money then I'd be safe, I'd be free, then I'd be credible, then I'd be good enough. It's always like, "Oh, wow." As soon as you realise that, how can I give that to myself. Well actually, how you can give any of these things to yourself is to decide to. It's not something you've got to go out and work for. You can do it in this moment. Linda: Absolutely. It's simply a choice. It's decision to do so in an instant because we can so easily get caught up, and like you said before, when I get there, then I'll be good enough. When I lose this weight, then I'll feel good enough, or then I'll feel beautiful. Or that was just one example. Katrina: Or when I make the money then I'm safe or then I'm worthy. Linda: Then I'm successful. Katrina: Then I can relax in my life, then I can have fun in my life, then I can be happy. Or when somebody loves me then this, then this, then this. So anything that we're putting onto a pedestal like that, we're saying, "If I have this thing outside of myself, then I can experience and live in the emotions and energies that I desire." It causes you to actually push it away. It means that you hold the thing that you want at arms length, it's a lesson that you've got to learn. Is that you get to give that to yourself. So when you continue in that pattern, it's kind of like, "Oh, okay cool. I see that you just want to keep learning that same lesson again and again and again." Interesting choice. Linda: Isn't it interesting when the universe continues to teach you the same lessons until you learn? I'm just reflecting back on some of my own patterns, and like, oh my God. Katrina: Right, right. Linda: And it just clicks. I'm like, "Okay, well I haven't been honouring myself in that area," or "I haven't been giving myself attention in that area." Katrina: Yeah. Okay, we're back. We just froze over here. Linda: She broke the internet again. I mean, we broke it. Katrina: You put it into words on the card over there. Linda: I did. Katrina: Now it just keeps happening. Linda: We're manifesting it. Conscious creation. What was I talking about before? Going on tangents. Katrina: You were talking about how there's been times where you've noticed you learning the same lesson again and again and again. And then it's like, "Okay. I'm finally done with learning that lesson." Linda: Yeah, yeah. And the learning can be in an absolute instant. You choose to shift your internal matrix and you just chose to observe what's happening. And you chose to - Katrina: It's an instantaneous decision. Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And how quickly your outer matrix can shift with that. Katrina: Yeah. Completely. Linda: So phenomenal. Katrina: It's amazing. I mean, earlier on this week, you know I was in Bali until Wednesday. I remember Monday, I think ... Well we audio every day, anyway. But I was really feeling kind of stuck and in some heavy energies, and you know where it's up in your face, I get anxiety sometimes. And I was having a pretty extreme anxiety day, which I hadn't had in a while, and I was really just not enjoying that feeling of it. But at the same time, I remember I walked into the gym and I remember saying to myself, "This will shift. As much as in this moment of insane anxiety and feeling frustrated or whatever it was that I was experiencing, as much as that felt real." I was so aware, I guess, from all the work that I've done over the years and the way I live my life, I was like, "This could shift any moment." And from now on I might feel on top of the fucking world and completely understand all my madness and why I was making something into a really big thing. Or I might stay in a state or feeling stuck and anxious and frustrated or trapped or whatever for the whole day, and either what it's okay, either way it is what is, and that's all it is, and that's okay. Katrina: But I think that sometimes when we're in that state of feeling like, "Why can I have what I want and why is money evading me or why is this happening or why is my business here or why are my relationships like this or whatever," that we get so caught up in this kind of story of "This is not fair and why am I getting [inaudible 00:34:18] this instead of just being like this could change in an instant based on your own thoughts," I don't mean based on something happened. I mean based on you suddenly get some new perspective and on that day earlier this week, I said just kind of a simple loose intention in my mind that this will get to shift and that they'll be a way for me to be empowered by this situation that was causing me to feel a bit panicked, and I felt like, "How could that happen?" Because there is something that makes me feel upset. Katrina: And I'm not kidding, like two hours later, I was like, "Holy shit, wow. I feel so grateful for this now because I just realised how I'm not addressing whatever area inside of and that I now get to learn about this, and oh my God, I'm so glad that this happened to cause me to go into this anxiety of this crazy tail spin." I had to sit in it and marinate in it and it didn't feel fun, but even when you're in that state, like we know that it's for our greater good, right? Linda: Always. Katrina: So we might be like, "Ah this feels like shit. This has been dragged through the ringer, and put on a freaking spin cycle and then you go ten rounds after that, and then somebody" ... But you still know that it's for your learning and growth. So even in the mists of the worst of it, you're like, "And I'm getting fucking strong as a mother fucker." Watch me grow. Linda: Watch me grow, watch me expand. Katrina: We talk about this all the time. Linda: We do, we do. I think it's really powerful how we can go into, even when we're triggered, so this is the thing, previously the gratitude always comes after, the learning comes after. You're not going to get clarity and learning and wisdom when you're full of emotion. You need to left that shift. You need to be with it. But can you be your own observer at the same time? And instantly, while you're having that experience of, "I feel really shit. I feel really challenged." Can you be your own observer and go, "Hey I'm still grateful, because I'm being shown something that I'm not quite getting yet. Katrina: Right. I don't know what it is yet, but I know that it's here for a reason. Linda: It's here for a reason, it's here for my greater good, and I get to learn something. I get to be a better version of myself as I come through this. Katrina: Yeah. It's just when I'm triggered, I'm secretly happy because I know I'm healing. Linda: Yeah. I love that. I love that expression. Katrina: Well even on the plane just then, my four year old had three next level tantrums on the flight that were just so bad, so full on. I'm first I was conscious as fuck. I'm using conscious communication with my child, everybody probably so impressed by me. I was staying super calm, I was very proud of myself, right? And I got him through the first tantrum. Katrina: But then he had another one. And I felt myself start to break a little bit. I was like, "Fucking." I didn't say that, but that's what I was feeling, right. I was going to be like skanky bogan mom on the plane. But I didn't. But I was feeling it. But it was so full on. He's just like that when he's not ... he's a free spirit. Linda: Auntie Linda never gets those attacks, let's just leave it like that. Katrina: You can freaking fly with him. But honestly, at the same time, there was this small part of me that was like, "I'm becoming a warrior right now as a mother." I'm learning and growing. Okay he did break me a little bit, there was one point when the stewardess come up and I may have just been sitting on the tray table ignoring him while he jumped up and down in the seat and threw a marinate sauce on the guy in front of me. Linda: What? You didn't tell me that part. Katrina: I didn't have time to tell you anything, I got home and we went straight into the live stream. It was a small moment there where I was like, "I'm just going to pretend this is not happening and I'm not even going to try to do anything about it." Linda: As he was throwing sauce at people. Katrina: And the stewardess is like, "Could you stop standing up on the seat, please, the captain's going to come out and get you." And he was like, "No he's not." But he goes, "Never!" He refuses to sit. Linda: I love Nathan, he's just so unapologetic in his stuff. Katrina: Yeah and then she's like, "Wow, he's quite stern mood isn't he?" I'm like ... Linda: He's just unapologetic. He doesn't take no for an answer. Katrina: I really did break a little bit. I was like, "This is too hard. I just want to drink my wine and write in my fucking journal." Linda: I honour all the moms out there, honestly. I really honour all the moms because I don't have kids myself, yet, it might be an experience that I get to have in this lifetime, it may not, you know, either way I'm okay. But it's beautiful to watch from a distance. Katrina: Honestly, even through that, I'm just like, you go into this place when that shit happens on a plane where you're like, "I'm just going to choose to not allow anyone else' perceptions to impact me right now. I'm going to be in my space, with my child doing the best I can fucking do and now worrying about what everybody else is thinking about it." But there was definitely that part of me that was like, "I'm growing from this experience." And it's like what AJ just said about when you get triggered, and yeah, anything shit's going on for us and we always share what we're working through and what we're processing and stuff that's coming up. Linda: But we still have our tantrums, as well. Katrina: Ah, yeah. Linda: Some of our audience, like yesterday - Katrina: Sometimes we're extraordinarily immature. Linda: Oh my God. I just make - Katrina: Yesterday was an interesting day. Linda: Oh my God. But we also have these tantrums. Conscious tantrums. It's hilarious. Katrina: #concioustantrums. We do. It's release. Linda: Yeah, it is. Katrina: The thing is, even when we're having a tantrum through, we're aware and we know what we're doing. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: And we talk about it, usually at the same time. Not even afterward. But you won't be like, "losing your shit," or "I'm losing my shit," or whatever, and in the same audio, we're like, "Oh, well then I also understand that blah blah blah." And it's like, people don't talk like that normally with their friends. We give ourselves credit and give yourself credit if you are catching yourself, even a little bit. Because it's not about being so fucking involved that you're not in a human experience at all. But I think that one of the most powerful things is to be able to catch yourself and to notice it. Linda: Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, be that own observer on the side. And go, "Okay, I'm allowing myself to just be [inaudible 00:40:56], I'm allowing myself to be with this." Katrina: Right. Linda: I'm allowing myself to be a little brat. And like I was saying yesterday, I just want to fucking kick and scream. But I'm not going to. [crosstalk 00:41:07]. And then just verbalise it, which is an expression of releasing. What was I saying? I either feel like having two litres in wine and I hardly ever drink or I want to have two litres of ice cream, which is not an option, or give me a bucket of peanut butter, or - Katrina: What is that, that's on the table over there? Linda: Where? Katrina: That packet of interesting items that I threw on the table down there. Linda: It's for you, my dear. Katrina: Did you buy me peanut butter? We needed some peanut butter in this house. [inaudible 00:41:43] Linda: We have peanut butter cuddles. Katrina: Well, you know what, what do you think ... peanut butter orgasms are also a thing that people need to be aware of. But that may be a topic for another live stream. But what do you think about, we were talking before about having fun and how important fun is, so fun is something that's often thought of as a childhood type thing, right? Children naturally know how to really be in a set of higher fun. Well children are also fabulous at having next level temper tantrums. So do you think it's just totally okay to be ... if you're going to be in that child energy of play and fun and lightheartedness and frivolity, why don't you get ... This is still live, Patrick - Linda: Yeah, it's life. Katrina: No need to replay. Why don't you get to also ... Well you don't necessarily get to lay down on the floor in the airport like my son does and kick and scream. Linda: But could you imagine though? Next time we go travelling, we should ... you have the phone, I'll do the thing. Honestly, we can do some skits. Katrina: That would be hilarious. [crosstalk 00:42:51]. I want the fucking peanut butter! They took my peanut butter off me at security! Totally. But it's actually not that funny because we're talking about, as adults, we learn to restrict our expression of our emotion. Linda: Right. Yeah. And we get so suppressed, but it's a form of release and no wonder we're so programmed to repress and not express ourselves, no wonder all of the sudden all these things are bubbling up inside, and then we just snap at the smallest little thing because we haven't been taught how to express ourselves. We haven't been taught how to create healthy containers to release our emotions and the energy from our bodies. And here's the thing, our physical bodies are going to store emotion and if we're not creating healthy containers to let go of that and to constantly release, like crying is a form of release, and we've even made crying bad. That crying is weak. Katrina: Right, right. It's a method as well. Linda: It's a mode of healing. Katrina: Absolutely. But it's also, if you continue to hold back what you're acting thinking and feeling from yourself, nevermind the other people in your life, then actually over time, you accidentally created yourself into a version of yourself which is not the real you. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Because every single time you make a choice to respond from, "This is how I should show up or behave in this situation, as opposed to this is my true self, my true soul," you just made a small adjustment off track. And if you're doing that day by day, multiples times throughout the day, you kind of cultivating yourself into being this service based, masked version of yourself. And so then you wonder, why your relationships aren't working, why you can't seem to attract in those ideal soulmate clients, if you're an entrepreneur. I had a client a year or so ago say something about there's always these conflicts like friendships, and at the time I was like, "Wow, I don't have any conflict in my friendships." Now, I'm saying I don't experience conflict ever in my friendships, but it certainly not something where ... I don't expect it or I don't really think of it as normal, right? I wouldn't expect that we are friends would have some kind of conflict. Of course it's possible, nothing's impossible, but to me that's a soul aligned relationship, whether it's client or a friend or something different in the personal life. Katrina: I don't look at that as there should be currents of turmoil. Now if there would, that would be okay as well. Because it is what it is. But it's more that when the soul connection is there, there's an actual real true understanding of who we each are as individuals. It's not based on some service masked foundation, is what I'm saying. Linda: Right, yeah. Katrina: So therefor, there's actual legitimate acceptance of each other on a soul level, not just, "Oh yeah, you say the things or do the thing or have the things in your life that similar to me and so we'll be friends." Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you and I are similar in many ways, but we're also so different in so many ways, and I think I remember ages and ages ago when I was just playing at a different level of consciousness, to just observe my human connections and relationships that I had back then and it was kind of like this ego game of, "Oh why wouldn't you like that? We can't be friends now." It wasn't honouring people ad accepting people for who they were. And now that I find with all of my friends, who I connect with on a soul level, we may not agree with everything, we may not do everything the same way, but we're fully honouring each other for who we are. Katrina: Completely Linda: And accepting each other for who we are. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: And life really isn't about, like you said earlier, touched on how we tend to lose ourselves because we're told who to be and we're told how to live our life, we are operating from this mask. And we're not even ourselves. And quite often we hear this expression of I just want to go and find myself. It isn't about finding yourself. Life is about remembering who you aare. Because everything is inside of you. We've all been born a free spirit of love, we all have an inner child within ourselves, so it's the programming of society that puts you in a box and tells you how to live your life, what to believe, how to ... We're even been thought what to think. We're being thought what to feel, in this type of situation, you should feel this. Katrina: Right. [crosstalk 00:47:34] Linda: And every single part of our life is manufactured in this system. So quite often we hear about, "Oh I'm going to go around the world to find myself." We don't need to go around the world to find ourselves. We can literally sit in stillness and just think right here and start to peel back the layers of who we're not. Who we've been told to be. And that's really powerful. It's not about, "Hey I want to figure out everything at once," that's not how it works. You figure something out about yourself, start to remember who you are on certain levels. It's like the onion. You peel back one layer and then there's something else under that. Linda: We run away from ourselves, yeah. I definitely run away from myself. A lot, in fact, back in the day. Because I couldn't face and stand the person who I was. So I did everything and anything to continue to numb and escape from my reality. Katrina: Right, yeah. There's a lot of things that are on the surface that could look like fabulous life choices, travels one of them. Which people might use in some cases, for numbing or escaping, but it's all about the place it's coming from. Because it can be coming, obviously from a place of hiding value and grounding and expanding, or it could be coming from a place of hiding. Like alcohol is one example of that. Sometimes people drink alcohol to obviously escape and run and hide, and then other times alcohol is expanding a higher vibe of abundance energy, basically. So it's all about where you already are, but either way, you've got to be giving yourself everything you need. If you think going on a silent meditation or going to a retreat or doing a course or getting a coach or getting a partner or whatever it is that's going "to change everything for me, that's going to fix me, that's going to give me what I need. I need this, I have to do it." It's like, "Well cool, do it if you feel called to do it, whatever it is." But you're actually still going to need to figure out how to give that to yourself at some point. Linda: Really good point. Katrina: You're not going to get it from going to that thing, paying that person, doing that thing. Linda: Yeah, absolutely. People can guide us, absolutely, but at the end of the day, a good coach is someone who guides and teaches for you to how to heal yourself, how to be more of you, how to connect to your truth and your believes around things, and how to be your own observer. So you're not relying on an external coach all the time. Or you're not relying on another external resource. Katrina: Yeah, I read about this. I did a little [inaudible 00:50:14] as my plane was taking off about maximum abuse learnings around relationships, business and personal, and like I mentioned specifically, a mentor shouldn't be telling you what to do. I believe a mentor is to help you remember how to be your be your own [inaudible 00:50:32], but a mentor is there to be more of who you are and connect to your soul, connect to your intuition and your own guidance and wisdom. Not to tell you, "Here's the rules and you must do this in order to get this result." Linda: Yeah, absolutely. And it's powerful when you can start to tune into yourself and listen to your own soul and allow your inner compass to guide you, and I'm very big on that. Katrina: Yes. Your soul always knows. Linda: Your could always knows. I actually have to admit to one thing. This year, I ended up getting caught up with events, like person - Personal growth is one of my highest values, and I love ... I can throw my money on personal growth. Coaching, mentoring, events, all this stuff. And I found myself doing one event after another, one course after another - Katrina: Yeah you were in a - Linda: ... I'm like, "Holy shit, this is actually too much." What am I actually searching from these events? Is that thing of, "Ah, I want to expand more, I want to evolve my consciousness more. And I don't feel good enough." So that was really interesting to obverse myself in that. But I caught myself. I was completely honest with myself. I'm being honest with you here as well. It doesn't matter how much you continue to evolve, you'll never get to a stage where, "Okay, I've had enough now." Katrina: Yep. Linda: But also, be careful that you're not going the other way of "I want more and more and more." Because you can't be okay with what you have inside of you. Katrina: Right. Like learn ... yeah. Learning, growth work, is a great example of what we were just saying. A lot of people use growth work to escape from being in the now and from living their lives. In fact, you know Bali, like we're both obsessed with Bali and we both go to Bali a lot. You're leaving back again Tuesday for Bali, right? And I just came back from Bali on Wednesday and I go there every month. Linda: And you're coming back for my birthday. Katrina: I'm going back to Bali for your birthday, of course, in a few weeks. So Bali though, is a place ... There's an expression about Bali I remember hearing, it's like, it can be a place for the internal wanderer. Now, nothing wrong with being an internal wanderer, but specially there's a lot of people who go to Bali and 20 years later are still in Bali and have not, as I would call it, pressed fucking play on anything, they're just floating around freaking Bali being healed and cleansed. Bali cleanse. Linda: That is starting. Katrina: We have our own detention of what a Bali cleanse may entail. But there is. There's a lot of people in Bali who are amazing artists and messengers, but who have not put a single bit of work out in the world or barely anything. They're just caught up in their energy and the obsession and the vortex of Bali, and I'm healing and I'm learning and I'm exploring and I'm wondering. And it's like, cool, when are you going to fucking do something? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So there's going to be that part of it, as well. Linda: Absolutely. Katrina: And Bali's a good example of that. But life is a good example of that, as well. And in this industry, for sure, you see so many people who are continually learning, continually healing, continually absorbing new content and regurgitating stuff on the internet, I guess, but when are you going to actually admit that you're scared to let what's inside of you out? And then just do it. Because that's what's going on. You're becoming addicted to the growth work as a way of escaping doing your own fucking work. Linda: Yes, and we're hiding under the spiritual masks, then we become, like we start to awaken our self worth and our beliefs are still at a level where we think that, for example, money is bad, or we can't do certain things because it's bad. And we actually have a lot of limiting believes in operating from that space, and then we just hide under this spiritual façade of spiritual masks where, oh no, no, but I'm spiritual and I'm a good person - Katrina: Bold as fuck. Linda: And we hide and we use that as an excuse to cover up and limiting where you're thinking or our low self worth and how we're operating. So we're using it as an excuse and I'm masking. Katrina: It's hiding. Linda: It is hiding. And at the end of the way, we can get so caught up in the whole, "Let's just do yoga and meditate every day and do nothing else." Katrina: Right. Linda: But at the end of the day, yes those are daily practises and very important, I believe in them very much. I'm a yoga teacher - Katrina: Yeah, journaling. Obviously I'm obsessed with journaling, I talk about it all the time, but one time I wrote a post, something like, "Put the fucking journal down. Stop fucking journaling. Go and do some work." Like, okay journaling is that work, I get that, obviously I teach that. But yeah, there's go to be those ... it's that dance, back and forth between, okay I'm going within and I'm accessing guidance and I'm learning and growing, or connecting with others who are helping me to grow. And then it's like, okay now I'm in creation mode, because as humans, we're all brought here to create. We're not brought here to consume. Consumption of content or growth or whatever - Linda: That's what we're taught. Katrina: But creation, I believe, is of higher value for the majority of us, or certainly, at least, for people in this community. We're creators. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: So are you creating or are you caught up in that continual, perpetual, wondering and seeking and never being ready to press play, and there's always something else to learn and nother fucking healing session to do, and another journaling session to do, and at some point it's like, put the journal down. Linda: Yeah, and you know, it can be uncomfortable to observe these things about ourselves and we don't always want to admit to that. But it's really powerful to just own that space and not just own your story, but own everything where you're at. First of the changes is awareness and then acceptance. Accept where you are, and go, "Okay, awesome, I acknowledge where I am now, and if I'm not aware, then how can I create change?" And like I just own up about the whole event thing. I'm like, "Oh my God, I just being going from event to event." Katrina: Well you said yes to all those events in alignment, though. Like you're the opposite of a person who doesn't do the work. But then, at a certain point, you noticed that it was too ... it was feeling like, this is not what I need. Linda: Yeah, yeah. Katrina: To be continual. But you weren't saying yes to those events in a place of trying to escape or avoid anything. It was the opposite of that. Linda: Yeah. Katrina: It was aligned to say yes, and then at a certain point it was like, "Oh, okay cool. I can learn what I need to learn here," which partly is that I don't need to go to events back to back to back to back. Linda: Oh my God. Katrina: In different cities continually. Linda: I'm having a month off, okay. A month off. Katrina: Yeah, but now, you're falling out of that and you're into more growth and time and taking actual time, it's a perfect balance, right? Linda: The integration - Katrina: You're allowing it all to just sink deeper into who you are. Linda: Yeah. The integration is a really interesting topic and I think it's a really important one to discuss because we can, for example, if you're using the event example again, we can continue to do courses, events, blah blah blah, and we take all the information in, or we do healing. But are we allowing ourselves to integrate? Are we actually applying also our learnings? We can get caught up in the personal development world, as well. We just continue to do all the courses, learn all the stuff, but are we applying it? Are we actually embodying - Katrina: Are you testing it out? Linda: ... the teachings? Are we embodying the wisdom of what we're actually being taught? Because knowledge is not power. It's what you do with the knowledge. Katrina: Yep, that applied knowledge is power. Linda: Yeah. Applied knowledge is power. Yeah, I definitely believe that, too. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: So it's powerful to observe where you are and just be up front and honest with yourself. Okay, cool, well I get to see from a different perspective. I'm going, "Okay, well I own that part of myself. And now I can create change." But if you're not accepting those parts of yourself, then you can't change it. It's like this with anything in life. If you're not accepting where you are and you're not accepting a previous experience, you can't shift from it. You have to accept it. Katrina: You have to continue to receive that same lesson until you learn it. Linda: Acceptance is part of the healing process in anything in life. Super powerful. I accept that you're here. Katrina: I'm just thinking about the Bali cleanse. Linda: On the audio you're like - Katrina: We're going to have a fabulous Bali cleanse when I come over again in a few weeks. Linda: And it is my birthday in a couple of weeks. So [crosstalk 00:59:16]. How am I going to make it? Oh yeah. 34. Age is only number [crosstalk 00:59:25]. Katrina: That's why I'm like, I think I know, but I'm not [crosstalk 00:59:27]. Linda: Yeah, it's like ... sometimes I'm friends with people, like close friends, and I'm like, "How old are you?" After couple years, I'm like, "How old are you, even?" Age is just not a thing that we know. Katrina: Not at all. Well I like that expression, I don't see faces, I see souls. It's the same with age, I think. It's a soul thing, not an age thing. Linda: Guilty on consume too much learning. Yeah, if we're not taking aligned action or applying the stuff, nothing's going to happen. We've got to step into the actual taking responsibility for our actions. Katrina: And pressing fucking play. Linda: And pressing fucking play. Katrina: Or pressing go live. This is an example, right? We're really just having a conversation here that we would have by ourselves anyhow, and we do all day, every day, and how hard is it to just go live and do it as content for your audience. It's not hard. But people make it really hard. And if you wanted to build brand for example, and then maybe you're like, "I've got all these powerful, cool stuff inside of me," and you talk about it with your friends or maybe some groups or your mentor or something like that, well, that's being stuck in the cycle of I'm learning and I'm growing and I talk about amazing, interesting things with people, but are you showing the world? Are you sharing what you're here to show the world? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: Marie says, "I'm 49 and [inaudible 01:00:51] I feel 35." Yeah, well, that's what's funny right. I would never think of you by being 49 based on what the conventional definition of 49 is. But I think, even my ... what's his name? The yoga teacher? In Bali? Linda: Yeah. Katrina: So he asked me once how old I was, because I mentioned having an eight year old, and he was like, "How old are you?" And I told him, and he was like, "Holy shit, I thought you were like 30, basically." And I've gone, "How old are you?" And he's 49, right? Linda: Ah is he 49? Wow. Katrina: I was like, wow. So then we both congratulated each other on how young we look, of course. And he was kind of talking about how people don't take care of themselves and stuff. But I said to him, "But how you look at 49 and how I look at 38 is what it's meant to be like. What if that is what 49 is suppose to look like? It's just that most people are all fucked up, basically." So it's not even that you look younger or I look younger, it's that we're the ones who have actually honoured our bodies and taken care of ourselves and this is what ... 38 is not suppose to look like what most, sorry. What most women look like at 38. It shouldn't look like. Or what most men look like at 50. It shouldn't look like that. It should be, if you took care of yourself. I don't know. That's my theory. Linda: Longevity. Katrina: My theories that when we meet people when we're shocked at their age, and that they look like, Marie's a great example of this. Marie's in my inner circle. And I've met her in person, obviously, as well. Not obvious, but I have. People like that, where you think, "How can you be that age? Doesn't make nay sense." My theory is that they look the correct way that you're suppose to look for that age, it's just that everybody else is ageing super fast because they didn't take care of themselves. Linda: Yeah, and I guess, yes the numbers are ticking in our linear timeline and we get "a year older ... pardon? Katrina: That we've been in time and space. Linda: Oh, we do. There's so many different timelines. The talk about time is just a whole other live feed again. But at the end of the day, we celebrate these birthdays, when really we're just one day older, every day. Katrina: Yeah. Linda: It's actually really interesting because we're not going to feel ... We're still this infinite soul, we're still this person that's inside of this physical body that we carry for life. We're not going to feel any different in 20 years time. We're still going to be this soul - Katrina: Everybody says that. Linda: We're still going to feel the physical restrictions because the body starts to shut down, so the only difference you're going to feel is your physical limitations that you'll eventually have because your body is getting older. Katrina: Yep. Linda: So that's why its so incredibly important to look after your physical being, health and wellness is not just - Katrina: It's not negotiable. Linda: Yeah. Yeah. And it flows into mind, body, and soul. Looking after every parts of self, and we can't continue to neglect that. Even as an 80 year old, we have child. Katrina: You look fabulous for 80. You're like, "Even as an 80 year old." You're looking fucking amazing. Linda: I met this man. I live steamed about it last night. I met this beautiful man - Katrina: The guy that you shared your food with? Linda: Yes! Yes. I want to share it again, can I? Can I? In a really, really short version. I was feeling very triggered yesterday. And I was sitting outside eating my little rice crackers and my avocado, and this elderly man, he was about 70. Katrina

Welcome to Fiat Lex, a podcast about dictionaries by people who write them! Yes, really. Meet Kory and Steve, your intrepid and nerdy lexicographer-hosts who will give you the drudge's-eye view of English and dictionaries in all their weirdness. In our first episode, we: - blow your minds by telling you that "the dictionary" doesn't exist;- talk about how new words get into dictionaries (not by petition, so STOP ASKING) and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think; - explain how lexicographers find new words, which sometimes involves beer and diapers;- touch on how words get taken out of dictionaries, and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think, either. Assuming you think about such things. (Who are we kidding here?) BONUS FEATURES!- Kory spells a word aloud correctly, which will probs never happen again;- Steve channels Chumley the Walrus and then goes right into fancy linguist talk about velars and coronals;- Tennessee represents! TRANSCRIPT BELOW ----more---- Steve:   Hi, I'm Steve Kleinedler Kory:     and I'm Kory Stamper. Steve:   Welcome to Fiat Lex, Kory:     a podcast about dictionaries by people who write dictionaries. Steve:   We're so glad you're here listening to us talk about this. So we've been thinking about doing this for while. Kory:     Yeah, and we just want to give you a little intro. What's the whole point of doing a podcast about dictionaries? Well, dictionaries have lots of interesting information in them and everyone uses them. Steve:   And who are we, you might be wondering? Why should you be listening to us as opposed to anyone who has a concrete thought about anything under the sun? Kory and I have both worked on a dictionaries for several years. I was on staff with the American Heritage Dictionary for over 20 years, Kory:     and I was on the staff of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries for over 20 years. Gosh, we've probably got 50 years of editing experience between us. Steve:   Yeah. Especially if you count all the stuff we did beforehand. I worked on a lot of dictionaries for a company that was called National Textbook Company that has since had been eaten and subsumed by other media conglomerates. They might be part of Tronc now for all I know. Kory:     TRONNNC Steve:   The Tribune group. And my background is I have a degree in linguistics. I took a lexicography course at Northwestern and I started getting freelance work from my professor after I graduated, and one thing led to another, as they say. Kory:     And I have no degree in linguistics. I have a degree in medieval studies and I fell into this job-- literally, almost tripped on a newspaper which had the want-ad for the Merriam Webster position. Steve:   Well, medieval studies though, are hugely important in this field from the standpoint of etymology or just understanding how words work. Kory:     Yeah, that's true. There are a lot of medievalists in dictionary companies. We could run our own Ren Faire. Steve:   Yes. And that ties in also--we have both written books. I have written a English textbook called "Is English changing?" published by Routledge and the Linguistic Society of America, Kory:     And I have written a not-textbook, regular-book, called "Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries," which is out in paperback this year. Steve:   And in that book you can find out how Kory literally tripped over a newspaper and ended up in the position that she did. Kory:     So to speak. All right, so again, dictionaries. What are they? Why are they? Who uses them? Who cares? Steve:   Everyone uses them to some extent, whether-- Even though people may not use print ones as much as people used to, certainly people look up words all the time, whether they enter terminology into a search bar or look it up in print. That content comes from somewhere. Kory:     And we are the people who write that content. One of the questions we get all the time and we thought would be a great question to address today in our inaugural podcast, is how words get into the dictionaries that you use Steve:   and how they get out of them. Kory:     Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about--let's talk about how words move in and out. Steve:   Well, it's important to note that some people-- you hear people refer to "The Dictionary" as if there were only one in one authority, kind of like the Bible--which is also laughable because there's multiple versions of the Bible as well. Dictionaries are still in the process of being written, compiled, dictionary entries are being drafted, edited, written, and existing ones change over time. Kory:     Yeah. And not only do they change, but different dictionaries serve different purposes. So different definitions are going to look different depending on who the audience is, who's--which companies writing those dictionaries. You know, Steve and I wrote for different dictionary companies though everyone assumes that we wrote "The Dictionary." Steve:   Everyone also assumes that we're constantly at war. Kory:     We're not, we're buddies. Steve:   We are. We're friends. Kory:     Yay, friends forever! Steve:   And as Kory mentioned, there are different audiences for dictionaries, not just different companies. So you could, for example--there are several different legal dictionaries out there and they are going to take a more ingrained approach to the legal defining than a general purpose dictionary will. And you will find all sorts of dictionaries. Slang dictionaries, for example. Kory:     Yep. So, so with that in mind, we'll just talk about general dictionaries, which are dictionaries that we've both worked on. So how do words get into the dictionary? Steve:   The answer is not whimsy. Kory:     Sadly. So quit asking me to put your damn word in the dictionary Steve:   Oh, actually: we're talking about how words don't get put in dictionaries, but a good way to not get a word included in a dictionary is to write to a dictionary company and say, "Hey, I invented this word," or "I think we should add this word." Even if you are a third grader who writes a very cute, plaintive letter. Sorry, but that's not how it works. Kory:     Those are the worst letters, too, because we have to write back and say "no,: which is, you know...I mean. Steve:   Who wants to to shatter the dreams of a third grader? Kory:     Yeah. We are basically just autonomous thesauruses, but we still do have feelings. We don't like hurting other people's feelings. The way that words get in generally is through usage. Not usage as in, like, "I'm writing a dictionary and I've used the word now in print once, and so, enter it," but sort of sustained and widespread usage. And, generally, written usage, which is kind of a bugbear, but that's what we got. Steve:   It also depends on the kind of word: you know, what realm it is, what category it falls into. Some words--and these are in the vast minority--have a very easy path. So if you are a scientist who has a synthesized a new chemical element, you and your team get to name that, and as long as the governing board approves it, that's the name. And you know what? In it goes, because the people in charge said so. So tennessine, for example, which was synthesized by researchers in several universities in the state of Tennessee, [they] named element 117 that. And uh, there you go. That's all you need. Kory:     Tennessine? Steve:   Tennessine. Kory:     T-e-n-n-e-s-s-i-n-e? How do you spell it? Steve:   [Chumley the Walrus voice] That's right, Charlie. Kory:     [laughter] The amazing thing is that I just spelled that aloud, and I can't actually spell aloud. Steve:   And that was a Chumley the Walrus imitation. I'm dating myself there. [Chumley the Walrus voice] Sorry, Tennessee. Kory:     Alright, so usage. I said "written usage" and this is a bugbear. But the reason that we use written usage is it's a standard way that we can do it. So why don't we take spoken usage? Because that's actually that's how words get created first, is usually in speech. They usually don't get written down first. Steve:   The words that are used in the spoken vernacular are completely 100 percent valid. And there are outfits out there that track this type of thing. Corpuses, which are large collections of words. There's some corpuses that compile a written documentation and other ones that compile samples of recorded speech. Dictionaries, however, tend to focus on words that have been written. Generally, but not always, and more so in the past than now. Not just written, but from edited sources. Kory:     Yeah. Edited, prose sources. So poetry doesn't really count, because you can use a word with a really nonstandard meaning in poetry--or with no meaning in poetry, you can just use it for sound. But the part of the reason that's difficult is because we now have access to more transcripts of spoken English, and the problem with that as a lexicographer is, it's really actually hard to transcribe a word you've never heard before from speech into print. You can misspell it, you can mishear it. You can not understand the context. So. That's one of the reasons why we focus on written, edited English. Though the "edited," even that's kind of going away these days. Steve:   More and more, you will see references to things in blog posts which aren't always edited, or even, you know, the comment section, or that kind of thing. And as to the spoken ones, you can phonological determine the phonemes that are used. But if you were transcribing-- it's the same problem that newspaper journalists have in quoting people. Usually the quoted English in newspaper articles is written out in standard English. Even though when you speak informally, you're changing the velar "-ng" at the ends of words like "going" to the coronal "-n," like "going" to "goin'", and you're probably not going to write "g-o-i-n-apostrophe" in most examples of written transcriptions. However, that is what is being said. So, would you include that? Would you not? In the past when you had the finite print page, that limited what you could put into a book. Especially when there's a regular phonological change like that velar to coronal nasal pattern that I mentioned. Kory:     Right. So the other thing that's interesting about this is, this is how all words get in, and the way that you find new words to put into the dictionary has also--I think it's changed over even the last 10 years. Steve:   Absolutely. In the past, when I first started, you had boxes and boxes of note cards on which someone had dutifully typed or printed out and pasted onto that note card, a usage of that word, also known as a "citation." But even in the nineties when I started, that shoe box of cards was already supplemented with returns from what we call a KWIC concordance. This program that overlays on top of a large corpus. You can search on a specific word and it will show you every instance of that word with five or 10 or 12 words, whatever you decide on either side of it, to get some context by it. So even in the nineties--and before then, I just wasn't working before then-- you're juggling these cards and these citations in your concordance. Kory:     But even the way that we got citations I think has changed. It used to be--so at Merriam Webster, it used to be that all of the editors read for at least an hour, maybe two hours a day. We had a source list that was a list of magazines, journals, books--not just journals and magazines, but trade journals, specialty journals. And we would go through as an editorial floor and divvy stuff up and say, "You're going to be the one who's reading _National Review_ and _The Nation_, and you would read-- I mean, ideally you read every issue that got delivered to you, and you read looking specifically for words that caught your eye, which were generally new words or new uses of old words. And that's how we used to get citations. This was before these, these big corpora were available. I mean, not just available for purchase, but just available, period. Steve:   The first edition of the American Heritage Dictionary back in the sixties used a corpus called the Brown Corpus, from Brown University. But in addition to these collected citations. So corpus material had always been used. However, editors still read in the manner Kory described and collected citations well into the mid-2000s, by which time, you know, much like every other corporation in the world, outside pressures meant more people were doing more things. And that was one thing that, because information was so much more easily obtainable, reading time for markup decreased over the years. But it wasn't just books or periodicals that you were assigned to. I remember once when we were discussing what the proper plural of "pierogi" is--is "pierogi" a plural? You know, those little Polish potato dumplings? Is the singular "pierog," which is what it would be in various Slavic languages, but not in English? I took a box of Mrs. T's Pierogies and cut the carton and pasted that onto a note card as citational evidence. And you will find in the files, not just handwritten stuff from way back when or, taped or glue- on photocopies. But sometimes you will find like portions of boxes or whatnot appended to these note cards. Kory:     Oh yeah. I used to bring in things. At Merriam Webster, we had a filing cabinet where you put all of your marked materials, and we had a typists room--these poor women, their whole job was to type up citations and put them in our database and put them on cards. And I remember one day coming in--it was really early, early on in my time--coming in and someone had put like a Lean Cuisine box in the marking pile, and I went to go throw it away because I thought it was trash, and I saw someone had marked it. And then I went crazy. I think I've marked beer bottles and left them there. I remember marking diaper boxes when my kids were little. People mark menus, take-out menus-- Steve:   What's with the focus on food that we're all marking? Kory:     I'm really hungry. Yeah. Steve:   Speaking of those poor women, we had a poor intern in the early 2000s--for some reason we had our main citation file, but there was also a separate one that had been started for a separate purpose. And it was annoying because you'd always had to check in two places. So over the course of three summers with three different interns, they had to alphabetize this smaller set of cards into the main ones--which, not only putting it in the right place, but then that of course forces everything back. Kory:     Right. Steve:   So it was, for three summers, this is basically what a college student did. Kory:     That's life skills right there. I'm sure that's worth some kind of college credit. Steve:   Yeah. And so through examining these citations, you find evidence of how long a word might have been used, how widespread it is. We generally don't enter terms that are hyper-specific to one, you know, one occupation or one location. It's a general purpose dictionary. So there's usually some type of general frequency. By the time a specialized term has also reached the general public, that's one indication that it's time to go in. Kory:     Yeah. And I think the rate at which some specialized terms sort of become widespread is different. So I remember, both "AIDS" and "SARS" got into Merriam-Webster dictionaries really quickly, because it was, just sort of--all of that evidence was there right away. You knew that these were syndromes and diseases that were not going to go away. Steve:   Ditto with us for "Zika." Kory:     Yep. But the other thing that's really interesting is that, when you've got sort of this big body of words in front of you, you also see these really weird patterns of usage. Like, sometimes you'll have a word show up in print once every couple of years or once every five or 10 years, and then boom. And other times you have a word that shows up and booms right away, and then drops out of use really quickly. And particularly in the old days, when everything was dead-tree publishing, you couldn't justify entering a term that was brand-new unless you could justify that it was going to be around for another 10 years, because that was the lifecycle of a dictionary revision. And I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but in print publishing, you can't afford two or three lines on a page for a word that is just not going to be common in five years. Steve:   It's this test of ephemerality that used to be very important. Of course, nowadays you can just add a term online, and it won't necessarily make it into print. I remember one of the very last words we entered for the fourth edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary was "dotcom," and it was, this was still in the late '90s. It was, I think, right before or during the bubble. It was probably a little sooner than we normally might have, but it was like, "all right, this is now or never. This word is probably going to stick around." In that case, it's like, let's err on the side of caution and put it in. But even at that point, the writing was on the wall, as they say. Kory:     Yeah. And often, I mean, I don't know if it was like this for you, but I often found whenever we did revisions and we started looking through the citational evidence, I would always find more and more and more words to enter. And then you have to do this very weird--you have to get very choosy in weird ways. Steve:   Or, if you're working on a printing--and again, this refers back to the day of... Did I just use "refer back" right? Is someone going to ding me on that? Kory:     Sure, I don't care. Steve:   I don't care either. Ding me if you want. Kory:     Sense two! Sense two of "ding." Steve:   yes. Uh--what were we talking about? Referring back? What am I referring back to? Kory:     To print. Steve:   Oh, right. So if you're doing a new printing and, say, someone has died and you have to "open that page" to fix the death date, then you can go anywhere on that page! It's like, "oh, I can add this, I can add this." So just by the sheer alphabetic accident of where the word falls, it's like, "This page is open, I can insert this word." Whereas if it was spelled slightly different and fell on a different page, you might not have been able to do that. Kory:     Right. And which kind of--so, this underscores something that's really interesting too about dictionaries: that nobody realizes dictionaries are a commercial proposition. Everything is driven by how much will it cost, how much time will it take, will we recoup our expenses? And that's just, you know, that just doesn't happen very much with language. Steve:   Here's an anecdote. The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary was in full color. Kory:     oh ho ho Steve:   Which of course was expensive, but one thing it did: because the headword was in its own color, it meant that you didn't have to reverse-indent the entry. Kory:     Ooooh. Steve:   And because of that, the entries could be flush on the left margin, which gained us, like, two characters for every line of an entry after the first line. The Savings in space by getting those extra two characters aligned was one of the things that offset the cost of going into color. But of course, then we ate it up by just cramming that much more into it. The amount of space--I mean, when people...And this ties into our next bit about how do words come out of a dictionary (and the short answer is, not often), when we talked about all the new words that were added to the Fifth Edition that weren't in the Fourth Edition, and people said, "Where'd the space come from, it's the same length?" A lot of it was interesting design choices. Oh-- I'm sorry, that was between the Third and the Fourth. The fact that you didn't have to take up that space for the indent saved us, you know, allowed us to keep thousands of words. I mean, when you, look at two characters per line, over 2000 pages, that really adds up. Kory:     And you know, when people ask about getting a word into the dictionary, one of the other parts of the commercial bit that no one realizes is that, you know, we are _never going to be caught up_ with getting words into the dictionary. We are always, always, always behind, always having to make these weird editorial choices that are half-based on, is this page going to be open? Or if you're going online, even, how many people can we get on staff who are going to be able to do this kind of defining quickly? And then we need to have someone proofread it, and we have to have someone copy edit it, and then the pronunciation editor needs to go through it, and then the etymologist need to go through it. It's not just me farting around at my laptop saying, "I'm going to enter the word 'CRISPR' today!" That doesn't happen. It still needs to go through, you know, anywhere from five to 10 other sets of eyes before it makes it online. Steve:   "CRISPR" the gene editing? Kory:     Oh yeah. Naturally. Steve:   Shout out to Carl Zimmer. We can tweet at him after this podcast now. Kory:     So, so that's how words get in. It's through written usage. That's not historically always been how it is. The earliest English dictionary, the word lists were just sort of... In the 1600s and early 1700s, they were mostly just words that the single author thought of. So whatever they thought was worth entering, whatever they thought was worth studying. So early dictionaries were hard-word dictionaries mostly, and they were written mostly by wealthy white dudes. Steve:   And then, we're, of course, talking about living languages. If you are writing a dictionary of a dead language, it is possible to include every word. Because, you know, again, I always go back to Tocharian B. We know what words were used and unless there's another archaeological find where they find more inscriptions, the words that we have are the words that are there. And so you can have that finite list. Kory, how do words come out of a dictionary? Kory:     With difficulty. So I don't know what the criteria at American Heritage is, but generally speaking, once a ,word gets into the dictionary, people keep using that word or people feel like they now have license to use that word more. They feel like the word has been made official even though that is not at all what the dictionary does. Steve:   And like you said earlier, just that test for ephemerality. Because we're not adding words until we think they're going to stick around, there's, there's less chance of a word having to come out because it hasn't stuck. And you never know when it's going to come back to life. Kory:     Oh God. "Snollygoster"! Steve:   Oh yeah--you do "snollygoster" and then I'll do mine. Kory:     "Snollygoster!" So very quickly, the way that we determine whether a word is eligible to be removed from the dictionary at Merriam-Webster is, you need to prove that it has had no significant historical written usage, and that it has no current written usage. And that's within a timeframe of, it really depends, but I think when we were doing the Collegiate, we were aiming for 50 years of no written use. Which, that's actually impossible to find now that everything is digitized. Now you can go on Google Books and you can find one dude in 1956 who has used this word consistently in every article he's written and...so now it breaks it. So, actually, we enter far more words than we end up taking out. And when we do take words out, it has to be well considered. Enter "snollygoster." So "snollygoster" is a word that's a noun, it refers to a shrewd or unprincipled person. And it was removed from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary for the 10th edition, I believe. So that would have been '93. And at that point, you know, they reviewed the evidence and said, eh, has a lot of use back in the forties and fifties, but not really much since. And we need the space. You always need the space. So they pulled it out and then it turns out that William Safire _really_ loved the word "snollygoster" and began using it in his columns. And then Bill O'Reilly_really, really_ loved "snollygoster" and began using it on his TV shows. And so for the 11th edition, pretty recently, we had to put "snollygoster" back in, because now people are using it again. Steve:   And the example I like to use about the danger of removing words: in the late nineties when we were finishing up work on the Fifth Edition and we needed space on this one page, we talked about dropping the sense of "chad" associated with punch cards. Because usually when we do drop things for space, they tend to be geographical entries that are suburbs of Los Angeles or Chicago or something that's encyclopedic information. The space is much better used for a vocabulary word. But obsolescent technology is-- Kory:     Oh yeah, that's a big one-- Steve:   It's a fertile ground for possible deletions. And we almost deleted "chad." And then I remembered when it was going back and forth among the editors, I remembered that there were still some states that used punch cards for voting, and we're like, oh, well we should keep it in then. And lo and behold, one year later, right after the book came out, uh, _Florida_. And it's good that we kept it in, because suddenly "chad" was on everyone's lips. Kory:     Yeah. Hanging chads, pregnant chads-- Steve:   all those chads. Oh Chad. Kory:     _Chad._ Steve:   So, it's about that time. We hope that you have found this entertaining. Kory:     Yeah. And if you want to tweet at us, you can tweet at us. We are @FiatLexPodcast, F-I-A-T-L-E-X podcast. One of us will answer you. If you have things you want to hear on the podcast, let us know. Actually,both of these questions, how do words get in and how do words get taken out, were suggested by faithful Twitter followers. Steve:   Don't tweet at us that "FiatLex" is combining Greek and Latin. We know that and we'll talk about that in a later podcast. Kory:     Yeah, you'll have to get over that. So thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Steve:   Bye.  

Oh I'm sorry, do we need to say more? Feathered hair and a sneer never looked better.

Well Well Well... You've returned. Welcome back to another installment of The Nourishment Podcast. This week : For some strange reason, almost a smooth hour on Bill Cosby, the law, and ending up being wrong about everything you're thinking. Then, we get into Kanye West and some of his antics. Man.. We.. We don't know man. (This was recorded before the TMZ antics. We will follow up with that.) Of Course, it's some tangents thrown in there. Sit back, and enjoy. It's over two hours. Thanks for nothing, Dr. Huxtable. Follow us! @thenourishmentpodcast @r3ckl3ss_d @alljojoeverything

Some people would view the loss of a leg as a tragedy, or at least, a significant obstacle to pursuing the path they’d painstakingly planned out for themselves. For Melissa Stockwell, my guest on this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, losing a limb offered a second chance at a lifelong aspiration. As a young gymnast, she’d always dreamed of going to the Olympics. She practiced twice a day. Her walls were covered in Team USA posters, her entire life decorated in red, white, and blue. Her love for her country eventually took her to the Army and to Iraq, where in 2004 a roadside bomb took her leg. While recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she learned about the U.S. Paralympics. That, she knew, was where she needed to be. “Here I was, an athlete with a physical disability, and I was being told that I could compete on the world’s biggest athletic stage and represent a country that I defended over in Iraq,” she says. “What greater honor would it be to wear that USA uniform on that stage?” Stockwell picked a sport—swimming—and trained hard. She made it to her first Games in 2008 in Beijing. The experience was incredible but the results, not what she’d hoped. So she transitioned to triathlon, stayed dedicated, and won a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games. Standing next to her teammates on the podium—Americans took all three medals—was the ultimate payoff for all her challenges and sacrifices, she says. And it was all the more meaningful for having come after another major feat—having her son, Dallas. “To be in Rio on that podium as a medal-winning mom was really just really one of my greatest accomplishments,” she says. “I mean, when I think of that moment, I think about everything that went into it and just how amazing it was to be there.” Her path to the medal stand offers one compelling example of the way she digs deep to find the positive in any situation. But it’s far from the only way she’s wrested control of her own narrative, turning challenges into opportunities to transcend them. Sure, balancing training, speaking gigs, her role with the Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club (which she co-founded), and two kids under the age of 4 often proves tricky. But rather than bemoan her lack of time, she maximizes every 15 minutes, and draws a deeper motivation to push ahead from her children and the athletes who come through the Dare2Tri program. Of course, training comes with its peaks and valleys, days of exceeding your expectations interspersed with not-so-great rides, swims, and runs. Each day, she pinpoints one thing she did that drew her closer to her goal, even if was as simple as getting off the couch. And yes, she’ll be 40 by the time of the next Paralympics, in Tokyo. Her competitors are far younger, have fewer responsibilities. But age has brought her wisdom and a desire to show her children—she now has two, including eight-month-old Millie—that hard work pays off. So she’ll do everything she can to make it there. We won’t be surprised to see her on the podium again in 2020. Hear more about how Stockwell is working to involve women in the sport as chair of the USA Triathlon Women’s Committee, what tips she has for other busy moms trying to achieve big goals, and the special way she commemorates the day she lost her leg on this week’s episode. And if you like what you hear, subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts and leave us a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts.   --- Episode transcript: JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me,I have Kristen Geil and Cindy Kuzma. CK: Good morning, Jeana. KG: Hi Jeana. JAC: Good morning. And Cindy, you did the interview this week with Melissa Stockwell. Isn't that right? CK:Yeah, I'm Melissa Stockwell is a Paralympic triathlete. And she's also a veteran, she started an organization called Dare2Tri that helps other athletes with disabilities get into the sport of triathlon and fall in love with it as much as she did. She's an incredible guest and I was so excited to talk with her. KG:Melissa lost her leg in Iraq and throughout it all she's remained incredibly positive. How was she able to do so with such a traumatic experience in her past? CK:Yeah. I wonder how much of that is sort of integral to her personality and how much of it she learned along the way, But she really focuses a lot on finding the silver lining in difficult experiences. In fact, there's a great story about how she kind of has turned the loss of her leg around. I don't want to give too much away because it's, um, pretty fantastic the way she's turned that into a positive for herself, but really she just focuses on finding whatever she can to kind of make the story her own out of whatever obstacles she's faced and overcome. And you know, you can't control everything in life she talks about, but you can control your reaction to it. And she has really tried to do that to make her reaction in a positive one. JAC:And along the way, going through that experience in them becoming an athlete, she adopted this sort of interesting way to set and achieve big goals. Can you talk about how she uses small steps to achieve big goals? CK:Sure. Like many of the accomplished athletes we have on the podcast, you have to have a big goal, right? Like you want to be a Paralympian, an Olympian, and you want to be the best in the world, but it's pretty hard to just set your sights on that and then wait for it to happen. Right. You have to do a lot of work along the way and she talks about how she every day just tries to do whatever she can to achieve that goal. And then at the end of the day she writes down one thing she did that took her closer to her goal. So even if things didn't go exactly the way she planned, even if she had a run that wasn't great, at least she got out there and ran or she did something she didn't want to do and that took her a step closer to our goal and then she can reflect on all of those accomplishments later on and realize how much hard work she really did and how she's prepared to achieve what she set out to achieve. KG:And her life would be easy enough if all she had to do was train for triathlons or whatever sport she's competing in. But of course, that's never the only thing you're doing with your life at one time. There's always other things that demand your attention and your time. So how is she able to manage her priorities with a family and with a career? CK:So, she definitely has a lot more responsibilities now with the family, but that actually has helped her connect to a deeper motivation to her sport so she can't always do as much training, but she is really motivated to stay active and to show her daughter and all the other women out there that you can continue to have a career and a full life and be an accomplished athlete. So I think connecting to that really helps her continue to achieve. JAC: And here’s Cindy, with Melissa. CK: All right. This is Cindy Kuzma from aSweatLife and I am here on the #WeGotGoals podcast with Melissa Stockwell, who’s a Paralympian, and the co-founder of the Dare2Tri program. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us on the #WeGotGoals podcast. MS:Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. CKNow. Melissa, you just came back from a couple of trips I know, including to Sarasota for the American Championships. Is that right? MS:I did. I, um, in my first race back kind of post having my baby Millie who is eight months old today. So yes, I was down in Sarasota doing a race and it went quite well, much better than I expected it to. CK:That's always awesome when we have those victories when we don't even expect them. Right, right. Exactly. So Melissa, I know you were an athlete from an early age, you were a gymnast growing up. Right? MS:I was. So I was a big gymnast, so it was kind of my definitely my thing growing up, you know, I think as all young aspiring gymnasts do you know, dreamt of going to the Olympics and being an Olympic gymnast and had posters all over my room and you know, red, white and blue everywhere and gymnastics before school after school. And that was definitely what I hoped to do. CK:Yeah. I often think that people who have that early experience of being an athlete that really often shapes the way you think about goals and opportunities for the rest of your life. Do you think that that was the case for you? MS:I definitely think it helped. You know, obviously when I was younger I had had two legs, I had both of my legs. I didn't really know any different, I’d always been kind of goal-driven, so wanting to dream big and reach high and my parents kind of let me do that, which I think has shaped my life kind of this many years later and as I've grown up it's kind of allowed me to do, to do just that and just to keep going with it. CK:So how did you get from those early days to Iraq? What, what led you to service and what goal did you hope to accomplish there? MS:So I realized at a young age kind of, you know, how lucky we were to live in the country that we live in and always wanting to be in the military and to be in the Army. So I made that a reality in college when I joined ROTC and then, and when I graduated in 2002, I was commissioned as an officer and two years later I ended up being deployed over to Iraq. So, you know, I joined, I joined the army, I mean pretty short and simple. I love our country. I wanted to give back. That was really my, my main reason for, for putting the uniform on CK:And I know it didn't take too long after that before you had a change of plans. I know it was April 13th, 2004 when your convoy hit an IED and, and you lost your leg and we're talking now a little bit before that day in 2018 and I know you have a special tradition for our commemorating that, which maybe we'll talk about later. But what I'd kind of love to hear about first is, is how you shifted your goals and your mindset while you were recovering. Talk to me a little bit about the moment you kind of set your sights on the Paralympics and what effect having a big, audacious goal like that had on your rehab, both physically and mentally. MS:So. So after I lost my leg, I wasn't, you know, I was 24 years old, didn't really know what my life would be and I did all my recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and being there and being surrounded by so many other soldiers who had worse injuries than my own kind of helped me realize how lucky I was. So I wanted to kind of live my life for them and that those, that no longer could and have given that ultimate sacrifice. So after I learned to walk and wear a prosthetic, I learned about the US Paralympics and you know, having dreamt to go on to the Olympics as a young child and that never happened and it was almost like I had a second chance because here I was an athlete with a physical disability and I was being told that I could compete on the world's biggest athletic stage. MS:Represent a country that I defended over in Iraq. And I mean, what greater honor would it be to wear that USA uniform on that stage. So a dream was born pretty quickly of wanting to be a Paralympian and you know, I kinda set right to it, you know, somehow, some way I want it to be a Paralympian and it was kind of a natural goal I feel, you know, I think just having been an athlete growing up, been an athlete in the past, it was just kind of something that fell into my lap and the realization that if I worked hard enough and picked a sport and dedicated myself to it, that I could actually get there. CK:and, and you made it not once but twice in two different sports and I know you took home the bronze medal in triathlon in Rio in an American sweep, which was so incredible. And those are just two of the many things you've accomplished since then. So this kind of feels like a good time to transition into the first big question we always ask on #WeGotGoals and that is what is one big goal you've achieved, why it was important to you and how you got there? MS:So definitely when I think about the past many years, the one that stands out is winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games in the sport of triathlon. It was— everything that came with it. Everything from losing my leg over in Iraq to competing in the 2008 Paralympic Games in swimming, but not doing as well athletically as I thought they could, and then continuing with it and turn into the sport of triathlon, having my son Dallas and then trying to come back from that to make it to Rio, kind of everything that went that moment. All the dedication, the hard work, the sacrifice of having to be away sometimes from my family for training, for racing, the team that I was with, my coaches, my, my mentors, my family, everyone that kind of believed in me to get there, to be in Rio, on that podium as a medal winning mom was really just really one of my greatest accomplishments. I mean, when I think of that moment, I think about everything that went into it and just how amazing it was to be there. CK:I'm getting chills hearing you talk about it. We've talked to several elite athletes on this podcast and I'm always so curious about how they approach goals because it seems so overwhelming to say, like, my goal is to win a Paralympic medal be a world champion or be the best in the world and it seems like most people kind of break goals down into smaller chunks and maybe make them process goals versus outcome goals. Um, what did that look like for you when you were training hard for that, for those games? How did you approach goal setting? MS:So you're right, so goals, I mean you have this huge goal, like if you have a huge goal, it doesn't, it doesn't happen overnight. You don't. I don't say, Oh I'm going to qualify for Rio in the Paralympics and then wake up the next day and do it. It takes days and months and years of training and really believing that you can. So really, yeah, kind of taking it down into, into each day. So, you know, every day I wake up, I do my training and at the end of the day I kind of look back and I say, OK, what's one thing I did today that got me closer to my goal? And some days it's something as little as, I didn't want to go on my run, but I got up off the couch or I, I, I did what I had to do to make it happen. Whether the run was a good run or not, it doesn't matter some days. MS:What matters is just that you got out there and you did it when you didn't want to do it that day. Another day you look back and you say, wow, that run was amazing. I had this time goal and not only did I make it, but I surpassed it, and then that kind of makes all those other days of training that didn't go so well worth it and it kind of pushes you for the next block of training. So goals I think have to be broken down into little chunks and little steps at the end of every day. You can look back at your day and I guarantee you that whatever it is, even if it's the smallest little thing, there's something in that day that got you closer to that goal and some days they’re hard to find, other days are easier, but at the end of the, at the end of the day, you didn't have a good day. If it's a bad day, find the positive in it, find something that got you closer to that goal because it's there. Sometimes you have to just look a little bit deeper. CK:I love that so much and I can see how if you kind of stacked those moments on top of each other, you would also really stoke your confidence. Like you say, that is such an important of it too. Not just the physical preparation but the mental preparation. MS:Exactly, and you know, I think everything in life and especially goals as well. It's not this, it's not just an upward trajectory, right? I mean there's dips and there's valleys and there's peaks and—but it's a gradual, if you stick with it and if you stick with believing in yourself, having a team surrounding yourself with people that want you to get there, want you to, you know, reach those goals. The gradual trend is up, but it might, it’s all about when it does dip down, when you do have those valleys about not getting up and keep moving forward. CK:So how do you keep track of this moment? Are you a person who has a paper training log? Do you do it online or do you have some way that you are really capturing all of this to use later on? MS:So I used to have it written down where every day or either every night before I go to bed, I would write down what I did that day or the three good things that I did. And then every morning I would write down three things that I wanted to achieve that day. Since my daughter was born eight months ago. I have yet to continue that because I was kind of busy with, you know, middle of the night feedings and not, not a lot of sleep, but something that I should definitely start now that that’s getting a little bit better. I should start again because I think having it written down and being able to go back and look at that and you know, six months down the road, going back and looking back at the things that I achieved six months prior and realizing how far I've come from them can really help. CK:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that's what's so powerful about having those little rituals too, is that sometimes life does get crazy and you kind of move away from them. They give you something really sort of tangible to get back to, right. Like, you know, you can do that again. MS: Yeah, absolutely. CK: Let's talk a little bit now about Dare2Tri, which is an organization I know helps so many other athletes achieve their goals. What motivated you to launch it and how has it grown since? MS:Yeah, so back in 2011. Two of my friends, Dan Tun and Keri Serota and myself co founded Dare2Tri Paratriathlon Club. Obviously I'm an athlete with a physical disability and both Dan and Carrie are able-bodied athletes, but they’ve had worked with adaptive athletics all their life. So all of us were triathletes and kind of realized how much sports can impact somebody's life at all, but especially somebody with a disability. So we decided that we're going to start Dare2Tri and get however many athletes we could find that had physical disabilities and show them that they could do, not only be an athlete but they could be a triathlete. So we launched it back in 2011. It's based in the Chicago area and we had the modest goal to get eight athletes to do a triathlon that first year that had, where there was a amputation, visual impairments, spinal cord injury, and really provide the athletes with everything they needed to do a triathlon. MS:So expensive adaptive equipment, coaching, training and really helping them get to that starting line, so we started it and it grew faster than we ever could have imagined. Not only did we get eight athletes to that starting line in the first year, I think we were upwards in the, in the mid twenties, 24 athletes and then this many years later, seven years later, we have over 300 athletes on our roster. We have year round programming, we have camps, we had clinics, we have two, three-day camps, one that's for military, one that's for anybody with a physical disability and it's been really impressive and incredibly rewarding just to see how many lives we've impacted. Because you take somebody who has a disability, you know, take a youth athlete who's eight years old, they're in a wheelchair. Neither they or their families, you know, they're not sure kind of what their lives can be and how, that it doesn't matter if you’re in a wheelchair or not you can still accomplish whatever you want and you see them get to that starting line, cross the finish line and just kind of see that self confidence not only in them but in their families as well. And it, it's, it's really incredible. Our motto is one inspires many and our athletes inspire both on and off the race course. CK:Oh, that's got to give you fuel for your own accomplishments too, just seeing these athletes do things that they didn't think were possible for them. MS:Oh yeah, 100 percent. I do a lot of speaking around the nation and I get asked a lot like who inspires me and I am 100 percent inspired by our athletes. You know, anybody that doesn't think they could do something and they decide to go and try it and they realize that not only are they good at it and can they do it, but they actually enjoy it and then they continue on with it. So you know, our athletes in swear, anybody that sees them, but they help with my own goals and my own motivation as well. CK:I know that that's not the only way that you're working to help other athletes achieve their goals. You're also chair of the USA Triathlon Women's Committee. Tell me about that role and what goals do you hope to accomplish through that leadership position? MS:So USA triathlon has a good number of committees and the women's committee, which I recently the chair of, our goal is to get women into the sport of triathlon. So if any triathletes are listening, especially female triathletes, I think somebody asks you, Oh, what do you do and you say, Oh, I'm a triathlete, I swim, I bike, I run. And a lot of the response you get from women are, Oh, I could never do that. But the reality of it is actually yes, you can do that. So it's really what we hope to do as a committee is to really kind of break down those barriers. And when somebody, when a woman says, oh, I could never do that, you say, actually, yes you can. And this is why you can because there is a community of women athletes that are going to help mentor you to get there because there is a race you can go to and to start your career in triathlon. You can start out in a women's only triathlon or a women's only race and this is a uniform that, that you can wear and isn't it cool? You can pick from these colors and you know, it's not about winning the race, it's just about being out there and doing the race, so really kind of trying to break down those barriers on why women can be a triathlete and really to help them achieve it and to get to that finish line. CK:That's such an incredible goal. What does that look like in terms of like how you go about that? I mean are there conferences or is it just like individual outreach or group outreach? How, how practically speaking are. Is that committee working to make this a reality? MS:Yeah, it's kind of a combination of. So we have some partnerships with various other foundations kind of around the nation where each one of us has an athlete that we're mentoring to become a triathlete this year. We also provide grants, so grants to individuals that want to do their first triathlon to kind of help with travel or to help with coaching or to kind of help initiate the process on getting to that starting line. We also have grants that we give to women that are triathletes that are kind of looking to expand their leadership capabilities within triathlon, so if they’re a triathlon coach, but they want to take it to the next level and become a, get certified to coach athletes with disabilities or become a coach at the collegiate level to really kind of help women become advocates kind of within their own lives and kind of take that next step just so there's more females on the coaching level as well, so we provide resources on our Facebook page, it’s USA triathlon women's committee tips for women on how they can get into the sport and just hoping that women will take a liking and realize that they can do it also. CK:That's great that there's both informational and and financial support. I know that those are both really big needs for women who may be considering this kind of a sport. So that's, that's incredible. And thanks for giving the facebook page too. Because, yeah, I was going to ask how women can find out more about this. So that's perfect. The second big question that we always ask and #WeGotGoals is about a future goal you have and how you plan to get there and you've touched on some big goals that you have for the different organizations you're involved with. But I wonder what's, what's next for Melissa Stockwell? What's a goal you have personally? MS:So I have two young kids. I have an eight month old and I have a three year old and my husband Brian. And my kids motivate me to want to be, to dream even bigger and I want to kind of dream big and hopes that they see me dream big and they had big dreams of their own someday. So you know, I'm very athletically driven. I've found I have a passion behind sports and just the way it really makes me feel and just kind of proving to myself that I can still have these big goals, athletic goals, whether or not I have one leg or two. So for me, 2020 is the next Paralympic Games for triathlon and it is definitely a goal of mine in coming back from after having my daughter Millie eight months ago is not an easy thing to do, you know, a lot of my competitors are much younger than I am, no families, so the training dynamic is very different but the goal of showing them that I will be 40 years old, and as a 40 year old triathlete that has two young kids and I can still be out there on the course and not only that I can still be out there and be fast and keep up with them as well. MS:So that is definitely one of my big goals is to try and make it to Tokyo and kind of have that be my final Paralympic Games and just to do it to prove that I can and to challenge myself and just to show my kids that you put in the work and dreams can come true. CK:That's incredible to hear. And so interesting to hear too about how your motivation has changed a little bit or at least maybe expanded. I feel like often when I do talk to athletes who have long careers like you, they do find that like as life goes on, they find even more reasons to get out there and more fuel for the fire and, and more ways to stay motivated. So it's fantastic to hear that that's the case for you. MS:Yes, definitely. CK:And obviously that is like sort of a logistical challenge too, to train with the family. What are one or two of the things that have shifted for you and what advice do you give other people about fitting it all in when you have a family and, and want to train at a high level. MS:It's hard. There's never enough hours in the day, there weren’t before I had kids and now there definitely aren't. So I think fitting in what you can when you can and my coach had taught me that, that if I have 15 minutes to go on a run before kids, I would've thought that's not even worth it. Why would I even go for 15 minutes? But you go and you run a mile or a mile and a half, and instead of doing nothing that day while you've just gotten a mile in and those miles add up and they make a difference. The other things I've had to do is just kind of adjust my time so you know, instead of waking up and having breakfast and then doing whatever I do and then doing my workout, I again, I had to do what I can when I can. So in the summer when it's not cold and icy, I was known to put my kids down to bed because of course you want to spend as much time as you can with them. So I put him down to bed, 8:30 PM, put on a reflector vest, put on my headlamp and actually on my run around the neighborhood. Things that I never thought I would do that in order to make it work. It's things like that that you have to do. So get that headlamp, get that reflector vest.  Use, if you have 15 minutes, take those 15 minutes and do what you can with that much. Really just any little time that you have throughout the day, just doing what you can when you can. CK:Yeah. I think it's just like we were talking earlier about, you know, noticing your accomplishments for the day like that—all those little bits definitely add up to something much greater in the long run. MS:Yes, yes they do. CK:When you speak or give advice to others, what are, what are one or two of the key lessons you share about overcoming obstacles that come up in route to your goals? MS:When we're younger, we have, you know, you have these dreams of what you want your life to be like, right? Like you want be a doctor, you want to live in this area, you want to be married, you want to have kids, but it never happens that way. I think the older we get, the more we realize that you can't really plan your life because you can plan it to an extent, but there's so many obstacles and kind of twists and turns that happen that you're not prepared for because you don’t, there are so unexpected, but I think knowing that those things happen, that those roadblocks come up and that there's going to be diversions you know, to get to where you want to get and just the ability to really accept them and to really, to overcome them and to find a silver lining because it's hard to find a silver lining, but it is there. MS:And to really kind of dig deep and find a way to make whatever difficulties come your way, like to make them almost desirable and to make it so you end up even better. On the other side, you, you learn from your challenges and you make, in turn, they make you better in the long run. Another thing is to do that, you have to. You have to believe in yourself, but you also have to, you know when these obstacles come your way, you, you have the power to choose how you want to react to them. So that's kind of the beauty in life, right? You can choose for them to get to you and put you down or you can choose to help them make your life even better. So to try to choose to take the high road and you know, to help them make your life as good as you want it to be. So we can all choose what we want our life's path to be like. And just to try to choose to make your path to good one. CK:Those stories we tell ourselves definitely so powerful and can really shape our experiences and our future. I know. So I mean along those lines, April 13th is coming up and we mentioned this earlier, but talk to me a little bit about how you commemorate this because I think that it's such a great example of what you were just talking about. MS:Yeah. So, um, it is coming up, but I'll just a few weeks now. So every April 13th, which is a day that I lost my leg over in Iraq, every year we actually celebrate the day. So I named what’s left of my leg Little Leg and we have a birthday for Little Leg. So this year will be Little Leg’s, sounds kind of crazy to me but 14th birthday, which, I can’t believe it’s been 14 years. But it's really a celebration, so family and friends drive in or fly in. We celebrate the day. We celebrate not just Little Leg’s life or my life, but really everybody's life because in the day to day lives that we live, it's easy to get kind of caught up in everything that's going on, but when you take a moment or a day to kind of take a step back and to think about your life and it’s, we’re all very lucky to live the lives that we do. So just to take a day to celebrate that and to be with your loved ones and to celebrate, to dance, to, to eat cake, to, to share some drinks and just to kind of enjoy, enjoy life. CK:Well Melissa, that's such good advice and thank you so much for joining us on the #WeGotGoals podcast. Before I let you go, how can people find you and keep track of you and keep tabs on the celebrating that you're doing and all of the accomplishments that you have in the future? MS:Social media is obviously the best way. I do have a website that's melissastockwell.com. On Facebook, it’s Melissa StockwellUSA and then on both Twitter and Instagram it’s mstockwell01. So I encourage everyone to kind of follow along. I promise that there is never really a dull moment CK:And lots of adorable baby photos, that's for sure. Well thank you again Melissa. It's been great talking with you. Really appreciate your time. MS: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. CK:This podcast was produced by me, Cindy Kuzma and it's another thing that's better with friends, so please share it with yours. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and if you give us a rating or review while you're there, we would be so grateful. Special things to J. Mano for our theme music; to a guest this week, Melissa Stockwell; and to Tech Nexus for the recording studio.  

[00:00:01] You were listening to the apex hour on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations onstage. We will also give you some new music tools into and hope to turn you on to new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3pm on the web at suu.edu/apex or email us at suuapex@icloud.com. But for now welcome to this week's show here Thunder ninety one point one. OK. Well we have one more best of show for you this week. This week I'm traveling one last time for the semester I'm all up in Salt Lake recording some videos for some music educational shows but I promise we'll be back live next week but in the meantime we have a great best of show for you this week. We're going to start with part of our talk with Dr. Elisabeth Churchill when she was visiting campus earlier in the semester. She had some amazing things to say about psychology about teamwork and just about her work with Google in California. So listen in. Best of Show last of the semester. Enjoy. [00:01:27] The human condition and human interaction has just been it's kind of a part of your DNA it seems you're just always observing it and aware of it and very interested in have in cohabiting with it. Can you talk a little bit more about how psychology maybe influences your current work and that might be a great sort of introduction to what human computer interaction is for you today. [00:01:51] So psychology's a vast area. So back in the day we used to talk about it as sort of the biological and perceptual which is what does the body do. How do you see how do you hear that psychology. But then there's developmental. How do you develop from a child. But how do you develop in learning. And there's more social. So you know how do you interact with others and how do others affect you and how you part of groups. So in the work that I currently do with material design for Google you know everything from what does an interface look like. So think about your phone. You know what can you see. What are the colors do what stands out for you. That's perception. You know if you swipe and move something how do you perceive that how does the voice sound to you. That's psycho acoustics the sound of a voice and how it makes you feel. And then we go to things like problem solving and reasoning you know is the information presented in a way that you can read it and you can understand it to know what you're trying to do is the task clear. Have you ever picked up your phone and you got an app and you open it and then you're like I do not know what to do next. Right. Psychology will tell you a little bit about what information you need to know in order to do the next thing. So there's perception and invitation and problem solving. And then of course we go to the social so you know if this app doesn't work and you don't get to talk to the person you want to think about social media how is that changing the way you interact with people. Do you do you speak to them more frequently less frequently. How do you feel about yourself and your identity. Do you think that your social media presence puts pressure on you or gives you joy. So we go all the way up to really thinking about the deep psychological emotional states which is what most people think of when they say psychology but actually psychology is all about from seeing to hearing to listening to meaning to problem solving and how all of that affects your emotional space as well. [00:04:02] It's just amazing. I mean I've you know I use my phone all the time I think about my phone all the time I think about social media all the time but really I mean you are just looking at all of it from so many different angles and all of them are psychological. It's it's fascinating to think of it from that.It must be so exciting on a day to day for you I'm sure. [00:04:23] Oh absolutely absolutely is and you know people who kind of go to bed with their phones and it's like their pet and their best friend. And if you've ever lost a phone there's losing the phone because the information on it but so many people feel like they've lost a friend and it's that deep crisis. Amazing. [00:04:41] I'd like to turn to some of the positions that you've held and so our listeners can kind of get a little more of a trajectory of some of the companies that you work for of course we know you currently work for Google as one of the directors of user experience. And can you maybe talk a little bit more about the specifics of that position. I know we just kind of went over the concepts but what does a Director of User Experience do and how has that position evolved. I know it's evolved quite a bit. [00:05:09] Yes so what we do what I do most of the time is I have a fantastic group that works for me with many different skill sets from software engineering to design to experimental to anthropology and ethnography because we want to deeply understand this experience of using apps and phones and other devices. But my job is really to come in make sure everybody is clear about what they need to do to partner with it manages to work with my V.P. to see where we're going to work with the director of the material design system to see where the strategy is so we build that together and to think about the long term future and then to help the people in my team understand what they need to do next get the resources for them to help my boss understand why I need additional resources maybe more people to do certain things and to basically prioritize it was a huge amount of my work is just listening watching understanding where we are with regard to goals looking at goals and seeing whether they're realistic or not at all or in certain timeframes. I mean readjusting is needed if the resources are available or not available but also just real people development. So for me a big part of my job is making sure every single person on my team understands what they're doing why they're doing it that it's important that it's part of their career trajectory as well as part of the product success and Google's success so that part of a bigger thing in the corporation even if what they feel they're doing is small and it's really critical but also part of we are part of their career and their life going forward. So it has to be mutually beneficial and growth on both sides. And my best people my best people are going to grow and they're going to go on. And that is sad but it's also exactly what needs to happen right. It's a little bit of that. I know you've had some path in academia. It's a little better that academia and that mentor ship creeping back and it sounds like I really believe in I believe it's. It's a manager's role to amplify the people that work for them and to learn from the people that work for them. It just that's what you should do and have to do and at a place like Google you are resourced to do. Google is very very very supportive of managers and manage developing management developing people. The Director of User Experience position is relatively new and has expanded. If I have heard correctly. Can you tell us a little bit about that. Yes so we had a lot of really great user experience professionals but the director level there's only been a couple there were a couple of people appointed to director level which is the highest level you can get and user experience. A couple of years ago when I came in as the first person from the outside to get that position and now I think we're up to 5 now maybe even more because we're just you know we had a round of promotions. But Google is investing enormously in this user angle in the human centered angle and recognizing that what we need is to bring leadership in from other companies and grow our own leadership. So it might be more than five now. Last time I looked it was 5 but it's really exciting for me to see that Google is promoting people and hiring people into this role at very senior levels. [00:08:45] That's fantastic. Well it's time for a musical break but when we come back I'd like to continue the conversation about team building teams managing teams. I've been I've been eating this information up because I'm really interested in management and leadership and teamwork. So stay tuned to continue for that. Again you're listening to thunder ninety one point one. This is Lynn Vartan and I've got a few songs to play for you today. The first one is called Me Voy. And it's this amazing group called Ibeyi that I'm really turned on and passionate about. And so this is Me Voy by Ibeyi. And this is the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one. [00:12:28] All right well welcome back. This is the apex hour. I'm Lynn Martin. This is Thunderer ninety one point one and we are joined in the studio by the amazing Dr. Elisabeth Churchill. Welcome back. And one of the things I'd like to talk about was one of the topics we touched on before which was teamwork a lot of what you do is building teams managing teams supporting teams and then working of course with teams to make amazing things happen. Can you talk a little bit about your style of leadership and I know you've been saying it may be a little different than the average Joe but it sounds amazing to me. And so the kinds of things you think about in terms of your leadership and your team and how that all works. [00:13:15] Yeah sure. I tend to bring people into my team who are very curious and who are self starters in some way that they're desperate to learn and they want to learn. I also really emphasize collaboration. So I want you to be really good at what you do and I'm going to support you to develop. We have a job to do for Google but I also want you to give you an assist to your teammates. So I strongly foster collaboration and my sort of way of thinking about things is that you know you have a portfolio of work that you do and say 60 percent of the work is very immediate product focused. And we don't really have impact we're going to get something done 20 percent should be things that are a little bit further out for you and 20 percent should really be about you know you're developing skills and the sensibility and the perspective that will be the future for you and for us potentially. So always about growing and I try to have the team be as diverse as possible and bring their ideas in. I love to talk and I can be a bit loud so I always tell my folks you know you get to tell me to simmer down. I like to encourage independence but collaboration and encourage the idea that you work on my team and you develop and you develop but if you get to the point where you feel you've grown beyond your interests have changed. Then we're all going to work together to get you into the next space. The next thing you want to do. So I really believe in the team but I try to keep a focus on the individual and the team so that they feel they belong and they can grow and they are strongly contributing. I love the duality that you foster with confidence and curiosity. I just think that as a teacher I really connect with that I really love that as a message for leadership. I know the communication component is also a big aspect of things for you. Can you talk about how that manifests itself in your team and how you helped to lead that. So a lot of people come in and they're very good at what they do and they think that their job is to do what they do and they then get surprised that actually they need to spend you a big chunk of that job actually communicating. So you know you might come in You're a great designer and you know your preference might be to design all day and you know you want to not talk to other people because that's who you are. And I respect that but I'm going to try and push you to start talking to others about your craft and sharing your rationale for what you do. Sharing your rationale will allow you to be reflective but sharing it will also give you confidence when you see others appreciate it. It will develop your rhetorical skills when you see what lens and what doesn't. And it will help the whole team to get more reach if you like. Now you could be the kind of person who comes in and you're like hey I only want to do the design work 40 percent time and that is great. I will help you figure out where you want to communicate and how and where you can bring your skills to the communication design as well. So people are different but the biggest challenge with you know young folk coming in is often they think they've got the job to do the thing they're trained in and they have. But they've also got the job to communicate what they're trained in and help level others up and to share the products of their labor and to get those out. And that's the way your team will have big reach. You know I can't be the only spokesperson for my work and for the team's work the team you know the junior people are going to be having lunch with others. They're going to be you know having opportunities to spread the work in other cohorts in other social situations they can go to you know happy hour mixes and spreading the word and knowing that they're an ambassador for their work but also for the team's work amplifies our presence and effectiveness. So helping them build confidence that that is their role. [00:17:28] Them have the skills to do the communication and the rhetorical skills to make sure that their great ideas land is beneficial to all. That's fantastic. I love it. I'd like to revisit the end of our we had a luncheon today and we were doing a little bit of talk back and you had this great I asked you a question about qualities or traits that you look for in team members or things that you think that undergraduates were mostly an undergraduate institution here but things that you think that undergraduates or even graduate school grad students could be developing. And I loved and I know some of it's an overlap from the previous question but I loved these four words that you hope for you remember I can remind you but these four qualities I thought were really special if you could share them with our audience. Sure. So it's curiosity and confidence yeah vanity and voyeurism. Love it. And so the curiosity is you know always keep curious. Often you know when you've had great teachers and you really respect them you know you can think that what they say is the answer and that can dull your natural curiosity because you think the answers are laid out for you. You have to bring your curiosity your you know alternative perspective feed that curiosity always ask questions. Don't think you have to know you know. Be curious. Confidence is related to that because I find a lot of young people come in and they're very very good but they don't have the confidence to own that curiosity and the skill and to be able to say to me a much more senior person that is interesting. Why do you think that. Can you help me understand that or here's a thought that I had. What do you think of that. So you know every encounter needs to be another opportunity for you to learn so you're curious you get to learn your respectful you're thoughtful and you're not treating the other person no matter how senior as if they have all the answers that you have to run away and execute on. You know I want you to be able to bring challenge in the best sense of the word to things. And the vanity and voyeurism is you know people we have to care about ourselves. We have to have some self nurturing. We have to celebrate our achievements. Yes. And you know it's called sort of vanity I mean back in the day in Britain it was like if you talked about yourself you were vain by vanity. I mean take pride in yourself and care. Don't be prideful but you know be be proud of your achievements and let others be proud with you. Yes. And you take away a little bit of a hey high five me you know really kind of lovely humble and bracing way and voyeurism is all human beings are curious about others so watch others see who you want to emulate and who you admire. You know watch how they do what they do try and emulate try and learn from them. You know nobody in the world is the first person to do pretty much anything. You don't have to be the lone rugged individual. You can learn from others celebrate their achievements and take on some kind of doppelganger ness of them and build yourself and learn and then carve your own path from what you've learned from them. And so I think vanity is sort of nurturing self voyeurism is observing and nurturing others and learning from others. Yeah I love those four. I just love those traits like this. I'm definitely going to steal them and use those words in my teaching because of course it's crossed up discipline. I mean that can just as easily apply to music instruction which is what I do. And as it as it can to what you do in your discipline as well. [00:21:26] So thank you so much for those concepts. Absolutely. I like to now talk a little bit. I know. I understand that you have had a fantastic experience with eBay and you think very fondly of your time at eBay. Tell me a little bit about that time and about what made it so special for you. [00:21:44] Well it was about people really so closely you know the team I worked with was there were amazing but also you know eBay was the first social platform. It was the first place it was the first marketplace it was the first social platform right. And eBay was putting people in touch with each other around goods you know the circulation of goods things that you don't want anymore. But I do. So it's about value and it's about honoring things it's about valuing materiality and a really good way. So all of the sort of sustainability stuff all of the values stuff you passed something on that had value to you. Now it has value to someone else. EBay is also you know it's allowed a lot of people who otherwise would not have been able to have businesses create businesses. There are a lot of wonderful stories of you know single moms who sold stuff on eBay and made a little bit of money and kept themselves going as a real mom and pop stores who basically you know they were maybe in some way very rural but they got to have outreach and a customer base way beyond. So you know eBay has seen its ups and downs but as a value system as a company that really is trying to circulate goods that exist and have meaning for people and put people in touch with people. I just found it really exciting to be part of that. Yeah. Do you have a favorite memory from your time there or a favorite story. I'm sure there are many. So I have a favorite story which was about somebody hit create something great game of thrones is a big thing. I personally don't watch it. It is a big thing. And so somebody had created a chain Almah guinea pig where hamsters guinea pigs hamsters suit the day for the actual animal for the animal. And they put it on eBay and somebody picked this up and it became a meme that just went around because it was so well made and so silly and so fun that somebody picked it up and it went in for charity. And so it started to snowball and snowball and I think they made like 20000 dollars for this guinea pig chain mail outfit which went to charity Fantasma and there were things like that happening on ebay every day all day quirky things fun things and stories about you know I found a plate that you know my mom would have had. And now I have the plate. And it reminds me of my mum. And you know I'd never thought I'd see a plate like that again. So it's really deeply emotional as well as super practical. And it's those stories that really warms my heart. [00:24:29] That's just beautiful and you have just such wonderful memories from there it sounds like your. I think it was your first major position was at Fuji Xerox. Can you tell us a little bit about how how that was and the transition from being a student into that position or into your first sort of full time thing. [00:24:52] Well I started well my studentship went on to be a postdoc. So did my Ph.D. then I did my postdoc and then I really wanted to go into academia. But Fuji Xerox as a company had a research lab called effect's pal affects ph L in Silicon Valley and I knew people who sort of were affiliated to it. And so I was all set to go into academia. But I'd been working on virtual environments and remote communication and eFax Powell had a role they wanted to try and build communication between researchers in California and researchers in Japan just outside Tokyo. And so I was one of the few people at that time who had been thinking about these virtual environments and chat spaces and so forth for communication and collaboration. And so they asked me to come over and I came over and built a research team and worked with the most senior researchers to build communication tools to allow collaboration between researchers in California and in Japan. That was how that all started. My intention had always been to go back into academia. But I've was very supportive and they allowed me to keep publishing and doing work with students and I continued to do classes here and there and supervised students. So I kind of got the best both worlds. [00:26:13] That was Elizabeth Churchill here on the apex hour. This is the best of show. I'm out of town this week. But you're listening to the apex hour on KSUU Thunder ninety one point one and I'm your host Lynn Vartan. We have another clip from our Best of the spring and that is when we have the wonderful conversation here in the studio with several members of our allies on campus community are LGBTQ plus community. Just talking about all the different resources that were available. It came from a wonderful live event where Claudia Bradshaw who is one of the founders of the flag chapter here in Utah came and talked about her experience with her son and her family's story. And we just open that conversation up later on in the outer talk about all the different things that are facing our LGBTQ plus friends on campus and in our community. Listen in. Again this is the best of show. Lynn Vartan here talking to you for the Apex hour KSUU thunder ninety one point one. [00:27:14] I've kind of like to continue that as as we go on into this next segment and that conversation is today we've been really celebrating all of the resources and the projects and the programs that are available. But that's not the whole story. I mean there's still a long way to go and there are still a lot of difficulties facing the LGBT community here in Cedar City at SUU and in Southern Utah in general. What concerns you guys or what are the things that you feel were is the growth needed. What are the concerns. What are the things you have on your mind with regards to where we need more growth. [00:28:00] I think the largest I see looking at increasing racial diversity with the pride and equality club here on campus and then looking at you know LGBTQ plus communities of color in Utah looking at that double isolation of living in a state where the predominant population is white and it is also culturally not accepting of LGBTQ plus identities. Right. So I think those who do live at those intersections I think uplifting those voices are also really important in providing them with services that will validate those two identities not just that that transgender identity or the gay identity. They're not monoliths that when you also add this cultural background that adds a different layer to that experience. And I know that there's been a lot of work with immigrant advocate groups up in Salt Lake. Like many of us Utah they do a lot of work to also ensure that when they're doing undocumented outreach they're also looking at if you have LGBTQ I.A. plus identify partner. The process might look different a little different for sponsorship or things like that. So ensuring that those people who live in those different intersections are also being uplifted and we're not overgeneralizing populations right. Great isolation. John I know you feel pretty strongly about that part of the top part. That piece of the puzzle as well. Yeah and you know a tragic consequence a lot of the isolation is the extremely high suicide rate among the LGBT population especially trans people and gay men in particular. And one of the things we're trying to do in a larger sense beyond issue you just with a Southern Utah developing a larger southern Utah community is trying to break down that isolation where we aren't quite as isolated as it might seem. I mean we are culturally isolated we're geographically isolated but there are more people here than you might realize and we're trying to get the word out that there are more people here. There is a larger community that maybe people don't realize. And so we're trying to establish a larger community in that sense. We have a Facebook page. Discover pride Southern Utah. We're working on another Web site. There's always a Pride event every year. But establishing more community events throughout the year not just a once a year pride festival. I mean it's obviously great but we're trying to do more throughout the year. And these are all things being developed right now kind of with that Claudia Bradshaw just walked in. [00:30:30] I know we have more to add to the conversation. Our guests from earlier today has joined us in the studio. Welcome Claudia. Thank you. And we're so glad that you were here. Thank you so much for your time today. I've loved doing everything. It's been wonderful. We say and maybe this is what we've been talking about lots of resources. Maybe you could give our listeners I know you talked a little bit about it this morning but also give our listeners the opportunity to understand a little bit about what flag offers and the St. George chapter. OK. [00:31:07] Pflag was started years and years ago. But the main three main purpose is to educate and to support and to advocate for equal treatment. That's great. And how is how is that chapter doing today. How are things going. Who. It's been a little bit hard for me lately because my husband passed away and so I haven't been having meetings like I should so I still want to I'm glad to see we have someone up here. They're going to do that to have some meetings and I'll be glad to come up for those. Absolutely. We've been breaking all kinds of news today right we broke the news about the programming for Pride Week and about the showing of The Believer film and earlier today we also sort of broke the news. It's brand new that the flag chapter and again this is parent more of a parent support group but really can be anyone. Come on come all. And that that flag chapter is in the works to be started started here in Cedar City. And my understanding is that their first official meeting is going to be two weeks or a week from next Monday. So that would be like March 4th somewhere around there if anybody has and I believe it's March 7th the first Wednesday first Wednesday. [00:32:30] Wednesday will be in the library from 8 till 9 that evening. Okay perfect. And that's going to be at the Cedar City Library the SU library. OK. Oh wait. No I'm not sure. [00:32:40] Cedar City [00:32:42] Oh I'm not sure. Let me double check yeah. And so again I get everything we've talked about today is going to be on on the Allies website on this center for diversity inclusion. But that's another opportunity that's coming up. And that group is going to be meeting at either the library or the Cedar City library might be Cedar City Wednesday March 7th at 8:00 7:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m.. OK great. So that's a brand new thing that started. So we've got that momentum going in Cedar City for the Pflag chapter which is awesome. That is awesome. I would like to have some time. One of these times when there's a meeting to discuss coming out and maybe a procedure that would help some. I noticed there's some who are still not out to their families. Yes. And hopefully that what I could do it in a way that could help them so that the family can stay together. That's one of my main goals anyway. Personally I hate to see families be torn apart and that's really been one of your main platforms in your work and that's one of the things that's been so amazing is really keeping that love that the love in the family is strong. [00:34:00] Do you have any advice for anybody listening who may not be able to get to these events or any resources that you'd like to share or even just thoughts and ideas about how to start that conversation. [00:34:15] They're welcome to call me I'm going to give I give them my telephone number is 4 3 5 3 1 3 3 3 6 6 and I would be glad to have a conversation with them and maybe recommend books. There's a book that's called coming out an act of love. That means if your child comes out to you he loves you enough he wants to make sure that he's part of the family. That's pretty big. Yeah that's that's an amazing part of it. Well your story has been so powerful and it was so powerful again today. Do you want to share any particular bits that you've been thinking about or that you want our listeners to know. Because this is part of the podcast series which will be available on the Web site after the event and I'd love to give you the opportunity to just say more. I would also like to say to to the families to decide if they if their child comes out to them give it gives them a chance to to learn and to get educated. I have books available and some that I could recommend for the parents so that they can read read them and not and they don't want to destroy their relationship with their child. Vice versa so good education on how to do it. My son was so well-prepared when he came out to me it helped me. I'm not sad I didn't make some stupid comments that I did. But he was patient and I think Brian is here to talk to us. He has something to say. [00:36:06] So I'm from Chicago and we arrived here on campus. There is a lot of competing events. Mitt Romney being one of them. And I was staggered at a completely full conference room yeah diverse with both allies faculty students racial gender. It was all there. Yeah. So impressive. And all of these people care and are engaged and wanted to talk about this even if they weren't part of the LGBTQ. Well they are part of the community. Yeah but it's just very impressive that you know there is a strong community here. And I think it's pretty galvanized it seems or at least has a lot more potential but very very impressive and people shouldn't feel alone. And I think that's kind of been one of the themes today that we were just sort of getting into before you arrived. And that is that that fighting that the hardest part which is that isolation and and you you came on campus today as you said from Chicago and you came away with hey you're not alone. We have. There is a vibrant community so anybody listening we just want to you know make sure that that you know that that you're not alone and there is a community here and there's events and there's all kinds of things going on. And if you if you want to get involved or you want to check it out. You know we we everybody wants you there and you're not alone and there's plenty of love and plenty of compassion awesomeness going on and everything and as I said just to reiterate the places you can find information. The Center for diversity and inclusion. [00:38:01] The Allies web page and they all have social media associated with it. So just googling Suu allies or center for diversity and inclusion. And we're going to take one last musical break. I've got one more song to play for you. And this song is called Tiger and the artist is John moon. And the album is called Moonshine corner. Check it out and you are listening to the APX hour right here on Thunder ninety one point one screen round how many fans cameo cameo for much that sense is close enough that go dancing around the shots all right well welcome back everyone. We are super excited to have you back here for our last break. We were just chatting over the break about how much things have changed and how awesome that is that things have changed so much Claudie. You were just sharing that story about that was graduation. Here you were just talking about and how different it's been and how. Now you know you're really enjoying what you're seeing. I hope on campus. Awesome yeah handsome to see the change. Well I wish we had hours and hours and hours spent. But in our last little bit of time here we're going to do our our what's turning you on this week. Everybody's favorite segment and everybody's kind of giggling here. And this is the time where we talk about what's making you excited and just to kind of share things and it can be anything it could be a movie or a TV show a podcast a book or something else. So who would like to start. Chris do you have yours. [00:43:59] I'm going to give a very literal answer to the question that you pose so I'm going to say Gus Kenworthy are gay Olympian Sochi medalists and now Pyeongchang competitor. That's my answer. That's perfect. And what's this event again. Does it matter. He's extreme skiing. Oh yes stream winter sports. I love it. Ok cool. Great. [00:44:23] And how are you John what's making you what's turning you on this week. [00:44:27] Well now the Chris took mine I'm going to go with a more academic response and thanks to Johnny McClain for the recommendation. But there's a book called Whistling Vivaldi that is just amazing. It's a great but it's really incredible. It's about it's stereotype threat and just the background of how it works when you are a marginalized or minority group. How the stereotypes that follow your group affect your performance in the real world and it's really just a fascinating book that's been actually getting quite a bit of press and the title again is whistling Vivaldi and I can't remember the author's name. Do you remember. Steele I think that sounds about right but whistling Vivaldi is really a great book. And it's been on a lot of the list and I know it's been talked about on NPR and all these kinds of things so definitely check that out. Great Braden How about you. [00:45:25] My mom. Ah filthy. But it's true she's a rock solid rock star so it makes me really happy to see her get that credit because I know what she's the work she's done how much it matters and then also just being here. I see you today I mean staggering what's going on and there are so many resources and good stuff happening. Wonderful to see you. I love it. Yeah I see the diversity is sexy. I love that much new bumper stickers sounds are new center motto city I love it. Hashtag diversity. [00:46:08] Claudia how about you. What's making you excited this week. This today was so wonderful because we had so many people who did come to to listen and to speak and share. And it was all about love. And so that always is a turn on for me. Love is eternal. [00:46:26] That's wonderful. Well I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you Claudia and Braden and John and Chris for spending the hour with me today on the apex hour. As you all know where we are subscribe lable on iTunes the podcast you can just google suu apex or do the search on the podcast and subscribe. Leave us a review. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to see the podcast go into the ratings and get some traction. Also we just want to recap a few of the resources. The Center for Diversity and Inclusion is right here on campus in the Sharwan center room 101 and also on their website you can find everything calendars social media pages and everything like that. Also on the Allies page which is Su dot edu slash allies. We want to remember that there's that. Ask us anything button. So get on there it's completely anonymous if you have questions or you're looking for resources or anything like that. And then early in the show Claudia gave you her phone number which you know if you really are looking for some support she is a loving mother to us all. So thank you guys so much for taking the time and spending the hour with me today. It was really great. Thank you. [00:47:46] Well that does it for our last best of show the semester and next week we will be back in the studio live. And this is the apex our every Thursday 3 p.m. KSUU ninety one point one. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the apex hour here on Thunder ninety one point one can find us again next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex Or email us at suuapex@icliud.com. Until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the apex hour thunder Ninety one point one.

So the month ends...so a new month begins. So goes the Life of a salesperson & being you & I are selling our way through Life- I'm taking to you (& me). A couple of weeks ago a salesperson was having a rough go of the month telling me he NEEDed to make a certain amount to pull his month out...we talked about some things and he got it together and made his month...but once he got it he let up. Today's episode is talking about working from a “Need” mindset all month long ...not just when you're in crises mode.

The "Oh I'm odd. I'm very odd." edition. 00:44 - A Fantastic Woman 15:00 - Cultural Capital Film Diary 17:50 - An interview with Melbourne Women in Film Festival director Sian Mitchell 29:25 - Love Serenade It's not enough to celebrate the Melbourne Women in Film Festival, we have to talk to its creator and find out why we'll be back again next year. The festival's opening night film, the 1996 Australian romantic comedy classic Love Serenade gets a thorough discussion, as does the new release, the Chilean Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee, A Fantastic Women. All of this plus the Cultural Capital Film Diary. If you'd like to hear our thoughts on other new releases, we reviewed Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool in episode 36, and The Square on MIFF 2017 Dispatch 3. Here's a link to Love Serenade writer director Shirley Barrett with her exciting new wave band The Fruit Pastilles and their song I Don’t Ever Want to See You Again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Sg48V1lWo Facebook: Cultural Capital Podcast Twitter: TheCultCapPod

How to give yourself a competitive edge, build your brand and bring in business through speaking. Deirdre Van Nest shares top speaking tips to win customers. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: “Where The Insurance Pros Meet” is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you’re going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode seven. Deirdre Van Nest: Every time you speak you have the opportunity to attract people to you, to build up your brand, to bring in business, or the opposite. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers the very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top one percent producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. Today is an exciting day, I promised myself and the listeners that when I started this show, in my opinion the best, the greatest platform for really investment reps or insurance agents of Where the Insurance Pros Meet anyone that's in the financial services industry that I would search out and even have brand new agents, veteran agents, top speakers, top thinkers and minds in the industry, so today we have a very, very special guest. We have someone and let me give you a little background before I give you all the goods. As you may or may not know I'm speaking in Lamp in 2018 for Gamma as a multiple line speaker and I fly in to Chicago and right before I'm going into my rehearsal where they do provide a professional speech coach I'm fortunate enough to sit next to the next speaker that arrived a little bit early and just so happens she is a professional speech coach. To me that was very lucky to build a quick friendship the few minutes we had together I knew this individual was special, I knew that she was on it and I invited her to critique and to come in and watch me, which they didn't really allow but I forced it. I want to welcome a very special guest to the show that in a few short minutes I just really felt could really help our industry in a way, welcome Deirdre Van Nest to the show. Deirdre Van Nest: Aw thank you, Mark. Mark Miletello: Deirdre you're the creator of Crazy Good Talks the Blueprint, a system that teaches financial and insurance professionals how to become crazy good speakers so that they can bring in business and build their brands using speaking. I mean I didn't really know what all that meant until I met you and within a few short minutes, you're molding me into something that's doing a lot better job at what I'm attempting to do. Welcome to the show, I'm excited to have you and what you do for our listeners here. Deirdre Van Nest: I'm excited to be here and it's been a pleasure to help you. You are a quick student. Mark Miletello: What does that mean? Are there some that are not? Deirdre Van Nest: Some are not, yeah. Yes, you are. Mark Miletello: Well thank you and like I said I just realized you're very special. Can you tell me a little bit about ... tell the listener a little bit about your background and maybe they'll get a sense for maybe what I've found in you? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah you know what I first loved to do is talk for a moment about why I care about helping the industry, particularly when it comes to speaking. I firmly believe that every person, and then this is regardless of what you do for a living, but every person unless we develop a skill set of becoming a compelling speaker, the type of speaker Mark who can get other people to sit up and listen and act we will never truly reach our full potential. I'll never forget, I used to be in a networking group where ... you know those networking groups where you have to a 60 or 30 second commercial every week? Mark Miletello: Yep. Deirdre Van Nest: Ever been a part? Okay. I was in this networking group and every week I was with the same people and people would get up and they'd speak for 60 seconds and there were certain people where as soon as that person stood up everybody tuned out and it really hurt my heart, it really bothered me, because as I got to know these people I thought, well you know that person's really good at what they do and that person really cares about the people in room, but they're not conveying who they are and what they do in a way that gets other people to sit up and listen and want to take action. It didn't matter if they were an A-plus attorney or an A-plus financial adviser or A plus this or that if they're a B minus or C plus speakers it was hurting their career. Does that make sense? Mark Miletello: No absolutely and I think I'm learning more about you every time we meet and talk, but I guess what you do helps ... I mean you even said attorneys, I guess attorneys do a lot of public speaking in the courtroom and things like that. How do you help ... I mean what industries do you find yourself helping most and how did you end up really relating and now that you're a speaker at Lamp of course in front of every general manager, general agent across all boards of financial services and insurance. I mean how did you really connect with our industry? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah that's a great question so there's a couple of touch points. When I first hung my shingle out in 2008 I just started speaking everywhere I could and the professionals that raised their hands the most saying, "Hey, we're interested in you. We want what you're doing, we want you're helping. We're financial and insurance professionals." In one sense I fell into these industries, these professions, but it's interesting Mark as I've dug deeper I've really developed a love for this industry, for these professions, and for the people in it. As I sat back, and I started thinking okay I know I feel like I've sort of fell into this, but why do I stay here and why do I love it, and why do I feel a passion around it and why is that pretty much the sole focus of anything I do from an outbound perspective? It circled back to this, and you know this you heard my story about when I was 10 years old my mom was killed in a car accident and Mark I literally was kissing her goodbye one moment for what I thought was the night and within four minutes she was gone. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Deirdre Van Nest: My dad was in the car too, we were really blessed that he didn't die, it was touch and go with him and he was out of work for several months and it took him about a year to recover from all his injuries. What that did for me was I lost my innocence in the sense that I realized from that experience and I realized early in that life can change in a snap. As I got older I became a very strong advocate for proper financial planning. Mark Miletello: Right. Deirdre Van Nest: I was the person at 30 who got pregnant with my first child and instead of running off to the fun little store to pick out outfits and furniture I'm dragging my husband to our adviser and making sure we have enough life insurance, I'm dragging him to our attorney making sure all the guardianship and beneficiary stuff is taken care of. Most people don't think like that and I didn't realize that until I started talking to my friends about it. They're like, "That wouldn't have crossed my mind." Mark Miletello: Yeah. Well, thank you for- Deirdre Van Nest: And I was like, "It doesn't?" Mark Miletello: Thank you for sharing your personal story with the listeners and I know that's tough, but I see now that you have a passion for what our products do and with your expertise- Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, I do. Mark Miletello: With you being the guru, you are the foremost thinker of how to speak and a teacher in that realm I mean I do see that passion come out and so I'm excited that you're connected. I'm sorry that that happened of course, but I'm excited that you're connected with our industry and it kind of leads me to another question that kind of left me thinking after meeting you is if I'm not giving a speech, a public speech on stage, would I really need someone like Deirdre Van Nest to coach me and help me and I think the answer yes and I think you've kind of ... I was able to listen, I wanted to sit through your whole rehearsal and I wasn't able to do that because of my flight, but I did catch one little, and I'm going to try to squeeze that out of you for our listeners, one little tip that you were giving maybe a couple tips, but I do think that there's some validity to increasing your ability speak, finding your voice can help you even if you're not giving a stage public speaking event. Correct? Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. This is where I feel like I'm hoping the profession will veer towards and start changing is that you speak at seminars, right? That's kind of what everyone thinks right now in the industry is, "Oh speaking is seminars," and I would like to broaden the perspective and offer that speaking is anytime you're in public. That means outside of your own home opening your mouth and talking to let's say two, three, or more people. Mark Miletello: Right. Deirdre Van Nest: Because every time you speak you have the opportunity to attract people to you, to build up your brand, to bring in business or the opposite, to push people away or just have them be neutral to you. We are in what I believe the communication age, there are so many people vying to be heard and so to have a skill set where you can cut through that and you can be compelling and inspire I don't think that skill to have, I believe it's a critical practice development tool. Mark Miletello: Well that's exactly where I was going with it, is that's what I left feeling is that ... and you just hit the nail on the head as you would and should. Every time you're speaking to two or more or even to one person, but two or more people especially that's a speaking engagement that you should be on your game. I'm excited to kind of dive more into this. As you may or may not know Deidre this show I kind of connect it to the professional athlete and if you recall in the rehearsal one fellow said, "People in our industry earn professional athlete type incomes." Deirdre Van Nest: Yes. Mark Miletello: But my concern in a leadership role is that we don't practice like professional athletes, you know. We go out and do our hobbies, we golf and fish and whatever, play sports and we have our hobbies but we don't look at our own profession. That's a lot of the drive behind Where the Insurance Pros Meet is to have something where you can ride down the road and you can listen to, but it reminds you from the greats as well as you telling us is how you become better is practice, it's learning, it's continually developing and so to me what was kind of neat about meeting you is it reminded me I've never really put any work ... I've never been involved in Dale Carnegie courses or another speaking so it's kind of neat to connect our listeners to someone like you that I think could really help them because you had a lot of good tips before I left early to catch my flight, you had a lot of good tips and one of them that I thought was very interesting is how you can plug yourself into speaking gigs or arrangements or connections or networks. Would it be too much to ask you how or to tell us how to do that if maybe we don't have anything on the agenda for a speaking? Deirdre Van Nest: No, I think that's great. I think what you're alluding to is I made this comment that speaking is not just for seminars. Right? The broad vision is that anytime you're speaking, like we just said, to two, three, or more people you're speaking, you're public speaking. Then the other strategy I offered up as if you're having seminars and they're successful great, keep doing that, but I would also invite you to recognize that there are places in your community where you could get booked at other people’s events in front other people's audiences, and what's beautiful about that Mark is that most people in this profession complain about seminars and rightly so because they're expensive to put on in terms of all the mailing and the postage that goes into it. Then there's the meal, maybe the chicken lit dinner, the steak dinner, whatever it is, and then there's the whole stress about getting people there. It's not an easy thing to pull off and what if you could eliminate that by speaking to a ready-made audience? Mark Miletello: Coattails. Deirdre Van Nest: That's something that professional speakers like me, right professional speakers like me we know, we do this all day long, but that's something the more I bring this up to different financial advisers and insurance agents they're like, "I never really thought I could play in that arena," and you can. Mark Miletello: Okay. Deirdre Van Nest: I just want to even put that idea out there is that you can play in that arena. Mark Miletello: Okay give us one idea. Deirdre Van Nest: Let me give you an example. Mark Miletello: Thank you. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah so one client, and I think I might have mentioned this to you, I was thinking of client of mine who is an insurance agent, he and his family own their own independent company and he has the specialization of working with daycare providers. We're like okay, well let's just build a presentation for that group and then let's pitch it and market it to them. We have this presentation, now quite frankly that presentation isn't largely different than it would be for any other business owner, but you put the word daycare provider in there when he tells stories he talks about his other clients that are daycare providers. Right? So that you're customizing the words and the language and then you start to think about where do the daycare providers hang out? Let's check out their association. Right? Then you would go, and you would apply to speak at one of their association events. If there are local chapters that they belong to you would talk about having them bring you in. I know that he got brought into a daycare center not necessarily to talk to the owners because there's only one owner, but the different staff that works there. Right? Mark Miletello: Yeah. Deirdre Van Nest: If you pick a couple of niche markets, maybe you work with chiropractors, maybe you like vets, maybe you like dentists. Mark Miletello: Whatever your niche is. I get it. Deirdre Van Nest: Exactly. Whatever your niche is. Mark Miletello: I tell you coming home and on the flight, that's probably what stuck with me the most of what a great concept that was and I had to have it on our show because in a leadership role I've gone with my agents and we've spoken at realtor meetings and we do certain break out speeches that are kind of impromptu but I kind of thought what about looking at what our niche is. Let's just say our niche is farmers or chiropractors. Let's just say it's farmers, then I never thought of taking and going to their organization ... I've thought about going to their organization and trying to connect and relate and be in the backroom and shake hands but I never thought about trying to get on their agenda because I know when you put on a meeting number one you have people coming in that throw a little money at you to take up 10 to 15 minutes of a sponsored lunch, things like that, and also sometimes you just want good information for the speech and I just never thought of that and I think that listeners hopefully could have a light bulb go off like I did and say there's so many niches that you could go after based on whatever company or organization you represent and you don't have to ... because I've thought about doing seminars and at one time did them, but thought about them over the last few years but when I start putting together the time, the effort, the pieces, the invitations, the mail outs, whatever all those things I find a lot of times that was a fleeting thought that fades away very quickly. Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, I understand that. Mark Miletello: When someone else is doing all that and you're plugging yourself into that I thought that was just a brilliant concept, Deirdre. Deirdre Van Nest: Good, good. Go after it. Here's the thing if you decide to go after it, with the putting together of your own seminar the easy thing is deciding you're going to do it and then all the work comes into doing it. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Deirdre Van Nest: With going after other ones your job is going to be reaching out to enough people. Right? And staying after them and following up with that. That's where the work will be is in staying persistent. Mark Miletello: Well you know- Deirdre Van Nest: And following up with them. Mark Miletello: We took off a fast start, we gave the listeners I think what I really, I walked away after just a few minutes of knowing you with that valuable thought. We kind of jumped right forward without really asking you, how did you get involved in coaching with Crazy Good Talks which is a name I love, crazygoodtalks.com. Deirdre Van Nest: Thank you, I love it too. Mark Miletello: I've been to your website, it's awesome. I kind of skipped over you right at the first so I apologize, I'm gonna back up which I don't normally do. Deirdre Van Nest: Oh, that's okay. Mark Miletello: How did you kind of get into this and when did you find out you're really good at helping people learn to speak and maybe you speaking yourself? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah, I'll tell you what, this is by accident as well. I was terrified to speak. In 2008 I was certified as a fearless living coach, okay? My specialty was helping other business owners get past the fears and excuses that were holding them back in their business. I would work with financial advisers, insurance agents, chiropractors, attorneys, pretty much anyone who had a service-based business. I was out there marketing myself one by one, going to the networking groups like what we were talking about earlier and meeting people that way. Then I just kept hearing, "Deirdre, you really should go out and speak because that's the best way to grow your businesses." I thought no way, no way no how, I had a really bad experience in my ninth grade acting class where my acting teacher told me I stunk. Mark Miletello : Me too. Deirdre VanNest: It broke my heart, Mark. From that moment, I was 14 years old, I left the stage. When I say left the stage I didn't act any longer and I didn't speak in public for 24 years. I never wanted to hear those words, "You stink," again. When someone said, "You should speak," I was like, "Not happening," then what happened was it was kind of like the lesser of two evils. I became more afraid of not growing my business and not helping people with this message that I had than I became of speaking and, so I just forced myself to get out there and do it. Okay? Fast forward a couple of years later and I've actually gotten good at it and I'm actually helping people and I'm actually getting paid for it, but what's not happening is I'm not bringing in clients from the back of the room and at the time that was a really big part of my model was bringing in clients from the back of the room, so I didn't have to run around to all these one on one coffee meetings all the time. Right? So, I thought I got to crack this code so someone knows how to do this, it's just not me. Who knows how to do this? I started studying with some industry gurus and became certified by Craig Valentine as a certified, world-class speaking coach, I worked with another woman Lisa Sakovich who was just a guru upselling from the stage, started using some of what they taught me, then started tweaking it for my own style and trying my own things, and then my clients at the time were asking me if I could share what I was learning about speaking with them. Just kind of like casually and I was like, "All right, yeah. I'll give you some tips on what I'm trying." I was doing that and then I had one client, I'm going to tell you this is the results not typical. One client, it was a husband and wife team, they went and gave a presentation, and this was in I think this was 2011, it might have been early 12, it was 11 or 12. They gave a presentation and within an hour they had signed up 103 new people, prospects to come into their office from one 60 minute presentation. She and I, we were all blow away, we were all blown away. The wife Becky was like, "Deirdre, you have to do this. I don't care what you're doing, but you need to formalize this and start teaching other people," and I was like, "Yes, I do. You are right, this is amazing." I was so excited by their results it actually saved their business. Then that's what happened, I started systematizing things and I started creating a process, I started getting out there and I was out there a lot myself too. I'm out there in the trenches doing the same thing that I'm teaching which is what I still do Mark to this day. Then the brand Crazy Good Talks we came up with that branding a couple of years ago and that was an evolution of time. Right? Of working with different people and helping me figure out the branding, but I do love it because it's fun and that's what it does, it helps people become crazy good so it's just sort of progressed to this point. Mark Miletello: Well you are great and you're a great person and we're glad that you overcame that class. I kind of had a similar story where I could not say two words in front of a group and I said, "I've got to fix this," so yeah thank you. I'll tell you, in our industry especially professional athletes they fumble every now and then. Sometimes they get mulligans sometimes they don't. Well in our industry because you don't make mistakes. When you're on stage you're flawless, so tell me maybe what you think the biggest mistake that most advisers, agents make when speaking. Let's get into some meat that really, we can bite down onto that could help somebody. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah, that's great. I'm sure I make mistakes too, I am not perfect. The last thing I ever want to paint is that picture. Mark Miletello: You're right, I shouldn't do that. That's extra pressure. Deirdre Van Nest: It's extra pressure, exactly. Let me give you a couple of quick wins that you can go and use. The biggest mistake is that most financial insurance professional rely too heavily on their technical expertise alone to deliver their message, Mark. That type of message or language tends to be boring for the consumer and it tends to not be sticky, it tends to be just a lot of facts and figures thrown at people and not have the elements of a presentation that help make it memorable and emotional. The key to really fixing that problem is to be sure to weave stories and analogies and activities throughout your content. Mark Miletello: You watched my rehearsal. I think I tried to do that, I tried to make it more about the storytelling than the facts and figures. I think that's exactly what you're saying is to ... you even kind of helped me understand, which I knew it as well as the others that were watching me, I knew that I was turning my head and looking too much at my own information. The less information that you plaster on the wall the less you're going to be tempted to turn around and look at it more than you're connecting with the audience. I agree I think we must have more stories. We talked about a mistake that they make, what about ... can you give us like a quick win like a strategy that listeners can use right away to make the best that they can with what they have? You know, make their next speech better. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah, this is my favorite tip to teach because it's one of those small things that makes a big difference and it's something your listeners could use the moment they stop listening to the podcast. Here it is, the most important part of the presentation is the opening. The reason for that is that's the time frame that people are going to decide if they're going to tune you in or tune you out. Okay? You only have about five to 30 seconds to capture their attention and if what you're saying isn't anything more interesting than what they can find on their phone your talk is toast. What's interesting Mark is that if you can grab people right away they are likely to stay with you for the entire presentation, but if you lose them, in the beginning, you're going to work doubly hard to get them back. You've probably been to presentations where's that happened, where like they start snoozing you in the beginning and you're like, "Oh man," right? And then you're off to the races. Mark Miletello: You can tell from right off the bat, I agree. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah. Mark Miletello: I went to your website and I watched all the free tips that I could grab off of their which I think we’re really informative, but that's one of the few things you said to me when we met for just a few minutes before my rehearsal and its really kind of gotten me to thinking about is my beginning powerful enough? I've gone back to the drawing board and thinking how can I make that really connect in a way? I think you're right, it's real helpful but maybe you can give us an example of how we can do that. Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely, absolutely. There are two strategies that I love for grabbing your audience's attention from the first words out of your mouth. The first strategy is to open by immediately asking them a question. Okay? The question should do three things, it should be related to your content in some way, it shouldn't just be some random question, it should be related to what's coming and the topic. It ideally would get them nodding their heads yes in agreement with you and then the third is it should get them thinking about themselves, the audience thinking about themselves. For an example, tell me what are the benefits that the listener will receive from taking your advice? Mark Miletello: What are the benefits ... in the meeting they're more informed of what their coverages are so personally maybe they should consider doing business with us but to be able... they're not a licensed insurance agent but they can say, I do know this, and I know a person that you should talk to because looking at your current policy or moving to this new home you might need to talk to a professional that I know. The benefit is educating them to make them think that you are the go-to person regardless of price. A real estate in town do we shop around and find out who has the lowest fees, or do we go to the most well-known person that we feel will do the best job? That's I think the ultimate reason we would speak to a group of realtors is to become the expert in the field and I need your help to be a better speaker so that I can look better in front of them. Deirdre Van Nest: Got it, got it. You could do something like your point is, hey we want to educate you so that you have the best information and you're not going out and price shopping people. Right? Mark Miletello: That's right. Deirdre Van Nest: Your question could be to them; your opening question could be something like how do you feel if your own clients' price shop you or how would you feel if a client- Mark Miletello: Chose their realtor based on commission rate. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah, exactly. Yes, if you lost a listing based on the commission or if you lost a listing because your competitor was willing to list for one percent less or half a percent less. Mark Miletello: Right, that'll get their attention. Deirdre Van Nest: Right and they're gonna be like, "I wouldn't like that, I don't like that." That's how you should be looking at this, in this industry. Maybe you're going in there because you're educating them, and you want to equip them so that they're the trusted adviser to their clients who have all the answers about their home buying experience. Maybe your angle is would you rather your clients see you as their real estate agent or a part of their trusted advisory team? Mark Miletello: Right. Deirdre Van Nest: "Oh trusted advisory team." Mark Miletello: I guess my feeble attempts at funny jokes is not the way to open a meeting, huh? Deirdre Van Nest: I guess it depends on how funny the joke is. Mark Miletello: Yeah, I guess so. Deirdre Van Nest: I was going to give you the second strategy. Mark Miletello: I'll take it. Deirdre Van Nest: That's the first strategy is to open with a question. The second strategy is to just jump right into a story. You could open with a story and so let's say you're talking to those same realtors, maybe the story is about a realtor who used to work with another agent and now they're working with you and what their experience has been. Maybe it's what I call your Why Story, why you're even in this business and why you care about the realtor relationship. Kind of like I told you my Why Story earlier. Mark Miletello: Yeah, things are going through my mind right now of how I could have spoken in front of the realtor group and maybe had other realtor’s endorsements and talk about how those relationships have evolved. Yeah, it's good stuff. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah. Then if you're going to jump right into a story my recommendation isn't just say, "Oh I'm gonna tell you a story," you could just start by saying, "It was May 24, 1980, beautiful spring night in Chappaqua, New York," or you could say something like, "I want to take you back to the fall of 1992," or "I want to introduce you to my client Mark. Mark was a blah, blah, blah," right? Those are story starters if you will. Mark Miletello: No one’s getting up and leaving when you start like that. Deirdre Van Nest: No, they're not. Mark Miletello: I want to hear. Deirdre Van Nest: And you've got their attention, exactly, you've got their attention. Mark Miletello: Well I love the nugget that you gave us about how to interject, implant ourselves in someone else's efforts of either networks or events or seminars. I love the advice, the professional advice that you've given us. I felt so privileged that I had a few minutes to meet you and know you and to have you watch me rehearse. To me just really the things that you've said have given me more confidence, I'm going in a better direction than I was without you. If other people ... and I don't want it to stop there, I do want to continue getting better and there are several ways to do that, but one is to connect with you in a better way. As we kind of wind down this show how would I work with you more, how do I reach you, what do I need to do to take the next step into learning the things that you've already taught me to build off that? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah great question. There's a couple of different options. I think the best step is to subscribe to Crazy Good Talks TV. That's something that was just launched and it's a weekly video episode specifically for financial advisers and insurance agents. Mark Miletello: Nice. Deirdre Van Nest: Each episode, yeah yeah, each episode has a strategy on how to either be a better speaker or how to grow your business for speaking, how to market yourself, get books for speaking, all things building your business and your brand through speaking. Then each episode also comes with a downloadable template, worksheet, cheat sheet to help you implement that week's lesson. That's a great first step and that's great for readers or advisers and agents and to get that you just got to crazygoodtalks.com/tv. Then the other option is one of the things that I do a lot of is keynoting at conferences and individual companies will hire me to come in and do training for their advisers and agents. If you're a leader listening, and you're interested in something like that just shooting me an email, likewise if you're an individual producer and you're interested in learning this skill set for yourself I do have a 12-month Crazy Good Talks training program where I will teach you step-by-step the ins and outs of how to become a crazy good speaker and how to really build your brand and bring in business through speaking. If either one of those things interests, you I think just sending me an email Mark to D-V-N so Deirdre Victor Nancy@crazygoodtalks with an S .com. Mark Miletello: Well that's crazy exciting, I think that of course you're gonna be on a platform speaking at Lamp in front of all the industry greats and as well as the show will reach a very broad audience including managers and anyone that wants to host a meeting I think you would be a valuable addition like I said in the short amount of time I've known you I feel like I've learned a lot and I feel like I owe you something. I guess you need to invoice me, but- Deirdre Van Nest: No, you are very kind. I'm thrilled to be here. Mark Miletello: It really is, just those few little things when someone is trying to get better at something that is not their forte and yeah, you're saying, "Well Mark you're hosting a radio show so ..." well you know I'm just having fun, I know I can be better at even doing this and every show I get better. But more importantly than that Deirdre is I want to be able to go to my next meeting, I want to go into that and now I can teach my agents how to connect with niche markets that we have, and I can assist them and maybe be the guy that stands up until they feel the confidence and find their voice or help them find their voice. Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah. Mark Miletello: I see a lot of application in what you do and if I wouldn't have sat next to you or if I wouldn't hear you speak I probably wouldn't realize the value of how much we need that to be better at that type of talent. I just want to thank you for agreeing to come on the show Where the Insurance Pros Meet and thank you for your time. Deirdre Van Nest: Thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure. Mark Miletello: Absolutely and if you like what you hear go to iTunes, rate and review the show so that others can find it. You can follow me of course on MarkMiletello.com and you will be able to connect via the show on my website on the podcast link, you'll be able to connect to Deirdre Van Nest. Thank you again and we will see you at the next show.

You guys how are you doing? So I'm recording this on January 1st but it will probably go out tomorrow though. But I'm super excited for this year, this year, this day, this morning is actually something I've been fantasying about for six years. In fact, I was trying not to get emotional this morning about it. Man tears of course, man tears, they're very tough. But I have been, I've been wanting to do what I'm doing right now for six years give or take I'm sure a little bit of time as the dream became more and more clear, but I've been so stoked to do this. You guys I left my job last weekend and I am full time, doing this now full time. And I've had plenty of people tell me I'm crazy. I've had plenty of people tell me that I'm brave. I've had plenty of people tell me, "Yeah you'll do great. Go get it." A lot of people tell me I won't. All over the place, it's so funny anytime you ... I'm sure that you guys have all experienced it before especially when you get into any kind of MLM or do anything, do anything in life. People come out of the woodwork to let you know their own opinion which is pretty funny. It's awesome, but at the same time it makes me kind of laugh because like us you're an armchair quarterback sometimes aren't ya? You know, depending on what they said. And I've had plenty of people let time know that what I'm doing is dumb. A lot of people tell me, "Hey, this is going to be great. Good luck. You're killing it already, like you've got nothing to fear." It's interesting. You will experience this, and if you have not experienced this yet in MLM, my guess is you probably are not marketing hard enough, number one. Number two, don't worry it's coming. Okay, it's on the way, and your reactions towards it are very much going to determine what happens to you afterwards, how you continue to go forward. There's a great, great quote by Tony Robbins. I can't say the quote directly but I remember the idea, and the idea was that if you want to change your life you have to simply change the story that you've been telling yourself in your head, and I had to do that. I had to do that really very much on purpose, especially as both people who are excited for me started telling me about it, but also a lot of the naysayers as they've been coming out. I had to be careful of the story that was going on in my head and I was just thinking this morning, just meditating and deep pondering this morning as I was getting ready, I was thinking about how blessed I feel that I can go do this and that to come with you guys and share with you how I've been marketing and getting people applying to join my downline. How I've been getting people not just to get in my downline, but what I do with them to really duplicate me, and give them proven systems and processes and what I do with each one of them to really ... I mean it's amazing. It's amazing. And I've had a hard time finding anyone else in the MLM industry who really opens up like this and I'm not trying to pat my own back, but it is one of the major reasons why I started this podcast. Like everyone is approaching MLM from the stand point of, "What do you say to get someone to join an MLM? What do you say to get someone in here"... What do you do here ... In my opinion that's great but it's also the wrong approach and so I go through and I help people understand how to create offers. How do you actually become unique in MLM again? When truly you're upline and downline, you're in competition with them, you know? You all sell the same thing, you're trying to go for the same people. They are your team but they're also in competition. So how do I approach that with my team so that we're not all competing with each other and we can all thrive in our own thing? How do you actually ... That's amazing that's a huge promise and the only reason I can promise it is because I've been doing it in other industries and I do it in these other, specifically one other, and I mean it works. It's been working. That's literally what I do for a living is I help people take their product and I help evolve it, so that they're taking a step out of where all the red ocean is and back into a blue ocean. That's what I do. So I help people do that, help people create automated funnels, and automated selling scripts, automated closing things, and I've been super excited. I have been fantasying. It's probably the wrong word, but I've been fantasying about how to do this, or the fact that I get to share it for a long time. It's January 1st 2018 and I can't even believe it. I started this tradition about four years ago. And you can find it on YouTube if you want, but on YouTube about four years ago I realized how sick I was with where we were. I was in college. We were broke and I decided that I would get really vocal about my goals. And that I only wanted to set one goal. And I would set a monetary, a fiscal goal, and my goal that I would go out and I would set ... Here's basically what I did, I grabbed my phone or my computer and turned the camera on. And I publicly declare what my goal is for the next year, financially, and then I account for what happened last year. So I've been doing this for four years in a row now and I always put the video out on YouTube. I usually make a podcast episode about it. I did last year. But there's four years of this now. I'm about to do it again. which is the fourth year today. I'm about to do it again and I'll probably put that out to you guys so you can hear what it is and it's one of the scariest things that I do. But it's funny because as I got really clear that ... Okay the naysayers have been around me for a long time. But also so are a lot of the people who are trying to ... It's a yin and a yang thing, I created a divide for my own life. I didn't mean to, but on one side are all these people saying, "Yes you can do it." And on the other side all these people saying, "You're dumb, are you kidding me? That's stupid. Stick with your job. Stay with your nine to five. There's security there." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I knew that's not what I wanted. And I knew that I've always wanted to be on my own. I've always wanted to go on my own.I've been excited to do so. But it's funny that as you get super clear ... That's the thing I realized really quickly, as I got really clear on what I wanted, so much so, so much so, that I could actually get out there and actually go publicly declare it. I mean that's pretty freaky a little bit. It's in some scenarios to say the actual number that I'm going for, and actually where I was last ... You know, the year before. It's pretty ... It's humbling, you know to realize that, but it's also extremely, oh my gosh like such fire in the gut because not only now have I gotten real with myself, and honest with myself, but then all these people who are the people who are trying to listen to, the people who are trying to buoy me up. The people who are trying to help me. They come out and they say, "Steven, you better do that man, you better do that. How you doing? How's your goal?" And because I get clear on it, other people also help me. You know so whenever I do feel like you know I'd love to sleep in, or something was just really so hard that I went through it. I just went through something that certainly was not a win. In fact, it was a loss, or whatever, you know what I mean? People are already around me, and I didn't mean to do that. I didn't know that would be a side benefit of me getting public about my goals. But it is, and I do, and I am, and I'm inviting you to do the same thing. I don't care if you do it about a financial goal or whatever, but just choose one thing, not this massive list of crap you'll never do. What's the one linchpin that if you attacked that it would swing this massive gate of success? My dad grew up on a farm. I think he was the first one to go to college in my family history line, and he's the man. I have such huge respect for my dad, and for what he did, and everything he overcame. I mean it's pretty amazing. An amazing story but he grew up on a farm, and these big farm gates towards the actual hinge of the gate. If it swings like half a centimeter, those gates are so big that by the time you get to the actual end of the gate, it's swinging feet, right? What is the linchpin in your life that you know has been there that has been ... That's been determining where you go and where you don't go? Okay, everyone knows what that is, it's that thing that's been on your head that you're trying not to address, that you're trying to act like you don't need to deal with yet, or it really isn't that big of a deal, or it'll happen later and I don't really need to address it now. You know what I mean? Everyone knows what that is, so go through and figure out whatever those things are for you. What's the biggest linchpin? I'm not just saying in your MLM business. I'm saying in your life in general. Okay, business will require that you have to get better. Business will require that you have to become a more powerful individual in order to be successful in any way. So what is that thing in your life and go figure out what it is and get real. Don't choose a ton of stuff in my opinion. I'm just telling you what I would do. Go choose just the one thing. What's the one thing if you did it, it would swing that gate like crazy, massive linchpin kind of a thing. It's kind of like what Tim Ferris would say. Tim Ferris always says like, "Hey look, if you were to follow me around for a day you would get pretty bored." Okay, someone asked this in an interview and they're like, "Tim Ferris," and if you don't know who he is, he's the author of the book, The Four Hour Work Week, which is fantastic, I have it right next to me, still one of my favorite books. He said, "You know what honestly if you came and you followed me, I think you'd get pretty disappointed on what I do. It's pretty boring. I get up," and this is what he was saying, "I get up and I meditate for a while and then I go and I," he was like, "I sip some tea for a while, and then I go on a walk for a while, and I do that for weeks. I really don't do anything. Maybe I'll do some yoga a little bit." And he's like, "That's really all that I do, but what I'm doing is for weeks I'm trying to identify what the one big thing in my life is that if I was to knock that down the rest of the little dominoes would get knocked down also." Instead of screaming around all over the place on all these little tiny things in my life like I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to do this. And like you could do that or if you just did this one huge thing it would knock down all the others, right? And that's what I'm trying to help you understand is and that's how I've, especially the last three years I've really been trying to focus on just the one goal, the one goal. Yes, there are other goals. Yes, there are other things out there. But the one big thing that would really swing the gate. The most juice for the squeeze, you know what I mean? Most juice for the least amount of squeeze I should say. And go do that, and then get public about it. Tell people about it. It will freak you out, if it doesn't it may not be big enough. Okay? And I mean everybody. Don't hold back. "Oh, that person will think it's dumb so I'm not going to tell them." It's time to tell them, okay? You get real with yourself. You get real with other people and you get out there and you start saying, "This is my goal," whatever it is. Monetary. It could be anything. And be like, "This is the thing that I'm going to rock. I'm going to tear it down this year. This is my year to do that." And so I'm excited because a little bit later today that's what I'm going to go record and I'm nervous. But you can go check them out. Like the first year, four years ago I remember thinking like man and I publicly said, "If I could just make an extra $1000.00 a month that would change our life." Just an extra $1000.00 bucks a month, that would be ridiculous you know? And then the year after that it was like if I could just do $3,000.00 and I'd work super hard and half the time I wouldn't hit it, but other times I would. So then I'd raise the goal. And I'd be like< "Oh man," and I remember the second year it was like, "If I could just do $3000.00 a month that would be amazing, that would cover life expenses easily, that would help me. I mean three grand a month, that's huge. That's huge." And I remember having that feeling and then last year the goal was 30 grand a month. "If I could just do 30 grand a month it would be huge, oh my gosh that'd be massive." And it's cool to see the progression that's been in myself, I'm like, "Oh you know like 30 grand," did I hit it every month? Nope. But I did hit it a couple and you know it's interesting to see like those different pieces and so I know what my goal is next month. Sorry, for this next year, and I'm pretty nervous to declare it. I'm pretty nervous to saying what it is that I want, but man by you saying that stuff just starts happening. I believe in God, I don't know if you do and that's fine, whatever. But that's not what this is about, but call it whatever you want but stuff starts to fall in place, stuff starts to get kind of align for you almost when you get clear about what you want. I feel like some, a lot of times I feel like people don't get successful because they don't know what they want yet. Like, "Oh I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this." You really have enough time in your life to get really good at really just like one thing. You know what I mean? Really, I mean really good at like one thing. So get what is the thing? Choose what it is. Is it MLM? Is it this? Is it that? Or whatever it is, you get clear, you get honest, you get sincere with yourself and figure out really have a heart to heart and like sit down like, "Okay, what is the thing that I'm going to be known for? What is the legacy that I'm going to be known for?" I doubt it's going to be, "I was this, and I was this, and I was this, and I was this." And even if it becomes that, it doesn't happen all at once you're going to achieve each one of those one at a time not simultaneously. So like what is the thing? That you're going to go do, just one and you go and get clear about that. I started, I thought I was clear on that and the more and more I think about it, the more I declare publicly, the more clear it gets, the more clear my actions become each day is far more deliberate. The things I do today create a foundation for what I'm going to be able to get done tomorrow. If I don't get the things done today that I'm going to then you know ... No one's it doesn't matter I can't move on, you know what I mean? So figure out what those things are and kind of backwards plan and think about that and try and get sincere about what it is you actually want. And it doesn't matter if you can't see beginning to end on how you get it done. In fact I guarantee you, you won't know exactly how you'll get it done. And if it's a goal that you can see exactly how you'll get it done it probably isn't big enough. It's probably not massive enough.It should almost kind of freak you out. Okay I was listening to I think I said this on this podcast but I can't remember. There's an interesting, there's a billionaire, a billionaire that was getting interviewed once and they're like, "hey what are your tips for success?" And they were kind of giving those things and the billionaire was saying though that I don't remember who's was or where this was or whatever, but the billionaire was saying like, "Look, what do you want to be doing in 10 years? What do you want to be in 10 years? Financially, maybe where you're living, what is it?" And the person responded and he goes, "Awesome. Now ask yourself, "What can you do to get that done in six months?" Whew, okay I don't know what that is for you. I don't know what it is that you're thinking about. I have no idea. It's going to be different for every person, that's great. We're all different human beings I'm not trying to force anything down your throat of whatever it's supposed to be, but like figure out what that is. And as soon as you get super ridiculously wicked clear on what it is, and you start declaring it, how do you get that done in such a short amount of time, a compressed amount of time, okay? I'm trying to invite for this audience and everyone on here, which is growing like crazy by the way, we're about to pass 10,000 downloads I'm very, very excited about it. But it's only been going like four months, totally organic too, which is awesome. I'm sure I'll turn ads on in some future, which I want to explain to you how I do, what I do on that. At some point but we're about to pass 10,000 downloads. This is an awesome community. It's very tight actually and I want ... We all look out for each other. There's a lot of fun. But I want you to know just get real honest. And if it means that it takes you away from MLM, all right, you know it's your ... Got to get real and you got to be willing to make some serious sacrifice about it. I was listening to ... Gosh what book is this in? I have the book I can't remember ... I'm looking on my bookshelves right throw. Crap. But anyway the main lesson I wrote it on my wall. I've got quotes thumb tacked all over my walls. I don't know, I look at them all the time. One of them I'm looking at right now. It says, "There are no life choices, there are only life trades." Ooh, powerful. There are no life choices, there really are no life choices. There are only life trades. If I want to get this, if I get clear and I know exactly what I want to do, massive income, short amount of time, or massive impact I should say because whatever your goal is. Huge thing, how do I get it done in a shorter amount of time? Now what am I willing to trade for that? It's not really a life choice, it's a life trade. Where you're like, "Hey look I want to go to X Y and Z. Awesome. Awesome. Super cool. Super cool, right? I want to go do one, two and three," whatever it is. Great in order to do that let's figure out what it is you actually have to do to get that done. Now what does it mean you have to give up? All right? To decide, literally means to cut out, the word decide, I looked it up yesterday. But the word decide literally means to cut out. So when you choose something and you actually decide what it is you want to do, you are cutting out all other options. You are saying no to literally pretty much everything else in your life, okay? I'm not saying to say no to like relationships, your moral law and code, and religion. I'm not telling like any of that kind of stuff. I'm saying but you got to get good at saying, "No," because as soon as you become a person in motion everyone else gets attracted to that and they will suck to you and they will start throwing all sorts of opportunity at you and it will get noisy. So you've got to get good at saying, "No," and get good at saying, "Yes," to just one thing and kill it. It is about saying, "No." It's not about saying, "Yes." Okay? There's plenty of opportunity out there, that is not the problem, the problem is how much there is and the fact that there's only so many hours in a day. Unfortunately as much as I try to believe I'm superman for a while and could do tons of stuff. Like you know, I can only do one thing at a time. And I got to clear on it. I got to clear exactly what that is. So anyway, so I was not planning at all about talking about this, in fact I have something very different written on my notepad here for where I was taking this episode. But I felt like I wanted to go through that a little bit that like I understand you might be building this MLM while you're working a nine-to-five somewhere else that's great. Totally fine, no judging that. I just left my job too. I was doing that for a while also. So totally get it, okay? Been there, done that. But whatever it is that you do want eventually, I mean you got to be willing to sacrifice like crazy to get there. And you can do it, and you'll find some inner strength for it. And it can be a little bit scary, but it's also super fun. Totally cool. Fun stuff. And you'll find that you actually get more strength and fortitude than you probably realized that you had all along. Hey, what I'm doing today, what I'm doing right now is I have been working on this product and I've been putting this thing together and you know I've launched a lot of products. The job that I was leaving, it's an amazing job. I absolutely loved it. I was the lead funnel builder at ClickFunnels. And I was Russell Brunson's right hand guy. And I just I built a lot of products, I put well over 300 funnels together on the internet. So I'm excited for this, I know what works in MLM and for some reason I don't see enough teaching it. And so I've been doing it and testing it and it works and I've grown the downline's exploding below me and it's a lot of fun. True duplication and I'm really not actually that suave of a person face to face when it comes to selling MLM. So I put automation together to actually address my own weakness so if you're like, "I don't want to talk to a bunch of people," great I don't either, which is why I set this stuff up. So anyways. I'm super stoked because of this product that's launching on January 4th. It's like three days, it's time. It's exciting. It's super cool. I have been putting this together, and planning it, and knocking the rough parts off of it, and rebuilding stuff, and bringing in the right people. It's not just myself there are other rock stars that are coming in and teaching certain aspects of it. Huge, amazing people, I'm excited for you guys to see them in the course. They've already been recording their sections and I mean it is insane. Their courses are amazing. Anyway, but that's on June 4th, I'm sorry, I got June in my head because that's my kids birthday. January 4th. January 4th, like in two days, three days. And today what I'm doing is I'm building the registration process so you can come watch the free web class. It's just a web class and I'm teaching people how to set up these kinds of automation pieces. It's kind of the cool preview of what's really inside there but you'll still leave being able to do stuff. And so anyway if you want to go to SecretMLMhacks.com, secretMLMhacks.com and that's where you can register, you can check out the product that I've put together and it's all extremely proven stuff, okay? It's the stuff I do with my own downline and what I did is I flipped it into like a training and teaching model and course so that you can go do the same thing with your downlines. which is freaking awesome. Oh man I'm so pumped. If you love automation, if you realize that you're not unique in your MLM. If you realize you're in competition with everybody else. If you realize that you're selling with the exact same scripts as everybody else. You have the same duplicated websites as literally everyone in your MLM, upline and downline. If you realize that the only tactic your upline's been teaching you is to talk to a whole bunch of friends and family, come check out the course, okay? That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I was emotionally scarred enough the first time I ever joined an MLM and what happened and how there's still soured relationships that I have because of that first experience. That was like three years ago and I hated it so bad I left my first MLM. I couldn't believe what how, it was extremely embarrassing, and I became that guy at family reunions. I became that guy that friend to kind of stick around from because everyone would be like, "What's your next thing Steven? What are you going to try and get me in here and there." I was like, "Oh my gosh, like if that's MLMN this sucks I'm gone." Okay and I went through and I got really good at these other automation processes, really good at closing people with tons of other ... And I was like there's got to be a way to apply it so I did. And the result was insane and I got tons of people joining my downline who I'd never met, and it's not that I'm trying to take the human out, the human element out of MLM it's still networking, it's still meeting people. But the kind of person that's coming is amazing, the kind of person's who's applying to join my downline, that's insane. Who does that? Anyway, I'm excited. Go check it out secretMLMhacks.com, you can get signed up there, and check it all out so. It's finally time, this is amazing January 1st, I've had kind of this feeling of euphoria a little bit, I've been dreaming about being on my own for pretty much my entire life. And today's the first day, this is crazy. I'm very, very excited and I'm proud of myself. You guys should all be proud of yourself too. Go get real about your goals, what it is you actually want and if something isn't working, have the courage and honesty to nip that and move on. So all right guys. Talk to you later bye. Hey thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own downline five simple [inaudible 00:24:08]and recruiting tips for free? If so go download your free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at secretMLMhacksradio.com.

C. Diddy & Steph discuss dating people with kids, flaking on dates, how to have a dating life and a busy schedule and more on this episode

My name is Steve Larson and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. I'm a goofball at heart. I'm a kid at heart and I will always be that way. Hey, hope you guys are doing fantastic. Hope you're crushing the week. Hope everything is going great for you right now. Hey, so I just finished something and I think you'll be interested in. I have talked about it previously in a previous episode. I wanted to tell you that my version of it is done and it's exciting. It's so cool. I am not here to pitch anyone. That's not the purpose of this podcast. The purpose of this podcast is for me to show you what I've been doing so you can do it in your own; your own MLM. If you want to join, awesome. If you wanna stay in what you're doing, awesome. I don't care. I'm just bringing that because it's an elephant in the room sometimes when you're talking to other MLM-ers so I'm just bringing it up. I don't care whether or not you join. This is not a pitch fest. What this is, is it's me feeling a slight obligation to showing you what it is that I've been doing for the last little while, because it's working very well. So, that's what this whole thing is about. What I wanted to show you is how I get people to apply to join my down line. You should have little bombs dropping in your head right now. This is insane. In other coaching programs ... Like I have other coaching programs that I do, you know, that I charge money for to look at people's internet sales funnels. Right? The way that they sell stuff. I go through and I critique them with them. There's so many requests I have now to build them, that I actually don't. I just go for straight coaching and I teach people. It's been a lot of fun. I've had a lot of great success stories, helped a lot of businesses. It's been great. I'm also, what's called, a 'two comma club' coach. Two commas meaning million dollars. Meaning I coach people how to go from zero to seven figures. It's a lot of fun. This is a strategy that we use in many different scenarios, in many different industries. Okay? The strategy is that you, rather than go to somebody ... Yeah, okay. We'll go it this way. Rather than go to somebody and say, "Hey, will you buy my thing?" Instead, what we get people to do is we get people to turn and ask us to buy it from us by applying to buy it. Does that make sense? It's the craziest thing. It flips the entire sale on the head. It keeps you from begging people to ... Anyway. There are many people using this right now that are making many millions of dollars per year using it. It's crazy. It's amazing what it does for people. Here's how it works. Let's think about this with MLM. Let's say that you go and you are teaching people all about your MLM and it's awesome. You get down to that really awkward point where you start to transition into pitching. You know, it's the spot where everyone gets awkward in usually. You start pitching people to join your down line. What are you doing? You are asking people to do something they were not thinking about doing that day. Now that's fine. That works. That was my job at door to door sales. When you do that to someone like a friend or a family member, that's when crap gets awkward because they were not inviting you to pitch them. Does that make sense? That's why it gets weird. That's why it gets weird. It's a status protection play. They wanna make sure they're protecting their own status. And again, not in a bad way as in like, "Oh I'm so good," or whatever, but that's not it at all. They're just trying to make sure their own status is covered because they're like, "I don't know. Can you handle this? Have you been doing well? Am I your first person? Has other people joined? What's the comp plan like? How many people do I have to recruit to actually make a difference in my income?" You know what I mean? Those are all the fear questions that pop up inside someone's head when you start to pitch them. So what we do is I flip it. We turn it on its head and instead of you going to them and saying, "Hey ... Instead of you going to them and saying, "Hey join my thing," instead what we do is we flip it and we say, "Why should I let you join my thing?" What? It's crazy, but that's how it works. So we switch the whole thing and say, "Why should we let you into our world?" Basically it's hilarious that it works because you're saying, "Why should I let you pay me your money," but it works. It works very well. If someone has to apply for something ... You do the same thing if you go to college. Right? If you went to college, it's ... When I went to college I paid to apply to pay them tuition. Same concept. How do you get someone to do that, because that's kind of intense? So the way that we do it ... Now this is usually really cold traffic, like someone who has no idea who you are, usually that doesn't work very well for them. You gotta have things before they apply for you, you know apply to you, in order to kind of warm them up so that they answer the other questions, which is like, "Who are yeah?" You know. "Do I trust you? Do you seem shady?" You know what I mean? They wanna see who you are. So I use this funnel, the sales funnel, this application funnel. I use it online mostly to my hot and my warm traffic list. Now you guys all have hot and warm markets that's ... and you all have hot and warm traffic and you know usually in the form of family members and friends. I don't pitch family members and friends. You know most of them don't even know that I'm doing this. Only the people that have asked, right, know that I'm doing this stuff. Or people who've ... Family, immediate or extended, who've stumbled on my podcast will talk to me about that kind of stuff, but I don't tell any of them about it. None of them have any idea what I do. None of them. They don't know at all what I do, and I do that on purpose, because the first time I join and MLM they all knew, because I was that guy and I hated that. I was becoming that guy at family reunions and stuff. So what I do is I first go get results for somebody else. That's huge. That might mean that you go work for free. In fact, it probably will. If you've never gotten results for someone else before ever, you're gonna have some issues. Okay? Then what I do is I document those stories of those individual people and I litter those video testimonials all over the front page and I tell what's called my origin story. My origin story is all about me telling the story about how I got into the thing I'm doing. "Steve Larson, how did you get into this MLM thing?" Well and I've told you that before. There's a reason that was my episode number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I went through five different stories that I went through to help you continue to break and rebuild your own belief patterns about MLM. Those stories were very crafted very on purpose; those first five episodes of this podcast. Those are the stories that I tell when I'm in my application funnel. Does that make sense? That's the very first thing. So first, there's the story of me. You know I'm telling people, "Hey look, you know here's how to get into this thing and why I'm so passionate about it." It has to be highly emotional. Not that you're trying to trick people or be sneaky or whatever it is, but have you ever been in a movie and you walked out and thought "That was a dumb movie." That's because there's no emotion. There's no conflict. It was all action. There's no ups and downs, pauses, and speed forwards. There's none of that stuff. There's an art to storytelling, so figure out how to tell your story. Why are you doing MLM? Ask yourself that. Why are you doing this? Do you wanna be doing it? Someone pull you into it? You trying to make passive income? What is it? After you figure out what the reason is, what's the real reason? Dive deeper. Does that make sense? So, that's the first ... it's a video of me telling that story. When they opt in, in order to apply on the second page what I do with them is I have them fill out an application form. It's an actual application. It's on the right side of the page. They're filling out the application. On the left side of the page I just have a huge string of very nice testimonials people have shot about working with me, and the program, and things like that. It's like 15 minutes of just constant videos, and testimonials, and other cool stories and things like that. It's awesome. Anyway, you guys will see it. It's really cool. On the right side though is an actual application. What I do is I ask questions like, "Look, I'm really looking for the top marketers. Not just MLM-ers. I'm looking for marketers. Are you a marketer? What's your plan to promote this if you get accepted?" Right? That's ridiculous. That's huge to even ask something like that. "What's your plan to be able to ... Are you gonna spend money on ads?" You know that's gonna affect your ability to get in at all. I just need to know. Who's actually gonna be spending the ads? Who's actually gonna be spending the money? "How many people have you recruited in the past? How many opportunities have you jumped around through in the past?" It goes through somewhat of a history and it's to do two things. It's kind of meant to rub a little bit of salt on the wound to help them realize what they have had to go through to get there. Sometimes those are painful memories and experiences. Then the other I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get them to tell me why I should accept them. I want fighters. I want competitors. I don't want the person who needs the opportunity. Oh they need this opportunity and this life. If they need the opportunity I already don't want them. It's not that I'm being mean, but the reason I don't want them is because they don't want it. Does that make sense? If they need the opportunity and want it, sure. Then I'll join them or you know I'll get them in and that's awesome. I am not in the business of begging and I am not in the business of hand holding so much so that I have to actually get someone to have passion. I hand hold all my people, but it's because they already want it and they've been pushing for it. I can see that they do things on their own and they're not looking to me solely. I give them the systems. I teach them how to use the systems and it's awesome. I get a great relationship with my people and it's so fun. I really, really enjoy it. I have a lot of projects in my life. I don't need a person as a project. Does that make sense? I want people to be part of my one project. Does that make sense? So anyways I have people apply and it's cool to see live ones coming in right now. Then on the third page, what I do is I say, "You know what? Your application is in the order that we're getting them and in MLM order does matter, because there could be a lot of people behind you who are applying right now. There's a lot of people ahead of you. So if you wanna skip the line, just go ahead and call us." Now I do not put scheduling software on there. That always kills conversions anytime we've ever done that in any market. We did this for a visa service. Like visas coming into America. It was really interesting. We've done it for a lot of stuff and they work. It's great. If you put a scheduling software on that third page, or in that third step, or anywhere in your process, whatever you're doing, it won't work very well. You need to give them the option to call you. Then what would we do is we would just put a sales person on the end who used what we called the four question close. They just call and it's very, very, very low pressure. That is one of the biggest keys to this whole thing. That's one of the easiest ways to find people who are serious, is that you can't have pressure. Okay? So that's how the structure looks of the entire thing. Number one, an origin story about how I got in there. Number two, lots of testimonials while they fill out the application. Number three, I invite them to call me so they can get out of the line and skip and actually get in. So how do I get someone to really do that though? What I do is I take my MLM and I make an offer out of it. How many MLM down lines could you go join right now? Tons. There's no difference between any of us, if you leave it that way. So one of my specialties and my actual job is offer creation. I go create offers. Well a product is not an offer. A service is not an offer, by itself. Does that make sense? It may not at first, let me just keep talking here. If you're just asking me to join your down line, that's not an offer. Offers makes you someone unique. Offers create scarcity and urgency. Okay? Offers get someone else excited about what it is you're doing, because they realize that you're the only one that's actually doing that? Does that make sense? So here's what I do is I take my MLM and then I see what other things I can stack on there to make the act of joining my MLM attractive and unique again. Okay? If you're in an industry at all ... Let's say you have normal 9 to 5 job still, or something like that. If you're in industry at all and other people are doing the exact same thing that your company is, how you gonna do? Competition is great, but if you're selling the same thing, I'm saying the same exact thing as your competitor, how you gonna do? It's gonna suck. Right? A lot of the market is going to be going back and forth. There's gonna be a lot of questions. There's gonna be no tribe building in your area, because someone is doing the exact same thing over there. So what I do is I make the act of joining my down line into an offer. I turn it into and offer and so I remind them that like, "Look if you join my down line, I'm gonna give you all of my automated recruiting systems. Okay? If you join my down line, I'm giving you all my story telling scripts that are not high pressure. Right? If you join my down line, I'll go and I'll give you more of my traffic secrets training." Does that make sense? How to actually get traffic, things like that. "If you join my down line, I'm gonna give you some ..." I haven't told anyone this yet, but there's a piece of software I'm trying to create to help people as well. "I'll teach you how to attract people to you, both you as a person and little mini products that you create in front of your MLM to pull people to you for free. By the way I'll teach you how to get them to pay you for paid prospecting. I'll teach you how to auto-close. I'll teach you how to down line management, the only strategy I know where everyone gets paid anytime anyone gets recruited. You don't have to play favorites anymore when you recruit people." Does that make sense? Those are the things that I do on the front page and I remind them like, "Look, if you apply to join and you actually get in, you're not just getting my down line. You're getting all these other things to help you be successful." The biggest question people have when they're gonna join a down line is, "Where am I gonna find people? Where are my leads gonna come from? I don't wanna talk to friends and family." And so what I've dedicated the last like several years to is answering that question. Solving that problem so that when people do join the down line, I have the answer. I launch the beta of it a year ago. It's actually over a year ago and it's freaking awesome and it worked so well. It's so awesome and it works. It's cool. Like oh my gosh. So I've been teaching others how to do it. I've got my own little beta group that's been going through it and it's been a lot of fun. So anyway, if you wanna check it out, you can. What I ask is that you don't put your email in unless you're actually applying to join my down line. Does that make sense? And that is where I'm telling you right now, that I am not here to pitch you and I am not here to ask you to come in. I'm not. Look, part of my strategy with this podcast, with this whole thing, is for me to remain somewhat third party. Okay? I'm not here ... This podcast is all about me showing you and telling you what I'm doing. This is not where I'm here to just pitch you like crazy. That's not what this is about. I'm not doing this. I'm not gonna do that at all. So if you go to JoinMyDownLine.com, which by the way I can't believe that was available. That's like the biggest over site in the whole industry. JoinMyDownLine.com is the example. It's the actual thing that I use to get people to join and actually apply to get in. Please don't go past the first page. Again I'm telling you so that you can go see what I'm doing. If you wanna see what my origin story is. If you opt in, there will be a little bit of a series that comes to you; a really cool course. That's kind of an extra course not many have seen. It's just for those who are applying that help people. It's called the MLM Primer. It comes to them for free for like five days and then there's a whole bunch of really cool stories with it. Anyway, the reason why I'm telling you is so that you can model the same thing in your own MLM. It's not so ... So I mean if you go through the entire application process, I will ... Number one, your application, your name will show up on the front page, which is awesome. You'll see the live feed updates every five minutes. It just shows your first name to prove to people that it's not dead. You know what I mean? This version of it is brand new launched and that feed thing is brand new launched, so there might not be ... there's not gonna be as many people ... I just got an email from a dude asking to bring in 200 people. Anyway, that kind of stuff happens all the time and so I'm just saying that live feed does not directly reflect the only source of people coming in. Anyway, if you want to see it, meaning how I'm doing it, go for it. I'm asking you not to go through the entire thing, you know, unless you're actually applying. I thought I'd bring all that out though, because I can't not do it. It's the elephant in the room with this thing, is that people have asked like, "You just do this podcast to recruit tons of people?" No, I'm actually trying to build a tribe and a movement. I wanna fix some of the crappy parts of MLM. I'm very passionate about it. It ticks me off that the strategies are still stuck in the 90's. How on Earth am I the only one using a sales funnel in the whole industry? How on Earth are no up lines teaching this kind of stuff to their down lines? You know what I mean? That's the kind of stuff that kind of makes me a little bit mad. It's like, "Holy smokes, while the companies have evolved, the strategies have not." That's like us going to war and using Civil War, stand in front of the other person in a straight line, tactics. That's dumb. So anyway, I'm very passionate about it as you can tell as I just ... That's what this whole thing is about. So if you want to see it, like I said, don't go through the whole thing unless you are literally applying to do so, but you can definitely go check out the front page. You can watch my real story of how I got into this whole thing. You can see cool testimonials of other people. You can see the live feed thing that I'm talking about. This big project, this version of it, took me a little while to finish it up, but that's partly what I've been doing the last few weeks here also. Anyway, you guys are awesome. Appreciate yeah. Figure out a way to flip the tides. If you're like, "There's no way someone will apply to join my down line," well the reason why is because you've gotten results for nobody yet. That make sense? So get results for someone. Go help someone. Work for free. Pump value into the market and then the market will tell you, "Oh yeah here's a cool testimonial," in the form of a person giving it to you. They'll give you a testimonial and you'll be worth so much more, because people will see that you're actually worth stuff. It's way, way worse for you to just walk out and go, "I'm the man. Trust me. I'm the man." You know what I mean? That's what that is. Instead, show people. Go get the actual results and work for people and help them get results. Put that video up there. If people don't wanna join your down line, it's because you haven't answered those questions yet. It's because you haven't proven that you're good. Anyway, that's all I've got for you guys. That was way longer than I anticipated it to be, but if you wanna check it out you can. It's JoinMyDownLine.com and that's how I'm pulling it off. Figure out how you wanna pull it off on your own. Again, I'm asking you not to apply there fully unless you're actually applying. You're all awesome and go crush it. Hope what you're doing in your MLM is awesome, super fun, that it's effective. You feel like it's worth your time; what it is you're actually doing. Yeah, go crush it guys. Talk to you later. Hey thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own down line five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download you're free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at Secret MLMHacksRadio.com.

I left some folks out last time, so here's a few more bumps..Enjoy!

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It's the 21st episode, coming to you from NYC! On today's show, Chris asks whether or not you can put your feet up on stuff. Also discussed: who lives in Albuquerque?, people who watch games on ESPN Classic, the funniest thing Chris thought of this week, the Bill Cosby case, and a bunch of questions from Twitter. Tweet your questions and spread the love using the hashtag #congratulationspod on Twitter and everywhere else, and don't forget to rate, review, listen on iTunes, Google, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.

How to Own a Room (or crowd) with Robbie Samuels   Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 89.   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 episode 89 of the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and in line with the last half dozen episodes or so being interviews, I have another interview for you today. I'm so excited to welcome Robbie Samuels to today's podcast, where we really dive deep into personal branding from a networking type of component, or from a networking aspect. So we talk about what it means to strategically network, and volunteering, and how to work a room if you will. And Robbie's business is around helping people do just that, helping them network with sessions. So he's a public speaker, he does a session called The Art of the Schmooze as well as a variety of other types of sessions and speaking engagements, which all focus around building great relationships and strong and welcoming communities. His website is www.RobbieSamuels.com so I'm really excited to basically just dive right into today's episode where you will learn a lot about networking, and how that can be good for your business whether you are an introvert who might be afraid to show up to a networking event, to the very outgoing extrovert, and everyone in between. For any information that Robbie and I talk about in today's episode, you can go to www.JennTGrace.com/89 and that is for episode number 89. And without further ado, here is my interview with Robbie.                                     Alright so let's just start if you will by telling the listeners a little bit about yourself, what you're up to currently, and then we'll just dive into some things about personal branding.   Robbie Samuels:         Thank you so much Jenn, and I appreciate being on your show. So a little bit about me. Well I am currently a work-at-home dad to a five and a half month old which is the first and foremost thing on my mind. The work part gets a little bit in quotes because I'm still working out the schedule of what works while having an infant. But also focusing on my business as a professional speaker, and that mainly is that I get asked to come and speak to companies, to nonprofits, boards of directors, et cetera to talk to them about relationship building. And my most requested session is called Art of the Schmooze. And so we can dive more into the different topics I do later, but part of building that business which I started on the side as sort of a side hustle in 2009, and then went full time in 2015, part of that is working on launching a podcast called On the Schmooze where I interview leaders from different sectors, and ask them about how they've built their professional networks and stayed in touch with people, and what success looks like for them. And I'm also blogging regularly on the topics of relationship building, networking tips, et cetera. That's kind of where I'm at currently.   Jenn T Grace:              Nice, okay good now I have about fourteen questions which I knew would happen. So to start, how did you come up with the topic of the On the Schmooze? Like how did that form and evolve?   Robbie Samuels:         On the Schmooze as the podcast or Art of the Schmooze the session?   Jenn T Grace:              The session first, and then I think the podcast we can get into next.   Robbie Samuels:         Sure so Art of the Schmooze actually came about- I was running a group that I started ten years ago called Socializing for Justice, and this is a cross-cultural, cross-issue progressive community and network in Boston that really brings together likeminded progressives. And about a year in to organizing that, I recognized that there were regulars who came to all of our events. They weren't focused on only one type of event, they came to everything. And I was concerned that this group was going to become very clicky. And we've all experienced coming into a space for the first time, we've assumed that everybody else is best friends, nobody else is new, and it's very awkward as a newcomer. So I wanted this to continue to be a very welcoming space so I invited the regulars out for coffee and we started chatting about what it takes to make that kind of welcoming space. I asked them if they would come fifteen minutes early, and they said yes. I asked them if they would maybe help out at the front door in a more formal role of greeting or helping with nametags, sure. And then I said for that first hour, go out of your way to meet someone you don't know. Like just try to meet some of the new people and introduce them to the other regulars, and they said, "Sure we could do that." I said, "Okay then after that just kind of mingle and work the room," and that's where I got a lot of angsty responses because the room that I was talking to was filled with people who were shy and/or introverted, and so the idea of floating a room, chatting with strangers was the antithesis of a good time for them. So I started coaching one-on-one, started sharing some tips. I'm an outgoing extrovert so I wasn't trying to teach them how to be me, I actually don't really want the world to be filled with more outgoing extroverts. I think there's enough people who speak with very little prompting and take up a lot of space. But I did want them to be seen, heard and respected when they arrived in a room, and to be part of creating this welcoming culture. And it worked. The training evolved from there because speaking one-to-one was not a good use of my time, and I guess that was probably around 2007, 2008 that I first created this training, this session, and it evolved until 2009 I started getting paid to do speaking engagements on a variety of topics, and that has become my most requested one. And it's helped such a wide array of audiences really be more present and mindful and strategic about their networking too. So it's about body language, and eye contact and business cards, but it's also about just taking that time to figure out why are you going to this event in the first place? And then going from there. So it's chock full of information, two hour interactive training, and I love doing it because really people clearly remember a lot of the content which is so rare in a training.   Jenn T Grace:              No kidding, right? So how did you take it from this free offering you were doing with your people, and then you moved it to this one-on-one coaching situation with people, and now fast forward to 2009 you're able to get paid to be doing this. What made that leap really natural or maybe unnatural for you?   Robbie Samuels:         So what's funny is that, Jenn I love doing professional speaking because I've always loved doing public speaking. When I was in college I was on a speaker's bureau, and I did a variety of trainings, and there was this gap of about a dozen years where I just didn't have a topic. So when the opportunity came to create this and share it, I started to share it from like 2007 to 2009, I was just sharing it with any organization locally that I thought would benefit. So lots of really, really small grassroots groups I kind of met with and helped them out. In 2009 a former colleague of mine- actually not someone I worked with but someone I'd known years ago, and I hadn't actually lived in the same state in probably seven or eight years. She reached out to me and said, "I know that you're doing these talks on networking, and I know that you are a fundraiser," because that was my profession, I was working a nonprofit organizing fundraising events doing major gift work. She said, "Will you come to D.C. and do a fundraising training for my board of directors?" So my answer of course was, "Um yes," and then I went and created a training called Fundraising: Getting Past the Fear of Asking. And I went down to D.C., this organization offered me $200 which was very little money in the world of speaking but I'd never been paid before so I also was really excited. They paid my plane ticket and I shared a hotel room with my friend. And when I got there, it was actually the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association so they were doctors, and they were there for their convention, and they have to talk to people about membership. So fundraising wasn't something they felt very comfortable with, but they were having a break and I went in, and I got a chance to meet all of them, and one by one I memorized their names and when they sat down around the table, and were about to begin, I said, "Oh we should do introductions," and I said, "Oh allow me." And I then introduced each of them one by one around the table.   Jenn T Grace:              And how many were there?   Robbie Samuels:         Eighteen or so.   Jenn T Grace:              Jesus that's awesome.   Robbie Samuels:         And they sat up straighter and just were like, "Whatever you have to tell us Robbie, we will listen."   Jenn T Grace:              That's awesome.   Robbie Samuels:         So that was my first time being paid, but what I did strategically was that when I billed them, I billed them $400 and then applied a 50% referral discount, and I did this because I knew that I needed to get my own mind around the value of what I was offering. And so they only were budgeted to give me $200 but I billed them $400 and then put a 50% referral discount so that the total was $200. And for the next year whenever someone asked me about doing a training, I said, "Oh my usual fee is $400," and then I slid it to whatever was comfortable for their budget because I was still working a lot with really small grass roots or volunteer run organizations. And then a year later this organization, I said $400, they said great without blinking an eye. I was like, okay. And I then increased it to $600 and again spent another year sliding it to whatever was comfortable for people. And then a year later it went to $800, and now it's gone on up. So really a lot of that is that the content for those trainings has gotten better in the years since I started doing this in 2009 because they're way more robust, I've presented it dozens and dozens of times. But it's also my own belief in my own value of what I can offer an organization. So I think that's a trick into how do you sort of move into being an entrepreneur and believing in what you're offering. For me I had to kind of put a value out there, and then allow the dollar amount to be settled along the way.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like that's definitely something that I find a lot of people are stuck on. Is 'what am I worth?' And I feel like people get stuck in how to value that, especially when you're looking at speakers. And I know you're part of the National Speakers Association, and I believe it says that you're a professional member which means that you are out there speaking a lot in order to be qualified if you will for that level of membership. So I think that a lot of people, they'll go from doing it for free and then immediately think that they have to jump to charging $5,000 for a talk. And you just clearly outlined that going from zero to $5,000 is not the avenue, but it's a matter of incrementally going further and further with what you're comfortable with, which I think you'll see more success if you gradually do it, rather than sticking a flag in the sand tomorrow and saying, "I'm now charging $5,000 for this" because your mindset may not actually be caught up with what you're asking, in my experience anyways.   Robbie Samuels:         You know Jenn, I've learned so much more about mindsets since 2009. I think every training that I've purchased online about online business, and being an entrepreneur starts with mindset. But I agree with you, that is what I was trying to do at the time. I also think that the client list has to really change for me to be charging $5,000. And so I'm pivoting now into working more with corporate organizations versus smaller nonprofits. So like right now my client list is more larger nonprofits and corporations, and it's exciting because it's a totally new market for me to be connecting with, and of course their ability budget-wise is very different than a really small organization. I feel like I want to have a nice balance portfolio though, where I still can offer- particularly on a local level where it's not involving a lot of travel, I want to offer these skills to organizations that I think will just benefit but couldn't otherwise have me come in. And one way I've done that is foundations. So for me, a foundation will have me come in for a half day or full day of trainings, and they'll invite all of their grantees, and so they're getting to bring me in and do this sort of like assistance, technical assistance, and capacity building, and it's great because the funding is actually coming from the foundation and the grantees just get to benefit from it.   Jenn T Grace:              Interesting. So for me, I have a similar setup that what you're describing where I do a lot of corporate engagements, and you can get paid good money for corporate engagements. So mine right now on average are right around like $9,500 for a corporate gig. That is not something a nonprofit in any way, shape or form could handle, but I feel like to some degree it's almost like my ability to give back when I do work with that smaller audience, but just because you're working with a smaller audience doesn't mean that there aren't ways to capitalize on that time in the room. So you can ask them in advance if they would send out emails to their list of people, however many that might be, or if you have a book to have them offer- give you the spotlight to kind of pitch your book to the room. So there's a lot of ways that even if you're only making $300, or even if you're not making any and it's completely pro bono, there's still ways that you can ask them for things because they're usually more than happy to do that because they understand the value that they're getting at no charge.   Robbie Samuels:         And actually speaking of that Jenn, even when I've slid my training- I no longer do completely zero, but I've slid it to like $100 for a lower organization, or $250 or something just to kind of- I want them to be committing to having me come in as a professional speaker, but I also let them know what my top rate is so that they know what they're getting. Because I think that sometimes when it is free, and this is also true for anyone who's attending and not having to pay to attend, they often don't commit the time in advance of what they want to get out of it. So when I'm brought into some audiences where they pay, I ask them if they looked ahead of time to research who I was. 'Did you Google me? Did you get a sense of what I was going to be talking about?' And more hands go up because they committed their own dollars, even if it's a little bit of money. But if it's a free event and I ask that question they're like, "Well I was just told to be here."   Jenn T Grace:              And that's the same thing for everything, right? So if you do someone's telesummit online for example, and there's all of this amazing content- because there are a lot of telesummits out there, and a lot of webinars, a lot of online content that is really amazing, but if you're not paying for it the chances of you taking action on it are so much more greatly reduced. Versus if you're like, 'You know what? I just signed up for this person's course. It's three months, it just cost me $1,000.' You bet your ass people are fully committed and all in on making sure that they get every possible minute of value out of that particular program. And it's the same thing with showing up to speak, I totally agree.   Robbie Samuels:         Yeah, mindset.   Jenn T Grace:              Totally is mindset. So in terms of mindsets, and balancing the fact that you're now a stay-at-home dad. So Grant is young, and so how are you finding that you're able to grow your personal brand? And one of the reasons why I wanted you on the show is because if you go to your website which is www.RobbieSamuels.com and that will be in the show notes, I feel like you have- it's really succinct and very clear as to what you do, who you are, the types of clients that you work with. But how are you finding that growing your personal brand is kind of balancing with fatherhood right now? Because I can't imagine- my kids are seven and nine and I still have challenges at times. So having a five and a half month old is definitely a challenge unto its own. So how is that working for you right now?   Robbie Samuels:         Well I think part of my personal brand is that I am a convener and a connector, and I can't turn that part of me off. So when there was a new challenge of being a new parent, I basically dove right in. And so in August before my son was even born- he was born in mid-December of 2015, in August a few months beforehand, I actually started an online Facebook group for parents with children around my kid's age. And it is now over 400 members and we're hosting a monthly baby clothing swap and other socials, and cross-promoting a lot of great content, as well as having an amazing online support system. So by doing that and making an effort in the first few months to really show up with him to a lot of different parent groups, I've now established myself in a very short amount of time within this sort of parent network in Boston. So wherever I go, someone says- they either know me or they know of me and they say, "Oh I'm in your group. Hey everybody, this is Robbie." So to me that was really important because as a work-at-home, stay-at-home dad I knew that during the week I was going to be around a lot of moms. And so this is sort of a weird catch 22 of being praised for being a dad for doing little things, but being ostracized on the playground on the other hand. So now by offering, by being someone who hosts and convenes people, and creates value, I'm just practicing what I'm preaching in 'Art of the Schmooze,' and with all my training material, and all my blog posts and the podcast that I'll be launching, which is to offer, offer, offer before you ask. And it's wonderful because people know what I do, they're learning a little bit more about my business, I'm quite certain that as we get past the only knowing each other because we're parents, we'll start to know each other's work and professions, and there will start to be connections there as well. And so that's been something I've put a lot of energy into in the last year, is establishing sort of these foundational support networks because I want those for my family. And it's basically me practicing this philosophy of abundance. I'm at the point now where if I can imagine something that we might need for our family, I can put it out there to these different groups, and somebody will find it for us and respond, and offer to just bring it to us for free. So that's been a part of my personal brand; people now in this new sphere now know me. But really my personal brand has been a lot about that. Like Socializing for Justice, the group I mentioned earlier is turning ten years old this year. No one is paid to run that. We've had a few hundred events, we have almost 3,000 members, and it's all run by small donations that people give at the events. And it's been a wonderful sort of place to meet people, I met all my best friends, I met my wife through this, and again it's been really about offering before I ask. So when I launched my business sort of formally in 2015 after working for ten years at the same nonprofit, and saying, "Okay I'm going to take a side hustle, and I'm going to go into this full time," this was before my son was born, I was able to really do that without feeling like I was on my own because I had so much support and there were so many people who had just been like waiting for me to do this. So I think my personal brand is not just topic-based which is networking and Schmooze, I think people know me, but so many people thought that Socializing for Justice was my full time work because that's how they knew me. They didn't even know I actually had a very full- more than full time career that was separate from that. So I think offering is a big part of my brand.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah and it makes me think about ways in which people can continue networking outside of the traditional networking opportunities. So I think that what you're talking about is really important for people just to build more relationships that have meaning and value. And I think this probably might be specific to some industries probably wouldn't make sense for this. So actually maybe they would. I'm just thinking about how you have your parents' group, right? So there's 400 people in it, it's an opportunity for you to build new relationships with people outside of a transactional 'I'm trying to sell you' environment. But rather like you said, over time you'll start to develop those relationships and if you happen to need an attorney, granted there's guaranteed somebody in that group who's some kind of practicing attorney for some particular part of law. So it's kind of like a- it's a different way of looking at networking. So I would wonder if you were to give a tip to somebody, because this obviously comes really natural to you, to be the convener, to be the person who's putting together- putting bodies in a room and getting them to connect and work together. So for somebody who might be in introvert, or not even fully a shy person necessarily, but somebody who this is uncomfortable for, so somebody- a client, type of client that you've worked with in the past. What's one or two tips that you would give to them to help them be more of a convener so they can take advantage of networking opportunities where they least expect them to be?   Robbie Samuels:         I think it's wonderful. One thing is to realize that networking is just a matter of being in the world, and present, and aware of who's around you. So it doesn't have to be at a formal event. Someone I know wrote about their experience of having a conversation like online with the DMV, and that it dawned on her in that moment that that was networking. That they ended up into a whole conversation that they actually discovered a connection in the time they were standing around together, and it's just being open to that experience is a piece of it. The other thing is that I actually think convening and being a host for me is actually a way to overcome a fear that I have of not belonging. So I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like, 'Hm I'm not sure if these people are going to like me. I don't know whether I belong here.' And particularly in the context of being a dad in a new parent space knowing that there aren't going to be a lot of dads wherever I go during the week. That convening parents in this way was a way for me to become known, and for people to appreciate what I have to offer because I am giving them a space to connect online, and then by hosting these monthly baby clothing swaps, I mean we're all benefitting from those resources being shared. And similarly with Socializing for Justice, by starting that it gave me a reason to talk to other people wherever I went in Boston because I had this resource to share, and all the regulars started doing that as well. It gave them sort of an opening of something to talk about. 'Oh you're new to Boston? You might want to check out this group. Oh you're looking to promote your events? Oh here, this group can help you.' They would be very clear ways into the conversation. Now you don't have to start by launching a whole huge group or anything like that, but you can whether online or offline create sort of these niche conversations. And one way to do that offline is something that I've done a lot with my good friend Dorie Clark, and I know you interviewed her earlier on this podcast. But we co-host dinners together, and she's really taken this to an art form. But we started doing this years ago, and we each would invite three or four colleagues and go out to dinner, and just like have a loosely- sort of loosely defined conversation that allowed people to bring more of their full selves, and that's the important part. Is that it's not so strictly business because when people find shared passions, they're both really, really into yoga, that actually can break down barriers much faster than finding out they're both lawyers. So creating opportunities like that are great because as the host of that small dinner gathering, even if you're a shyer person and have a hard time really kind of wandering into an open networking event, this is different, these are people that were hand selected to be here with you, and your whole role is to help them feel welcomed and comfortable. And so it really shifts things in your head, you become that host which is I think a mentality that we can all bring with us wherever we go.   Jenn T Grace:              I could not agree more. I was thinking about- when you were just talking about being a host, I remember when I first started learning about chambers of commerce, which is now an actual ten years ago, and I remember going to events and being somewhat frozen in fear of like I didn't know where to be, I didn't know where to go, I didn't know who to talk to, I didn't know anybody, I had travelled halfway across the state to get there, and it was all very awkward to me. But within a couple of months I'm like, 'You know what? My happy place is sitting behind the registration table because now I'm in control and I'm able to talk to every single person who comes in the room, but I have a purpose and a reason to be talking to them.' So I feel like for me it was just a matter of like how can I take this really awkward situation and find a way to network with people in a way that didn't feel threatening to me? And it happened to be helping people find their nametag. It seemed so simple, but for me it was a complete game changer because then you're able to follow up with people after the fact and say, "We only got a quick chance to say hello when you checked in, but I'd love to have coffee with you." So I think it's a matter of finding little ways to take yourself from being completely frozen and afraid of the situation that you're walking in, and making it easier and more attainable. And I think your idea of just having a couple people together that you don't know, and then- like you said it really comes back to mindset of being like, 'Okay my job here is not to be networking. My job here is to make sure that everyone else is networking.' But really when you're helping other people network you are yourself too, and it's just completely like you're fooling yourself, but it works.   Robbie Samuels:         Yeah Jenn, I talk a lot about the difference between inviting and welcoming. So as event planners we sit around and talk about who we wished attended our events. 'Oh I wish there were more of X people,' and we brainstorm where those folks might get information about our event. And so we send the invitation to new list serves, or post it on new bulletin boards, et cetera. And then those new folks and other folks arrive, but no one actually greets them. You know they sign in, they get their nametag, they circle the room, they look for an opening, they don't really find one, they stand around awkwardly, and then they leave shortly after. And then the next time we get together as the event planners we talk about retention, and how- well what can we do to keep these people that we made this effort? What could we do? And the answer to what we could do is put more of an emphasis on the welcoming than the inviting, and that's where 'Art of the Schmooze' was training our regulars to be hosts. Because it can't just be me, the person who booked the room, who greets people because often the person who booked the room is also dealing with AV, or catering, or some- getting a banner hung up. They're distracted in that time period when the first awkward newcomer arrives, which is usually even a few minutes before the official start time. So that's why we ask our regulars to arrive fifteen minutes early so that the event was sort of already happening when those first few newcomers arrive not knowing where to stand and what to do. And re-coach them to talk to those new folks and introduce them to the other regulars in the room. And just by doing these couple of things, and asking them to play this host role, it awakened within them this like sense of purpose in the room. Like I now have a role, and so matter how shy they were or how introverted and exhausted they found this sort of being in a space with a lot of people, they started to see, 'Oh there's someone standing off by themselves-' and they used to ask me permission at first. They'd be like, "Robbie should I go talk to them?" And I was like, "Yeah, that'd be great." Now they just do it. They just go over, and they chat with them, and then they introduce them to someone else. Now that's really different than if you really are that brand new person. If you're a guest and you've never been here before and you go and talk to the wallflower, you might have a great conversation, but neither one of you knows anyone else in the room and that's going to be a really difficult ending to the conversation. So I always ask people to be really mindful when they walk into a space, are they a guest like as in they're brand new, or have they been there a few times? And I think if you just show up three times within a space, within an organization’s events, or within an industry's events and you kind of get to know people. At that point you can really start to think of yourself as a host, and the way you kind of mingle in that room is going to be different.   Jenn T Grace:              And now how do you think connectors fit into this? Because I know for myself, and so since I'm networking primarily in LGBT environments it's a much smaller community, even in a larger city like Boston. But for myself I know that my style is usually if I just start talking to somebody random, which I typically have very little problems just going up and starting a conversation with somebody. But if I hear them say something that triggered a thought about a conversation I just had, I will walk that person from where I am to that other person and be like, "They two of you have to connect," and I will just go through the room and continue to do this, because I feel like to a certain degree you have to be mindful of your time, and there might be 100 people in the room and you want to be making sure that you're having conversations that are helpful to further your own agenda if you will. I don't like using that phrase but you know what I mean. How do you find that people who are natural connectors, or people who aren't natural connectors but would like to be, how do they fit into this equation, and where is their role?   Robbie Samuels:         Well so Malcolm Gladwell talked about connectors, and they know a lot of people and they like to connect them. And so some of us very naturally fall into that category, and you and I both do. And so exactly how you described the scene, I do that but I also have introduced two people who are just standing next to each other, and they assume that there's a reason I did that and they ask each other questions until they find that connection, and then they'll come running over excitedly saying, "Oh how did you know we both went to southern California schools?" You know so I think that it's interesting that I created a space where people are looking for those connections. On the other hand I think everybody has the ability to be a connector, and I'll give you a quick example. I was at a huge conference, 18,000 people, there was this like after party / networking event with like loud music, dark lights, not conducive actually to networking. The first person I chatted with was a college student, I haven't been in college in a decade or longer, so on the surface we had very little in common. And we chatted for a few minutes and at the end I said, "You know I don't know very many people here. Is there anyone you think I should meet?" And he got really excited, and he told me someone's name, and I said, "Oh that's great. I'd love to be introduced." And he grabbed my hand, and he dragged me through the crowd up to his intern's supervisor who was the Communications Director of a nonprofit that I'd wanted to get to know. And he introduced us, and I said, "Thank you so much," and I turned to the Communications Director and started chatted with him, and the student walked away all peacocked, 'I just did that. I just made that connection.' And how many people did he need to know in the room to be a connector? Just the one. And the other piece of this story is that you can't discount people because they're students, or assistants, or receptionists, et cetera, because they're all working for important people who have interns, and assistants, and receptionists. So he got super excited to make that connection, and it helped me leapfrog in this very large, loud crowd over to a good conversation. Like you said, you want to try to talk to the kinds of people you want to talk to. And that is my philosophy. I want to- that's my way of ending a conversation, if I'm in a room and I don't know a lot of people I ask that question, and otherwise I'll ask the reverse. If I'm hosting I'll say, "You know, I know a lot of people here, is there anyone you want to be introduced to?" And I'll just offer that, and that's a nice way to wrap up a conversation gracefully, but also help them or you kind of leapfrog to what hopefully is going to be another meaningful conversation.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, absolutely. I love the direction that we've been going in this conversation. One of the things that I'm thinking about is the fact that you grew your brand very organically, and I feel like mine was the same way. Like it just- there was very clear this led to this, which led to this, and now here we are. For someone listening to this who- so you know it's the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast. So in thinking about personal branding, and then also thinking about the LGBTQ community, how has the LGBTQ piece influenced what you're doing or not influenced what you're doing?   Robbie Samuels:         Well I wanted to work- when I moved to Boston in 2002 from New York, I wanted to work for a mission driven progressive organization that hosted multiple annual events. And I did a lot of contract work in my first couple years in Boston working at a number of different LGBT and HIV/AIDS healthcare organizations before I ended up at GLAD, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, formerly Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders based in Boston. And I think that the strategic volunteering that I did to get those first few jobs was really important. Volunteering for the health organizations doing outreach, volunteering at the AIDS walk, and this was all before I actually moved to Boston. I was coming every other weekend to do some sort of volunteer effort. So I think strategic volunteering was important, and then here I had this job where I was working at an LGBT mission driven organization, and I did that for a decade so I didn't feel like I needed to focus the rest of my life within that sphere. But for me I guess the way it influences me is that I'm an out trans man who is out online, I'm out when I do my trainings I talk about it, I talk about it in the context of feeling like a unicorn, and that we all know what it feels like to be a unicorn. You know like, 'Wow I didn't know unicorns existed. Can I ask you lots of questions? Hey what's it like to-' and there's a downside to being unicorn, to being sort of put under that spotlight, and that we don't want to do that to other people when we meet them. We want to avoid questions that are actually about something that someone can't choose. Like height, or skin color, or hair texture. But we want to more focus on things that people do choose, like their funky sunglasses, or the scarf they're wearing, et cetera. And so I do talk about it and I feel like my activism around LGBT, queer, trans politics has actually been to being an out professional, and to be out as a person who's organizing a cross-issue progressive community movement in Boston so that it wasn't like a singular focused issue-based organization when I started Socializing for Justice, but it was this like multi-faceted space that was extremely welcoming to queer and trans people, but it wasn't exclusively about queer and trans people. And we host an annual dating while progressive event on Valentine's Day and we use the exact same networking tags that we've used at our other major events. One says, 'Ask me about,' and the other says, 'I'm looking for.'   Jenn T Grace:              I love it.   Robbie Samuels:         There's no like check these different boxes if you're this and this, and if you're looking for this and this. It's like you throw a bunch of people in a room and they meet people, and they find connections, and they find friendships, and I love that like we're co-hosted by a number of progressive organizations including the Queer Poly Women Organization, and I just think like part of my activism is creating these spaces that allow so many different kinds of identities to be present. Because for most of us, most of the time when we're out in the world, we're only really able to be seen for one of our identities, and we're not able to really bring forward the complexity of who we are. So I want to create spaces where we can bring more of our full selves and share that, because that's actually how I think we form really strong connections.   Jenn T Grace:              And in that vein I guess then, that's really being authentic. It's being authentic to you, it's being authentic to your brand, and because it's authentic I feel like that's probably why you're seeing the success you're seeing because they get what they get. Like you are who you are, you're not trying to adapt or modify for different audiences, you're just kind of all in everywhere. Is that a fair statement?   Robbie Samuels:         Yeah I think about this also, about what do I post on Facebook? And my Facebook is public so you don't have to be friends- I don't know all my friends anyway is my thought pattern, so I thought why close it to friends only? So I get involved in some political conversations, I get involved in some issue conversations online, and for me I'm of the vein if you're not going to work with me because of my points of view, then that's okay.   Jenn T Grace:              Amen to that.   Robbie Samuels:         I don't want to like twist myself into a pretzel just because that's the pretzel you were looking for, if that's not how I'm feeling. And so it calls to me some people, and I'm sure that it repels other people, but it makes it a lot easier though to sort of choose who you want to work with because they're choosing to work with you.   Jenn T Grace:              Absolutely. I always say that going by the Professional Lesbian is such a gift because it weeds out people that would not resonate with me to begin with. So I don't ever have to worry when I get on a sales call, or a potential client call, and they are the ones who requested, I know that that's not going to be an issue and that's not going to be a barrier. And mind you half the time they are- more than half the time they're hiring me for something LGBT-specific, so one would imagine that wouldn't be the case. But for the times where I'm working with an ally helping them write a book for example, knowing that I go by Professional Lesbian, they know automatically that it's going to be a safe and welcoming environment for them and whatever identity they may be bringing to the table that may not actually be part of the LGBT community, but they have something that's making them fearful. So it gives people some kind of sense of comfort if you will. So I think that's great because it's really a matter of not wanting to work with people who are disingenuine, right? Like who wants to- we have our own businesses for a reason and it's not to be working with people that we don't like, which is what happens when you're working for someone else. So let's see, so we have probably about five minutes to go here. So for someone listening to this who isn't yet where you are, or yet where I am in terms of developing their brand, what would be the one action step you think that they could take today, right now, as soon as they're done listening to this they could go do X. What do you think that might be to get them at least thinking or headed in the right direction to help really kind of build their personal brand?   Robbie Samuels:         Well I think having some clarity about what you'd want that personal brand to be is important. I was following on Twitter a very well-known woman who works in the intersection of technology, and nonprofit, and mission driven organizations, and every couple of tweets was a cat video, or something like that. And she one day sort of sent out a note and asked people for their thoughts and whether she should separate her Twitter accounts so that her sort of tech, and nonprofit, and mission drive content was separate from her cat jokes content. And the overwhelming response was yes. And so she did that, and so some people follow both, and some chose one or the other. And I thought that was such a good example of being aware of the fact that you have an audience, and as you build that audience they're gravitating to you because of something that you're sharing to the world, but that sometimes the content you're sharing doesn't resonate with everybody. And so starting to be a little more focused or create separate channels for interests that are very varied and not having enough overlap. So I think that's also true on my Facebook page, for instance there's a wide array of what I talk about, but it's within a very progressive frame. You know? I also don't write hateful things, I don't write anti things, I don't allow people to post anti messages. You can write anything for anyone that you want to talk about, but you can't write nasty things.   Jenn T Grace:              It has to be respectful.   Robbie Samuels:         It has to be respectful. I'd rather everyone talk about what they're for in the world, and so many of us are framing our thoughts and our positions based on what we're against. So I think getting some clarity about what is it that you want people to see you for, and then curating what you put out in the world more as you go forward. Start to be a little more curated about what you share publicly, and maybe creating separate channels that have different sort of foci, that's what it is that you are feeling very divergent in what your interests are. People will then start to see what you're talking about and either gravitate towards it or not; that will be how you create an audience. Because I've read about this needing to have 1,000 fans, that's it. If you had 1,000 people who were truly committed to the work that you're doing, and would buy anything you sold them just because you're offering it to the world, then you're fine, you've made it, that is success. No matter what you do, you'll be successful. But it's hard to find those 1,000 devoted fans if your content is a little bit all over the place, because you don't have 1,000 fans in one topic, you have 1,000 fans for three different topics, and that's not 1,000, that's a third.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah that is such good, good information. I feel like we could talk for hours just on this- kind of go down a rabbit hole here. But just thinking about even my content, you would think that LGBT marketing, communications, business would be specific enough, but even with me it's not specific enough. I have- it's very broad, and there's a lot of different people who come to it for very different reasons. So even what you're saying in terms of kind of segmenting things out, even I run into that and you would think that my niche is niche enough, but it's far from. And I think that most people actually have that type of challenge where they think that they're talking about technology, but really when we break down technology just because somebody wants to hear about this type of technology, by no means means that everyone wants to hear about it. So that is definitely a long process I think for people to fully kind of wrap their head around, but to your point, if they're mindful of that from the onset then that's a really good starting point. So as we wrap up, do you have anything that you're working on, and the listeners will be hearing this on July 21st; so is there anything that is on your radar right now that you want to share with the audience, explain to them how to get in touch with you, and whatever means or fashion that might be?   Robbie Samuels:         So I am working on launching a podcast called On the Schmooze where I interview leaders from different sectors and ask them questions about what does leadership mean to them, how do they build their professional networks and stay in touch with people they've met across their career, what does work life balance look like? And I had the good fortune of interviewing about ten people prior to my son being born, and I'm now finally re-focusing my energy and effort to launching that this summer. So about the time that this comes out, I will be either having launched it or will have a timetable to be launching it shortly after, and that's www.OnTheSchomooze.com and it's also on my website, www.RobbieSamuels.com which is the best way to reach me. I post blog posts and great content that I just give away. I think it's important to share a lot of value up front, so I have a lot of really great, very practical, implement them today kind of tips on my website that if you're interested in sort of being more thoughtful and strategic rather than wasting your time networking and just randomly collecting business cards; if you want to be more strategic in how you build relationships, I have a lot of great resources and content on my website to help you sort of do that and be more thoughtful in the future.   Jenn T Grace:              Awesome, thank you so much for being a guest, I really appreciate it. And for anyone listening, I highly recommend checking out Robbie's website, and of course getting in touch and listening, especially as podcast listeners, go check out his because I'm certain it's going to be awesome. So thank you so much and perhaps I'll have you on as a guest a second time and we can go into some more depth on some of the things we covered today.   Robbie Samuels:         That'd be great Jenn, I'd appreciate it.   Jenn T Grace:              Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all at JennTGrace. And as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Writer and model Lily Bailey talks to us about her experience with obsessive compulsive disorder, otherwise known as OCD. Lily challenges some of the misconceptions around OCD - such as it's just about being tidy and that it's desirable in some way. She also offers advice for people who have OCD or know someone with it. She also tells us about her new book, Because We Are Bad, out now and available to purchase from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Because-We-Are-Bad-Thought/dp/0993040721

Dance 10 looks three (tits and ass) – a chorus line Goldstar  Having discussions with Boston I make friends easy year in school Production can be lonely Oh I'm also lonely Days of future passed review Sleeping arrangements and trivia Randomly catching up

Just for the podcasters - a little bit extra from the acerbic wit of London's longest-serving talkshow host!

#81 - Growing Your LGBT Business with Kimberly Vaughan [Podcast]   Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 81.   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 show. For loyal listeners, I'm sure you've noticed that I have rebranded this podcast. So this podcast is now called Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional. So you might be wondering why I decided to do this, so I'm going to share that with you super briefly, and then we're going to get into an interview with Kimberly Vaughan of www.LGBTWeddings.com.                                     So let me just address real quickly that I was doing some marketing planning of my own, and doing a little bit of research into the listenership of this podcast, and trying to figure out who's really listening to the show, and what they're really looking for. And in doing so I realized that a strong majority of listeners are part of the LGBT community, and in thinking about where my business has been coming from, I've got a handful of pretty large corporate type of contracts as of late, and asking them- they've never heard of my show, they aren't really listening to anything in iTunes, they're not really podcast listeners. It occurred to me that I'm going to change the focus of this podcast to really just focus on the LGBTQ professional, or the LGBTQ entrepreneur; people who are part of the community who are growing their careers, growing their professions, growing their brands, growing their businesses, and really just make that my focus. So starting today in episode 81, that's my new focus.                                     Now don't get me wrong, if you go back and listen to the overwhelming majority of the 81 podcasts, or the 80 podcasts I've already done, you will note that I talk about marketing and branding as it relates to being an LGBT person. So I've already basically been doing this, and it's kind of evolved into having been doing this probably since maybe the mid-60's episodes. So going on probably a good twenty episodes, I've really already been doing this. So it was really just a matter of finally putting the flag in the sand and just changing the name of the show to truly reflect you, the listener, and really kind of amplify the whole idea of personal branding.                                     Personal branding to me is such a critical thing to be doing as an LGBT person, because being LGBT is such a benefit. And I know that some of you listening to this might not necessarily feel like it's a benefit right now, but I can assure you that it's totally a benefit. So with that being said, I'll probably be introducing more things around personal branding as we go through, but I did just want to make note the fact that I did change the name, so you're not listening to this thinking, 'What the hell? This is so not what I was expecting.' I just want to make sure that you knew that.                                     So now that that's out of the way, today I have an episode for you with a person who's been in the wedding industry for a long time who is a wealth of knowledge around LGBT in the wedding industry, and she's the founder and creator of www.LGBTWeddings.com which is a huge resource for businesses within the LGBT community, but then also businesses that are not part of the community who are looking to serve LGBT couples in a better fashion. So without further ado, I'm just going to dive right into the interview today with Kimberly Vaughan.                                     So I am really excited to have you on the show today. So for those listening, we're talking with Kimberly Vaughan of www.LGBTWeddings.com. And I told Kimberly before we hit record that she can shamelessly plug www.LGBTWeddings.com at the end of the episode. But to start us off, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background, and I guess how the LGBT community comes to play in what you're doing right now.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Good morning, Jenn. Thanks for having me.   Jenn T Grace:              You're welcome.   Kimberly Vaughan:    So let's see. I've been in the wedding industry for about fifteen years now on the west coast, and the past ten years I've been producing consumer trade events, wedding expos, we operate the international wedding festivals here on the west coast. It's a very vivacious, fun, exciting place to plan a wedding. And unlike other bridal shows, or wedding expos, I think that we bring a lot of entertainment value, we have a lot of information planning their event. So it's a little bit different. I also work with a lot of wedding professionals helping them fine tune their marketing, and create marketing partnership opportunities for them. And that's my entire background has been HR, marketing, and events planning.   Jenn T Grace:              And you say it in such a succinct way that no one would realize the length of time that you've been doing this.   Kimberly Vaughan:    It has been a lengthy, long time, and here on the west coast, the wedding industry- it's got the same ups and downs as the entire LGBT community as we were battling Prop 8. So we had a lot of time to prepare, and then no, and then prepare, and then no. So it's always been part of our industry culture here, as well as our community culture here, preparing for equality. And we were so excited when it finally happened for everyone across the board, but it also gave a great opportunity for the businesses who were preparing to really put into action the things that we've been talking about for so long, and we're finally able to let it roll, and get cracking.   Jenn T Grace:              So how did you decide that www.LGBTWeddings.com and what your company does, because you're more than just a .com website. How did you decide that this is something that you felt you had to tackle?   Kimberly Vaughan:    A lot of it had to do with communicating with the wedding industry, and a lot of the companies and players, mostly the smaller base businesses, as well as larger base businesses expos, they had a lot of questions. Going through the motions back and forth, the questions had much to do with how do we refer to couples? How do we refer to the wedding party? What's okay to say? What's not okay to say? What do we need to know? For 85% of the wedding industry, they're straight-owned businesses. And so clearly there was a disconnect of how do we provide services to the LGBT community, and really shine with our services? We've got florists who've got twenty years plus experience who have no idea how to service the community. And the media made it frightening I think for a lot of straight-owned businesses to want to provide services. They were concerned that they were going to get sued if they said the wrong things, and it really scared, frightened business owners. So I think the more that we start to see silly things that are being said by a lot of business owners, it's been more so a lot of concern. I felt that it was time to put together a program that would help develop their skills, and help build their confidence. If anything for the community to have more choice for everyone to connect. I mean what we're after- we're after a wedding of the wedding of the wedding in many respects, and the only way that we're going to achieve that is through education. So what started out as like a bridge between industry to community led into www.LGBTWeddings.com, it just kind of grew. We really wanted to have support services for the community that would have online tools, and articles, and how-to's, and seminars, and all kinds of fun things; education on both ends. So that's really what started it, and I think that for the 85% of the straight-owned businesses, they're probably going to find more information that is unknown to them than LGBT-owned business. But I also think that LGBT-owned businesses would find good information in there as well in terms of marketing. We all need to strengthen our marketing, things change, technology has changed, and so it's always good to stay abreast of those things.   Jenn T Grace:              Interesting. So now how would you say you're differentiating those two audiences? Because I know for me I also have kind of the straight audience, and I have the LGBT audience. So how are you finding that balance I guess on your website and in the marketing to those different and distinct different audiences, but at the same time there's so much overlap between them.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Absolutely and I think that for LGBT business owners, it's almost like they're going, "What do I need to know, really? We know our community, we know our craft, so what do we really need to know?" For other business owners it's like they wonder why. That truly is the differentiation. I think that for LGBT business owners, this is an opportunity for them to really shine, and they know their craft and they know their community, so this is a great opportunity for these business owners to really put their best foot forward. I think that through education, and through inclusion by gay-owned businesses to straight-owned businesses, inclusionary practices, we're going to find the love so to speak. We're going to have a more inclusive industry if that makes sense.   Jenn T Grace:              Absolutely. And have you found that any LGBT people have reached out to you and say something like, "Wow I wouldn't have known that." Like something that you feel like it would have been obvious that they would know, but yet you're even educating within the community.   Kimberly Vaughan:    So yes, actually- and for a few business owners that have called me to say, "You know what, actually I did learn something that I didn't know, and a lot of it had to do with providing services to transgender individuals." So for the transgender community, there were just some other things to think about. I know one of the bridal gown owners, one of the sections in the certification talks about accommodating transgender clients for fittings, and things like this. And just kind of giving the POV I think really helped this particular owner, and she was eternally grateful, and I think it's changed her business and her point of view.   Jenn T Grace:              Awesome, that's really exciting. Can you share I guess maybe some of the highlights of what your training covers? Because I know that there's so much overlap in terms of the type of information that you're providing and a lot of the stuff that I talk about, too.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Yeah Jenn, and I love your work.   Jenn T Grace:              Thank you.   Kimberly Vaughan:    I love everything that you talk about in terms of marketing, and the community, and I think you recall the first time that we talked it was like talking to a rockstar for me. So thank you for having me here today. There is a lot of overlap, I mean we all know that marketing is a key part of our business, and our business would not flourish without it. So a lot of the marketing focus for the community is going to overlap and be the same. However, part of our certification has to do with trends that we're seeing in our industry specifically, wedding trends and new traditions. The great thing about what's happening in our country with equality for our industry, for the wedding industry, is that there are new tends and traditions being created while we're talking here today. So we all know that the LGBT community is vivacious and very experiential in terms of wanting to reflect our lives, and our experiences through meaningful ceremonies. So for the industry, we're watching this unfold right before our very eyes. Two aisles, for example. Two aisles coined by the LGBT community. There were no two aisles prior to LGBT weddings. So same sex marriage brought that to the industry. There are a lot of other things, a lot of other little traditions and ceremonial traditions that are coming into play that we're able to share with business owners. And each year I think the plan is, is that through re-certification we're going to share what we're seeing in the industry with these weddings. So that's the difference that I think most people might experience.   Jenn T Grace:              So can you talk a little bit about the coined phrase the two aisles? For somebody who's not part of the- I guess wedding industry, what that would actually mean?   Kimberly Vaughan:    So I love this part. Weddings have a lot of old historical ceremonies and you kind of go, "Now why did the bride stand to the left of the father giving her away?" And that had to do with way back in the day, you wanted to have the man's right arm free to grab his sword to protect the bride because usually marriages had to do with merging two clans together to stop the war.   Jenn T Grace:              That's interesting.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Who knew?   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, seriously.   Kimberly Vaughan:    That's why you have the bride's side and the groom's side, was keep the clans separated long enough to get to the honeymoon so that the war would end and peace would begin. So things like that really started the one aisle to separate the two clans. Well to modern day, we don't have fighting war and clans coming together, and we would like to think that the people who are coming to our ceremony, they're coming there out of a place of love for us, uniting as one, and helping us celebrate the love that we've found for an eternity. And now two brides, or two grooms, a couple will enter in on two equal sides and meet in the middle which I think is so beautiful. Why it wasn't done a hundred years ago, I'll never know, but it's here now and I love it.   Jenn T Grace:              I would not have- I don't know what I thought that that meant prior to you explaining it, but that makes perfect sense. So I had the pleasure of being on a panel this weekend that you and I set up at the very last possible minute for the New York LGBT expo. And one of the things that we talked about on the panel was wedding trends as it relates to the LGBT community, and you just talked about wedding trends a little bit yourself. What would you say that you're seeing- because it was interesting, because I'm not a wedding expert, I'm more of the marketing, and I can help any business with their marketing who's looking to reach the LGBT community. But some of the things that I was hearing on the panel, I'm like, 'Wow this is really interesting.' I would love to- instead of me regurgitating that information to my audience, it makes more sense to have the expert, yourself share maybe a couple of the trends that you're seeing currently with- in regards to maybe a lesbian- what the lesbian wedding trends are versus the gay wedding trends, or even transgender. Like what are you seeing right now? Because as we're recording this we're in March of 2016 and I'm sure the trends will be even drastically different six months from now even. I don't know, I'm not sure how fast the wedding industry moves.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Absolutely, and most businesses in the wedding industry follow these trends season after season. We know when the Great Gatsby movie came out, boy we saw that in weddings. There was a period where every wedding had this espresso brown, and either pink or aqua, and after a while you kind of get sick of the colors because you see them at all the weddings. So these are trends that us in the wedding industry are used to, they're defined by movies, they're defined by fashion. The Tiffany blue was so huge in the nineties. So it changes, definitely, for sure. And that's true specifically to the LGBT community. When the ruling happened in each state, state by state, as soon as marriage equality became legal, there were a lot of rainbow weddings, we saw that to be true. We saw a lot of smaller, more intimate weddings, we're just going to get through this. And we all know a lot of this had to do with celebration, yes of course. But legalities, and let's get this done as quickly as possible, especially here in California because we were going back and forth with Prop 8, and it just seemed like everyone was running out before it could be taken away. So we saw a lot of quickie weddings, a lot of quickie planning, a lot of small, intimate events. And now it just seems like people are spending a little bit more time planning, everyone's kind of moved away from the rainbow wedding theme, and are moving more towards what's trending in the industry a little bit. There's always going to be a level of individualistic planning, we all want to have our own signature on our event, and at the end of the day- I'd just like to share this, and I know everyone in the wedding industry agrees, this is about two people. This is about two people expressing their love for each other, and it's about two individual people coming together and expressing their love. So we've seen everything under the sun. I just received a wedding story from a couple down in Dallas, two ladies, and one of them is a huge horror story buff. Absolutely loves horror films. So her cake had horror figurines on top of it.   Jenn T Grace:              That's funny.   Kimberly Vaughan:    That's not indicative of a trend that's going on, it certainly expresses to everyone that it's okay to let your individuality shine in your ceremony. So that's what we want to see in the wedding industry. And I think most professionals really want to pull that personal experience into the event. There is no right or wrong. There is no you should follow champagne fabrics when champagne is trending. While it's very gorgeous and fluid for many people, that's just not the expression of that individual couple. So those are some of the things that we're seeing. I think that the size of the wedding- for wedding businesses who are listening, when equality first went national last June, the average number was about 85 in terms of guests. And now we're seeing that number increase. So I think that now that kind of the fear of reversal is gone, people are looking at like, 'Okay maybe we did just get married real fast, we want to plan a wedding now.' And so we're seeing people extend their planning out nine months, a year, and putting more emphasis and thought into the nuances of the day.   Jenn T Grace:              Interesting. So are you finding that LGBT couples generally are more open to having weddings that are more individualized to them? So rather than them following just straight up mainstream trends?   Kimberly Vaughan:    I do see that, and I think that that has to do with- straight couples, brides especially have grown up playing with the Barbie dolls thinking about their wedding, knowing that there's a 90% chance that they're going to get married, and what is that going to look like. And I also think that there are more traditional pressures in terms of, 'I want it to be perfect for my family.' Not that gay couples do not feel that way, but certainly the traditional pressures of carrying on traditions, wedding traditions. 'My father is going to walk me down the aisle, we're going to go down one aisle, I'm going to wear a white dress, my flowers are going to look like this, we're going to use this minister, bride's side on the left, groom's side on the right.' I think that straight couples still think they have to carry on these traditions, and a lot of times I don't know that couples really know what those traditions represent, just like we were talking about why the bride walks on the left hand side. I mean does anyone really sit there and go, "Oh because my dad needs to grab his sword."   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah.   Kimberly Vaughan:    I think that in terms of same sex couples, that is kind of removed. That pressure of following traditions is certainly removed, and I feel like there's so much joy around just being able to marry, that all of those pressures are taken away happily, and replaced with much more celebration. So I think that couples are like, 'This is our day.' Not that there isn't meaning for straight couples, but it's just got more universal meaning and equality meaning for couples. And they just want to celebrate and express, and I love it. We're enjoying all of the trends, and the vows. Boy if you're not at one of these events and bawling your eyes out because you can feel real love at these events, you're not human, I'm sorry. Your heart is black. Not to say that straight weddings aren't beautiful, but there's just a different level of expression of love going on in same-sex couples that I don't think could be duplicated anywhere. So if these businesses are pro equality, you really feel like you're a part of something incredible, and I think that that's something that I wish for all wedding professionals. Even the ones that aren't pro, even if they're just coming to witness and not work at the wedding because I think it might change their hearts and minds. I did want to tell you that some of the negative responses to equality in our industry, I don't think that it all comes from personal belief. I think much of it comes from- I'm going to get heavy hitting here, Jenn.   Jenn T Grace:              Hit me.   Kimberly Vaughan:    I think a lot of it actually comes from fear because they don't know how to service the community. I think a lot of it has to do with media, and when you don't know something, you're afraid of it. And when you don't know how to respond to something, or be a part of something, you're afraid of it. And so I think that sometimes when couples are going through the screening process of finding a photographer, or a venue, and they get an uncomfortable response on the other end, I don't know that the person on the other end really has taken a lot of time to have personal thought about it. We all see the responses from people who have fanatical personal beliefs that are against equality, but I think the larger part of negative responders have more to do with, 'I don't know what I feel about this. So I'm going to reach for this first.' And I think that that's where the education comes in and really helps them guide their feelings, and look at it, address it. So I think that if more businesses are invited to participate, obviously friendly businesses that are interested in participating because nobody wants that negative nilly at their event, I think that it's going to change so many hearts and minds because you cannot escape the love. You just can't. You can't help but feel it.   Jenn T Grace:              So somebody was on this podcast awhile back, Michele Wierzgac, I don't remember exactly what episode she was, but it was probably in the sixties. And she was sharing how she came to New Haven, Connecticut, which is not far from where I am, from Chicago to get married. And she was talking about what a good experience it was, and how where the reception itself was, was great, and she had good hospitality. But she had made a reference to a limo driver making some kind of comment about where the husband is when the two of them got into the limo on the way over to where they were getting married. And how that put just kind of such a damper on the day.   Kimberly Vaughan:    And I'm sorry that she had that experience, and there's no excusing professionals from knowing their craft, knowing their client, and being better professionals than they are. We all want to grow, we all want to evolve, we all want to be better and provide the best possible service for our clients, that should be everyone's benchmark. And I also do seminars with couples and helping same sex couples to go through the planning process; let's talk about vendor selection, let's talk about budget, let's talk about timeline, and checklist, and things like that because if you haven't done this, and this is true for every couple, you don't necessarily know where to begin. But every couple isn't having the same challenges of the screening process and finding people who are accepting of their love, who are excited about their marriage, who are excited about providing services on their day. I mean that's just not the truth for every couple. So part of what I'm doing when I'm working with couples is talking with them about how to manage and handle and identify great providers. Certainly utilizing services who are doing screening, that's great, but also understanding that for many of these providers, they may not be trying to be offensive. They may just be so used to saying the same things for the past fifteen or twenty years that they've been a limo driver, or a florist. They're presuming to know their clients, and to ask appropriate questions for their craft, and by saying the same things for the past twenty years, it just comes out. So sometimes when I'm talking to couples it's you may have a wonderful, terrific, fabulous florist with all this great experience, and you've looked at the options, and they're fabulous, and you get halfway through the service and they say something like, "So is your groom coming to the next meeting?" Without even thinking, it's just something that they've been saying for twenty years. So we try to one, educate the wedding professionals on what to say, what not to say, and how to get out of these assumptions, and out of the ritual of what they've been doing for twenty years, and be excited, and re-formulate their questions with gender neutrality in mind. You know, some people just fall back. And so what I'm asking couples to do also is to just not always be on the defense, and instead correct. It's okay to say, "You mean my wife?" It's okay, and maybe not let a silly comment that may not have been intended in a negative way ruin your day. You know wedding days are really joyful but they're also very stressful for couples. There's a lot of emotion going on, and that's true for everyone. There's a lot of anticipation of having the perfect day; people strive for that, they want that, they want everything to go off without a hitch. And so sometimes getting a negative comment, even from our family and friends who know us, and adore us, and love us, in these situations they say the wrong things. And that's going to be true for everyone. I always just tell couples try to rise above some of the things that you think are important at the time, because at the end of the day it's the two of you expressing your love together that is the real important key element of your wedding day, and so let this other stuff roll off your back. There's always going to be an aunt or someone who says something stupid. A little bit too much wine, and they regret it, they know it, so just let it go.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I get you.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Focus on what's important.   Jenn T Grace:              So as a wedding planner, is that part of their jobs to help educate any ancillary service that's going to be needed? So it's obvious that you'd want to prep the florist who has a big part of the day, or prepping the Justice of the Peace for example. But in terms of like a limo driver, which is obviously a big part of the day, but it's really kind of a small part in the grand scheme of things. Is there somebody that's kind of trying to pre-educate to avoid those types of faux pas?   Kimberly Vaughan:    Absolutely.   Jenn T Grace:              Okay.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Absolutely. So if couples are utilizing wedding planners, and that's a wonderful service. So wedding planners can do the screening for you, they can help you with your timeline, your budget, take your vision and really kind of mold it into your budget, and figure out what's the best course of action to go into. A really, really wonderful profession and underutilized I think in our industry by couples. Most of the time couples think that they can't afford one because every time you see a wedding planner in the movies or on TV, it's for these big elaborate events, and so people have the mindset that wedding planners are only for the rich, and only for high dollar events, and that's just not true. So that's a whole other conversation but that is definitely not true. Your average wedding can accommodate in the budget to have a great wedding planner. So I highly recommend them. And wedding planners should be the person that is doing screening, that is helping to educate providers. Typically wedding planners have a circle of providers that they call upon all the time, and refer because they believe in their work, because they know that they're going to show up on time, provide a great service, communicate well with their couples, those kinds of things. So that should be that person's role, and sometimes when you're working with a planner who's doing day services and they have not been part of the selection process, they're just there to kind of tighten everything up, and make sure everything runs smoothly so that a couple can focus on each other, and their family, and not on little dumb details like- not dumb, but you know what I mean. When's the cake going to be here, when are the flowers arriving, where's the minister, things like that. Those are the things you don't want to think about on your wedding day, you want to leave that to professionals. So sometimes you're just hiring a planner for day of services, and they haven't been part of your screening process, so they don't know. But you hope that they're having a conversation prior to- day services typically start ten days to two weeks prior to a wedding, so you hope that they're picking up the phone and going over these things. But if you've got the wrong hire, and the wedding planner realizes that you've got the wrong hire, it might be too late, and you might just have to make the best of it and run with that person, and really hope that your planner is tightening things up.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that there is any benefit that you as someone part of the LGBT community may gain versus someone who's not for doing the same type of role for a client? In terms of I guess-   Kimberly Vaughan:    So this is a really great opportunity for LGBT owners to put their best foot forward. You understand your client base, you understand maybe some different ways to express ceremonial wow so to speak in these weddings. And sometimes that's half the battle, especially in terms of marketing and reaching the community. Well you know how to reach the community, you have a good idea of how to network within the community, it's a very tightknit community. So what we're finding though also is just as- and any wedding owner whether you're straight or gay knows this. Marketing within the wedding industry is niche marketing. There's a way to go about it, and there's a way not to go about it. So whether you're gay or straight-owned, you have to understand your marketing inside of the community. That's a must. But I think that the advantage that LGBT-owned businesses would have here, is that you already understand your client base. Straight-owned businesses are really struggling in understanding how to accommodate the community because of media hype, because of their own fears, because they just haven't had the opportunity yet, and many of them want that opportunity. So I think it's a good way, especially if you are gay-owned businesses, to put that on your website, market that, promote it. I think it's a really good idea.   Jenn T Grace:              Would you guess that LGBT people might be more comfortable doing business in regards to their wedding with other LGBT people who are service providers?   Kimberly Vaughan:    I do think that there's probably a preference; we all know, we see it all the time, there's certainly a preference to work with LGBT-owned businesses because of the feeling of comfort and understanding of needs. There's a couple that we're working with down in Texas, they're actually getting married on the 20th next Saturday right after the LGBT Wedding Party and Expo. So they're getting married in Dallas, they don't live in Dallas, they live in a very rural area in Texas and they were having a very hard time finding a venue that they felt comfortable at, that was welcoming. So they were very excited to have this opportunity for them. It's happening, it's happening all over the place. There aren't always gay or straight-owned businesses that are rolling out the welcome mat for couples. And it's the sad truth that the community is experiencing. So would a couple prefer? Probably. That could very well be, but there are also in many other providers who are straight-owned that can do a fabulous job and might match their vision of what they're trying to achieve, or might be available on the day of their wedding. There's only so many Saturdays in a year, and there are only so many providers, and there's not one LGBT-owned, gay-owned florist in any city who can accommodate every Saturday for every wedding. So having that diversity is going to be- it's needed, it's wanted, I think everyone feels that we all want to see inclusion across the board.   Jenn T Grace:              And so if there's somebody listening to this, because as you were talking I was thinking about the media hype, and how things get blown so out of proportion whether it's in our favor or against us, it doesn't matter, it's just everything is to an extreme, it's not helpful. So in thinking about the bakery who refused to bake the wedding cake for an LGBT couple. Like yes, so there's a piece of that, and I feel like I'm very pragmatic and I always look at things from both sides of the situation, and to me if someone doesn't want to bake me a damn wedding cake, there are 1,000 others that will bake the cake. I don't need to throw a shitfit about this particular vendor not wanting to do business with me. So there are people who have that train of thought, and then of course there are people in the community that have a completely different thought of like, 'I want you to make my cake, you're going to make my cake.' So there's extremes again. Now in terms of an ally listening to this, because I do have an ally audience as well, if there's one thing that you could say to them that might get them to feel more comfortable? So maybe there's somebody who has some kind of service that they could work with the LGBT community, not even necessarily weddings. What would you tell them? Like if there was just that one little nugget of wisdom that you think might help them take that first step in saying, 'I feel comfortable enough to try this. It doesn't mean I'm going to do it right the first time, but I'm going to try it.' Is there something that you can think of that might make that a little more digestible?   Kimberly Vaughan:    Well a couple things popped into my mind. One is for couples, if there's someone that you're just not feeling it, this is your wedding day. This is not a time for politics, this is not a time for social justice, that is not the expression that you want on your wedding day. Your wedding day is personal, it's about the love that you share with your partner, and that should be the reflection. So if you've got someone who is gruff on the phone, making comments, I mean this really just is not the time and place to push the equality button and push for the rights. I really feel like there are plenty of other instances in life that could support that, there's certainly opportunities every single day, but I kind of feel like weddings should have a special no pressure zone of just let's not push the equality button. I just want people to focus on the love really. And nobody wants somebody at their wedding that's going to provide bad services, or if it's a pro, it's like a no-fly zone for crappy people. We just don't want them at these weddings. So I think that for businesses who really want to be a participatory business for couples, I think just being honest and expressing your experience and your intention. So we have a lot of businesses who want to provide services, who don't necessarily know how, and it's okay to say, "Your my first same-sex couple, and I'm really excited about your wedding, and I don't know that I know all the right things to say. So I know how to make a great cake, and I know that I can take your vision and put that into the best cake that I can possibly give you, and I'm excited, and honored that you've selected me. So thank you for that. If I do something wrong, kick me under the table, correct me, help me be a better professional." That's what we're asking of couples as well as providers.   Jenn T Grace:              I feel like at least in my experience, and I think that you do bring up a good point that your wedding day probably isn't the day to take some kind of activist road, and cause chaos that may or may not be necessary. I know for our wedding, and I was actually thinking when you were talking earlier about the benefit of having a wedding planner, and we did not have one, and I don't know why we chose not to. I don't think it was a conscious decision to do or not to do it. And I was thinking about all of the logistical stress that since I run events I'm like, "Oh doing my wedding just might be just the same as any other event," and obviously that is not true. And I managed to pull it off because I knew enough people who were already active in the LGBT community, whether they were allies or actual LGBT vendors, which I tried to get as many as I could, and we even had the Lieutenant Governor of our state, who's still the Lieutenant Governor, marry us because she has a sister who's a lesbian and it was just kind of a passion for her to be able to marry- like we were her first lesbian couple to get married, which I think is so fun. And so I was thinking like I am stressed out about the fact that the frickin Lieutenant Governor is here, and I need to be like trying to like keep my shit together. So I feel like I was totally-   Kimberly Vaughan:    It felt perfect, and everything's perfect.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, I was like kind of all over the place.   Kimberly Vaughan:    No pressure.   Jenn T Grace:              No, not at all. My wife on the other hand who is a saint in many regards, she was just very calm, cool, collected, like 'just chill, come on, just relax.' Her dress was like falling off of her back because something got sewn wrong, and yet she was still like, "It's fine." She was so passive about the whole thing. But I know for us, we didn't take a political tact necessarily, but we did make sure that we- of course having a politician officiating, that clearly adds a political element. But having all these LGBT vendors, and then having the allies who are properly in the know, I feel like it worked out really well. But that was a very conscious and deliberate, and it took awhile. So I can totally see how if something at our wedding had kind of gone off script if you will, I probably would have been- I feel like I would love to say that I wouldn't have gone down like some kind of activist road, but I feel like I may have gone down that road because you're so wound up when you're getting married. Like it is what it is. So I think generally most LGBT people aren't necessarily wanting to go from zero to sixty, from being just this calm rational person to irrational and an activist without something kind of happening in between to push them there. So do you think that that's- and I'm trying to figure out the question.   Kimberly Vaughan:    I don't think that people are setting out- I just think that if you're facing- during the selection process, if you're facing some push, move on, these are not the right people for you. These are not the people that you want on your wedding day. You want to feel supported, you want to feel the love, you want to feel- even if it's due to the proprietor, I mean we can all sense it when we've got someone who's embracing us. That's what we want on our wedding day. We want to feel supported, and loved, and that that provider is there to make our day as beautiful as they possibly can within their abilities. And it's deserving, and it's the way things should be. So all I'm saying is if during the process you're feeling some pushback, like it's just not the time to pick it up and turn it into a legal issue. Like just move on. I'm not saying let people trample right, I'm not saying let people treat you like dogs or anything bad, I'm just saying that it's probably just not the time or place to pick up a fight. You've got a wedding to plan.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah you don't have time for that.   Kimberly Vaughan:    You've got celebration in your midst, and it's time to really grasp onto that and not let anybody rain on the parade. So move on.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I know for us the only hiccup we had was filling out our marriage license. So we got married in 2011, and marriage was legal in 2008 in Connecticut, and the marriage license paperwork was still not up to speed, so I had to do some crossing out on that, put two brides. But that was like I feel like it is unreasonable for me to think that in a matter of- and while yes, it was three years, I feel like maybe it could have moved a little faster, to think that everything's going to be up to par and immediately, like overnight in terms of LGBT equality. And I think most people, most LGBT people understand that and realize that it's going to take some time. So I think that if people are thinking about doing business with the community broadly, or if they're thinking specifically about weddings, I think most LGBT people are coming from a place of recognizing that they don't expect that vendor to be perfect. And if they make a mistake, if that vendor kind of owns the mistake saying like, "Oh I'm sorry I said groom, or said bride," I think it's a completely two way open dialogue between the LGBT person and the vendor, because most of them are not out there to criticize and chastise, I think it's just what the media makes it look like, it's not really the reality.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Exactly, and I agree with you, and I think that those are things that we discuss when we're talking with, and working with companies, businesses, is let's just fine tune and go down through your forms, let's talk about gender neutrality on your website, let's talk about it in your forms. It's really important that if your intention is to provide services to the community that you are really demonstrating that; that you have taken thoughtful preparation, that you're rolling out the red carpet, that people feel welcomed, and accommodated and loved. So that's certainly a place where businesses can express their understanding, or at least their desire to understand the community. And it's funny because in many ways I feel like a lot of the businesses have been a little bit more proactive, and they don't want to be anti-government than maybe some of the forms that we're seeing at the state and local levels. And it's like guys, come on. I get that you've got probably 50,000 of these forms already printed, and it's going to require you to reprint all this stuff, but it is what it is. Time to get the printer going.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I feel like-   Kimberly Vaughan:    For some of the smaller businesses it's probably an easier task than for the large government entities to revamp every form under their umbrella. So all of this is going to take time, and I think we all had hoped that it would move along a lot faster, and that it would have been enveloped a lot faster, but this is not easy stuff. It was long overdue, as much as the community would have liked that everyone prepared beforehand, it didn't happen, and in many respects the world is scrambling to be to par. And I like the process. The process means we get to take an opportunity to educate, to train, to understand the community. I think it's really an opportunity, and not- it's frustrating but this is an opportunity for more people to understand the community, and see the beauty. It's all good stuff.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah I'm in complete agreement, and I don't want to quote the right wing necessarily, but we have changed the institution of marriage. Like we can't expect because it was legalized last year that suddenly hundreds of years of what marriage was thought to be is just going to change overnight. So we do need to be I think a little more realistic about how long things take.   Kimberly Vaughan:    And let's embrace the process, because this is going to change and evolve for many, many years to come. I mean this is just like a starting point, and we in the wedding industry just as we see trends change by season, whether it's the colors of weddings, or symbolism; we have a whole new culture and community contributing to how weddings are going to look going forward. And that is extremely exciting for wedding professionals, I mean everyone is just kind of like, "Oh my goodness, what's going to happen this season?" It's exciting for everyone to watch all the symbolism and the changes in trends. We're all on bated breath trying to see where this new direction is going to head into design wise, aesthetically speaking and symbolically speaking.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah, definitely. Well we're already pretty much at the end of our time. It went by so fast, but I want you to share how people can find you, how they can find more information about LGBT weddings, and just kind of hit them with all the information to get in touch with you.   Kimberly Vaughan:    So you can find us at www.LGBTWeddings.com, that's our URL. You are welcome to call our 800-number. 844-899-LOVE, and we've got a lot of seminars developing for wedding industry businesses to learn about the current trends, how to express gender neutrality, and change their forms, and change how they approach their business for the community, and how to market to the community, and at the end of the certification process there's this free badge, and the badge I think is a good way to express to the community that you know what? I'm doing due diligence, I'm learning how to address my marketing, I'm learning how to address the community, and that you've got a provider who's really trying to be a great performer for you. So look for the badge of course, and we're also developing some online seminars for couples to go through the planning process just like you and your wife had experienced, there's now some online planning tools specifically for the community; bride/bride, groom/groom, bride/groom, bride/groom. So we've got some great tools like seating charts, and timeline, and checklist, and budget list, and things like that that will help couples through the planning process. So we're doing good stuff, and I'm really excited about where the world is taking us. We got to experience that at the expo last weekend, and we did a workshop with couples, we did a workshop with businesses. Jenn, you and I shared Kimberly [Inaudible 00:50:33], you had Kimberly [Inaudible 00:50:35] on stage, you had Stacy at Foxwoods, you had-   Jenn T Grace:              Louise.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Louise at Cafe Louise. And these were all great contributors in our industry that are providing services within the community. So that was really wonderful. So we're trying to incorporate programs like that across the nation to really be the bridge between industry and community. So We love to hear from wedding providers, we love to hear what trends are being seen in the area because we all know the east coast trends and traditions are very different from the west coast, and the south, and so these are the exciting things that we're looking at on an industry level, and it's going to be true within the community whether it's by location, time of year, we're going to see a lot of seasonal changes. So we love hearing from wedding professionals what they're seeing, and we love receiving stories from couples, and sharing those online as well. So we've got our real weddings where couples can go on there, see what other couples are doing, see what's trending, what's happening, and I think it's a fabulous site with a lot of educational value as well as a lot of- for both couples and for businesses. So it's a fun place, and wedding planning is a joyful process. It's supposed to be a contingency, and so taking all of the politics out of everything and focusing on having fun with the planning process. That's what www.LGBTWeddings.com is a site that's all about, and really helping everyone to have the tools that they need whether they're a business or a couple in the planning act.   Jenn T Grace:              I love it. It's an all-around fantastic resource. So thank you again Kimberly, I'm so happy that you were on, and I know that we will continue to stay in touch.   Kimberly Vaughan:    Thank you Jenn, thanks for having me today. Everybody have a great day!   Jenn T Grace:              Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all at JennTGrace. And as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.  

"Oh she's not Ms. Right, she's just Ms. Right Now". "Oh I'm with him, but I really don't see myself marrying him". Why do some people find themselves spending way too long in these meaningless relationships stringing the other person along? We sit down with special guest Varun Jindal and take a deep dive into this topic. Join us for another fascinating Much Ado relationship segment! 

So many people ask the question 'why'. Why the problems? Why the tragedy? There have been times when I have questioned why. Why did I have cancer? Why was I in prison for Bible smuggling? We all ask: why hasn't God delivered me? In Mark 5 we have this Jewish ruler. He had pleaded with Jesus to come to his house. But it was too late. In the delay between asking Jesus and Him arriving, the girl had died. The house was now full of mourners. - Have you ever mourned over lost opportunities? Has Jesus ever turned up too late?'The storm around me rages. My peace has been denied. There's One that I can turn to, His arms are open wide. Oh I'm sheltered in the rock of ages. You hold me in Your arms and You tell me that You love me. I'm sheltered in the arms of my Lord.''The Living Word' and 'Sheltered in the Rock' used by kind permission of www.vinesong.com

On this week's Round Table, we've got... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Back when George was a probationer himself, a lot of things were different. They had personal radios back then but there was only one channel to communicate on and the radios were pretty basic. There were three volume settings, louder, louder and deafening; and the only way th turn the thing off was to drop the battery out of the bottom. If you were with another officer when you stopped someone in the street and you called the Control Room for a name check, it meant that the reply "Are you free to speak?" was an instruction for every one else to remove their batteries and allow you to receive the information in confidence. In addition to his radio, George used to have a truncheon and a pair of handcuffs on his belt, the truncheon sat in a purpose built pocket down the outer thigh of his uniform trousers. You don't want to upset the public do you? All of his report books along with his pocketbook, were distributed among the pockets of his jacket. These days, when George steps out on foot patrol he looks more like an armoured gadget bag on legs. His body armour has pockets stuffed with books and his belt carries a radio, rigid handcuffs, extendible baton, and pouches filled with first aid kit and search gloves along with yet more report books and pens. Some things haven't changed over the years, one of those things is the people George deals with. He recently stepped into the Custody Office and came face to face with a local character called Burglar Bill. George found himself going back to the first time he'd met William, getting on for fifteen years earlier. Probationer George was the radio operator on a response car on a weekday Late Turn when his driver accepted a call to a suspicious male in a back garden. When they arrived there was no sign of anything amiss so the driver posted George at the front door while he trotted round the back to check things out there. George was disappointed because it meant his driver would nab any wrong-doer at the back of the house, no burglar ever used the front door, everyone knew that. While he stood sulking and idly kicking stones along the path, the front door to the house opened and a middle-aged man in a shirt and tie stood there, clutching a bag in his hand and staring at George. "Good evening officer, is everything okay?" he asked. "Yes sir, we're just checking out a call, do you live here?" George replied. He noticed the bag in the mans hand was in fact a pillowcase that seemed to contain a few bulky items. Somewhat suspicious now he planted himself in front of the man and asked "What do you have in the bag sir?" The man's shoulders slumped and he sighed as he said "Okay, you got me, I was screwing the place, okay?" George almost stammered as he said "You're under arrest for burglary, you don't have to say anything but anything you do say will be taken down and used in court." The man smiled slightly and said "It's a fair cop guv', you've got me bang to rights". George gawped in horror at the man, knowing that no one would believe his prisoner had used the legendary words. When he asked the man if he was sure he wanted to say that, the man just smiled and nodded. Coming back to the present day George smiled and said "Hello Bill, what are you up to now, I haven't seen you in ages?" William turned and grinned at George, accepting George's outstretched hand and shaking it, "Oh I'm working with youth offenders these days, keeping them honest and on the straight and narrow you know. Someone has to keep them bang to rights don't they?" Maybe everything does change after all. 'Right Click' and 'Save as' to download the audio version

This week on Awesomecast 216, we talk awesome things in technology, including: Tonight we're talking with @diggy about Pixels of Fury. http://pittsburgh.aiga.org/event/shutterstocks-pixels-of-fury/ We're talking about Denver's technology community with Colorado's legalization of marijuana.http://live.sorgatronmedia.com pittsburgh.aiga.org Check out some of the work @diggy's been doing with AIGA. OH: I'm excited to see what widgets will be coming out. (Of course that's from @chilla - Not gonna pretend it isn't.) http://live.sorgatronmedia.com We're excited about iOS addition of swipe. Mixed feelings on the big screen sizing. http://live.sorgatronmedia.com iPhone mini! You heard it here first folks! (It's not really a thing, but if it ever becomes a thing. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!) Facebook testing a way for users to schedule deletion of posts? http://marketingland.com/facebook-testing-scheduled-deletion-99630?utmcontent=buffercbfdf&utmmedium=social&utmsource=linkedin.com&utmcampaign=buffer â?¦ Join the discussion. Is this a good idea? The correct pronunciation of "Carnegie" brought to you by AwesomeCast crew and listeners. (This may be the most diverse show we've done.) BuyPartisan. An app that scans grocery barcodes to tell you whether your grocery supports Democrats or Republicans. http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/sep/05/buypartisan-app-video Friend of the Show @WaltRibeiro has a Patreon Page at http://www.patreon.com/Walt?rf=67068 Check out some of the awesomeness he does. Microsoft bought the company that makes Minecraft. http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/09/15/microsoft-to-buy-minecraft-fans-worry-about-games-future/ Let us know your thoughts. http://live.sorgatronmedia.com @Sorgatron is talking about his discussion with the folks at http://duoscreentech.com/ for a laptop add-on for a 2nd mobile screen. After the show remember to: Eat at Slice on Broadway if you are in the Pittsburgh area! It is Awesome! (sliceonbroadway.com) Follow these awesome people on Twitter: John Chichilla (@chilla), John DeGore (@diggy), and Mike Sorg (@sorgatron). Also, check out sorgatronmedia.com and awesomecast.com for more entertainment; and view us livestreaming Tuesdays at 6:30 PM EST!