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The boys are back with a brand new look, fresh freestyles, and an unexpected guest—The Duke, one of the OG Toxic Boys! They were expecting someone else… but an “incident” kept her from showing up . J.O. dropped the ball on his usual church findings but bounced back quick. Parker hit a new church too, and they unpack a wild update from last week's “Dear ADD Boys” dilemma—turns out homie ain't attracted to his girl because she's big, and J.O. told him to stop spending on hotels and buy Ozempic instead . Just when it couldn't get more chaotic, EMP soft-launched his girlfriend on the show (?!), officially retiring his Toxic Boy badge. Meanwhile, Parker was dry snitching on everybody—including himself . They dive deep: Would you overlook someone's weight if they checked every other box? Tracie Ellis Ross and her taste for YNs Traditional roles vs. “do what works” J.O. vs. Young Studs The cutest studs Parker has ever seen Power's rewatch value… and Lobos being a lil too zesty for a kingpin Varnell Hill spin-off?? No Face throws curveballs like: “You can only watch ONE sport forever—what's it gonna be?” Blasts J.O. for being mad about a DREAM where she cheated The room also gets into: NFL Draft NBA playoff updates NIL drama in college ball Plus:– Is it gay to text your homie “I'm mad at you”?– What do you do if someone takes “make yourself comfortable” too literally and ends up butt naked?– A Dear ADD slimeball smashes his barber's wife ✂️– And Parker asks: What do your loved ones wish you'd change about yourself? (Spoiler: He thinks he's perfect.) This one was a full-court press of foolishness, feels, and freestyles. Classic ADD chaos.   #TheADDBoys #DearADD #ToxicBoyChronicles #ChurchFindings #ControlledChaos#PowerRewatch #NFLDraft2025 #NBAPostseason #TracieEllisRoss #Ozempic#ComedyPodcast #FunnyPodcast #BlackPodcasts #FreestylePodcast #HipHopPodcast Chapters (00:00:00) - The ADD(00:04:38) - He Called You A Weak A**(00:04:52) - Toxic Boys(00:08:30) - Negro Man Wants to Ski(00:09:26) - How To Humiliate Your Child(00:12:32) - Did The 50 reply to "Ugly"??(00:14:14) - Dear ADD Boys: What Do I Do About An Unattractive(00:18:24) - How To Tell An Overweight Woman That You Don't Like Her(00:21:17) - Be More Responsible, Say The Alcohol Guys(00:23:53) - DJ Vlad on His First Murder(00:26:29) - Is It Okay If You Date Someone That's Overweight?(00:29:45) - Tracy Ellis Ross On Michelle Obama Saying She Only Fits With(00:30:58) - Traditional Roles In Love(00:34:19) - Housecleaning Tips From My Daddy(00:35:54) - Celebrities Talk About The YS(00:39:40) - Louisiana Rapper on Kevin Gates(00:42:40) - Martin's 60th Birthday Party(00:45:24) - Martin on The Spin Off(00:46:51) - Bill Maher on The Cosby Show(00:50:20) - Empire's Gayest Villains(00:53:16) - Dope Thief(00:55:59) - Mozzy Mazzy Drops New Joint 'Intrusive Thoughts'(00:57:11) - Cushion Orange Juice Mixtape Review(01:00:39) - "Is It Gay?"(01:03:00) - "If This Was The First Time I Met Her, I Would(01:06:19) - A Question for the Room(01:06:32) - My Husband Got Mad At A Hypothesis(01:09:56) - Pro Football Star on College Players' Entitlement(01:13:01) - Cam Newton Says His Dad Should've Spent That Money On Training(01:14:54) - Mass Appeal Announces 7 Albums For 2017(01:18:32) - Nick Pick: I Speak My Mind Too Much(01:21:02) - In the Elevator With People(01:21:29) - "The One Thing About You That People Would Like To Change"(01:22:37) - Jonas on His Sister's Advice(01:26:23) - What Would I Change About Myself?(01:30:02) - When You Think You're Right All the Time(01:32:27) - Herculean Breathing Exercise(01:35:24) - He Had A Dream That He talked Me Into A Threesome(01:39:28) - How To Deal With Coke On The Road

About This Broadcast: SCIENCE and the BIG BOOK of AA. On this episode of The Robb Kelly Hour join the addiction doctor, Dr. Robb Kelly and the Monty'man as they discuss how true science and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous line up. If you want a deeper understanding of Alcoholism, don't miss this broadcast. Closing Song: If You Want to be Lonely, Just be Right All the Time by Bryan Duncan.

Brandon Anderson: "The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." Ralph Nader. I am Brandon Anderson and I'm a Tri-Cities Influencer. Paul Casey: One of the only ways change happens in a company is if people change their behavior and align it to the vision. Speaker 3: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it's the Tri-Cities Influencer podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast, where local leadership and self- leadership expert Paul Casey interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey: Thanks for joining me for today's episode. So we've all had to adjust during the COVID season of the world that we're in right now, and one of the adjustments we've now had to make on top of that is technical difficulties with the podcast. So today you get me and I'm going to do a training on receiving feedback constructively, and then next time we'll be back to our fabulous influencers in the Tri-Cities that I get to interview. We'll dive in after checking with our Tri-City Influencers sponsors. Preston House: Hi, my name is Preston House and I'm the local owner of Papa John's Pizza right here in Tri-Cities. Jesus Melendez: I'm Jesus Melendez, Vice President and commercial lender with Community First Bank & HFG Trust. Preston House: When I moved here in 2009 with my family from Boise, Idaho, I knew I wanted to move from a franchise to a local business owner. I'd been working with Papa John's since I was 16 years old, so when it came time to open my own location here in my own community, I knew I needed some financial guidance from an organization who understood my needs as a small business owner. Jesus Melendez: Small business owners often have a lot on their plate. Employment, retirement plans, payroll, bills. Our mission is to become your financial partner for life and is motivated by providing people in our community, like Preston, with all the information and support they need all under one roof. Preston House: It's really simple. No matter what I need, all it takes is one phone call. No automated prompts. No call waiting. It's just a local business serving another local business. Jesus Melendez: For more information on how Community First Bank & HFG Trust can help you get back on track, visit www.community1st.com. That's www.community1ST.com. Paul Casey: Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. So today we're going to talk about techniques for receiving feedback well. Stephen Covey said, “Don't consider yourself above feedback.” We all know that that would probably be an arrogant way, position or posture to be in, to say, "I'm above feedback." No, we all need it more. I'm going to start by saying, remember the Q-tip principle. Q-tip stands for Quit Taking It Personally, because feedback is all about your growth. Well, at least it should be. If you take things personally, you block that information from getting into your mind and your heart so that you can get better. Other people have information on you that's invisible to you. I'll say that again. Other people have info on you that's invisible to you. Paul Casey: We need people who will help flip the switch on to what we need to see. You might've seen the picture of the Johari window before. The Johari window has four quadrants and one of the quadrants talks about things that you know about yourself and everyone else knows about you. That's very transparent people. Then there is the quadrant of things you know about yourself, but not everybody knows about you. Paul Casey: These are the things you hold close to the vest. Some people have a higher standard of that. Others, they're an open book. You can read it on their face how they feel about everything. There's the category of things you don't know about yourself and no one else knows about you. You probably don't have to worry about that one too much right away. But then there's the quadrant, things you don't know about yourself, but other people know and observe about you. This is the blind spot quadrant. This is scary because the research says that most of us have between three and four blind spots. And you're like, "No, I don't." Well, that's why they call it a blind spot, right? Because you don't know it's there. So other people have information on you that's invisible to you. We need that feedback. That's why I think 360 degree feedbacks and reviews are great. Paul Casey: I wouldn't say it's great in an atmosphere of distrust. You've probably been in companies where people didn't trust one another, and that's not a great environment for a 360, because then everybody's wondering, "Who said that about me, and can we get retribution back at them and nail them in their 360?" That's just a disaster. But in a culture of trust, 360s are great because everyone is helping each other get better. Ken Blanchard said, "True servant leaders want feedback because they're anxious to know whether their actions with their people are helpful and effective." So the sooner you start getting it, the more time you have to pivot. Now here's another thing about feedback: the receiver is in charge of the effectiveness of feedback. You could have delivered feedback fantastically, but then if the receiver doesn't receive it because something's going on or is broken inside of them, doesn't matter how beautifully that you delivered that feedback. Paul Casey: Same going the other direction. We're going to be talking about receiving feedback today. So even if the other person used such caution and care and love and concern for you in delivering it, if you are broken on the inside and you're blocking that feedback from getting in, it's not going to help anyone. So the receiver's in charge. To get better at receiving feedback, I would encourage you to ask someone for feedback every day. Okay, maybe not every day, but you get the point. Way more than you are now. A lot of people never ask for feedback. If we ask for it more, you can see how you get more comfortable with it because it'd be, "Hey, can you give us some feedback on this email I'm about to send the vendor?" Or, "Can you give you some feedback on this report that I'm about to send my boss?" or, "Can you give me some feedback on how I treated that last customer on the phone?" Paul Casey: If you get a lot of feedback around you from people who care about you and wants you to succeed, it's just going to be neutral. It's not going to be emotionally charged like feedback often is. And then I had one employee that once asked for the last 5%. I said, "What's that?" And she said, "Well, the last 5% is that thing you're holding back, Paul, from telling me. Because you're being really nice in this performance review, but there's probably still something that... I'm just going to give you permission. Go ahead and speak into my life." I was blown away. I was like, "Whoa." Well, there wasn't anything that I could think of because she was always so open to feedback. Paul Casey: But if you ask someone for the last 5%, that thing that they're holding back from telling you, you're probably going to get something really valuable. They're going to say it really nicely because you asked so nicely for it. They'll be like, "Well, there is this one thing." And then when you really get that, it's like, "Oh boy, I can really fine tune that. Thanks for that feedback." Rebecca Shambaugh says, "Seek feedback and use it to calibrate your own performance standards." Sheila Heen wrote a book called Thank You for the Feedback, and I would encourage you to get this book if this is a struggle for you. Maybe you get defensive when you get feedback, and it's just really difficult to hear any kind of criticism at all. Sheila Heen says, "There are three trigger reactions that block feedback from getting in." The first one she calls truth. Paul Casey: I don't believe the content of the feedback is accurate or helpful so I'm not going to let it in. Like, "That is just bologna, what you are saying to me right now." If you're telling yourself that, and you're not trying to receive the little nugget of truth that might be in there, it doesn't get in. It doesn't help anyone. The second trigger reaction that blocks feedback is relationship, where you don't trust the giver of the feedback. Whether that's the credibility of that person, like, "They don't know what I do all day," or, "They haven't stood in my shoes before," or you don't trust the positive intent of the giver like, "This person's just trying to sock it to me," or, "They're singling me out for some reason." If you don't trust that that person cares for you and really wants you to improve, then probably it's going to be blocked. Paul Casey: A third thing that Sheila Heen says in this book, Thank You for the Feedback, that blocks feedback from getting in, is your identity. Because of something broken in me, the story I'm telling myself is distorting the feedback. Either right now I'm overwhelmed so I really can't receive yet another thing. It feels like piling on. Or I'm threatened by this feedback. Like, "Maybe I'm going to get fired if this person keeps talking about this thing," or, "I'm ashamed." Like, "You're shining the spotlight on me and I don't like that," or, "I'm just off balance right now." Something's going on in my life. Maybe I'm not feeling well, or I'm going through some kind of major transition in my life and so something is broken in me. And so I can't really hear that clearly. There's just so much internal noise going on. So truth, relationship, and identity are three trigger reactions that block feedback. I encourage you to pick up that book, Thank You for the Feedback by Sheila Heen. Paul Casey: All right, let's get really practical. Here's some ways to better receive feedback constructively. Number one is to focus on the content, not the person. Focus on the content, not the person. So go in assuming that that person has positive intent. You can think about how this would color the rest of the conversation. If you are sitting there, the person is right in front of you and before they even begin talking, you think, "That person has positive intent in communicating this with me." You can just see that it just opens up lots of, well, I'm just going to say openness, right, for receiving that feedback and for this to go well. Also, have the posture of looking for the nugget of wisdom in the feedback. I heard one speaker say, "Criticism is like chewing gum. You chew for the flavor and you spit out the rest." Paul Casey: Sometimes when you're receiving feedback and that person doesn't know you very well, it may be a lot of bologna. They just don't know the whole situation. They probably shouldn't have been giving you feedback because they haven't done their homework, but there's probably a nugget in there of truth that we can still benefit from. So chew for the good and spit out the rest. Number two, listen calmly and attentively. Listen calmly and attentively. So tune in fully when the person is talking, demonstrating your willingness to listen. This will really help create a safe environment. If you think about that phrase, a safe environment, right? A hostile environment would be the absolute opposite of a safe environment, and that's where everybody feels tense and on edge and something could explode at any moment. Paul Casey: A safe environment is this peaceful place where we're just having a conversation here. They feel comfortable to share. You feel comfortable to listen. You can think about other behaviors that you might put off or signals that creates safety for the speaker. Monitor your body's signals because we're always putting off signals with our body language or our tone of voice, or with some of the words that we use. I would encourage you to manage those emotional reactions. Think about your natural facial expression. For some of us, because of our personality style, that may be a natural frown. Well, if you're frowning big time or have a scowl on your face when someone's giving you feedback, to them that's not a safe environment. Maybe your body language, you can think about leaning forward, you have your pen handy and you're just ready to receive versus slumping down in your chair, your arms folded, leaning away from the speaker. Paul Casey: Your tone of voice being open and, "Yes, I just want to receive this feedback. Thank you so much for it," versus accusatory and ready to just lash out at any moment. Dr. Janis Spring says, "As soon as you start to think about how this person's offended you, say the word 'stop' to yourself." I know that might sound a little, maybe even childish to say 'stop' to yourself. But I think that is a great way to break the pattern, to change the state that you are in. Any time you're giving yourself negative self-talk, it's okay to say to yourself, "Stop." I do this to myself. I'll be like, "No, no, no." when I just start spiraling and spiraling. I'll just go, "Stop." And that just wakes me up for a moment and I have to change and insert a more positive thought or more helpful thought in that place where that negativity was. Paul Casey: Number three is to clarify the feedback. Clarify the feedback. So as soon as they have spoken that feedback to you, you're going to start feeling a feeling right away, especially if it's negative feedback, because they just put you on the spot in some way, shape or form. So I like to say feel a feeling, ask a question. As soon as you start feeling a feeling, buy yourself a little bit of emotional white space by asking a clarifying question at that moment. Find out some more information that will help you understand your specific behavior or patterns or its impact on other people, like the person that's giving you this feedback. Feel a feeling, ask a question. When you do ask that question, I'm going to encourage you to be mindful of using an interrogating tone. Yeah. We all know what this is. The interrogating tone, right? Paul Casey: Let me just give you six words that we could... When I'm in a group and I'm doing this training, we'll do this little game. The phrase, "What do you mean by that?" Right? We can say that with an interrogating tone. "What do you mean by that?" Right? All of a sudden, we just went from a safe environment to more of a hostile environment. Now I could say this so pleasantly, like, "What do you mean by that?" Or just a simple, neutral response like, "Tell me what you mean by that." That's hungry and wanting to know. But it's the same six words, it's just the tone of voice changes to put you in a learning atmosphere, a learning posture or a I'm going to now start lashing back at the giver of the feedback posture. Paul Casey: Number four, acknowledge the other person's concerns. Acknowledge the other person's concerns. Show that you understand this other person's perspective. The sender, receiver loop then gets closed. In all communication there's a sender and a receiver. When you show that you have picked up what they were laying down, it closes that loop and it allows for more discussion. That person doesn't really need to just keep going and going because it's like, "Okay, I got where you're coming from on this issue." Indicate then your willingness to address the concern. Now that doesn't mean you're going to just run out the door and you've got to change that complete behavior. It's just that, "I'm chewing on that right now. I'm processing that." Some of you that are listening to this podcast are more introverted and you need to process or mull over things. Of course, if you're in that category, you also know you can go into the overthink mode. Paul Casey: Like, "Wait, wait, wait, let me overthink that." Yeah, you don't want to go that far, but you do want to mull over this to say, "What is the flavor that I need to keep chewing on?" Ask questions while this person is still in front of you to clarify, and to learn. Stay curious to find out their perspective. I like to say, "When you get furious, get curious." I don't know if you've heard that little rhyme before. When you get furious, get curious. So when you start getting triggered by the feedback and what it's doing inside of you, and you start feeling a feeling inside, ask another question. Try to find out why this person has this perspective. Summarize the other person's key points to confirm their intended message was received. So again, this is part of closing a loop on sender, receiver. When you actually say, "So what I'm hearing you saying is that I'm doing this and I'm doing this and I'm doing this, and the impact that's having on your perspective is this." Paul Casey: And then they can of course say yes or no to your receiving, how you paraphrased that back. If it's a yes, that's great. We've landed this communication. If it's a no, that person then has an opportunity to go, “No, that's not exactly what I'm saying." And then they can clarify so that you can receive it a little bit better. It's really the only way to show that you got what they gave. Step four. Step four is to acknowledge the other person's concern. Before we head into the rest of receiving feedback constructively, let's shout out to our sponsor. Preston House: Hi, my name is Preston House and I'm the local owner of Papa John's Pizza right here in Tri-Cities. Jesus Melendez: I'm Jesus Melendez, Vice President and commercial lender with Community First Bank & HFG Trust. Preston House: When I moved here in 2009 with my family from Boise, Idaho, I knew I wanted to move from a franchise to a local business owner. I'd been with Papa John's since I was 16 years old, so when it came time to open my own location here in my own community, I knew I needed some financial guidance from an organization who understood my needs as a small business owner. Jesus Melendez: Small business owners often have a lot on their plate. Employment, retirement plans, payroll, bills. Our mission is to become your financial partner for life and is motivated by providing people in our community, like Preston, with all the information and support they need all under one roof. Preston House: It's really simple. No matter what I need, all it takes is one phone call. No automated prompts. No call waiting. It's just a local business serving another local business. Jesus Melendez: For more information on how Community First Bank and HFG Trust can help you get back on track, visit www.community1stcom. That's www.community1ST.com. Paul Casey: All right, we are on to number five for receiving feedback constructively. We have talked about focusing on the content, not the person. Listening calmly and attentively. Clarifying the feedback and then acknowledging the other person's concerns. So let's go to number five, which is, avoid defending or overexplaining. Avoid defending or overexplaining. A key to being coachable is to drop your defensiveness by reminding yourself what really matters. If you can't accept bad news and advice, you can't learn, change or grow. Whoa. If you can't accept bad news or advice, you can't learn, change or grow. So we don't want to be in that boat. So I'm going to encourage you here to correct any inaccuracies you hear in a non-defensive manner, right? It's okay to stand on truth of what happened or what didn't happen. But we're going to do that, again, with that non-defensive tone. If needed, we may actually have to take a time out before responding especially if you are prone to defensiveness. Paul Casey: I'm going to encourage you to take that time out and say, "Hey, can we come back in an hour?" or, "Can we pick this up first thing in the morning?" or, "Can I have some time to process this?" Because now they have confirmed that you heard what they said, but you now need to sort out what you want to say. Sometimes we start blubbering back and then it turns into something ugly after a while. And then we go, "Ah, why did I say that?" Well, it's because you were a little bit in shock. So make a repair if you do start talking and it may have come out wrong. We've all had those situations where we just utter something out loud and then we're like, "Oh shoot. I wish I could have those words back." Paul Casey: You know what? It's okay to start speaking and go, "You know, that is just so not true. Okay. Actually, can I back up for a moment and restart? What I'm trying to say is..." People actually respect you if you restart and you make a correction or make a repair if you said something with a nasty tone. Let's go to number six. Welcome suggestions. Welcome suggestions. So focus on solutions for the future. It stops you from yelling at the closed door and moving toward the open door. What I mean by that metaphor is the closed door is what happened in the past. That cannot be changed, right? It happened. That's the closed door. And if we keep yelling at the closed door like, "That didn't happen that way," or, "I have my perspective on that," and we just keep yelling at that, it doesn't really help us focus forward. Paul Casey: So if you want to move toward the open door, you're going to start thinking about how I can become better. Ask that person who just gave you that negative feedback one idea on what you could do differently. I sure don't like it when somebody dumps the dump truck of negative feedback on me and then just leaves, right? So that hit and run mentality. And I'm like, "What do I do with that?" So I like to give the giver of the feedback a little bit of accountability by saying, "Can you give me one thing that I could do differently to address that issue you just brought up." What you're doing is adopting the mindset of how this person and this interaction can help you be better. Turn failure into fertilizer. There's a little tweetable moment there. Paul Casey: It's not mine though. I stole it from somebody. Turn failure into fertilizer. Whatever that yucky thing is that you're feeling, you're going to turn that into something that can grow. It does stink for a while, but then it's going to turn into a beautiful flower if you do apply that feedback. I would encourage you to take notes where appropriate. Oftentimes taking notes, just the movement of your pen on paper, calms your nerves and it shows that you're also taking this seriously. Now, sometimes when people don't take notes, I'm wondering, "How are you going to remember what we talked about later?" Especially if it was a task or something they needed to go do. But even if it's just for purely for getting your energy out in a physical way, which is writing on the paper, that often buys us a little bit of emotional white space. Paul Casey: Number seven is to thank the person for sharing the feedback. Just like that book title, thank the person for sharing the feedback. Remember, it would have been safer for them to do nothing, right? They could have just let you struggle. It's very challenging to find people with experience, who you respect, who will be straight with you. So they had alternatives, right? This shows appreciation that others cared enough about you to share their perceptions. Because the alternatives are, they could have kept it to themselves and you would have kept struggling or causing a mess around you that you didn't even know you were doing. They could have told somebody else. They could have gossiped about you behind your back. They could have gone above your head to your boss. Man, there's so many other things that they could have done in that situation, but they chose to speak to you. Just that perspective right there probably gives you a little bit more compassion for the giver of the feedback. It also positively reinforces and encourages others to provide feedback. Paul Casey: If this situation goes well and it gets out that it went well, somebody confronted you and you took it really well, then other people can bring things up to each other. Hopefully it'll set a culture of, "Feedback is just something that we do here to get better." Number eight is to evaluate the feedback you received and decide how you may use it. Evaluate the feedback you received and decide how you may use it. So if you know right on the spot that you screwed up or there's something you could do better, state right there what actions you're going to take, if that's appropriate to do that. Again, oftentimes we need time to mull, right? So give further thought and consideration to the feedback received. Andre Gido says, "One completely overcomes only what one assimilates." So we've got to let it go down into our mind and our heart and really think about, "Okay, so how was I wrong? How did I contribute to that problem, that issue?" Paul Casey: Oftentimes after we bounce it off our spouse or a good friend or a coach, then it's like, "Okay, now I can see why that person brought that situation up to me." Choose if and when to act. Okay? If and when to act. So I said 'if' because sometimes there's nothing you can do with that feedback. It's just FYI. Other times, it's like, "Yep, I need to do this, and now I need to decide what form. Do I need to apologize to someone? Is it a big group? Is it one person? Do I need to communicate on a more timely manner next time?" What fits in your frame? When I do this as a seminar, I'll have a picture of a person in a frame, and I think about what of that feedback will fit in the frame that's now going to be a part of you from now on, and what's still outside the frame that you're not going to do anything with. Paul Casey: Bill George says, "The key to growing as a leader is to narrow the gap. The gap of how you see yourself and how you want to be seen by developing a deep self-awareness that comes from straight feedback and honest exploration of yourself, followed by a concerted effort to make changes." Really that's this point right here, a concerted effort to make changes. So a quick summary of receiving feedback constructively. We talked about Q-tip. Quit Taking It Personally. We talked about the three things that block feedback. Truth, relationship, and identity. Then I gave you some constructive points here. Focusing on the content, not the person. Listening calmly and attentively. Clarifying the feedback. Acknowledging that other person's concerns. Not defending or overexplaining. Welcoming suggestions. Thanking the person for sharing the feedback and then evaluating that feedback you receive to decide how you may use it. Paul Casey: So what? Now what? What are you going to do with this information? Which of those eight points is something like, "Yeah, I got to do that better when I receive feedback?" Because anytime you receive a training, whether it's a podcast like this or a formal training or a webinar, it's important to apply it within 72 hours. Maybe it's again just saying to yourself, "I need to ask for more feedback," or, "I need to ask my boss for that extra 5%," or, "I need to not be defensive at conversations." Whatever it is, I would encourage you to apply it even in the next 72 hours so that you don't forget it. I'll close with an article that I've saved for many years and it's by a gentleman named Todd Rhodes. And he says, "What are you going to do with your stones?" Paul Casey: So stones in this illustration is when someone throws a stone at you, which I'm going to liken here to criticism or poking at you, or just some negative feedback that comes your way. You've got some choices of what to do with those stones, okay? You get hit by the stone. One thing you could do is you could throw stones. "Your first inclination," Rhodes says, "is to pick up these stones and hurl them back where they came from." Right? Somebody gives you criticism. You're going to hurl it right back with your own criticism. It makes us feel better for a moment. It takes away the pressing need to consider whether or not that criticism leveled at us is at all founded. So that's one. We could choose to complain about the stones. If you can't attack back, maybe you can at least complain about it. Paul Casey: Somehow complaining to others makes us feel bad. Complaining serves no purpose other than to make us feel better in the moment and to bring other people into our problem. When we complain to others, we're really asking for their support and for them to take our side of things, but it doesn't even achieve anything positive. So we could throw stones. We could complain about the stones. We could stumble on the stones. Sometimes when problems arise, we keep it to ourselves. We sit, we ponder, we stew and all the while our main job functions suffer because we're dwelling on the problem. Maybe you're a stuffer. In essence, we allow that stone, that problem to grind all our positive work to a halt. This has crippled many leaders because we stop dead in our tracks, afraid to move because we don't want any more stones to hit us. Paul Casey: A fourth negative option. We could throw stones, complain about them, stumble, or we can climb over the stones. This is like steamrolling right over them, right? You've got a problem with someone on your team who disagrees with you on a certain proposal, climbing over the stone would be to line up people who you know support you to make sure your proposal goes through while ignoring that one person who disagrees with you. So you ignore the problem and you climb over it and around it, rather than working through it. What you'll find out in that case is that stone is going to reappear bigger and harder to climb over than before. So those are five negative options. I'm going to encourage you, and this author Todd Rhodes says to build with the stones. The last option is to take those stones and build with them. Paul Casey: You have to pick them up. You have to inspect them and you have to decide best how they fit into the plan. Don't throw them. Don't complain. Don't stumble on them or climb over them. You actually work with them. Tackle those problems as soon as humanly possible. It's only when you do that these stones can be used as a positive influence in your life. So I'm hoping if you've got nothing else, that last illustration of what are you going to do with your stones is going to help you as you try to receive feedback a little bit more constructively. All right, let me wrap up our podcast today with a resource to recommend. It's a quirky one, but it's more of a time management one. I just bought this called a hex timer. One of my clients had one of these. A hex timer looks like a little hexagon and there's the clock feature on the top, as some of you can have on your desk. Paul Casey: And then there's a timer for five, 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes on the other edges or sides of the hexagon. As soon as you turn the timer to, like, the five minutes, it automatically starts a five minute timer and then it will go off. It also has an alarm feature on it. If you really want to chunk your productivity, you may want to do it in chunks of 60 minutes or 45 or 30, and use this timer as a way to alert you when you have given deep work time, and then when you need to take a break. So it's called a hex timer and you can find it at znewtech.com, Z-N-E-W-T-E-C-H.com. Again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank you all for listening to the Tri-City Influencer podcast. I want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite to support them again. We appreciate you making this podcast possible so we can collaborate and help inspire leaders here in the Tri-Cities. Paul Casey: Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence. It is from Jim Roan. He says, "Goals. There's no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there's no telling what will happen when you act upon them." Until next time, KGF. Keep Growing Forward. Speaker 3: Thank you to our listeners for tuning into today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your team forward. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done everyday by offering you his free Control My Calendar checklist. Go to www.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool or open a text message to 72000 and type the word growing. Speaker 6: Tri-Cities Influencer podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.  

Welcome! Craig discusses the Cost of Data Breaches and IBM/Ponemon Institute Study and why Credential theft is a pre-eminent form of Cybercrime. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Read More: Average Cost of a Data Breach: $3.86 Million The Future's Biggest Cybercrime Threat May Already Be Here Election Interference: Google Purges Breitbart from Search Results Google Has Been Purging Breitbart Content from Search Results Since the 2016 Election Heads roll at Intel after 7nm delay Out-of-Date and Unsupported Cloud Workloads Continue as a Common Weakness Three people have been charged for Twitter’s huge hack, and a Florida teen is in jail Remote Work Isn’t Working? Maybe Your Company Is Doing It Wrong FBI Releases Flash Alert on Netwalker Ransomware Electric car startup Lucid is challenging Tesla’s anti-lidar stance --- Automated Machine-Generated Transcript: [00:00:00] Welcome back, everybody we're talking right now about IBM's latest data breach report. What does it mean to businesses and you as a home user? Of course, this is Craig Peterson that you're listening to. You can get my weekly report by just going online. I have a newsletter. We have a whole ton of great information available for you. So check that out, make sure you subscribe and I've got well, it's like four different free gifts. One of them is the most coveted gift that I've given out. I've had so many great compliments on it and that's your security reboot guide, but you'll get that. If you sign up Craig Peterson.com/subscribe, I think you're really, really going to like it. So we were talking about the IBM report before the break. [00:01:00] Let's complete that. Now, this is the cost of a data breach report, 2020, and it was done by the Ponemon Institute. And then IBM did some analysis on it. So let's look at the average total cost by security automation level. Fully deployed 2.4, $5 million. So if you fully deploy your security, if you have everything, your security team tells you. Yeah, you need a breach is going to cost you about two and a half million dollars. If you've partially deployed like My customer here who had the breach coming in via Mexico. And so we had some stuff there, but not everything that we had recommended. And there is actually required by the federal regulations he's supposed to be abiding by partially deployed the cost jumps from 2.4, 5 million [00:02:00] to 4.1, $1 million, the cost of a breach. So let me see right there. You save yourself almost $2 million, which is more than what it would cost you to do this, right? If you're a small business and then not deployed at all, a breach is going to cost you about $6.03 million. Absolutely incredible. Now, where are the main parts of this cost while the customers personally identifiable information. So that's things like there, their name, their email address, their phone number, a bank account numbers, maybe social security numbers maybe credit cards. Right? All of that is called PII and it's the stuff that should not ever be disclosed. So if you're a consumer, you kind of expect the business to keep that information confidential, right? Well, Oh, [00:03:00] here we go. Breaches that have customer identifiable information account for 80% of all of the breaches. Isn't that sad? So 80% of the time when there's a breach, somebody's personal information is stolen. And the average cost per record customer record in a malicious attack is about $175 in case you're not aware of it. If you're a retailer. A retailer is to find incredible amounts. I think right now it's a minimum of $125 per credit card that they've taken. If it's breached and they have credit card information on their systems. That's a lot of money, but on average it costs about $175 per customer record. That's stolen next up here on the screen green, and you'll find this online [00:04:00] again by searching for IBM and their 2020 data breach report, compromised credentials, and cloud misconfiguration. Lead the way, well, compromised credentials. Hmm. What would those be? But how about you or username and password more and more businesses are moving to the cloud. And if you are using the same email address and you're using the same password yet, you knew what I was going to say. Didn't you for your accounts? You're in trouble. And that's why I keep reminding people that they should go to have I been poned.com to check and see if their email address has been stolen and a breach I'm playing around, by the way, I almost guarantee it has unless you've got a very, very current email [00:05:00] address. So 19% had these breaches came in through compromised credentials, other ways to do that. Obviously nowadays fishing is a very, very big way that does some of this data is stolen, but these were the most expensive initial tech vectors, compromised credentials, and cloud misconfiguration. Now, you know how much I hate VPNs right now, there is a need for them. Don't get me wrong. But. Almost always, it's more of a problem than the problem you're trying to solve using a VPN. So one of the things we were talked about here just a couple of weeks ago was how the VPN data from, I think it was eight different VPN providers. Was found online, like 1.2 terabytes [00:06:00] worth of personal information. Now, these are all VPN services that said we don't log we're not logging. Don't worry. We're great. Here. You can trust us. We're secure and we're not logging. We're not selling your data. What was discovered online in a misconfigured cloud server? All of the places you had been your password in the clear text your username. So they, they now, now that data are stolen anybody that was using one of them is free VPN services. And I caution you against the paid ones as well, but anyone that was using one of these free VPN services is out of luck because the bad guys have your username that you use and your password. So again, that's why I keep stressing, get one password. It's the best bar, none one password. I don't make a dime off of this. Right. Uh, but one password [00:07:00] and make sure you use different passwords every time and have one password generate them for you. I have one password generate passwords that are usually four or five words along. And then I have special characters between each one of the words, and those are almost impossible to crack. It would take over a hundred years in most cases unless I'm using one of these VPN services that doesn't bother encrypting my password. My day, wasn't doing some sort of a Shaw hash or an MD hash or anything? No, no, no, no clear text. Okay. Uh, so 19% were from compromised credentials. 19% were from cloud misconfiguration and 16%. We're from vulnerability in third-party software. So the costliest initial attack, vectors compromised credentials, number one. So keep that in mind, everybody on you, with your home [00:08:00] user, you're a business user on that rudder heaven forbid you're using a consumer router and firewall in a business. Don't do it. And in most cases, people never bothered to change the default username and password on their firewall. So bad guys get in 4.7, 7 million in dollars is the average cost with compromised credentials, amazing vulnerability and third party software, four and a half million dollars. And what does that tell you? Patch. Remember when you're talking about Microsoft and you've turned on the automatic updates on windows, all it's going to update is windows and the core windows utilities. It's not going to update your Adobe software, uh, you know, your photoshop and whatever third party. You know, engineering [00:09:00] software, drafting, software, whatever. It's not going to automatically update them. And then it's so many businesses are saying, well, okay, you have to run Windows XP or have to run windows seven because I can't and get the latest version of the software. The company went out of business or it's too expensive. And then number three, cloud misconfiguration. So both vulnerability and third-party software. And club misconfiguration accounts for about a four and a half million dollar breach each real big deal. So stick around, we're going to go through some more here. I enjoy being with you. Thanks for being with me. We will be right back. You're listening to Craig Peterson. --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Welcome! Today Craig’s got a deep-dive into Anti-Virus software. Which should you use? What is anti-Virus’s pioneer saying? What’s the future? For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Read More: Zoom defenders cite legit reasons to not end-to-end encrypt free calls --- Automated Machine-Generated Transcript: If you're like most people in the online world you have used zoom, you might even have put it in place for your business. They've now come out and said they are going to have end-to-end encryption. What's this all about? [00:00:17] Hi everybody. Craig Peterson here. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. We're going to talk a little bit about zoom right now. You've heard me. I'm sure. Talked about it before and how I am constantly nagging you guys that if you are a business, you should not use zoom for anything that might be proprietary. [00:00:42] Zoom has been nailed and criticized multiple, multiple times. Zoom has been caught, lying about doing encryption more than once. Zoom was caught routing customer calls through China. Can you imagine that you're using Zoom? You're a business and your calls are going to China. They were caught installing a server on the Mac iOS application platform. [00:01:12] Now this is really, really something. This was the final straw. This is where we absolutely laid down the law with our employees and our customers. You may not use Zoom. Even if you installed zoom from Macko Wes zoom had a piece of software that constantly phoned home information. Even after you want to install the Mac zoom application, this list just goes on and on. [00:01:44] If you bought a higher-end zoom system for your business. And you had one of their controllers in your office, you know, a physical piece of hardware server. It had a brand it's his crazy, basically a zero-day back door wide open that they had put in purposely. That exposed every device on your network to hackers on the internet, anybody on the internet, can you believe that it's absolutely crazy. [00:02:21] Another company we were at just this week, we were doing some analysis, replacing firewalls with something much, much, much better. And. We're looking at the firewall configuration. Right? Cause you want to do that. You want to make sure, okay. We're putting in a new firewall that has way more features that can monitor what's going on. [00:02:42] That's going to block evilness. That's going to keep itself up to date. Right? All things that the basic firewalls that you buy online are not gonna be able to do for you. So we're looking at the configuration of their existing firewall. Now imagine our shock and amazement. When we saw that the firewall had a port wide open, the HTTPS port, the port you would use for a server that had the port wide open from the outside world. [00:03:15] In other words, anybody can connect to it. And that connected directly to their database server internally to SQL server, which wasn't even patched up. It's absolutely incredible. What's going on? We've got to pull up our socks. You have to do an audit. You know, I think I might do that again. What about a year and a half ago we had over a thousand people. [00:03:41] That we did free cyber health assessments for a lot of them were just home users, a number of businesses. And I have already sent out an email to businesses on my email list saying, Hey, listen, I will pay to have some of my security people talk to you now. Obviously we got to schedule it and everything else, but, um, Talk to you and fix your problems, not sell you a thing. [00:04:06] These are fire jumper, certified security people. Okay. They know what they're doing, but zoom, this is what they're doing. Right. And on top of it, they have most of the development done in China. So the developers aren't costing them hardly anything. Can you believe this? Right? It's a, it's easy to use, but it is a security. [00:04:29] Nightmare. What we use is WebEx teams. That's what we install for our clients. We have WebEx teams, phones. We have WebEx teams, apps on all of our smart devices, right. That's what we use. It is secure and to, and we actually control the security where we have the security keys and everything else. [00:04:53] So it has some of the highest levels of security on it. That's what we use. If you're not going to use WebEx teams, you might consider using Microsoft teams, which is okay. But again, Microsoft misrepresents, just like we talked about Google, uh, the, the levels of security you have. Now, if you dig into the documentation, Microsoft is going to be telling you the truth. [00:05:20] Okay. They're not lying, but the marketers. Excuse me. They just don't understand this stuff well enough, frankly, to make marketing materials because they end up misrepresenting. It goes on and on. Anyhow. So if you have looked. In Twitter, for instance, and you keep track of security stuff. Cause I know a lot of you guys you're the best and the brightest out there, you are watching some of these security conversations that are going on over on Twitter, but you've, I'm sure seen zoom just ripped. [00:05:56] Ripped ripped for his plans to enable end to end the encrypted video. What they're doing right now is an encrypted video from your computer using their 256-bit key, which is, uh, not great, but they encrypt it to their servers. And basically anybody can hop onto any of these zoom calls or they put a few things in place. [00:06:19] That's going to make it a little bit easier, a little bit better. But what they're saying is we're going to add end to end encryption and they have put a document up on Github, which is a website that's used by open source developers, zooms, put a document up there saying, okay, this is what we're planning on doing. [00:06:37] For our security strategy. What do you guys think? We'll see what happens, but Zoom is only going to be providing this end to end encryption for the video and audio and files for their paid customers. So when I looked around a little bit, I found our friends over at the electronic found frontier foundation, really complaining about this. [00:07:04] Because what they're saying is the people that cannot afford to have their messages exposed, cannot afford to pay for the encryption, the quote, right from their site here, we applaud zoom for building strong. And to end encryption into their service, but by limiting this security enhancement to pay the accounts, Zoom is denying privacy protections to the participant who may need them most. [00:07:38] And of course, they're talking about people primarily in third world countries. And giving people special access. Like if, if they gave the FBI or local law enforcement special access to these encrypted sessions, if it's available to one government it's available to more than one government. Right. And so they're concerned about that too. [00:08:01] And I, I think that's absolutely legitimate to be concerned about that, but. We'll see what happens here because what zoom is planning on doing is only having this end to end encryption for the paid accounts because they do not want these pedophiles. And some of the terrorists here are domestic terrorists in the US as well as internationally zoom doesn't want them using their platform to plot. [00:08:30] Plan coordinate, organize, et cetera. Now I talked earlier about signal and what signal is doing and Signal is end to end encrypted, no matter what, right. It is absolutely free. And that's what Moxie Marlinspike put out and why he did it. WhatsApp is the same way, but, uh, well, we'll see what happens with zoom because they're figuring, Hey, if you are paying for an account, You have a credit card that you're paying with there's some way of pain and that can be tracked by law enforcement if they need to track it. [00:09:07] So we'll just leave it at that, right. It's going to make it easy enough. And if you're not paying for it, which is how most of these pedophiles and others are apparently doing it. Do you using free accounts while then you get what you deserve? So don't use Zoom. I can't trust them. They've lied to us again and again and again. [00:09:26] And it's been proven multiple times. They're under investigation right now by a couple of federal agencies for some of these lies and misrepresentations. Don't use zoom use WebEx teams, which is what we use. And we use it with our customers, or maybe look at Microsoft teams, stick around. We've got I'll wrap up. [00:09:50] And one more thing. When we get back, you're listening to Craig Peterson on WGAN. --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Show Notes: Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to the simplified integration podcast, episode number 24, How Not To Become a STEM Cell Timeshare Salesperson. Speaker 2: (00:08) [inaudible] Speaker 3: (00:11) Leonardo de Vinci once said that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And I agree you see the problem with the way that most consulting groups approach medical integration is anything but simple. In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's expensive, it's complicated. And quite frankly, it's exhausting enough is enough. There are far too many amazing integrated clinics that are struggling well. I'm on a mission to change that. What I've come to find from over five years, working with integrative practices is that simplicity really is the secret. The old saying of less is more, is true through a streamlined approach. I was able to create multiple successful seven figure integrated clinics. And now I'm going to show you how you can do the same. Join me as I share with you the secrets to successful medical integration and practice growth. Join me on a journey to greater sophistication through innovation. I'm dr. Andrew Wells and welcome to the simplified integration podcast. Speaker 1: (01:10) Hey doc, great to have you here. So today on this episode, we're going to talk about how not to become a timeshare salesperson. When it comes to presenting cash services like STEM cell therapy, regenerative medicine, and it's even applies to things like decompression or functional medicine or whatever cash service you, uh, you're offering in your office. And this, the reason I'm talking about this is because this is a topic that's coming up more and more now, as chiropractors have gotten into regenerative medicine, we're seeing now the longterm results of, uh, of this therapy on practices. And one of the concerns that doctors are having is they don't want to offer this and then have it end up ruining the relationship. And the reason doctors are talking about this is a lot of chiropractors have adopted what I consider timeshare sales tactics to sell more regenerative medicine. Speaker 1: (01:56) Now here's the thing about timeshares. So as STEM cell therapy, for this matter, most doctors who are using this in their office, like you, you go through, like, we have a, um, you know, live lecture that could be in like a hotel conference room or a dinner event where you're educating patients on regenerative medicine. And in the past, I've been accused by other chiropractors and patients as being a timeshare salesperson. So people will say dr. Wells, this is just one of those timeshare presentations, which is totally an insult. And I didn't really, I knew what that meant, but I'd never been through a timeshare sales process. And I was always curious about it. And the reason I was curious is I like sales processes. I like to be sold on stuff. And so I wanted to know actually what, what the timeshare sales process looked like. Speaker 1: (02:42) And one day I got that opportunity. So it was, this was years ago, my wife and I were just brand new in practice. And we were working really hard and we hadn't taken a vacation a long time. So we planned on a one Memorial day taking extended weekend and going to Charleston, South Carolina, uh, Charleston's an amazing place. And we're, so we're walking around the city, going to restaurants and, um, just having fun. And as we were walking back and forth between our hotel and, and around the city, this guy was standing on the street and he kept trying to offer us free tickets for things. And, and so one time we pass him and I said, listen, like why, why do you keep trying to offer us free tickets for stuff? And he said, well, we're actually a timeshare company. And if you sit through an hour long presentation on our timeshare, we'll give you two free tickets for a carriage ride and for a boat tour and for these other activities. Speaker 1: (03:31) And I'm like, you know what, sign me up. Like, I want to do that. And my wife is pulling out my arm. She's like, we're not going to go do that. We're on vacation right now. And I don't want to sit through a timeshare presentation. And I'm like, I know, I know, but I've never done this. I want to see what it's like. And my curiosity, this is where my curiosity came from is that it's tough to sell a timeshare. And I'm not saying anything bad about timeshares, but the reality is, is they're very expensive. They have a lot of hidden fees and like upkeep fees. And in fact, there's an entire industry of companies and lawyers. Their whole purpose is to try to legally get their clients out of longterm timeshare commitments. And the general public knows this, but every year thousands of people buy timeshares. Speaker 1: (04:14) So I was like curious about how they actually did this. So we went to the presentation and we're in a room of about 20 people. And it's set up just like, if you're going to do a regenerative medicine lecture for, for potential patients and the lady leading the presentation was very charismatic. And the first thing that she said when we're all sitting down was, um, raise your hand. If you're here to buy a timeshare and one guy raised his hand, but I think he was joking. And she said, I realized that no one is here to buy a timeshare. In fact, you're probably here because we offered you tickets for a carriage ride, right. And everyone starts laughing. And she said, my goal today is to sell you a timeshare because I think that they're worth it. In fact, about half the room here at the end of this hour will be convinced that a timeshare is the right thing for their family. Speaker 1: (04:59) And I'm like, man, that's a pretty bold claim. And so as she went through her presentation, she was really interactive. And she, she, she went around the room and asked the couples two things. She wanted to know when their last vacation was and when their next vacation was. And so she finally got to my wife and I, and she said, so mr. Wells, when was your last vacation? And I said, well, actually this is our first vacation. We haven't been on a vacation in a long, long time. We just opened a business. We've been working really hard and she looks at me and she goes, wow, that's really sad. I'm like, wow, thanks. And then she said, so when is your next plan vacation? And I said, we have no plan vacations, uh, on the books. And she looks at my wife, she looks at me and she goes, well, don't you think that your wife deserves a vacation since you guys are working so hard? Speaker 1: (05:43) And I'm like, damn like knife to the heart. Right. And the whole room started laughing, but it's funny. Like, I, I wasn't offended because I knew the sales process, but the, like that herd mentality, like actually made me feel like kind of a crappy, like, yeah, my wife does deserve vacations. And, um, so anyway, we went, we went through the process, uh, and then we went back after the presentation was over. We went back to their headquarters and we sat down in front of the closer. And so this guy's job was to ask really emotionally manipulative Mo manipulative questions. And he said, listen, I know you guys, aren't interested in buying a timeshare, but what do you think will happen if you work too hard and never go on vacations, what will happen to your relationship? I'm like, damn, like, that's a really personal question. Speaker 1: (06:27) And he kept asking these questions like, uh, like, do you enjoy vacations? Why have you taken a vacation? What, like, kind of get all my objections, right? Classic sales process at the end of his spiel, he said, here's what we're offering. It's XYZ. It's cost this much money. Are you interested? And I said, no, thank you. And, but thanks for the presentation and the offer. And he said, hold on one minute, I'll be right back. He left. And then instead of coming back, he sent back the real closer. So this other lady came up and said, listen, I know you're not interested in buying a time share, but I just have one final offer for you. And this offer is good for the next 15 minutes. And I'm like, man, this better be good. And so she said, not only are we going to provide you with XYZ, we're also going to give you this and this and this. Speaker 1: (07:11) And we're also going to reduce the price by 50%. So drop the price by half immediately. And for a split second, I'm like, man, that's actually a really good deal. And then, then my brain snapped back to reality. I'm like, no, I'm not buying a timeshare. And, uh, but it was a really, like, they ask a lot of, um, really targeted questions and their goal, um, as emotionally manipulative as it is, their goal is to remove all of your objections and get you to part with a lot of money for a longterm relationship on a, on a timeshare. And they're very good at it. And they're very manipulative. And the problem with this is that it works. And the funny thing is a lot of people in our group who had not planned on buying a timeshare, like people started, like I could see people signing, signing on the dotted line and I'm like, man, people are actually buying timeshares. Speaker 1: (07:57) I was amazed by it. So the thing is, it works. It absolutely works. But here's the problem. If you were to ask a hundred people, what do you think about timeshare salespeople? Do you think they're highly ethical and have a lot of integrity or do you think it's kind of like a, um, like a sleazy, like sleazy type used car salesman type person, and most people would say the latter, it's like a sleazy process. Now we as doctors and chiropractors, a lot of doctors implement the exact same strategies in their STEM cell program because it works. But the problem is the more you use these types of sales tactics, the worse it affects your relationship. And it will absolutely work for the first few months and years. But eventually if you keep doing using those kinds of sales tactics, it affects how your community and how your town perceives your clinic. Speaker 1: (08:45) Now the, uh, and so what, uh, the types of, of strategies that we use sometimes as chiropractors and I've used them before, um, are the same emotionally manipulative sales tactics that people use in timeshare. So for example, a patient comes into your office and you're doing a consultation. What a lot of docs are trained to do is to paint the patient into a corner where the only option and the best option for them is STEM cell therapy. When that may not be the truth. And so these are questions that I hear doctors asking in consultations is look, um, I've seen, uh, you've had mrs. Jones. You've had knee pain now for 15 years. That sounds awful. Tell me about that. And the patient talks about how bad their knee pain is, and then they look to the husband. Uh, how does, how do you think that knee pain affects your husband? Speaker 1: (09:33) Well, he has to do more work around the house. And, uh, do you think it affects your relationship? Yeah. Yeah, it definitely does affect my relationships. So what happens if you don't get this fixed? What will happen in the next five years or 10 years? Well, I'll probably be worse off or, uh, you know, it's going to be really bad. So chiropractors try to get patients to paint this doom and gloom picture, right? Like they don't get their knee fixed or if they don't get their back face, it's going to be awful on their relationship. It's going to be awful for their health. It's going to affect their quality of life and all those things are true. Right? All those things are true and they're relevant questions. But the problem is, is that patients who are aware of that sales process will instantly be triggered and like, ah, this is a timeshare, a sales process. Speaker 1: (10:14) It's going to offend them. It's going to piss them off and it's going to affect your, your, uh, your reputation. And then finally, so you, you paint the doom and gloom picture then finally. All right. So it sounds like you want to get this fixed. Is that correct? Mrs. Jones? Yeah. I definitely want to get it fixed. That's why I'm here. Okay. So let's talk, let's talk about regenerative medicine. And then you paint this glorious picture of regenerative medicine and how it's going to solve all your problems and it'll fix your knee and it will do the dishes for you and all these things. And while regenerative medicine is fantastic, oftentimes doctors will overstate the benefits of the therapy to get patients to realize how valuable it is. So there's this value proposition because you're charging four or five, six, 10, $15,000 for a series of injection or injections. Speaker 1: (10:59) You're trying to get the patient to realize that this is a very valuable thing, and it's going to have a tremendous impact on your life. And it does. But so often we crossed the line and here's some things here's some ways that doctor has crossed the line is that we say, uh, you know, this, this product has millions of live STEM cells. Well, if you are doing regenerative medicine, chances are, you're doing amniotic tissue or Wharton, Shelly, or PRP or exit poems. None of those things have live STEM cells, doctors and labs will claim that and reps will claim that, but it's not true. So we're putting this type of therapy in the wrong class, and that's not, it's not a live STEM cell product. Um, sometimes we tell doctors or patients will, if you have this injection, you will be able to cancel your surgery or your knee replacement, or you'll never, you'll have to have one injection and that'll fix you for the rest of your life. Speaker 1: (11:49) Uh, we've had patients that had one injection and they were good for years and never saw that person ever again. They did really well, or we saw them on re-examine and they, you know, they were doing great. Um, we've also had patients that didn't get any results. They got really bad results. And that stinks when it happens. Cause the patient's disappointed. They've spent money on it. We're disappointed because the patient we want the patient to do well. But when we're saying that, like, you know, almost like almost like guaranteeing results, patients are aware that that's like, that's a sales tactic and it comes off the wrong way. Um, so that's one way you can ruin your reputation, then painting the patient into a corner and saying, this is your only option. You've tried cortisone. You've tried. Anti-inflammatories you've had arthroscopic surgery. The only thing left for you to do the last option is regenerative medicine. Speaker 1: (12:34) Uh, when that's not always the reality, you could always do physical therapy, chiropractic laser therapy, knee decompression. Uh, you could do PRP instead of amnio. So there's all kinds of different options. But when you're attempting to paint a patient into a corner, if that patient, like, if you're trying to say, listen, your only option to have a good quality of life and to make your wife happiest, to do a timeshare, like this is gonna piss me off, right? It's a, it's not a good sales tactic. The same thing is true with regenerative medicine. If you tell me, listen, the only thing that's going to work for your knee, the only option left is regenerative medicine. I will walk out the door because you're not being honest with me when there are other options. So understand like your patients aren't stupid. They, they will recognize that this is a sales process, many of them. Speaker 1: (13:19) And if they do, it's going to affect not only your sales, your cash sales and your regenerative medicine sales, but again, affects your reputation. Uh, here's another one, uh, uh, this promotion is only good for today. So if you sign up today, this is the, this is the price. If you come back tomorrow, the price is something different. Uh, well, that's a really good sales tactic. Um, the reality is some patients don't want to make a decision that day. And the reality is, if you let the patient walk out the door, they're probably never going to come back. And that's something that you had to contend with, but there's a way to present that that's honest and ethical and there's a way to present it. That puts a lot of it can be very heavy handed with your patients with that kind of strategy and will, it will come back to bite you. Speaker 1: (14:03) And then finally, uh, oftentimes doctors will start like discounting the cost of their care plan. We had a patient one time, she came to us and said, Hey, I went to that office down the road and I didn't want to do regenerative medicine there. And I said, well, why not? And she said, well, I went through the lecture and I went through their office and they presented me with a care plan. And it was like 5,000 bucks. And she said, I thought that was a little bit expensive. And so then what happened was the doctor, the doctor who is offering this to her said, uh, yeah, I understand that's expensive, but this is the price. And she said, well, I don't, I don't think I could afford that. So he said, hold on one minute, he left the office, came back a minute later and said, I talked to our clinic director. Speaker 1: (14:43) And instead of being $5,000, we're going to do it for 50% less today. It's only going to be 2,500 bucks, but you have to make a decision today. And she's like, that was like she said, that was a really strange thing to just discount it by 50% and like the first three minutes. And she goes, it really came off as a salesy type process to me. And I lost all like, lost all trust for that doctor. And so that's why I'm here. And she said, I want to do regenerative medicine. It's going to be a stretch for me financially. So we had to help her figure out that financial part, but we charged our full rate and we were way more expensive than this other doctor, but she was willing to pay that because we were very honest in our sales practices with, uh, with the patient. Speaker 1: (15:24) So, um, so I hope this makes sense. So there, there are, uh, I'm not saying that you should not use sales tactics. You absolutely need a sales tactic, but your sales tactic needs to be, in my opinion, more on the more distant from the timeshare, heavy handed, emotionally manipulative sales tactics that are used in other industries like the timeshare industry. So the thing here is that you can use regenerative medicine as a fantastic tool. It's great for patients without harming your reputation, um, without losing referrals from other patients, um, without running the risk of going into compliance issues by overstating the benefits of regenerative medicine. Um, so you can do this in a very ethical way that makes money for your practice helps your patients is a fantastic tool, but I would steer you away from using these, these kinds of emotionally manipulative tactics, because it'll, it'll work for you for a period of time, but eventually over weeks, over months to years, patients will realize that, and they're not going to want to come to your office because they'll see you as the timeshare office of your community. So I hope you found this beneficial doc. I hope you resonate with this approach. If you have any questions about this or have any concerns or want to, or want to tell me something about your sales process, uh, shoot me an email info@integrationsecrets.com that's info@integrationsecrets.com. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and we'll see you next time. Have a great day. Bye bye. Speaker 3: (16:54) Hey innovators. Thanks for listening to the simplified integration podcast fact that you're listening tells me that you're like me, someone who loves simplicity and the truth is those who embrace simplicity are some of the greatest innovators. So hope you got a ton of value from what we covered on today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share with other docs that you feel could benefit from greater sophistication through simplification and innovation. If you've got specific questions that you'd like answered on this podcast, or you've got specific topics that you'd like me to discuss, just shoot me an email@infoatintegrationsecrets.com that's info@integrationsecrets.com.

We've got some harsh things to say about The Joshua Tree– because this week on the podcast, we're watching the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue episode 'Riding the Edge'! How does that monster spell their name? Is that ottoman meant to be foreshadowing? And these women are just really good friends, right? Right? All these questions answered - and more - on this episode of Ranger Danger Lightspeed Rescue!

In this episode, we discuss trusting your intuition. We will share some tips on how you can hear your intuition. Your intuition doesn't stop when we fail or screw up or "do it wrong" or life isn't going where we thought it should - No shame! No blame! Your intuition is lovingly leading you- even when you aren't loving yourself. It loves your kids and you and will show you the way - this is a journey of forgiving yourself. You learned this behavior - we all did. So be easier on yourself and you'll be able to hear that still, small voice easier. Tell yourself what you need to hear right now.   Rhonda Noordyk: Welcome to this episode of the Divorce Conversations for Women. I'm your host, Rhonda Noordyk. You know there's one common thread facing women that are contemplating divorce, and it's that we don't know what we don't know, right? And so, I want to make sure to help you ask the tough questions so that you get the answers that you need. Rhonda Noordyk: In today's episode, we are going to dive into the topic of INTUITION, which is something that I think women really need to learn how to tap into and trust a little bit. So I'm so excited about our topic for today. This episode is sponsored by Courageous Contemplation. It is my online course for helping women navigate through the divorce process, so be sure to check out womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/events. So, I am here today with Cyrina and I want to just thank you so much for joining us. Cyrina Talbott: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to share this. Rhonda Noordyk: So, I know that people can certainly reach out to you. We're going to include all of your contact information and all the good things about you. But I just want to get started in our conversation today about intuition. And let's just start by saying, if a woman came to you and said, "Gosh, you know I really feel like I need to make a decision or something just doesn't feel right or whatever." Like let's just talk about, if you could tell them one thing, right, what would that one thing be? Cyrina Talbott: I think the thing that's the hardest is to trust yourself. You know? And as I was thinking about this too... when you're going through divorce, that's really hard. That's a really big ask because maybe you're looking at this whole situation that you're finding yourself in and going, "okay. Well, I don't know how to trust myself. I made this decision and it didn't work out." Or a lot of times when anything is falling apart, whether it's a business or marriage or our health or whatever it is, we're kind of, life is showing us areas that do need to change. Cyrina Talbott: And even if your partner is hugely at fault, there may be some things you're seeing like, "Oh, okay, I did that." You know where you're responsible. And in light of that, still being able to trust yourself even if you're feeling bad or even if you're realizing there's things or patterns that are needing to change or whatever. Cyrina Talbott: But it's so important to trust your intuition and trust yourself because there are no rules. I mean, there are no rules about divorce, whether you should do this with your finances or that with your in-laws or that with your kids. Like there are no rules. Everybody's situation is so different and so unique that you're really the one that can decide. Cyrina Talbott: And so, you can take all the advice from everybody, but at the end of the day, it's you and to really, my encouragement is to trust that and be like, "Yeah, I'm, I'm not going to defer this to all the people I think are smarter than me. This is me, my family, my kids, my life." And just feel a little bit like, "Yeah, I can do this." Even if everything's falling apart, that's okay. Rhonda Noordyk: Well, and I think to your point, I think a lot of times in situations where women have spent years, sometimes decades squelching their intuition, I think it takes time for us to gain the confidence like, "Oh my gosh, I was right." Or, "Man, I should have listened to this gut feeling that I had several years ago, sometimes decades ago." Rhonda Noordyk: And so, I think there's this aspect of getting reacquainted with our intuition, right? And maybe testing it in small ways to help build our confidence so that then when we do feel like, "You know what, gosh, that's right." I mean, it's interesting because I think guys do such a better job at this. I mean, many of my male colleagues, if you were to ask them what's your key for business? It's like, "I trust my gut. If I get a bad sense from somebody, I'm not working with them." Rhonda Noordyk: So like for women, if you're interviewing attorneys and you're like, "I don't know. I didn't really get a good vibe but everybody says they're really great so I'm going to work with them." No, your gut told you in the very beginning there was something not right. Cyrina Talbott: Exactly. Like exactly how you just processed it. Is like, I don't know. Own that. That's your intuition talking to you. And yeah, I think guys do it better because they're encouraged to and we're supposed to be nice. I don't want to hurt their feelings. Well, hurt their feelings. When I talk to women, they're like, "I don't want to be..." Use a swear word but like a brat. I'm like actually, "Do that more. That's a really good thing to do." Cyrina Talbott: And like you said, guys are fine with it, but it's where we want to be nice and we don't want to hurt feelings. We don't want to make waves and it's real and it's practice. I help my clients practice because it's really like learning a different language. You have this part of you that, like you said, maybe you've been denying forever. Maybe you've been trying to be nice and make everybody else happy, and it's learning this part of you and how it communicates is exactly that. You just don't feel right and you don't have to explain it to anyone. And you don't have to be nice if you don't feel right. Cyrina Talbott: And you can do it in a polite way, you can just be like, "Well, I'm going to look and see what my other options are." It's simple, but trust that and do that. Rhonda Noordyk: For sure. Right. Well, and I think with all, when we look at the divorce process, a lot of the women, if you're listening today and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm still in that contemplation stage. I haven't officially made a decision or maybe a year in the midst of it, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I should have listened to my intuition in the beginning because now I'm in a spot where I'm overwhelmed or whatever." Rhonda Noordyk: I think just being aware that A, we need to tap into that and B not to feel bad if we haven't tapped into it in the past because each situation's going to be different. So it's like, well, we can't change the fact that you should have listened to your intuition 20 years ago, but what can we do about that now? Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: You know. Cyrina Talbott: And that's the other thing I really want to share about your intuition is it isn't a jerk. It's like how you would respond to your best friend. So a lot of times we think our intuition is like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you did that. You're such an idiot." And our intuition isn't doing that. Or isn't going well, I told you so. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it. It's always kind. Cyrina Talbott: And how would you respond to your best friend? So let's pretend roles are reversed. It's your best friend coming to you. Maybe they've done something that's legit dumb. Are you going to be like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you did that again." Like just get away. You know you're going to encourage them. You're going to look for the positive side of it, the thing they did right. Or you're just going to be like, "Oh my gosh," and give him a hug. That's what our intuition does. Cyrina Talbott: And it's just something that we don't talk about, we don't practice and we don't do and we have to learn. So yes, absolutely you can practice. I love that you said practice with little things because sometimes we bring this like, "Should I move across the country or stay here intuition?" Cyrina Talbott: And it's like gambling or rolling the dice and we're like, "Oh, I think I heard a yes." And then it doesn't work out and we say, "Oh, I'm horrible at that. I'll never do it again." And it's like, "No, just listen." This voice is kind, and chill, and always with you, and leading you and you can just start tuning in and listening because it's there. Cyrina Talbott: And I really believe women are way better once they start to do this again or practice, I think women do have all those feelings. We're just quick to ignore. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah. Or we second guess it like, I mean if we look at Mel Robbins in her 5 Second Rule, which I'm sure most people have heard of and if not, they'll have to check it out as it's awesome, right? But in that 5 seconds, we have five seconds to say, "Okay, am I going to trust this or not?" And then we either talk ourselves and we just do it or we talk ourselves out of it. Cyrina Talbott: So, like what I do with people is I work with their subconscious when I'm doing rapid transformational therapy with people and it's like all these answers are here. And when you're doing that quick decision like that, when you just get a hit, some people call it, or you get a nudge, or you're being led to do something, right. It's your intuition. And if you stay in that and just do it, that's going to be a good thing. Instead of getting up in your conscious mind and being logical and talking yourself out of it and how much is this going to cost and blah, blah, blah. Cyrina Talbott: You know, all those things that she's saying don't do that. Just stick with that part of you that knows and is leading you right where you need to be. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, for sure. Well, so we've teed up, just some really great candid conversation around trusting your intuition. Let's talk about some tips. So if you're listening today, like yes, you can hear your intuition, but what are some tips on how to do that? Cyrina Talbott: Yeah, absolutely. So number one is practice. Don't expect to just be a genius at this to start. And practice with smaller things, but really just start tuning into this thing that's with you all the time throughout your day in little ways where you have maybe an inclination to call somebody or look something up or go in a certain direction. Practice that and have it be where it's not life or death and it's not like I'm good at this or bad at this. Have it be practice. Cyrina Talbott: Expect that you're not going to be fabulous at it to start if you have no experience with it. The other thing is our intuition talks to us in different ways. Some people journal, they journal all the time, everything and they get a lot of downloads that way. Some people it's if they're meditating or walking, like if you're taking a bath or talking to a friend, praying, but it's also, it's just that pause. Cyrina Talbott: It's anything we're doing where we're getting our mind to slow down a little bit, like breathing or not just letting that conversation in your mind go and go and go and go, whatever you do to slow that down or stop it. Some people dance, listen to music, whatever that is. Cyrina Talbott: Exercising for sure to be able to pause and listen, whatever that looks like for you. And you'll also know in the past when you just knew, there will be times when you just knew and you'll know, did you feel that in your stomach? Did you feel it in your heart? Did you have the whole body knowing? Was it while you were journaling where you just had clarity about something? Do you need to talk to yourself out loud? Like three things. Cyrina Talbott: And the other thing is really knowing that you can hear. There's nobody on the planet that's broken where they can't hear from their intuition. But I think sometimes we think we are. Like, "Oh yeah, I tried that and it didn't work. That works for other people. That's woo woo." But understand you can and as you're in this mess of either being in the middle of divorce or all the pain and agony at initiating it, right? If you're contemplating it, know that your intuition is absolutely going to lead you and guide you in the mess part too. Cyrina Talbott: So, you don't have to be perfectly chilled out, calm, meditating to hear from this, it's going to lead you in those times. And I think leads us more in those times when we are making hard decisions or going through a hard shift in our lives. A lot of times the shift is like, even though it seems like such a bad thing, it ends up being such a good thing. So much growth and learning and healing comes in those times, you can absolutely hear in the middle of a mess. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, absolutely. And I think women really use the divorce journey as an opportunity of self-discovery and that reconnection with their intuition and reconnection with things that have brought them joy in the past or things that they enjoyed doing or whatever. Right? Cyrina Talbott: Absolutely. Rhonda Noordyk: And so, I think this is a perfect time for women to be thinking about this kind of stuff. And again, just really relying on those kinds of gut feelings that, hey, something just doesn't feel right or this feels off or whatever. Because the divorce process in and of itself is very impersonal I guess. I mean, you're going through a process where the attorneys, this is pretty much what they do all day long. Some do a better job of others then it's not just a case or a file that it's actually somebody's life. Cyrina Talbott: Whole life. Rhonda Noordyk: Like their whole life. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah, wow. Rhonda Noordyk: And so, they do this a lot and certainly, I mean, they aren't thinking about necessarily like, "Hey, what is your intuition telling you?" I mean, you might just be in those meetings where something feels off and you maybe have to ask questions or step away or whatever. And so, having the awareness of this now, even before you start the process can be really, really valuable because you are going to have to tap into it. Rhonda Noordyk: And I also think, when you can have your intuition in combination with a good team of people that can come alongside and support you through this process, it's going to be really, really valuable for you because divorce often is going to be the most difficult thing that you've gone through or will go through. Most of the women that I talk to say, I would never want my worst enemy to have to go through this. It was awful, terrible, horrible. Right? Rhonda Noordyk: Now knowing that, how do we make it a little less terrible, horrible, right? Like how can we help women come out of it so they are stronger, and empowered, and have more clarity, and aren't beating themselves up for all the things that they should have done before, during, or after the marriage? Rhonda Noordyk: So, I think the intuition part is a really important part and you have tapped into some great tips on that. Let's talk about that it doesn't have to stop when we feel like we've done something wrong or that life isn't going where we thought it should go. Let's talk a little bit about that. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. I think sometimes there's this idea, and I even as you're saying, we're using, listen to your intuition. But if you're in a meeting, just say, "I have some questions about this." This isn't something you have to be, "Well, my intuition said," because people are just going to dismiss you, totally. They're going to think you're nuts. Cyrina Talbott: So yeah, when we are in a place where we're looking at the mistakes we made or like I said, you're in this place of having it be a mess. Start listening. So, here's what I wanted to share about the voice of your intuition is kind. And it is there for your best interest. It isn't there to make you pay or learn your lessons or punish you or like I said, like told you so. It's there to encourage you in this time. Cyrina Talbott: Look, you're a human, we all make mistakes. There is no time in your life where you write yourself off and you put this big failure on you. But during divorce is what you want to do. You just want to say, "well, I screwed up. I'm a failure." Maybe you're not feeling like you deserve a good thing. Maybe you're watching how this is affecting your family or your kids and you're like, "Oh my gosh." And you're just beating yourself up. Cyrina Talbott: So, it's an invitation to let yourself off the hook. It's an invitation to be kind to yourself and it's an invitation to allow love into this area and know that you absolutely can hear this voice and that it's going to lead you. That it's not beating you up. And so you have your days, right? Like you said, the divorce lawyer, this is just their nine to five job and then they go home at night. Rhonda Noordyk: Yep. Cyrina Talbott: So your divorce lawyer and other people in your life that you're dealing with this, it isn't personal and this isn't what, it's just their job and it's not their whole life in their heart and everything, but it is yours. And so, the other thing about your intuition is it knows, it's there with you when you're making dinner, when the kids need help with their schoolwork, when you're going to bed alone. Cyrina Talbott: There's this humanity there that I think we can write ourselves off as a failure or that I don't, I should do this by myself, like you're saying, and not allow that support, right? You need a team. You need to walk through this with actual humans on the outside, but allow the support within yourself that's there, allow it in. Start listening. No, I want to tell you it's there first of all. Cyrina Talbott: And then allow it to tell you what you need to say, the conversations that you need to have. Allow it to encourage you, to lead you and not beat yourself up so much. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things I was thinking of too, Cyrina was, for my clients as I'm working with them, if I had somebody that came to me and said, "Hey Rhonda, I'm just really feeling like whatever," we could pick any kind of as a situation, right? Like this just feels a little bit off to me. I'm not exactly sure how to handle it. I feel like I need to maybe go a different direction with somebody on my team, like whatever. Rhonda Noordyk: I am open to having those conversations and if somebody said, "Hey, my intuition is really telling me that maybe I need to switch attorneys, for example." I'm like, okay, well let's explore that. Right? I will never tell them to do something that is opposite of their intuition. I honor that right now. We will deal with whatever needs to get dealt with to either make that transition or make that shift or whatever. But I'm not afraid to have those conversations and to honor that that's maybe the direction that they want to go with part of the divorce process or whatever it is, right? Rhonda Noordyk: Because there's going to be a lot of decisions along the way that I feel like when you have at least one person on your team that's going to understand that piece of it, I can help facilitate the conversation around those decisions. Right? Cyrina Talbott: I like that. It's so valuable and it's so honoring to the human that has to have this affect their whole life. Yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah. Cyrina Talbott: Absolutely. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, for sure. Because it's a big decision and I'm not in every single conversation. I'm certainly in a lot of them, right? But I'm helping facilitate and guide and make the right introductions and put the right people in front of them and help them navigate through all the pieces. I mean, my business is really set up to be the one-stop-shop. So, no matter where they're at in the process, I can help them navigate through finding the right people, asking the right questions, getting the clarity that they need or whatever. Rhonda Noordyk: But having that two-way communication with your team is going to be really important because we can't read your mind. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. Yeah. It's so important. And like I said before, some people are like, it's life or death or do or die. And it can just be like, "Oh, I have a question. I was wondering about that, or could we look at this a different way?" So let's say your intuition, this was the other thing I wanted to talk about is a lot of times we get a nudge or a knowing or a gut feeling from our intuition and then we stop. And it's like a no. And I really encourage people to stay in it long enough to be like, "Okay, what's the next step?" Cyrina Talbott: Sit with that long enough. If it's saying don't do that or question that, or you just have a knowing like, "Okay, don't go in that direction, sit there a while, and then listen, and then you're going to get more information. I think a lot of times people kind of do it half-baked where they get something and then they just run with it or stop it or whatever. Sit in it and keep listening because you're going to get more guidance, more knowledge. Cyrina Talbott: And like you said, bring it to your team, flash it out. See where it goes. And it's okay if you screw it up here too, like that's not a big deal. You're practicing and you're learning and you're never going to get to the point where you stop hearing, can't hear anymore and screw it all up and make irreversible damage. There's always going to be a fix or a U-turn or like a plan B, you know, it's fine. Rhonda Noordyk: Right, right. Well, and I think the other thing too is a lot of times women we process based on the information that we have. And so, sometimes it, like you said, it is a matter of, "Okay, perhaps I need more information. Maybe I need to ask more questions to be able to get some clarity on what direction to go." And so, I had a lady I was talking to today on the phone and she's like, "Rhonda, my husband filed, I don't really have access to money. I've moved to a different state. I'm going to have to file in the state that we're living in. I don't feel like I have access to money. I don't think I can get a credit card, blah, blah, blah." Rhonda Noordyk: And I said, "Okay, what are the facts around that? What's your credit score?" "Well, I don't really know." "Okay. Well, that might be a good place for us to start." Right? And then she's like, "Okay. Well, I don't know that I could retain an attorney." "Well, okay. Have we had some conversations around that?" I think sometimes we don't explore things the way that we can because like in this particular case, this relationship has been abusive for five or six years. Rhonda Noordyk: So, she's not used to hearing that stuff or hearing... I'm like, "Let's just get the facts, right? Like, if you don't know what your credit score is and you don't know if indeed you've been denied for a credit card and your bank might not be able to help you, but have we had those conversations? Right? So, then you go out, you look at the banks, you look at the credit unions and maybe you walk in and you're like, "Okay, I just got a really good sense about this one. I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like this group might be the one to be able to help me." And then you explore it from there. Right? Rhonda Noordyk: So, there's just so many good examples of how this can help guide and direct. But I do feel like trust your intuition, trust your gut feeling, and then also get some additional facts around it too. Cyrina Talbott: Absolutely. And I think our intuition will lead us to that as well. But with the example that you just shared, you have somebody with that negative. You've just got this negative, maybe someone making them feel stupid or incompetent and it's just running. And a lot of times our voice lines up with that and then we run the program even when the person is nowhere near us, we're running that. Cyrina Talbott: And I help people with those subconscious programming, but it's imparting, a kind voice. So it's especially necessary for that person. And right, there's so much shame around this and how could I ever do this? Or how could I have not seen or why did it take so long? Whatever we're doing to beat ourselves up, if that's running, this is an invitation to start running a better program. Cyrina Talbott: Start saying, a big part of rapid transformational therapy is saying, "I am enough." Like just the way you are. I am enough, even though I'm going through this divorce, I'm enough. I'm valuable just as I am. But then understanding that's how your intuition is going to talk to you too. It's going to be kind and lead you to things and encourage you to trust yourself, encourage you to ask questions, encourage you to learn. Cyrina Talbott: You are not stupid; you are not incompetent. That's the first thing to stop doing is even if that's been in your head for 10 years, do your best to be aware of that and catch yourself when you're saying that and switch it to something better. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, for sure. Well, I have another thought related to the journaling aspect of listening to your intuition, but I want to take a quick break and then we will come back and we'll talk about that and wrap up our conversation about trusting your intuition. And then I want you to share a client success story and your favorite quote. So we will be right back. Cyrina Talbott: Thank you. Rhonda Noordyk: All right, so I am so excited that you are participating in the Divorce Conversations for Women podcast. If you haven't had a chance to check out https://www.womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/courses. You want to make sure that you check out our Courageous Contemplation course. This is designed specifically for women that are in that, should I stay or should I go? And it's going to provide you with information about the divorce process, clarity around things that you should be thinking about and how to design the best possible scenario for your divorce process. Rhonda Noordyk: All right. So let's get back at it here. So I was thinking about the journaling part. And anytime I have an opportunity to share this nugget I love to because, and I can't take full credit for it, but I love to share it. And that is one of my dear friends who was with me when I first started my business had gone through divorce. And it was an ugly, nasty divorce and she at the time was working in the Dove Care industry, right? Rhonda Noordyk: So here she is dealing with her own stuff, really having to come in and be present in dealing with people that have just lost a loved one. And she is one of the most positive people I have ever met. And I said, "How do you do that? Tell me a little bit about your strategy." And she goes, "Rhonda, you know what, it's actually kind of simple." Rhonda Noordyk: But she said, "I have two different journals. I have a black one and I have a very colorful one." And she said, "The black one, anytime I was having some negative thoughts or beating myself up and I knew I was going to be going in to meet with a family, I would take that journal out and just get it all out. And then I would move over to the colored one and I would start writing the positive stuff in there." Rhonda Noordyk: And she said, "And pretty soon I was writing less in the black one and more in the positive one." And eventually, then she either destroyed the black one, whatever. But just that tangible like okay, separating the negative thoughts and the positive ones allowed her to be able to be the best that she could be in a situation where she had to be. Rhonda Noordyk: When somebody has lost a loved one, for you to come in and say, "Yeah, I'm going through divorce and it's really yucky and messy," That's not fair to them, right? And it's not fair to you. So deal with that stuff. Find a strategy that works for you. But that one, as far as the journaling, if you're somebody who likes to write stuff down, that could be a really great strategy for you. Cyrina Talbott: I love it. Yeah. And another thing that people do is they'll write down like what's the lie and what's the truth. If you're just hearing in your head all the time, "I'm stupid, I'm stupid, I'm stupid," write that down and then it's in a different journal that's colorful. I totally love that. Rhonda Noordyk: Right? Cyrina Talbott: But write down some things you've done that are intelligent. There's going to be a list. And that's the truth. You're valuable. You are intelligent, you are good. And the other thing is beating yourself up even though it is like what is the most comment? What is happening in this time? You can't help it, right? When you're going through this, but it's not helpful. Cyrina Talbott: So, the more you can find different tricks, tools, whatever works for you, like happy music or whatever it is, the more you can stop that and realize, "Okay, that's not real. That's not who I really am." It's of course in this situation, of course, that's what you're going to feel like doing. But the more you can detach in little ways, in any way that you can, absolutely. The better. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I just posted on Facebook right before the weekend and said, "Hey, for those of you that have gone through divorce or are going through divorce, music can be super powerful. So what's your go-to song? Right? Whether it was like some of them were like... One lady was like, "I listen to musicals." The other folks were like, "I'm listening to Lizzo and Kesha and you know... Or I'm listening to harder music or I'm listening to jazz. Rhonda Noordyk: Like it was everybody kind of there... I don't think there were any duplicates. And I had probably like 60 some comments on that one post. Right? All across the board. And so, they found that song that helped their go-to song and then probably after the divorce was over they were like, "I don't really want to listen to that song ever again." But finding those outlets that can help you gain some strength, some support, and some clarity as you're going through this process. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah, absolutely. Rhonda Noordyk: So, one last thing that I wanted to wrap up here. So we've talked about tips on how to be able to hear your intuition. The fact that you know, practice, right? There's no shame, there's no blame, just start walking and listening to your gut. And then the last one is remembering that it's leading you, lovingly leading you through life and to be a little more aware when we hear that still small voice to honor it. Rhonda Noordyk: And so, I love that. So as we wrap up our time together, I always like to end with two key things. One is a client success story. And then the last thing is your favorite quote. And I've had a chance to read a little bit through your client success story and I feel like it's really going to resonate with the women that are listening. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. And as I work with people that's just, it's a huge thing to shift that beating yourself up. But yeah, I had a client in an abusive relationship so she came to me because she wanted, she actually was like, "I want help in my marriage," and it was emotionally abusive. And so, a little bit about my backstory is my dad was physically and emotionally abusive, and in other ways to me, I have two little brothers and a little sister. Cyrina Talbott: And my mom was so brave, and she left him when I was six. And so, and I know she had so much guilt about my brothers and growing up without a dad and all that stuff. But I know as an adult now that was the best thing she ever did for us. So, if that encourages you at all. But, so what she would say is she would say in a heartbeat, the emotional abuse was worse than the physical abuse. Cyrina Talbott: So, this client was in an emotionally abusive relationship. Her husband was cheating on her and she came to me to fix herself so she could win him back. In my head, I was like, "Heck no." But so she was mad at this woman who "stole her husband" and was wanting that relation to stop so they could just go back to normal. And when I worked with her, she was able to start to value herself and to understand like this wasn't about some other woman "taking her husband" like what the heck was her husband doing with that other woman? He was dishonoring her, he was hurting the family, he was causing the problems. Cyrina Talbott: And so, it was that shift once she could own her value more to say, "Oh, okay. This is not a competition between me and that other person. This is like, okay, what's my husband doing that's hurting our family? And to understand she didn't deserve to be treated that way. Like that conversation, she didn't deserve to have that on the table. She deserved to have a guy who loved her and that wasn't even an option or a possibility. Cyrina Talbott: And so, she started working and understand we don't have to earn other people's love. It's really about loving ourself. And I think that's really important when you're going through divorce because you're losing whatever that looked like or felt like. Even if it's unhealthy, there's that feeling that you're losing something. So it's really important to love yourself and build yourself up and understand that's the only person that really matters anyway. Even people that are in healthy relationships, it's your love for yourself that's important. Cyrina Talbott: And I also asked her what she would do, she had two daughters who were little and what she would tell their daughter if they came to her and they said, you know, in 20 years, "Hey mom, my husband's cheating on me. Can you help me be better to win him back?" like what would she say? Cyrina Talbott: And she would never encourage them to be with a man like that. And I think it's good when we flip the script and you look at your kids and you say, "Would I encourage them to be with a man like this or to beat themselves up if they were going through this?" and that helped her switch how she was thinking about it too. We just need to be nicer to ourselves guys. Yeah, so mean to ourselves in her head. Cyrina Talbott: But that's kind of the set. That's kind of the, if you don't consciously work to overcome it, that's our set point. And then I told her too, like the way we are allowing ourselves to be in a relationship or be treated or the way we treat ourselves, we're showing our kids. So the more we can value ourselves, honor ourselves, love ourselves, even though that's a hard ask, the more we can do that in little ways and get better at it. Our kids are watching and learning. Cyrina Talbott: And I know, like I said, for me, watching my mom be brave enough to take us out of that situation with my dad, even though that put her in a... you know, she wasn't financially stable, but we were emotionally healthy and safe. And we watched her and then we were able to also understand, "Okay, even if you're in a relationship like that, you never have to stay. You never have to be treated like that." And that's the truth. So anyway, it ended up that she left and it was messy, of course, and hard. Cyrina Talbott: And I just wanted to say, she was brave, but she was also encouraging herself. She was running that program of I am valuable, I am enough, I am worthy. And she had more confidence to move forward. And we also found, when I work with people, that a lot of times there's patterns from your past. It didn't start with this guy. It started when she was younger and with her mother being very controlling and demanding. And so as you're going through this and you're maybe finding old patterns, that's an invitation to grow and shift and change too. And like you said, get that team on board to help you. Don't beat yourself up about that, because as they're coming up, they're going to heal and you're going to change them, and you're going to go into the next relationship if that happens after all the divorce settles and everything, you're not going to repeat this. You're going to be healthy or you're going to have a good relationship that you deserve. But it starts with you loving yourself. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And I just want to encourage that if you're listening today that you say, "Hey, you know what? I am in an emotionally abusive relationship, but he's never hit me." Right? There's no, but, okay? Cyrina Talbott: There's no but. Rhonda Noordyk: Let's just be clear. Cyrina Talbott: Absolutely, it's powerful. I mean, sticks and stones is BS. Words do hurt. Rhonda Noordyk: Oh, for sure. I mean, right? But I think that there's always this like, yeah, but isn't as bad. And I've been in several meetings where the attorneys, we've been doing attorney interviews and they ask a few questions and they say, "Based on what you told me, this is actually the definition of domestic violence." And they're like, "Really?" Cyrina Talbott: Like, they're shocked. Rhonda Noordyk: Shocked. Cyrina Talbott: And this is my invitation to that person too. If this were your daughter, and she was like, "My boyfriend or my husband, he tells me I'm a piece of garbage all the time. He calls me fat and ugly and stupid, but he's not hitting me." Would you be like, "Okay sweetie, stay." Rhonda Noordyk: Just stay. No. Cyrina Talbott: No, so yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Get the heck out, right? Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. So honor yourself that way. Rhonda Noordyk: So this is a powerful message. I have goosebumps about this because I think we could have a lot of conversation around this part of it and the confidence that comes around it. And when you don't have the confidence, you borrow the other people's that can help you say, "Hey listen, this is not okay, this is not healthy, this is not normal. And it is okay for you to leave." Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. And there's no shame at getting however you got yourself, however, we find ourselves in this relationship, there's no shame in it. There are so common. If you sat a group of women, you had 20 women or a hundred women, there's a huge majority that would raise their hand and they've been in these relationships, whether they were married or dating or whatever. Like there's no shame here. And yeah, there are people who want to help, who've been through it. There's no judgment. Yeah, absolutely. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, totally. Cyrina Talbott: And you don't deserve it. Yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Yeah, totally. Such a powerful message. So let's end with your favorite quote, right? We'll just put a bow on this thing. Cyrina Talbott: Yeah. And it's just short and sweet. Einstein said, "We can't solve our problem with the same thinking we use to create them." And for me, this is very powerful because I work with people's subconscious versus their conscious. And the key is to switch those negative, beating yourself up, that shame, that thinking is not going to help you get out of this. Being kind to yourself is. Cyrina Talbott: And a lot of times it feels counterintuitive. It feels like maybe we deserve to be thinking of all the things we've done wrong or making lists of our faults or whatever in this situation. But really being kind to yourself, letting yourself off the hook, being gentle, treating yourself how you would a good friend who is going through this, switching how you're thinking, detaching, like you said, with that journaling is so powerful. Cyrina Talbott: Those are just thoughts; those are just negative thoughts. That's not your identity. It's not who you are. There's this other colorful journal or the truth that you're good. The things you've done right. All that stuff. Yeah. So switching how you're thinking is really powerful. Rhonda Noordyk: Wow. Heavy. Right? But so good. Cyrina Talbott: Yes. Rhonda Noordyk: So many good things about this conversation. And so, I just want to thank you for taking time to just have a really candid, casual conversation because I know that the women that are listening, I know that those of you who are listening really found a nugget in here. Rhonda Noordyk: And so, I want to make sure that you leave this conversation knowing that you can reach out. The contact information for Cyrina will be in our notes. You can also reach out to the Women's Financial Wellness Center. Go to our website, womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com. You can chat with us there, you can leave a request to set up a time to chat. But let's just commit, okay, that we're not going to walk through this by ourselves. How about that? Just commit today, I'm not going to walk through this by myself, by yourself. We're not going to let anybody that we know walk through this by themselves. Rhonda Noordyk: And we've got a great team of people that are here to support you as you're going through this process, contemplating this process in the midst of it and need some guidance or direction, right? But you have to reach out. Okay? So, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If there was something that really stood out to you, a huge takeaway, an aha moment, man, we'd love to hear from you. Rhonda Noordyk: So, thank you again for your time and I am looking forward to continuing this conversation. Cyrina Talbott: Thank you so much. And I also have a free gift. Rhonda Noordyk: Yes. Cyrina Talbott: It's a confidence thing that you can find on my website that'll be in the show notes. It's cyrinatalbott.com and so that you can listen to that to actually start this positive, running these thoughts running in your mind that are going to be- Rhonda Noordyk: Awesome. Cyrina Talbott: ... helping you instead of beating you up more yeah. Rhonda Noordyk: Awesome. Thank you so much for that generous offer. I appreciate that.   ________________________________________ Contact Information and Other Resources Our guest today was Cyrina Talbott Cyrina Talbott is a Rapid Transformational Therapist, getting to the root of issues that hold people back and helping them get their life back. Her journey from completely burning out and learning she had to heal from her own childhood trauma, lead her to be able to help others today. She's a speaker, a mom of 4 girls, and loves reading and being in the outdoors. Cyrina Talbott Rapid Transformational Therapist | Life Back Therapy cyrinat@gmail.com | (715) 570-3450 Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube Special Offer: Free Transformational Confidence Recording  ____________________ Our host of Divorce Conversations for Women Podcast is Rhonda Noordyk, CFEI Rhonda Noordyk's relentless pursuit of financial justice for women going through divorce drove her to leave the financial industry in 2014 to open The Women's Financial Wellness Center. She was in search of a better way. She used her knowledge, passion, and experience to build a leading-edge business model. The intention was to create a business that provided a safe place for women - especially those in a vulnerable position - to find their paths, find their voices and find the financial confidence they need to lift themselves out of seemingly hopeless situations. Since starting the Women’s Financial Wellness Center, after a 10+ year career in the financial industry, she has helped alleviate financial vulnerability for thousands of women. ​In addition to being the CEO of The Women’s Financial Wellness Center, Rhonda is also a professional speaker. While her platform is women’s money wellness, it is not just about money. Her topics include: assertive communication, boundaries, leadership and overcoming financial myths. Her speaking experience includes: GE Healthcare, UWM Women’s Leadership Conference and Marquette Law School. In addition, she has appeared on Fox6 News, Real Milwaukee, and Morning Blend. Her dynamic and inspirational style leaves women with a sense of empowerment.   Rhonda Noordyk, CFEI  CEO | The Women's Financial Wellness Center rhonda@wfwcllc.com | (262) 522-1502 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube Schedule a FREE 30-Minute Phone Call ____________________ Sponsored by: Courageous Contemplation (online course) ____________________ Visit the Women’s Financial Wellness Center for a full directory listing of experts. Be sure to reach out if you would like to connect personally with the Women’s Financial Wellness Center. You can visit our website or grab a complimentary 30-minute consult. Leaving a positive podcast review is hugely important: they help the podcast get discovered by new people. Please spend 5 minutes of your time to leave a review on your preferred listening platform, we’d love to hear from you!  

Welcome!   What a busy busy week in the world of technology.  We are going to hit several topics today.  Business Email Compromise attacks are running rampant through business. Failure to update older technology is putting businesses at risk. Facial recognition technology is being used but the issue is privacy and how to protect it.  Will hit Ransomware, Employee Training, Regulatory Compliance, Online job postings and what precipitated the most expensive divorce.  It is going to be a busy show -- so stay tuned. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com I've got some free online privacy training coming up. I have been teaching courses on security for the FBI InfraGard's program. And now I'll share some of the step-by-step tips and tricks that we all can use to keep ourselves and our information safe online. And it won't cost you a dime. --- Related Articles: Most Businesses Attacked By Business Email Compromise Last Year Keeping Legacy Software Safe Concerns About Effectiveness and Privacy and Limiting Facial Recognition Adoption  Downtime and Costs Double as Ransomware Attacks Hit Larger Businesses Employee Training Key to Spotting Existing and Emerging Threats Regulatory Compliance: The Perception and The Reality WhatsApp, Hired Journalist With Saudi Enemies: The Reason Behind Jeff Bezos WhatsApp iPhone Hack Searching For A Job Online -- FBI Warns About Rising Number Fake Employers --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Hey, hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me, whether you are online listening to me on a streaming service, or listening on the radio on my website, kind of everywhere, we are going to be talking about most businesses now what's happening to them? How are they attacking to new statistics out, we'll be talking about how to keep some of your legacy software safe. If you're using Windows seven, or if you're using an older version of the software, because you haven't been keeping it up to date, which is like what all of us right? We're going to talk about what you can do some effectiveness, concerns about privacy, limited facial recognition, adoption, what's going on there. We talked a bit about that last weekend, downtime and costs. If they have gone up here. ransomware attacks are hitting businesses and individuals even harder than at any point in the past. So what's that all about? What are the simple things you can do to help protect yourself against it? We're going to talk about some employee training you need to do if you are a business person, regulatory compliance, what's the perception? What's the reality, we've seen a lot of businesses that are doing what we've been calling pencil whipping some of these forums that are trying to figure out whether or not they have complied with some of the laws, rules, and regulations. We're going to also talk about the Jeff Bezos phone hack today, and about a warning coming out from the FBI about job searches online. So a lot to talk about today. And we are going to start out with half of the organization's worldwide were successfully finished in 2019. But can't even talk right now. This is something that's very concerning. Now. It isn't as bad as it used to be phishing attacks used to be almost 100% effective. Of course, these are the types of attacks where someone sends an email. And the email is trying to get you to help this Prince in Nigeria, or whatever it might be. Those are phishing attacks, I've gotten a lot more sophisticated to the point where they are today, where we warn people to not even put information about who the employees are even physical access or addresses of the businesses, if they are not, obviously a walk-in type store because that is being used online by the bad guys. They go to your website, they figure out who the CEO is, who the CFO is, whatever information they might need. And then they use that now to go after you and go after you in a very bad way, frankly, because we are falling prey to it. And we're going to be talking more a little bit later on a couple more segments about what is the cost to businesses right now. Some of the phishing attacks, because you remember, they will use phishing for a number of different reasons, not the least of which is to get you to install malware on your computer. You know, unbeknownst to you, right? It's not as though you purposely are selling malware. But we're going to talk about that here in just a few minutes. There is a number of companies out there that do various types of simulated phishing attacks. And the idea behind these is that they will go ahead and send your employees emails that are based upon the latest phishing attacks, right, the type of phishing attacks that have been going on for the most part, and they will record whether or not each employee has clicked on a link that they shouldn't have clicked on. So obviously, when they click on it, it goes through the software that's tracking them and knows what they did. And you know, now they're in trouble, right? Because they did what they shouldn't have done and they will usually have some remedial training for these people to help to build awareness, help them understand what it is really what's going on what they should be doing what they maybe shouldn't be doing. All of that stuff pulled together. Well, one of the companies that does this fishing susceptibility testing along with the security awareness training is called proof point. And they take a look at all of their numbers and try and roll them together. So this report that I'm looking at right now is examining global data from nearly 50 million simulated phishing attacks that were sent by proof point customers over a one year period. And they also did third party survey responses for more than 600 information security professionals in all of the major countries out there, not some of the small ones. And they put this all together. So basically, it's 3500 working adults who are sitting paid for that part. Now, here's what they found. Here are the tips for you. If you are a business person if you're responsible for it within an organization number one here in the Help Desk security article is effective security awareness training, must focus on the issues and behaviors that matter most in organizations' mission. Obviously, that's kind of corporate-speak, right? But he's saying that really what we have to do is look at what our assets are, what our mission is, as a company, and you know, value those what is the value of those, what should we be doing, when it comes to our data, the things that we if we lost, we would go out of business or we might get fined, that might come after us, etc, etc. So he goes on to say we recommend taking a people-centric approach to cybersecurity by blending organizational-wide awareness training initiatives, targeted threat driven education. The goal is to empower users to recognize and report attacks again, oh my gosh, you know, this is the sort of thing that you get from a PR agency, right? I doubt the guy actually said that. But it really is about people. We have various types of automation. If you have the basic stuff like you've got antivirus, and you've been listening to my show for a while, you know, anti-virus is zero percent effective against the latest types of attacks. And it is not effective at all. antivirus software in this day and age is pretty much useless. Now, you should be using it as part of a bigger stack of security software and procedures and things. But bottom line, it's just not that useful. And they're also saying that end-user email reporting is critical. They're showing that the number of reported email messages jumped significantly last year. And that's a really big jump at about 67%. So make sure if anyone in your organization has any questions about an email, they're thinking it might be a fake, it might be, you know, a problem phishing, etc, that they forwarded to you. Now we'll go a step further because of my company mainstream, we go ahead and work with the FBI and state investigators. When there are serious problems. Obviously, we will work with the company to it's not as though we're going to squeal on them. But we haven't covered numerous foreign government and also organized crime hacks into businesses. So if you're not reporting it, nobody's going to know and nothing can be done about it. So here are the key takeaways from this last year. More than half it's 55%. I've surveyed organizations dealt with at least one successful phishing attack in 2019. That's a very big deal. That's a very scary thing, frankly. And info security professionals have reported a high frequency of social engineering attempts across all kinds of different methods. 88% reported spear-phishing attacks, 86 business email compromised attacks, those are the ones that are hurting our businesses most and those are the type of things where they're faking that they're a vendor or they're the owner and they're asking people to wire money around. So be very, very careful. smishing is fairly new, but 84% of the businesses are saying that they had SMS and text phishing attacks that's way up. 83% said fishing which is voice fishing, and 81% reported malicious USB drops isn't That's something 65% of the surveyed infosec professionals said that their organization experienced a ransomware infection in 2019. That is high, high high. Now, you know, the FBI advises to never pay a ransom. But a third of all organizations opted to pay the ransom. And we've seen that even in cities that have been attacked by ransom, or that they did pay ransoms. 32% did not have those who negotiated with attackers 9% were hit with follow up ransom demand, and 22% never got access to their data, even after paying the ransom. So keep that in mind. And the other statistic that I've seen before from the FBI says that even if you pay a ransom, the odds are only 50% that you'll get all of your data back. Remember, these guys aren't writing great software. In fact, most of them aren't even writing this software at all. And what that ultimately means is it buggy? What do they really care as long as they get some payments right? organizations are benefiting from the consequent model. 63% of organizations take corrective action with users who repeatedly make mistakes. So I think that's an important thing. Many working adults fail to follow cybersecurity best practices. 45% admit to password reuse, which is one of the biggest sins, frankly, that you can commit is reusing passwords on multiple sites, more than 50% do not password protect home networks. And 90% said they use employer-issued devices for personal activities. These are all things they shouldn't be doing. In addition, 32% of working adults were unfamiliar with VPN services. One of my pieces of training was about VPNs. You might find it I think it's still up on YouTube. But how VPN services are in some cases worse than not using a VPN at all, you've got to be careful because some of these VPN services that are out there, they're actually having new use their service so they can track you online, sell your information. So the VPN service is only charging a few bucks a month, or heaven forbid, free. You really have to wonder just how good is it. So follow those practices need to understand the common cybersecurity terms. I don't maybe I should do a little training on that one too so that people know what's up. And Millennials are continuing to underperform other age groups in fundamental fishing, and when ransomware awareness, so stick around when we come back, we're going to talk about keeping your legacy software safe. Are you still using Windows seven, eight or maybe something else? It's kind of old. Stick around. We'll be right back. You're listening to Craig Peterson on WGAN. Hey, welcome back, everybody, Craig Peterson here. If you have a computer that's been around for a few years, have you stopped and had a close look to see if it's reached its end of life. Now I'm not talking about the hardware is about to fail or fall apart. You know, that's something I think you can deal with and everybody knows to deal with. And more importantly, if the hardware falls apart and stops working, you have to deal with it. But what about the software that's on your computer? What about the software that is, has been installed and it has been there for who knows how long? When was the last time you actually updated it I walk into customers' new customers all of the time, and they are running really old software? And man, I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a place and they've got a database. It's Microsoft SQL Server, server, and they have just got a development version there. They're in. In fact, they bought the software. And the software vendor gave them a free development version of SQL Server. Even though it's in production, even though they're supposed to be paying for a full license, I see it all the time. And then because they don't have a full license, in fact, they don't even have a legal license to use it in the business environment. The next problem happens, which is they've never updated SQL Server. We used to see this all the time with Windows where people were using a hacked version of Microsoft Windows, versions of Windows that were never licensed, never licensed properly. We don't see that as much anymore. But what we are seeing is software that's passed the end of life including windows As of mid-January January 14, 2020, Windows seven Microsoft is no longer supported for security updates, at least unless you pay Microsoft a small boatload full of money. They are providing it, but they are charging money for it. And now the last subscription I saw for security updates for Windows seven was about $80,000 a year. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's a little bit pricey. So now you end up with the problem of Okay, so I am running old software, maybe even Windows XP, we see that all the time in the manufacturing business, where they're controlling systems and control systems running XP. So what do you do now? Because if you upgrade your base operating system, that means there is software that you're running that may not work with the new version of Windows. And frankly, that's probably the number one reason we see from people who don't upgrade and don't want to upgrade because it's could end up being a very bad thing for them a lot of pain, right? Well, Windows seven is already past its support window. And we're Windows Server 2008 will officially be ended just this past week. So if you're running Windows Server, which a lot of businesses are, right, you're using Active Directory server as much as I don't like it. Most of our customers use it because there's not really a whole lot of other options for them. But it's really significant here that these older operating systems are no longer going to get routine security updates and patches going forward. Windows seven, believe it or not, is 10 years old now. And it's still in style. It still works. And according to StatCounter, Windows seven is still deployed on one out of every four Windows machines. So That means you are probably like everybody else out there and is still running Windows seven or some of your machines. And part of the reason for that may be because you're concerned about doing the upgrade, right, and update. So we're going to talk a little bit about that some things that you can do. But first of all, I want to give you a couple of warnings, because I think I might have to get you out of that feeling of invulnerability that you might have Windows 720 19, there were more than 1000 vulnerabilities that were found over 1000 in just 2019. ingest windows seven alone. So businesses are facing a very real security risk by using any of these products after their security updates pass. But you know, can you migrate? Yeah, obviously the answers. Yes. Can you do it quickly? Well, Not necessarily quickly, and certainly not immediately for most people. So most businesses are finding they're using the sound supported software for months, years or even decades later. And Kaspersky research, which is a Russian company that does all kinds of stuff when it comes to security, they got some pretty decent security software. But the problem you and I think you might find with their security software is it's from Russia, and the US, the federal government has come out and said, Don't use Kaspersky. So I can see that I can see why they're saying that but they're reporting that 40% of very small businesses, so 40% of businesses under about 10 employees, and about 48% of small and mid-sized businesses. So the bigger businesses that should have the ability to do upgrades are still using unsupported software and software that's approaching the end of support. So you got to be very, very careful, okay. And if you're a manufacturing company, or you have industrial control systems, you might have an H HVAC and an air conditioning system in your building that is hooked up to your network connection, so that the technicians can get in remotely to look for problems, maybe the systems call home, to let them know that, you know, your coolant pressures too low or whatever the problem might be. Those types of systems can be some of the worst to some of those, as I mentioned, before, we're finding we're still running Windows XP. And that is way, way out of date. So you know, have a look at all of those to man, we could go on for a long time about the problems that we've seen, and some of the problems that you need to take care of. But when we're talking about 24 seven operations, so we're moving on to the next level. Business kind of manufacturing or maybe you have a help desk where people call it 24/7. And those systems are up and online the whole time, it becomes even more important becomes even more critical. If a new vulnerability is discovered, I really have to emphasize here you have to take extra precautions. So what do you do in the meantime to protect yourself, here are some tips for those of us that are still running older software? And as I said, we're talking about what 50 60% of us frankly, our and a third of us are running unsupported versions of Windows. Number one you could do is buy extended support. Now, this is probably the least attractive option for companies that don't have a lot of cash lying around but it is the most secure. If you're an enterprise customer, you which means, by the way, you have to use any enterprise versions of Windows, not the stuff you got when you bought your laptop from staples or, or just from regular old Dell, okay? But enterprise customers can pay Microsoft for extended support through January 2023. Now, it's very expensive. Okay, so the price is going up every year. So be very careful with it. We're talking about million dollars worth of expensive, okay, so very, very big deal. If you're still running Windows XP, the cost for extended support for an organization with 10,000 plus machines leveled out at just under $2 million a year. real money. It's crazy money. So that's probably out of the question for most of us. So next up, here's what I've done for a lot of customers and I can help you with this if you need this as well. But there are ways to isolate both older machines from your regular network and I'm not just talking about going ahead and doing some network segmentation. I'm talking about having special internal firewalls to isolate these machines, okay, old decommissioned and non-supported operating systems and software that cannot be patched, have to be isolated. Obviously, you also would need to limit user access to the machines and limit what they are doing on those machines and try and keep them safe. And watch for what is called out of band fixes. Some vendors may still issue critical fixes, but you know, keep an eye on it. It could be dangerous. All right sticking around. We're going to talk about this new facial recognition technology that London is adopting. I talked about it this week, a little bit on my radio and TV appearances. But we're going to get into a little bit more because it is coming here to the US as well. Stick around you're listening to Craig Peterson WGAN Online. Welcome, everybody. Craig Peterson here and online at Craig Peterson dot com. If you haven't already, make sure you sign up for my email comes out every week on Saturday mornings typically is when we get it all done on time so that it's out for the show. But I do go through some of the most important articles for the week, a lot of security stuff including what the number one patch that you need to make to your systems. So that comes out at least monthly, my newsletter and these patches are patches to software that is attacking right then and there in the wild. In other words, it isn't just patched for the sake of patching. It's this is a serious problem. And if you don't deal with this problem right away, you could become a victim. So you've got to really kind of keep an eye on that. That is part of my newsletter that comes out and you can get that by just going to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe. Well, we're going to talk right now about the effectiveness and privacy here live and limiting facial recognition adoption. This is something we talked about a little bit about last week as well. Of course, we talked about this company that's out there doing facial recognition stuff that's really kind of scares me, because they went and they crawled all of the public photos they could find from sites like Twitter and Facebook and some of these photo-sharing sites. They pulled them all together, 3 billion of them, and they put them into a database, the company's called clear view, and they recorded where they got those photos from, and then they've been offering it right now. To the police, obviously they had ideas about offering it to other people is, you know, ultimately, but the police have access to it. And that's been a problem. because nothing's 100% plus at where do we draw? At what point? Do we draw a line saying, hey, my privacy extends even to those things that I posted online? This is a fine line. It's a real problem. And as we've talked about before on my show, ultimately, the law, legs far behind the technology, technology comes up with something new. And then the rules or regulations, follow the laws, which are all coming out well after the fact. Now, sometimes, they try and pass laws beforehand. And that ends up being a problem because we don't know what all the problems are going to be. So it's a catch 20 too, right? You can't, you shouldn't really put the laws in place until we have the real problems. And then you're not going to see the real problems with the laws until they're in place. So we're talking about something like this. That's not a perfect technology. How far can they go? Now we know that if you are arrested, and they can take your picture, and your fingerprints, I've been doing that for a very long time. There have been a number of court cases about whether or not they can take your DNA. And of course, it doesn't have to be blood anymore. They can just do a mouth swab. They can get your DNA even from your hair, and know a few mixed results there. I know, basically, from everything I've read, the courts have come down on the side of if you are arrested and convicted, then they'll grab your DNA, and that's been used to solve some crimes. And in fact, facial recognition has been used to solve some crimes. as well. But should we have the privacy in our papers basically in our documents? And they argue many times police in court, hey, listen, if you're out on a public roadway, you have no expectation of privacy. And, you know, I frankly, I don't disagree with that. I don't think you do have an expectation of privacy. But should it be legal for the police to be tracking you your license plate, taking pictures of you as you go through intersections? Again, where's that line drawn? And when we're talking about the facial recognition databases, these things are often wrong. They've got a success rate of less than 70%. But what is going to happen when their success rate is 99% that they are showing accurately, who you are 99% of the time. Now, the next problem with companies like ClearView AI as far as I'm concerned government agencies is how safe is our data in their hands. When you get to the databases that hold the images, they are going to ultimately have vulnerabilities. So our, you know, our biometric information, our pictures, all the way through our fingerprint, Iris scans, the way we walk our pace, the way we speak. All of that's biometrics. Now, if you lose your password, you can reset your password and have a new one. If you lose the pin for your ATM card, you can go ahead and get a new one, right? It's pretty simple to do. But what happens if the government the state government or federal government has your photo and it's stolen, you cannot change your face. You can not change your biometrics at all. So is there any way for us to be able to trust that our privacy is going to be protected? And the answer is frankly, no. And is there any way we can stop the distribution of our facial data? Some states sell all of the driver's license data. Most states, I think now to whoever will pay for it. So the answer to that question, is there any way we can prevent the distribution of official data? The answer to that is frankly, no. And when we consider the damage that the leak of these types of databases could cause, cause it is freak, it's just, it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming to me. It's overwhelming to you. And I think we've got to be a lot more careful. Now. I mentioned this database company called Clearview AI. That scrubbed the internet found all 3 billion pictures pulled them in, kept track of where it saw the pictures. This is a big problem. But they say hey, listen because they're getting sued right now. It's okay so somebody by the name of great Graham Cluley he went to clear view an eyes website and had a look around and what they found is that you can have your photo removed. Yes, yes indeed. Now, they never asked you for permission to use your photo for their app that they're selling to the FBI homeland security agencies all around the world. No, no, no. All you have to do to have your photo removed from Clearview AI is are you ready? Um, this is straight from like a screenshot from their website. You can send an email to privacy dash requests at clear view.ai. And then you just submit a name a headshot, a photo of a government-issued ID to facilitate the processing of your request. Well, what if you're concerned about this company's clear view to AI, losing your data in the first place? Do you really want to send them a picture of your passport or your driver's license, which now most driver's licenses are federally compliant? Is that really what you want to do? Well, I think it's a real problem. Twitter has sent a cease and desist letter to them. Saying that clear view AI violated the policies over at Twitter, demanding any collected data be deleted. I would expect that Facebook is probably going to do something similar, as will these other websites that are out there where they have been scraped and They obviously the website had to find out about it. And now we're seeing London's Metropolitan Police Service, starting to use live facial recognition technology to scan public areas for suspected criminals. They've been trialing this technology for two years. And they're going to have this up and running by February 2020 going to be linked to a database of suspects. So, again, this is a problem. Facial recognition technology is just not accurate. What can you do? Well, I think we should all be sending letters to our representatives in Congress in our statehouses, and letters complaining to Twitter and Facebook, about companies like ClearView AI, you'll find this articles or articles about it up on my website at Craig Peterson, calm and of course, listening to me on WGAN, stick around with me Get back we're going to talk about the costs of ransomware in q4 2019 and today. Hey, welcome back, everybody, Craig Peters on here and WGAN online course at Craig Peterson dot com. That's Peterson. With n Oh, well, we know what downtime is right? businesses have it. And it can really cause havoc, especially a long amount of downtime. When businesses get hit with a major outage, and it can be caused by a fire flooding the major server crash when they're hit with that sort of thing. It can be devastating. And most frankly, businesses are out of business within six months, with small-medium businesses, basically the larger ones. Well, by law because of Sarbanes Oxley, they have to be able to get back online if they're publicly traded within four hours. Now, a lot of businesses don't do that. Although they shouldn't be doing it and You know, frankly my business we are set up to be able to get back online pretty darn quickly, because you just can't afford the bad PR the bad customer relationship and the lack of sales that come in because you're down, right? Nobody can get it anything. Well, there are new and more sophisticated ransomware attacks that are really hitting businesses today and everything from large companies to little guys from state governments to the federal government. And some of these are considered to be the deep pocket target. Now you and I, we can get hit with ransomware. And to us, a $500 ransom might be real money. What is it half of the American households could not come up with $500 for an emergency expense and two, right. So I'm not saying that it wouldn't be devastating to get ransomware if you are a small office, Home Office, Or if the if it's your basically just your home computers. But ransomware costs now have more than doubled in the fourth quarter of 2019. According to the latest statistics, so the average ransomware payment has doubled. It is now at almost $85,000. That's in one quarter. So in the third quarter of 2019, the average ransom payment was about 41,000. That's the third quarter. So let's see what the third quarter last year September. Let's see November or October, November, December is the fourth quarter. And so it would be September, August in July. So July, August, September, the average payment for ransomware was 41,000. And then, in October, November, December, there we go. It's $4,000 that is absolutely huge. So I did a little bit of digging to try and figure out why did it surge so much? Well, apparently it's because they are using some ransomware software. It's called RealLoc. And I always have a hard time with this one, so doing co key B and they are going after the enterprise space. Now enterprise space typically means a medium or large business, as opposed to a small business. But in this space, criminals can really exhort extort serious money, deep pockets for seven-figure ransom payouts. So here is a quote, researchers some cover were saying q4 ransomware actors also began exfiltrating data from victims and threatening its release if the rain Sim was not paid. So it's not just ransomware getting onto your computer and encrypting your files and saying, Hey, listen, if you want your data back, you're going to have to pay us, which as you already know, you usually don't get your data back, right. But they are saying, we have your data, and we're going to let it go. And there's a big case about this late last year, and the chairman of the company was but this company had had its data stolen, and it there was an extortion angle on it. They're trying to get money from the company, saying, hey, if you don't pay us all of this ransom, we're going to release the data. And the company said, Okay, well do it because we're not going to pay that ransom. And the bad guys did release it. Okay. Now there's third-party claims over the data breaches now that start to come in. But let's break down some of these costs. So if and then I'll get into what you can Due to help prevent some of these problems, but the cost ransomware attacks can vary. Obviously, if you're going to pay a ransom, there's one cost, right? Then the remediation which can be very expensive, if you get hit by ransomware remediation companies can cost you in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, then that's frankly, where you bring us in and we have a couple of people with their fire jumpers certified over at Main stream.net it can easily cost you $100,000 to try and get all of that stuff all your data back, right, get back in business, but all the hardware devices you're gonna have to do upgrade so all of this stuff you've been dragging your feet on you probably gonna have to do so it couldn't be quarter of a million up to two or $3 million for bigger company. Now there are also some other costs, besides the lost revenue from downtime because now you might have a bad reputation out there. Brand damage can occur here if the business interruption severe enough. If your clients are noticing that you can't do business if you are a provider upstream-downstream, it can be very, very bad. Now in addition to the ransomware payments skyrocketing according to threat post calm, the average downtime that a ransomware attack causes for a company also increased from 12.1 days in the third quarter to 16.2 days in the fourth quarter. That is absolutely nuts. Now, we have been doing a lot of remediation really for businesses. And one of the things we do for the bigger businesses if they are a public company or their division of a publicly-traded company is we put in equipment on-site for them. So that if their main servers go down, the new, the other equipment, our equipment that's on-site can take over and it can take over in a matter of minutes. So there's like almost no downtime, the only thing that might be lost is 15 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever it was since the last snapshot was taken and pushed to us. And then we push that data. Sometimes we do it through leased lines sometimes to do it through the public Internet. We push that data to our data center. And then it's encrypted while it is over the customer site and before it gets sent to us. So it's encrypted as it goes over the by the public Internet or some form of a leased line. It's encrypted when we get here so that we can now sneakernet if we have to, right. So the building, let's say it burns down, we can immediately recover. And then we take that data and we say snapshot it. And we keep snapshots for a year or more sometimes depends. public companies need to keep seven years of some of these snapshots like the email of the working files, especially companies that are manufacturing something where you have to keep it in, in some cases indefinitely. Like we did some stuff for saffron, which makes blades for jet turbans. And they have to keep their data for a minimum of I think it's, is it 20 years, you know, whatever the service life is of the engine those blades are put into. So that's what we do for publicly traded companies. Now that's not cheap. But they don't, you know, it just blows my mind how many of these companies that can afford it just aren't doing it? So when you look at these statistics and say that we're talking about 16.2 days of downtime if you get hit with ransomware how much revenue is that to them? Especially those companies that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a day, they're going to lose that revenue because their manufacturing lines going to be down or their sales are departments going to be offline or their shipping or warehouse or maybe everything which is, which has happened to another division of a public company that we did the work for 25 years. Okay. So very, very, very expensive. And the third Post article goes on to say that this increase from 12 days of downtime to over 16 days of downtime was linked to a higher prevalence of ransomware attacks against these bigger companies, the larger enterprises, which are often left scrambling to try and get their systems back up for weeks. Now, again, that's something we've been doing forever and that's something You need to be doing if you're just a small company, having an offsite backup is critical. Having multiple generations of backup is critical. Because what happens if your systems are corrupted because ransomware has come in, has taken them over. And now your backup and backup backs up the encrypted data. So now you don't even have the data before the ransomware hits. Now you're completely stuck, right? Because your computer is encrypted, your data is encrypted on your computer. And your data is encrypted in your backup because you just backed up or just as bad or maybe even worse is your backing your systems up to a locally attached disk, right. You plug in one of those nice little USB drives. Guess what the ransomware is doing? It is encrypting that backup drive and it's also spreading to your Active Directory server and Your business, and it's spreading to all of the other computers in your business. It does this normally anything it can see any shares any mounts, it's going to encrypt. And that's why it takes so long. And that's why for our clients that need higher availability, because you are required to have a full disaster recovery plan in place if you're a publicly-traded company or division of a publicly-traded company, and you have to be back on in four hours. That's why we have equipment sitting there on-site with multiple generations of backups, in case something like this happens in case it gets through. Okay, so nowadays, we've got some working descriptors that are pretty good for some of the ransoms that happen. So you have about a 2010 to 20% chance that the data that has been encrypted will be you'll be able to decrypt it Cisco Talos per usual is one of the lead investigators, researchers and all of this. Those are the guys that we use Cisco talus guys. They're just absolutely amazing. They're the ones that back us up. RDP Remote Desktop protocol compromises people misusing VPN. It just goes on and on my brain spins when I think about all of this, but the costs have doubled in q4. So make sure you are doing the right thing. You have good backups, you have multiple generations, that at least one generation is stored off-site, if not multiple generations. And if you aren't doing that, or if you're, you know, ISP MSP isn't doing it for you. It's time to change because the costs are going way up. You're listening to Craig Peterson, stick around. We'll be back here after the top of the hour with more about fishing. What's been going on? Hello everybody, Craig Peterson here. Welcome back. I am on WGAN radio and many other stations actually throughout New England but I'm glad you're joining me right now. Also, of course online, your favorite streaming site and Craig Peterson dot com. Well, today we've already talked about most businesses are attacked by business email compromised last year and what that means what are the new types of spear-phishing scams going on? You guys are learning a lot from some of these, just that the terms if you understand the terms you are ahead of almost everybody else out there. We talked about keeping legacy software safe that things like Windows seven, heaven forbid Windows XP or now windows eight is also legacy no longer supported with software patches. We also talk before the top of the hour concerns about effectiveness of some privacy when it comes to facial recognition software. Should we be doing more about that there's a lot of concerns about the adoption and then downtime and costs have doubled in the last quarter? So q3 versus q4 2019. They doubled when it comes to ransomware attacks a very big deal. And it's interesting how they're doing it. I just got a text from my son and my son is as well as a couple of other family members. Somebody who works with me in the business. It's, you know, mainstream is kind of a family business. We've had many people over the years working for us. Now we've got about 60 different people who are working in different parts of the company. But when it comes right down to it, it really is kind of a family business. So he just sent me a message that he saw an app News. And of course, as usual, this is really a link to another, another website because Apple doesn't really publish news themselves. But this is from ZDnet. This just happened on Wednesday this week, a contractor suffered a ransomware infection. Now we have here in New Hampshire, a lot of God contractors, well, actually mostly subcontractors, but we have primary contractors as well. And I know some of you guys are listening here on the show, because I hear from you, right, I know that who you're working for and what you're doing. And I think that's really cool. I love it. But the problem is how do you guys deal with your IT people if they are not competent? How do you as a business person, any business person deal with it? Yeah, how do you even know if they're competent? At least if you're listening to the show, which obviously is right now. But at least you know the terms and you have an understanding of what should be happening. Well, this is a very big sub-cut or a contractor to the Department of Defense. It's called electronic warfare associate ew way. And it's a 40-year-old electronics company, well known US government contractor, and it got nailed by one of these ransomware infections we were talking about in the last segment today. Not a good thing, frankly. And we have seen all kinds of activity right now. You know, I feel sorry for these guys. They obviously did not know what they were doing and that and I can say that unilaterally. If you get ransomware it's your fault. Because in this day and age, there are so many great tools. They're not the ones you get from staples, the not the tools you're going to get from your break-fix computer shop that They have no idea how to protect you. None at all. Frankly, they've been lying to you. And that really bothers me too. Because I hear from my customers saying, well, I spoke with so and so. And this is what they said, well, they may not think it's a lie, okay, maybe calling them a liar is a little too strong, but they don't know what they're talking about. And yet they speak with absolute authority, as though they really know when they this is really the right thing to do. And don't listen to some guy on the radio, you know, or don't listen to that new company that came in and did a cyber health analysis for us, or network security assessment. Now, ignore those people because you know, we've had a relationship for the last 510 2030 years. Well, apparently, I'm guessing something like that must have happened with this company. Go right now. In fact, I've got a screenshot in front of me It looks like they fixed some of this. But the website for this company is ewe tech.com. And if you do a Google search for them, or if you didn't want a little earlier in the week, you found out that something was really weird because all of the Google search results looking for e. w. a tch.com. Come back with a jibberish. And it's jibberish because everything has been encrypted by ransomware. Now, there is a security researcher out there who goes unnamed in this article from ZDnet and it is saying that several of the NWA websites appear to have been impacted, such as sites for the wi government systems IE wi technologies, simplicity key homeland protection Institute and we don't really know at this point how much of the company's internal network was encrypted during the incident. But, man, this is a big deal. And by the way, even though it's obvious that at least these websites of theirs have been encrypted, they have not issued any public statement about the incident. According to this article, this article, as I said is from Wednesday, Thursday this week, apparently, an NWA spokesperson hung up the phone earlier when Zd net reached out for comment about the security breach. This is a well-known supplier of electronic equipment to the US government. Now we have clients who make small things. You know, they make things like parts, they make wiring harnesses, they make power supplies, they make just all kinds of very basic things. And you look at it even screws right fasteners, and you look at ina say, Well, what does that matter? Well, Not a company that's making all these big electronic things for the government. But really what some of these bad guys are trying to do with ransomware is to fold, they still have the old motive of holding your data ransom. And it can be done two ways now, because the ransoming of the data, in this day and age, is also been done by saying, Hey, we grabbed all of your data before we encrypted it, or maybe we just grabbed all of your data, and we are going to release it to the general public. And the less you pay us a ransom. So they're making a ton of money off of this. And it looks like according to this unnamed security researcher, that's the relax dealer update. Now that is exactly one of the things that I was talking about earlier in the show, and we put up an article about that as well on my website, that is two that are being used right now that are not regular ransomware strains. And they're using it to target attacks on bigger companies that have deeper pockets. Very, very interesting. So keep an eye on this, this is, this is a bad thing, obviously. And it's bad because it can hit any of us. And ultimately, it is going to come around and hit you. Because you look at the stats we're talking about that just came out, where more than half of the companies were hit last year. And this is self-reported, okay, half of the companies admitted to it. So they had to first acknowledge or even know that they had been hacked, and most companies don't even know that they've been hacked, the smaller ones, and frankly, even the bigger ones. Look at some of these hacks and major corporations that didn't find out for six months or more. And all the way through. They have to admit that they were hacked when they knew they were hacked. So we had all of this up. And it's a very scary world out there. And if I, you know, if I was somebody who had a fiduciary responsibility, if I was sitting on a board and advisory board or a full board member in some company, and I did not know what security really was, and I did not know exactly what was going on, and I was sitting there looking at Oh, well, we have a chief information security officer CISO or our Chief Technology officers, officers taking care of that or my budget for this is huge. I'm sure I'm fine or even worse, a plain ostrich and sticking the head in the sand and just hoping nothing happens. And I gotta tell you from surveys I've seen here's another thing that I think you want to know if you have any responsibility for your business owner. If if you're the regular old office manager who's been signed security for the company making sure the antivirus is updated. You already know that that's not good enough, right? The antivirus just doesn't work against any of the modern threat, none of them. Okay. And you're sitting there thinking that everything's taken care of and you have not brought in a temporary board member advisory board members, someone to have a serious look at your security. Man, you've got some serious problems, very serious problems, because this is absolutely huge. And, you know, when it comes to the FBI and some of the other training I do for the infragard and for businesses in general, you know, I'm seeing this everyday people who have the titles, who have the certificates who have completed these programs I'm seeing all the time, and I've seen hundreds and hundreds of these people who are heavily relied on the Yet don't really know what they're doing. That's a real problem. Now it's one thing if you tell the boss Hey, listen, I don't really know what I'm doing. But I'm learning this and I think we are making the right progress that that's one thing, but to say, yeah, we are all set. And then as he as a pistol-whipping the forums, right, just check, checking pencil whipping all the way down, checking off everything. Yeah, that's good. That's kind of the outcome. And a man. I've seen so many businesses doing that, too. So if you are a business owner, if you are sea level, if you are on board, even if you're on like me, Board of volunteer organizations, you have a responsibility, and you got to take care of that. No, well, anyways, out of time for now. We'll be right back and I'm going to talk about training employees to spot yet another emerging threat, something that's really going to nail us. You're listening to Craig Peterson on WGAN. Hey, what a fast-moving day today I'll be having a great day, whatever it may be listening to me on Saturday or any day during the week, a lot of people tend to listen when they're driving around other people when they are at the gym. And, you know, I just totally appreciate everybody being with us. And that's why we try and keep you up to date. We've got some amazing pieces of training coming up. So I want to make sure that you are aware of them. I've been posting and doing a few Facebook Lives, like when I appear on the radio, some of my segments are showing up now over on Facebook and also on YouTube, both of those live channels, so you can listen in and comment. And when I run them live, what I'm doing is I'm actually, Of course, recording them when I'm on the air and then later on in the day. I will run them as live and I will be live there. So I'll usually post articles in there that I'm referring to, as I'm on the air. And I'm answering questions from people who might have questions as that air lives. So it airs, live airs, there we go. And the idea is that, frankly, it's even better in some ways and listening to me on the radio, because now you have the opportunity to interact and get some behind the scenes stuff that I just can't share when I'm on the radio. So the best way to find those Well, I have links on my newsletter, right at the bottom to my social media channels. And of course, you'll find those easily by just going to Craig peterson.com slash subscribe, and you'll see them all right there. So let's get into our next article of the week, and that is a new emerging threat. I've talked on the show before about some of the problems that we're starting to see with deep fakes. I don't know if you saw the newest star latest Star Wars movie I suspect a lot of you guys did. Because frankly, you know, we're all kind of sci-fi geeks. I think on this side of, if you're a tech geek here, you got to be some sort of a sci-fi geek. And as a sci-fi geek, I went, and I saw it and I liked it right. And, man, I remember standing in line when the first Star Wars movie came out. I remember the first Star Trek movie coming out to standing in line all by myself, because No, none of my friends wanted to see it. Or actually, I think one of my friends came with me. And we saw the original Star Wars movie. It was really, really cool. So this was the end of what a 30 year. Man hasn't been that long. When did that come out? So it would have been around 1980 I think so man, a 40 year long the story arc, which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed it a lot, but in That movie, Carrie Fisher played a fairly major role. You might remember her from the original movies. This was Princess Leia and Princess Leia, ie in this case, Carrie Fisher was still alive, an older woman and she died before they even started filming this thing. And so you look at a new think Well, okay, so maybe what they did is they took some stuff off the cutting room floor from the other movies. Well, wait a minute. Now this she's older, right? She's an older Carrie Fisher. And so these movies that they had on the cutting room floor, most of them she was pretty darn young, so those wouldn't work. And then I realized, wait a minute now because I saw a couple of little errors and it really, I said wait a minute. This is obviously a deep fake. And what they had done is completely computer-generated The character, and it looked like Carrie Fisher, and they computer generated the voice as well it so it sounded like Carrie Fisher Well, it was computer augmented and any rate, this is a huge breakthrough. We've talked about it what's going to happen when they have our president on. On TV, they're showing a video of him saying that the missiles are flying in five minutes, kind of like Ronald Reagan did right during that microphone test back in the day. What's going to happen? How are you going to know if it's legitimate or not? And with more and more money being spent, look at what's happening right now with Bloomberg who's looking to spend a billion dollars on TV ads, and where he's been running ads, he's actually been rather successful. So what's gonna happen if he starts I'm like, I'm not saying that Bloomberg is going to do this, but if some candidate who has plenty of money to spend starts just Generating fake videos. Now we already know about a lot of fake stuff, right? Do you remember Paul Ryan pushing old people off of the cliff in their wheelchairs? Right. And that was, obviously satire. Some people actually didn't think it was they thought he would really do that. But you know, frankly, it's satire. So it is what it is. But what's going to happen when this is now deep fake, and it's the norm and we don't know what's what? Well, let's move this to the next level because we've never talked about this before. And I thought that this was an interesting idea. And this is by Ian Croxton, and he's over at dark reading. But cybercriminals are now starting to use deep fakes. You know what a business email compromise I hope because we've certainly talked about it enough on the show before and usually what happens is a bad guy goes ahead and does research on a business. Find out who this CEO is where the CFO is, right? We, you know, the scoop. And then they find out maybe when they're out of town, who their suppliers are, who their customers are, and then they start sending these emails directed at employees to get them to do something they should never do. Obviously a problem, right? You don't, you just don't want that to happen, but it does happen. Now what they're doing with some of the phishing scams, where they're using voice mail and even phone calls, is they're using computer-generated voices, but not just voices, but the voices of the boss. Take me for example, I have thousands of hours of video and audio recordings that are available publicly on the internet. So it's easy to get a fix on me in my face. It's easy to get a fix on my voice. And to computer-generated stuff, right? That does not make sense to you. It's very, very easy to do all of that stuff in this day and age. So the concern now is that deep fake fraud is going to be hitting us in a bigger way. And it's going to be devastating for businesses. We talked about this next, this next one here last year, but a top executive at an energy company was revealed to have been conned into paying 200,000 pounds by scammers using artificial intelligence to replicate his boss's voice. So this guy answered a telephone call. He believed it to be from the German parent company. The request was for him to transfer funds which he dutifully sent to what he presumed was this parent company. In the end, the funds were actually being stolen by sophisticated criminals at the forefront of what I said last year was going to be a frightening New Age of deep fake fraud. And that's what Ian is bringing up here again. And I'm glad he is he's only what about how far behind us as eight months behind us, but this is going to be a very, very big deal. There's an example of a journalist and you can find these things out on YouTube, who paid 550 bucks to develop his own deep fake and he took the face of Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek next generation and put it over Zuckerberg Facebook two weeks to develop the video. You can find it online very easily. Just search for Lieutenant Commander data Mark Zuckerberg deep think, and you'll find it. So deep fakes are going to thrive in the modern workplace. There's no request, employees want to do what they're supposed to do they want to please their bosses. So we need a new era of employee security training. Frankly, a deep fake detection challenge was announced by Facebook here recently. There's work going on which is a lot of work going on. But I want to make sure you guys all tell your co-workers to keep an eye out for deep fakes. Because you might think the calls coming from the boss and it isn't just going to be the boss's phone numbers showing up on the caller ID now, it's going to be the boss's phone number and it's going to sound like the boss. And that's where it gets to be a real problem. All right, stick around. When we come back, we're going to talk about how you as a business and a consumer are going to have to weather this storm. That hasn't happened because of GDPR CCPA, or PDPA and more stick around. We'll be right back. Hello, everybody, welcome back. Craig Peters on here on WGAN online as well, of course, at Craig Peterson calm. You know, consumers are always looking for protection and we have various consumer protection agencies out there. And Congress is trying to do something to protect our privacy. The big questions to me are, where are the lines? Is Congress really going to help us or hurt us? Right? All of the normal things you would expect me to question Congress and these laws, rules, and regulations. GDPR came out a couple of years ago over in the European Union, and it was designed to help protect not just the data but the identity of citizens of the European Union. GDPR, By the way, stands for the general data protection regulation. It gave them a bunch of rights, including the right to know what data the company was keeping about them keeping on them. It also gave them the right to be forgotten that if you saw something you didn't like on Google results or some other website, you could request that data be taken down, and they had to take it down. Now I kind of like this, because of some of the warnings have given my kids I can see it happening. But I like it when you've got people in their teens and 20s posting stupid stuff online, right, the silly things that kids do in college and before, and it's online, and it lives forever. And now you are looking for a job. The first thing that employers going to do is do a Google search for you. And once they've done that Google search, guess what comes up those videos those photos of you doing things and, and also, you know, some of this stuff that you had posted some of the stuff you had written some of the tweets that you put out. So how does that all work? How are you going to get rid of it if you don't have the right to be forgotten? And there are obviously multiple sides to that one, but I kind of like that. Well, if you are a business person, your business has a responsibility now to comply with these laws. And what a lot of businesses in the US did is they said, oh, we're not gonna be able to comply with all the GDPR rules and regulations. So we are just going to block access to anyone coming from the European Union. And they did that and some of them It took months to get their systems rewritten and designed so that they could handle those new rules and regulations from the European Union. Well, that's all well and good. But now you can't just do that kind of blocking anymore. Because those types of rules and regulations are nowhere in the United States. As of January 1, 2020, our friends in California have a new log in live should say in place. It's called the California Consumer Privacy Act. That's the CCP a. And that act is basically doing the same thing that is being done in the European Union. And if you think you're compliant, or you're not going to have to comply with this, I'm going to go through some stats I think might really surprise you. California also has something called the PD pa which is the personal data protection act is not California, I mean, Singapore, okay. So there is a growing set of rights Relations. There are regulations in most states to some degree. states like New York and Massachusetts, and obviously California has laws that are much more restrictive about personal information. And there are more and more than coming online. So it frankly, is a very big deal. But here's what people are starting to realize. There was a there's a company out there called Capgemini. And there was some research published last fall by Capgemini. And they found that only 28% of firms that must comply with the European regulations, were actually in compliance. So about a quarter of the firms as of last year in the United States that were required to be compliant with the European Union were actually compliant. So that means 75% percent of businesses here in the United States that have customers or even people visiting their websites from the European Union. 75% of those businesses are not compliant. And yet, at the same time, there was the research that was done of companies asking them, are you compliant with the European rule rules? And 78% said, Yes, we're confident that we are compliant, even though an actual audit showed the exact opposite that 75 almost 75% it was actually what 72% were actually compliant. So more than 18 months into the California regulation, how many of our companies that have people visiting our websites from California or the have customers who are based in California, how many of us are compliant? It's not as though this came out of nowhere this rule, this regulation has been in place now, for over a year. It's just that as of January 2020, this regulation has some serious teeth to it. Now, we got a call from another company, who is based in New York, and has some of their work workers out in California, and definitely has customers in California. So they absolutely have a legal Nexus to California. And they said, Hey, we want to make sure that we're compliant with this new California consumer data or Privacy Act. So we put together a proposal for them. And just to examine everything now they have some of their own systems, some of their own software, that they're keeping customer data. And everything else. And it's basically it's going to cost them 30 to $50,000. Just to have us do a deep dive for them. Now, this is a bigger company, they have some of the money to do it. Well, frankly, they have all of the money to do it, and they should be doing it. At this point, I don't know if they're going to do it or not. But that 30 to $50,000 is just to look at their existing systems, and tell them what they need to do. So this growing set of regulations in California, and regulations that are growing nationwide because the federal government is looking to take those California regulations and put them in place. So this growing set of regulations. Well, I think crucial to consumers, and something that businesses should have been doing a couple of years ago because of GDPR. The European regulations Something businesses should have been doing anyway is not going to be cheap. It is just not cheap. And then if companies are found to be out of compliance, Wow, now it's really not cheap. Because if you are out of compliance penalties upwards of 4% of annual global revenue. So the 12 major fines that are been handed down since this European regulation went into effect in May 2018 are almost $400 million spent on fines alone. So the cost of compliance is very big, but the cost of non-compliance is even bigger. So the truth is that privacy is almost dead. So we've thrown our hands up. We know our private information is out there. And this is the government's response. Try and get control of it. And if you are a business, make sure you do at least two of these three steps and I can send them to you. Just email me at Craig Peterson calm. I'll be glad to do this for you. One, identify your sensitive data to know who has access to it and who has access to it, and implement controls over the access and make sure you keep them updated. So there you go. You'll find a little more about this online at Craig Peterson. Calm on all always more than glad to send you guys more information. You know, I don't charge for any of that stuff. Right? And you just email me at Craig Peterson calm. I'll be glad to get back to you. All right, Take care, everybody. We got oh man, only one more segment we're going to talk about the Jeff Bezos hack and online employment scams. talking fast next time, stick around Hello, welcome back. Craig Peterson here listening to me on WGAN or online, your favorite streaming app, whatever that might be. I'm kind of everywhere. I've been doing this for a long time. Hey, we're going to talk right now about our friend Jeff Bezos says his stock has been kind of interesting this week. Well with the whole coronavirus and everything going on. Plus, it turns out I don't know if you heard Amazon was able to secure some warehouse space down there in New York. So is obvious that ao sees district is not going to benefit from those jobs bec

This weeks guest is Matt Scoletti. Matt was a basketball player in high school, captain of the team, fun and outgoing kid. Then, in college, he got exposed to alcohol and really enjoyed it. The problem was, he couldn’t stop drinking. Matt drank heavily for 10 years of his life from age 18-27. Finally, he had enough. Matt was so disgusted with who he had become that he felt he had to change his life! He went from being addicted to alcohol, to being addicted to healthy living, working out, and eating right! Since giving up alcohol, he has been on American Ninja Warrior, run 3 marathons, is a 2-Time World Record Holder, won the Physique Athlete Of the Year, been in Flex Magazine, and done countless obstacle course races and endurance races including biking 250 miles in 24 hours in Australia last year! Matt is now a professional speaker and love using his story to inspire people to GO FOR IT in life and create urgency in your life to reach your potential!Links: www.MattScoletti IG/TikTok/FB - @MattScoletti YouTube: Matt ScolettiWelcome back to the fuel your legacy podcast. Each week we expose the faulty foundational mindsets of the past and rebuild the newer, stronger foundation essential in creating your meaningful legacy. We've got a lot of work to do. So let's get started.As much as you like this podcast, I'm certain that you're going to love the book that I just released on Amazon if you will, your legacy, the nine pillars to build a meaningful legacy. I wrote this to share with you the experiences that I had while I was identifying my identity, how I began to create my meaningful legacy and how you can create yours. You're going to find this book on Kindle, Amazon and their website Sam Knickerbocker. comWelcome back to fuel your legacy. Today we have an incredible guest called Matt Scoletti. And I first reached out to him or who reached out to but I saw him on Instagram. I love this story. Luckily, he's been able to accomplish without that man, this would be something Somebody who can share a passion share a dream about what it's like to make some transformations in his life. And his story is one of somebody hitting rock bottom and then turning it around. He was an alcoholic for a decade. What I love about that phrase is he was an alcoholic for a decade's so many people they think once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. I don't believe that. But after hitting rock bottom in 2011, he completed some crazy crazy fitness feats. He ran multiple marathons been on the 24-hour bike races obstacle courses, set to world records, is now a motivational speaker who travels his country speaking in schools, businesses, nonprofits, to inspire audiences to push past their limiting beliefs, and attack your potential. I know he's going to get into this because I'm going to ask him but he also was on American Ninja Warrior. And that is cool. I mean, some people you see it I watched that show. I think it's a fascinating show. But do you think man I'm never meeting That person? So why does matter, right? But the cool thing is with social media now, if you see somebody in the public eye that you want to meet, just use Instagram and then start a conversation and most of them are just like Matt are super down to earth, super willing to chat and even willing to add value where they can. So with that, Nat super excited for you to be here, be on the show and to be able to share your nuggets of transformation with us and what it's been like building your legacy. Go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us your backstory, your dark points in your life and how you came to the light.Sure, and thanks for having me on sam. I appreciate it. I'm excited. So yeah, I'll give you a little background first. So growing up, I'm from just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Go Steelers. I'm a diehard Steeler fan. Hopefully, you don't hate the Steelers and we didn't talk about that yet. No, I don't hate them. Okay, good.I have a team? Okay.Maybe I can make you a Steeler fan and annexed by the end of the podcast. I don't know like that.My business coach is a Patriots fan. He's got aconvention kind of says in multiple national championships.The Patriots, that's the one team. All right, we got to move on because I don't want to start talking about Yeah, Igrew up just outside of Pittsburgh, and had a great childhood. I mean, my parents were awesome. I have an older brother two years older than me. I was so blessed because, in my opinion, high school was awesome. I mean, I worked my butt off. I got really good grades. I was captain of the basketball team and looking back at high school, maybe I didn't realize it at the time, but basically, everything was going really good for me. I mean, I was healthy, somewhat athletic, had great friends, close family and had it all. And then I went to transition into college. I went down to Richmond University of Richmond down in Virginia, and for the first time really in my life, I was exposed to what the partying scene College was like, and I won't forget my first time going out freshman year, my parents had just driven away and I thought, you know, freedom, I get to do whatever I want now. And the first thing I did was drink two, three beers with friends. I never really drank before. So I started having this feeling of being drunk, which was new to me. And I noticed that I was even more outgoing. I was louder, I started to not care and be carefree, doing whatever I wanted to do. And I thought it was a cool feeling. And from that point on for the next four years of my college career, that drinking instead of becoming a fun thing to do with friends, became something that I had to do in order to be social and I didn't realize that really until senior year that I basically got to the point where I could not have in my head now. This is the story I was telling myself. I cannot be fun without being drunk. And that's a scary six-story that I was telling myself. And I don't think I knew at that point how serious this problem was becoming so senior year, basically, I was just happy to graduate because it got to the point of drinking four or five, six nights a week, if not more, even sometimes during the day, and it got out of control. Now, at that point, I told myself, this is just college everybody does is in college. I'll get out of it once I get into the real world. What I didn't realize was I couldn't get out of it. I had this poor mindset and bad habits. And for six years out of college, my drinking did not get any better. I told myself the same story of if I'm not drinking, I'm not fine. And it hit it eventually hit the ultimate low in 2011. So to give you a little story, what happened in the summer of 2011, I started journaling about how I felt in the morning waking up with a hangover. And I don't even know the reason why I started journaling. But it turned out to be a really good thing. So I wake up in the morning on typically Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday morning, come over. And I would write these raw feelings on how bad my head hurts and how I didn't want to do anything and how I felt like a loser. And I just wanted to lay on the couch all day. And it was, it was this pattern that began to happen. So October of 2011. It's a day after a Halloween party. I wake up on the floor of my living room which is not abnormal. By the way, it's embarrassing to say, but I woke up on my floor quite often. And for the first time, I open up my journal that I had been writing in for about five months, straight beforehand. And I started reading the journal entries. So I saw my handwriting, the pattern that my life had become and for fun Months span when I journaled those journal entries would have been the same had they gone back 10 years because I was doing the same thing I was drinking to try to make myself feel better. And it was turning into this life that had no purpose. So I had no goals, I had no drive, I had no ambition. I didn't know what I wanted to be, I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I use this constant drinking to just kind of get me to the next day. So that morning, when I read all those journal entries, I'm crying my eyes out, but in a good way, because I realized I was the one that put myself in this situation, which was empowering because that meant that I'm the one that can change it. And from that day, in October 2011, I promised myself that I wouldn't let alcohol ruin my life anymore. And it was to the point where I looked myself in the face that morning in the mirror and I was embarrassed that who was looking back for the first time I was, I didn't even want to look at myself in the mirror because I know how empty I was inside. So the first thing I tried to do what I call it, I came up with a keystone habit that I wanted to change, which is getting alcohol out of my life. That was the Keystone habit. What I didn't realize were all the different things that would happen. Once I focused on that one Keystone habit of getting off a lot of my life. And to give you the snapshot of what happened was, first I got alcohol out of my life. Secondly, I started going to bed earlier because I wasn't drinking and staying up late, which meant I started getting up earlier in the morning, which meant I started working out. In the morning before I even went to work. I started eating healthier. And my whole world started changing because of this one Keystone habit that I decided to get out of my life which was alcohol. The first let me just tell you a funny story. The first funny thing that happened, we'll talk about American Ninja Warrior if you want to talk about that. But the first cool thing that happened was Shawn getting healthier and this is going on for about six months or a year at this point, I'm feeling good, my body's changing. I lost like 40 pounds, looking much more muscular and I started shooting videos for my Facebook page. And I had a, I was I had the camera stacked on a bunch of books facing me using resistance bands and I was trying to show my audience, the proper way to do a bicep curl using resistance bands. My foot slips off of the resistance band, the band comes up, hits me right inside of the face. And I catch this all on video. So I have a massive red mark across the side of my face. I can't shoot any more videos that day because I look like an idiot. And what happened was I uploaded the video anyways to Facebook even though it was silly. People started laughing somebody said you should send this into America's Funniest Home Videos. I thought I don't even know it was still playing but I figured I would send it in I don't they call me like to months later and say, Hey, Matt, this is, I think your name was Sasha from America's Funniest Home Videos, we just saw your video, we loved it, we want to fly you and a friend out to Los Angeles for the taping of our show. So it was one of it was weird because it's kind of like a negative thing you slap yourself in the face with a resistance band, but it turned out giving me a free trip to LA with my brother and some prize money. So it was like in my thinking it was like the good Lord's way of saying you're on the right path things are finally starting to happen that is good for you. So continue on this path. And my drive my driver has been I was telling you about when I look myself in the face and that was embarrassed October 2011. That person that I can still picture of my head drives me every day because I want to be the opposite of him. He was somebody that would quit. He was somebody that wouldn't get out of his comfort zone and My Drive is to be the opposite of who that person is. And it's worked. I mean, I've gone on and had a lot of fun fitness things happen in my life that will probably get into but that's kind of the backstory I don't know if I went into too much detail or not, but there you go,No, no, I love it. I'm gonna pull some of the things out here because I think it's important to recognize and highlight the key transformational moments in somebody's journey and my belief and what I've seen over interviewing, now hundreds of people and time and time again in my own life and other people's life observing success listening to books, is once you find a key principle, kind of like you said, a keystone habit right once you find these things, that whatever that is, the principle behind it is applicable everywhere. And that's what's so important is for him it was alcohol and it led to X amount of things maybe for you, the Keystone habits not alcohol, but it's TV. If you're going to turn your TV off, maybe whatever your Keystone habit is, everybody has a different Keystone habit. But if you are all to find out what is happening every night or almost every night for you to feel XYZ, right, because the feeling is what we're chasing. And then you change that one thing if you started going to bed four hours earlier, I will nearly guarantee you eventually, you're going to start waking up earlier. Yeah, you start waking up earlier, you're going to find something to do. When you're up earlier, whether that's reading more good books, studying whatever for him. It was working out and I think most people that I've met with and interviewed and talked to, that's kind of how it starts, they start exercising more. And the funny thing is when you start exercising more, the natural reaction to exercising more whether it's planned or unplanned, and I've talked to people who intentionally Try not to have this happen, but it just doesn't work. You start eating healthier, you start being more conscious about what's going your body Regardless of it's not even like you're trying, it's just like your mind your endorphins. Everything happens to whereas your body starts getting healthier, it starts wanting healthier things. And without even realizing it, you change what you're intaking, because your body starts asking and responding to different stimulants so that those Keystone habits, I'd invite you, whoever's listening, what are your Keystone habits? What are you doing for the last two to three hours before you go to bed, and if you altered those or remove some of that stuff, you just need to straight-up remove. But if you altered it, what would happen the next day? Yeah, and if you just do it one day, you won't recognize it. But if you do it consistently for a week, a month, you remove that you're going to find some major transformation in your life. The other thing that I love about this story is journaling. And if you listen to my podcast before, you know like me, journaling is my favorite form of meditation. It's something that I have committed to having journal entry for every day of the year, this year and moving forward, I had that for a long time, my life, I lost it after the birth of my first son. And I'm committed to it because it's just it changes my life and helps me process through so much through journaling, I think and I don't know if you've thought about this ever, but I would love to read that book. Right? The cool thing about experiences because we were talking a little bit before this about like, how have you written all these books? Or what books are you writing, Sam? These are the types of things that I'm publishing things about my life. I'm publishing stuff that for X amount of time I've spent already writing in you have a book written the amount of transformation of people who could read that identify with those feelings, and read it compound over and over and over and kind of highlight that the mindset shifts, and then the, the transition, the aha moment of Wow, this is my life. Everybody can go through that. If that was a book, I don't care if it's 50 pages long hundred pages long, whatever. And to then hear where you're at now, that's a truly inspirational book that I think could hit the New York Times bestseller, right? Because it's a story of something that millions of people in America can relate with.I hear you and you know what? I don't even know. I don't know if you notice, Sam. So I'm excited to bring it up. I actually, and I was going to get into this too. I wrote a book about exactly what we're talking about.I didn't know that. ButI know I didn't. I didn't know if you didn't know, I was kind of excited to drop that bomb on you. Soit's called, it's called the first 15. And the reason it's called the first 15 is and you alluded to it perfectly. I talked about owning the first 15 minutes of your day and how that can propel you through the rest of the day, the rest of the month, the rest of the year, the rest of your life. So it's all things that I strongly believe in, which is a morning routine. And just like you said, Sam, I think that's so cool about a lot of people, in my opinion, have amazing stories. And I would ask your audience and anybody who's listening, don't dim your light on your story, because I've talked to so many people I'm sure you to have to Sam. And they say, they tell you their story. And they say, well, it's not that big of a deal. Is that big of a deal? Like there are some incredible stories out there. And I challenge and ask any anybody listening to this, don't dim your light on your story, you probably have a really good story and if you want to tell it, tell it and self publish it and put it out there to the world because it's probably more awesome and you give yourself credit forthat. So even if you think you're telling your story is terrible. If your story, whatever it is, your story could change one person's life of your story could help one person find love could help one person not kill themselves. If your story could have one person better their life, find the right person, whatever it is. You could impact one person, would it be worth sharing your story? And that's the question I asked myself. And it just is like, it's worth sharing because if I can help one person, it's worth sharing if I can help million, I'm thrilled. Right? But if I can help one, that's important. So that's one thing the other. I want to bring up one more thing that he said before we dive into some more, asking more questions about the story. But have you ever and I'm asking anybody,  your audience, right. But you so many people think they can't be someone without substance or without something happening, right? Their story is not good unless they have a tragedy, right? There are so many things where we think we can't be somebody we're no fun unless given a certain set of circumstances unless we're put in a certain situation. We can't be fun. It's interesting. I spent eight. I was on an eight-day cruise with some friends A while back and they were all drunk all the time, right? And that's fine. Like I know most of them and they don't drink regularly. So it's not like a bad thing. But, interestingly, that's how they choose to unwind. And their exam, are you going to try this or you like, don't you want some I'm like, I don't need that. to enjoy myself. I don't need that to relax. I don't like everything that you're saying you're doing this for, for me is not I do that. Without it. Right. So it comes down to and you nailed it on the head. It's a limiting belief that you need something out. So you need something outside of yourself, to be who you want to be. You can be who you want to be right now, deciding to be that person. And if you're questioning that, please reach out to Matt, reach out to me reach out to somebody who can coach you through that mentality shift. Because the unfortunate thing is, people always ask, Well, why do I need a coach? Why do I need to pay somebody to help me? The reason is, it's an old saying, I believe Albert Einstein, but the same mind that created the problem, I can't solve it. Right? All the inconsistency is in your thought processes, and I still pay for a coach. Because I'm still learning and growing, right? And I as much as I think I progressed. So I'm so off based on so much stuff that I talked to my coach and like, Well, why do you think that Sam Why do you think that right? It's a natural process, we always are going to be naturally limiting ourselves and so we need somebody to help us break out of those limiting beliefsfor others there too because I have a coach for the business side of it. And also since I do a lot of speaking I have a speech coach. So I'm with you, I consider myself a half-decent speaker, but I'm never going to be perfect and that's one of my favorite parts of speaking or business or anything. You could always keep learning and growing and getting better. So I'm with you 100% on that. Yeah,absolutely. So I mean, without giving away too much, right? I'm not here to like have you share your whole book with us. But as far as morning routines we, everybody hears they're important. I mean, there's going to be tons of people listen to this. And they're going to say, Oh, yeah, I know, I should have a morning routine, but I don't. What is it, that you found help you get like, really stick to your morning routine?You know, I think I think to see the success of the morning routine and the first I mean, you got to be a little bit patient, right? Like you need to give it at least a month or two probably to feel the full effects. But what I noticed in the main thing I was focusing on, as you said it was working out. And what I noticed was, not only was I looking better physically but my energy throughout the day completely shifted. And I went from, as you know, drinking until, let's say, 11 or midnight, waking up Just enough time to go to work and just kind of making it through the day instead of owning the day and crushing it and being excited to be out there in the world, to somebody who woke up earlier and then got in my 45 minute hour workout. And then people that saw me throughout the rest of the day could tell that day whether I work out or not, if I had the energy, if I had a pep in my step, if I look like I was healthy, they're like, Oh, you got a good workout in this morning. And then the days and it didn't happen often, but the days where I was kind of lazy or just didn't have that same energy, they knew that they would call me out and say, Matt, you didn't work out this morning. And I said, No, I didn't. And it's I think feeling that energy. Once I started working out and just feeling the difference in my body. It just it maybe it's a probably different person. It started to make me believe in myself more once I started seeing that success and realizing I can wake up earlier in the morning. I did it. I'm conquering alcohol while also making myself healthier. It's just, you can't help it build confidence in yourself because you're making these positive changes. And I would say to anybody who's looking to start a morning routine, I mentioned this to everybody. You don't have to start by waking up an hour and a half earlier. I mean, you could wake up 10 minutes earlier and do journaling, do a meditation practice, just do something to help you gain a sort of taking action on the day, instead of waking up and flipping on the news and reacting to all the negativity that's happening in the morning.Yeah, now Absolutely. So along those lines, and you talk about having a smile file, kind of explain that and share how we can each build one ourselves.I would love to explain it That's like my favorite part of anything I talk about. So the smile file is something that you know, as I said, waking up in the morning and just feeling more energized. Instead of looking at your phone or seeing something negative, I encourage people to do something positive. And a smile file is examples of how individuals have positively impacted other people or the world. Or let me give an example. Let's just say somebody in the workforce. And they have their yearly review. And their boss says that they did a great job like they appreciate the work they're doing. Or if you volunteer and one of the fellow volunteers or people that you're helping say, hey, thanks a lot for coming out. Like I appreciate you spending the time write that stuff down and put it in what I call the smile file, which is just a binder or folder or something where you keep examples of all these ways you've positively impacted other people. And it will probably take time to build it up. I mean, I've been doing mine for years. And the coolest part is what I encourage everybody to do. Is it in the morning, read one of these examples. of how you help the world become a better place. And you can't help but just feel better. And just think, Wow, like I, I did that I positively impacted the world. And it helps in twofold it helps you, your energy is much better, you're standing up straighter, your posture is probably better, who's more confident, and then you will most likely This is what I've heard a lot of people that have coached happen is you start looking for more ways that you can positively impact other people. It just happens because you've had this routine now and you're thinking about the smile file, how can you help other people? And it's a completely as you said, it's a mindset shift that can be powerful.Yeah, and I think it's a simple thing. To recognize that the more you focus on something, the more that's what you become. Yeah. And that's a huge and I without going into the religious talk conversation, I think that that is one of the most powerful things in our lives is what you choose to focus on, you become. Yeah, I agree, kind of gets into the idea of creation. There's a lot of people who are scared of the idea of creation because they think, man, I don't want to. If I have to accept that I'm the creator of everything that's happened, then that's terrifying to me. And for me, it was terrifying. At one point in my life, when I realized man, I kept the potential to create whatever existence I want in my life. It's daunting, right? I don't want that ability, right? But the point where I Okay, I see it now how do I do it? And how do you do it kind of is daunting. Once you understand that. It's an exciting thing. And then just like you when you're reading your journal, and you found out Oh, man, this is terrible, right? This is crazy. But on the other hand, like everything that happened was your own creation and yeah, nation that everything that happened was your creation comes with the realization that you can create whatever you want because you already created and so understanding that that's the the the thrilling, probably one of the most thrilling things in my life that I could ever share with somebody is that you're a creator and what you create is yours. Now, whether you like that or not, it's kind of up to you. Yeah. But the fact that you were able to create an can create that's, that's fulfilling and exciting.One. Yeah. I love I agree. And I mean, I thinkthink about it is like a lot of people asked me if something goes wrong. I try to blame myself first. And what I mean by that is, to me, that's empowering to me. If I think of how I can change myself to fix whatever the issue is, then I'm empowering myself. And some people will say, Well, Matt, as you blame yourself all the time. Like doesn't that like, doesn't make you feel bad and I say no because that means I, I have the power to change myself to change whatever is going on. It's a problem around me versus what I used to be like was pointing the finger at everybody else. It's his fault. It's her fault. It's their fault. And that's just empowering all them. I can't change who they are, but I can change who I am. Sure. And I think that comes down to what, what your definition of the word blame is or fault is I had a conversation with my brother, and he's like, Oh, it's their fault. It's their fault. And I'm just like, Okay, well, I think it's, like, sounds like we have a different definition of the fault, or at least the meaning and what the implications of it are me. I'm with you blame or fault. That's a fantastic thing to have. If you can blame me for everything in my life. I'm thrilled because that means it's mine to change. Yeah, but the moment you start saying, Oh, well, that's not your fault. That's that person and you're trying to take power from me by saying that my situation is somebody else's fault. I don't allow that right. My situation is my responsibility. And I love that I can have control over Nobody can take that away from you. So with that being said, what, what kind of led you then to start competing in all these different things? Like there's a, there's a level of like, I like to get fit. And then there's a level of Okay, I'm going to go compete with the world on how fit I am. Yeah. What became the like, how did you get onto American Ninja Warrior? How did you go about setting these two World Records like what exactly transpired that made you even think about doing that?Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think the first one is, I have been competitive from a very young age. And I think to have an older brother who beat me in a lot of things growing up, it just helped me with my competitive drive to keep it you know, I figured if I could beat him like I could beat anybody. So it was fun. And I think I had that ingrained in me at a young age. But the other thing I think the combination of that and getting these small wins that I had after I stopped drinking and just seeing the positive effect. That my body and mind and energy we're having. It's just made me start to think, well, what else can I do? You know, if I can stop drinking and I can start working out, then you know, that's a good start. It's a good base. But how far can I take this thing and the American Ninja Warrior thing happened? Because I love the show. And my cousin loves the show. And she said to me one day, just kind of like, out of nowhere. Hey, man, you want to try out for that show. And I hadn't even really thought about being on the show before as you said, you see some of these shows and you think you're I don't know how that person got on there. But it's cool to cool to see him on TV. But I never thought until it's really till she said that that I could be one of those people on TV. But I started looking into it. You see, really you just you fill out a bunch of stuff online and then they have you send in a three-minute video where you kind of show off some of your physical abilities, but also it is a TV show so they want to make it very entertaining. And I played the angle of I'm a die-hard Pittsburgh fan as we joke around before I'm a Steeler fan. I love my city. And I played up the angle of this sort of Mr. Pittsburgh, and I had a terrible towel for those of you that know that or know the Pittsburgh Steelers, we swing around this terrible tower Pittsburgh Steeler games. And they must have loved it because I will say this after I sent him the video and I sent in my form. I thought I was going to hear back within a month or two. And it took I think it took four months. I almost forgot about even submitting videos and stuff. And I finally am randomly I'm driving home from work one day, and I get a phone call and she says it's you know, Leslie from American Ninja Warrior. I was driving the car off the side of the road because I couldn't believe they called me and it was really funny because they said you know, we love the video with sorry, it took us a while to get back to you. We'd love to have you run the course and be on the show. And I said to them, that's great. I don't train every day like an American Ninja Warrior. Like I don't have our something set up in the backyard. It's American Ninja Warrior asked. So I said, How many months Do I have to train before you take the show? And she started laughing and she said, we're coming to Pittsburgh in a week and a half. I kind of had a crash course. I went to this gym. It's like a gymnastics gym. I think I went seven times and nine days to try to get my skills up to be on the show. But I guess one of the takeaways I would say is, I know it's cliche, if I can do it, anybody can do it. But it's so true. I mean, if there's something that you want to do, and you want to go after, the first step is putting yourself out there and submitting the video or sending in the form or shooting a Facebook Live video, whatever it is. I being on that show helped me stretched my comfort zone because I didn't consider myself quote an American Ninja Warrior. You're but then you get asked to be on the show after you submit the video and it becomes real so really if I can submit a video and beyond anybody out there in your in your world should definitely go after whatever they think they might not be able to getyeah I love that there are so many things in life that we can just like kind of think about doing may be put in a little bit effort but if we're not focused on it will forget that we forget that even happened right it wasn't really a goal wasn't a passion project yours you're just something that you did but it's those little things that you can be a yes man, for now, there are some people say yes to everything other people say there is no to everything. I think there's a healthy balance and first check and say Hey, is this in alignment with my values? I would say yes to as much as you can. That's in alignment with your values and say no to everything else because it doesn't matter. It's on alignment. And, and this not only helped him help Matt get out of this comfort. But this, I mean, I don't know at what stage you became a public speaker, but like being able to get out of your comfort zone, that's like one of the number one fears of people, which is weird. I love speaking in front of people, but it's, it's one of the number one fears. But when you step out of your comfort zone enough times, you start to say, okay, whatever, I'll do whatever. And I'm going to be successful, whatever, because I'm willing to do it confidently, even if I blow it, you know, I know that.So I didn't even know we're going to go here. And I'm so glad you brought that up. Because that's so as you said, public speaking up, maybe you've been blessed with just always liking public speaking, I'll be completely honest, I used to hate it and be scared to death of it. And it took me a lot of as you just said, getting out of my comfort zone to feel comfortable in front of four people, let alone 400 or 4000 people so, but as you alluded to Sam, I think one thing if you are trying to get better at public speaking or anything that's out of your comfort zone, keep stretching yourself and pushing yourself outside of the comfort zone and I, I actually coach some people to become better speakers. And the first thing is, speak, speak speak. Just keep getting on stage finding places to speak. I love Toastmasters, a great organization that helps you get out there. You're nodding your head. You might bespeaking tomorrow in Toastmasters. Oh,yeah, that's awesome. Toastmasters is that organization is changed my life. But keep speaking, but also, as you said, do other things that are outside of your comfort zone. It doesn't have to just be speaking, you know, sign up for a show, shoot that live video that you want to do whatever pushes you outside of the comfort zone. Yeah, it starts to become normal after a while.Yeah, for me, the one thing that I'm working on right now it's still it's karaoke. I'm super confident in my singing voice. If I close my eyes, so this is interesting. I have one of my business coaches, he throws you put people through this experience, where you get a chance to kind of dance, create a dance and go dance in front of everybody, and they cheer for you, which is great. And they're all doing the same thing. Sothat's awesome.But I have no problem going crazy dancing, however, like just really losing it. Like, I know a lot of people do when they're drunk or a high or whatever. I have a lot of fun, but I keep my eyes closed. And because it's coming, it's like the ostrich in the sand. Right? It's like if I can't see you, you can't see me I'm just having myself a good time. Right. And so something I've been working on through karaoke is being able to not just stare at the TV screen or, or close my eyes and sing the song but engage with the audience while I'm singing. And it's terrifying for me I still to this day, it is terrifying. And my family and many of my siblings have recorded CD out like this. They're good at singing my family. It's not something that I've ever felt that I even remotely match up to on that level. And so I don't sing a lot. But that's where that's currently if you're listening wondering where Sam stretching himself, karaoke is something that stretches me every time I do it, and it's terrifying. And I still choose to go do it. Because that's awesome.I think that's so cool. Okay, I gotta ask you a question now. So you're stretching yourself with karaoke? Do you feel more confident now in Toastmasters? Or when you're giving a presentation because of stretching yourself so far in karaoke?Oh, yeah, totally because it helps you be more comfortable with the sound of your voice, and more confident projecting, doing different tonalities speeds, everything it helps you gain more command over and more comfortability with it. So it has enabled me to engage with my audience more, get more emotional, get more excited about everything. The more that I've done karaoke. So it's a good thing, but ever, that's where it comes down to kind of Keystone habits are principles that are applicable everywhere. And when you start making one change in one area of your life, it bleeds into all the other areas of your life. And that's what's so cool about transformation and being able to identify those smaller things. I'm curious as you transition because I know you have a nine to five that we're not going to talk about. Okay, but on the side of your nine to five through this transformation, you've started a whole nother kind of personal brand for yourself through different things. Tell me a story of or tell us a story rather of your biggest naysayer, the person who just like didn't believe in you the most and how are you able to silence them and just still go forward and do what you know that you wanted to do?Oh, that's a really good question. And I am going to, I'm going to answer the question. I'm not going to skirt around it but I'm going to use it. Because it was tough for me. So I had when I was in this party mode. In my mid-20s, I had four really good friends. And these four friends were my drinking buddies, they were my buddies that I would Friday after work, they would meet up at my house, or I go to their house at 6 pm. And we would start until we all passed out that night and then do the same thing Saturday, and a lot of Sundays. So these four people, in my mind became my close friends. And what I didn't realize was, you know, you the way you act, you attract people like how you're acting, or that's how I believe in the law of attraction. So, I was drinking Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'm going to attract people that are doing what I'm doing. So one of the most powerful things that happened to me was once I stopped drinking, and I told These four guys that I have to stop, like, I'm going in the wrong direction, I need to do this. And they did not believe me that I was going to stop. And they thought, Oh, no, you know, he'll stop for a week or two or whatever. And then he'll be right back out with us. So they did not believe I was going to do it. I don't they didn't know how serious I was about it. And I'll say two things. The first thing I'll say is, I wish I would have taken them aside, maybe even one by one and had a really tough Heart to Heart about. It's not their fault. I mean, it's my fault that I'm putting myself in this situation. I want them to still be in my life, but I just can't drink anymore with them. So that may have even empowered them to decide to make changes themselves. But the other thing I'll say is, as I think this is where your question is going, if you make changes in your life, I don't care what change it is, you're probably going to have some people that are pretty close to you, if not very close to you say come down on you and why would you change? Why are you doing this? You know, it'll never last you know. And I think people that say that maybe they're scared that you're going to get ahead of them and leave them behind. Or maybe they're just not comfortable in their skin. I don't know what it is. But if anybody is if you're listening and you want to make a positive change, make the positive change, you will never regret it in the long run. But be prepared for some of those people that that may challenge you, even if they're not even trying to, they may just be trying to keep you around or keep you quote-unquote safe. Whenever you need to fly, you need to let yourself go and make these positive changes. So the naysayers would be those three or four close friends that I had that I still talked to two of them, I don't see him very often, but what I noticed was my whole group of friends started shifting. Once I started getting healthier. I became friends with people who wanted to be healthy, who ate healthily who worked out who did marathons and obstacle course races so that she In close friends was really helpful and I almost upgraded the people that I was hanging out with.Yeah, no, that's, I think that's the key is being willing to, to step away and be committed to the change and recognize that they're not dissuading you or telling you to know, you're can do it out of it's not out of disbelief for you, it's out of protection for themselves at and that's a, something we all have to deal with. And that's what I would encourage you to do is think about the people listening. Where in your life are you currently being a naysayer?That's a good question.Yes. Because we think oh, yeah, all these people are naysaying us. Right. But hey, wherein your life? Are you currently inviting other people not to achieve their dreams? Where are you currently not believing in somebody else's ability to do what they say they're going to do? And then write a note. And start today to change your level of support and start believing in them. Because as you start to believe in others kind of goes back to the very beginning of your smile, your smile, right? You start to believe in others, you're naturally going to start believing in yourself. And that's the key. So, even if you can't believe in yourself yet, start by believing in others, and start becoming somebody who is a yes, say, or somebody who believes in somebody rather than a naysayer, because it means it's a progression. In fact, in my book, the fuel your legacy nine pillars to build a meaningful legacy that starts with haters and goes right into believers like what, that the transition is a natural transition to go from, and part of growth. So I'm curious if you were to focus on a specific habit, mindset or behavior that you have used to create your meaningful legacy what would that be and then how can we adopted into our lives, smartphonesOh, that's a really good question. And actually, I'll answer that I'm thinking about this naysayer thing. You got me thinking now if I'm being a naysayer anywhere in my life, I wrote that one down. That's good. But habit, a habit to fuel your legacy. I would say I think one of the most powerful habits and I think it does go along with journaling is having a gratitude practice. I think, being grateful and focusing on what you're grateful for. What I'm grateful for, is it's a mindset shift that I didn't even fully believe in instead until I started doing it, and I'm mine is my gratitude practices really simple. Right after I meditate, I sit, I'm typically sitting on the floor sitting in a chair, eyes closed, and I just try to put myself in a situation where I felt extreme gratitude in my life. And I typically do two of those scenarios where I feel that gratitude and then the third one was Three things I'm grateful for. And the third one is typically something very small. It's not some massive thing like a big vacation or something. It's just the fact that I was able to see the sunrise that morning or I got a chance to work out or I woke up on the I got another chance at life, I'm alive. So I think having a gratitude practice, it doesn't have to be the not the last 10 or 15 minutes. I mean, it could be one minute just helps you helps me anyways, get my mindset, right. And then as I go throughout my day, as you're saying, we become what we focus on. If you do a gratitude practice in the morning, as you go about your day, instead of thinking about things that upset you or you don't like you start thinking things about what you're grateful for because you have this practice already started. So I'm a workout nut. So the two things I'll say our gratitude practice and exercising in the morning just because I think if you don't do it in the morning, there are too many things use later on in the day that we can make up to avoid the exercise. So, Julie, your legacy, I'll go with gratitude and working out.Awesome. I love that. So when people are transitioning this I know you're coaching speak on, on stage about helping people kind of chase their best self and become as much as they can chase their potential. How important is understanding how money works in that transition?I think it's huge. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, yeah, that's a great question. Because I think if you can't, I mean, that's the difference between I guess making it a hobby and making it a business right. I think if you can find a way to do what you're passionate about, and also, you're earning enough income to let you do it, then you basically have it made and I think the cool discussion is, you know, I'm sure you have friends like this to Sam or we probably both have friends that earn $50,000 a year working for themselves and they're the happiest people in the world. And you probably know people that make $300,000 a year and they hate their lives and they come home miserable every day. So to me, if you can, if we're talking about entrepreneurs or even if you work for a company, and you are completely fulfilled and happy and what you're doing, like I am when I'm on stage like you are Sam, probably when you're coaching and doing your podcast, and if you're making enough income to support you and your family I think you got it made and you know, you want to put some aside for later down the road for your kids school and your retirement and all that. But um, yeah, I think you need to find away. If you're serious about your passion and whatever you want to go after in life to monetize it, at least to some extent or else it just becomes an expensive hobby. ProbablyYeah, no, I completely agree. And I think that's part of that is understanding how money works and the role that it plays in building your legacy. It's not that your legacy is financial and that's a common thing that I get well, what do you mean by legacy? Because legacy is a financial word like no legacy can be financial, it can have a financial legacy, but almost always money needs to fund your legacy, but your legacy is not necessarily the money, your legacy. It could be I mean, there are people who I would say their legacy is the money. I would think the Rockefellers is somebody who likes people know them for the money even though like the Rockefellers, we, this is crazy, but we probably would not have gasoline engines right now. or gasoline as a whole without the Rockefellers that was their business was Trent the transferring and that the creation of gasoline-like everybody uses it you nobody knows the rock, rock fellers for oil and gas with All know them because of the financial legacy they left which is fine. But as we have, we should be eternally grateful for their society, right. And so you get to choose what people will remember you for. And that choice should be lived now. So we're getting into the final fun things about this. But I'm curious how could we support you? How can we get access to your book? Is it Where do we find that? What's the best place to find Matt and kind of participate in your vision and your legacy that you're building?Yeah, I mean, the book is on Amazon, it is called the first 15. Yeah, feel free to check that out. I'm very active on Instagram if anyone wants to follow along, and as Sam already said, if you have questions or comments reach out to me, as he knows, I try to respond as quickly as I can. So on Instagram, it's just my name at Matt skullet a co le TTI. And I'm happy to hopefully inspire some people to help some people and interact with all of you on there.Yeah, awesome. Cool. So this is called legacy on rapid-fire this next section. Now the one thing that the caveat that I'm happy to put in here is the first question you have to clarify. Okay, fair enough. The legacy of rapid-fire, what do you believe is holding you back from reaching the next level of your legacy?myself?Everybody says that's what you have to clarify. Oh,wait, ask me the question. Again. I think I got a good answer. But what is holding you back from reaching the next level of your legacy?I think myself because I need to continue to as we're talking about upgrading the people that you surround yourself with. I think I need to keep stretching my comfort zone in who I get in front of as far as is speaking opportunities. So I want to I do have a coach, I'm going to join at least one organization of all speakers. And I think being around other individuals that are playing the game at a higher level than me, I think the only way to grow is if you know, you want to get better at tennis and you're playing against the worst tennis player, you're not gonna get any better. So I want to keep getting in rooms with people like yourself, Sam that is playing the game at a high level, in our in, in their business in their lives there where I aspire to be. I don't want to be ahead of everybody that's in the room as me so I think continuously pushing myself out of my comfort zone to surround myself with people that are much more successful than I am because that's where I want to be.Yeah, absolutely. I love it. So what is the hardest thing you think you've ever accomplished?I think the hardest thing I've ever accomplished is becoming a professional speaker. And that's because of kind of go back to the same question I was holding myself back. I'll tell you, I'll tell you a quick story is this may help Iraq is in fifth grade. I was, I got volunteered to give a speech to run for student government. I didn't want to run for student government. I didn't want to give this speech, but my class volunteer means fifth grade. So I get up in front of the whole school. There's like 400 people in this room. My whole speech was five sentences. It was like a minute long. I memorized the speech, I thought I had it down. I left the piece of paper in my locker, but I thought I had memorized it enough. So I can go out there and give it I got the first four senses down and then I blanked on the fifth sense, and I stood there like a dope in front of 400 people. And the reason I'm telling this story is I told myself the story of I suck as a public speaker for the next 20 years of my life, because of a sample size of one screw up when if I had just had my speech in front of me, I'm sure we've gone fine and I wouldn't have thought that so I told myself as you said, This limiting belief, I told myself the story that I was not a good public speaker. So to get over that story, to me build confidence like I couldn't even imagine once I started succeeding in front of a group.Yeah, I love that. So what do you believe your greatest success at this point in your life has been thegreatest success isI think my greatest success is the relationship that I've helped build with my wife. So that was, I'm a family man. So we don't have kids yet or dogs yet, but I'm sure in the future, who knows, but I think the relationship that we share has been the greatest feeling and the greatest success. I don't think any business or public speaking success could compare to the relationship I have with ourawesome I love that's, I think, before this conversation we were talking off-camera. And he asked me Hey, what do you want your like, what do you get excited about in the morning? And I said you know right now probably not what I want to get excited about. I said, most excited about waking up and helping to help clients I love helping people make the mindset transformation about how they do and their relationship with money. I think it's the most fulfilling thing for me. And but I want to wake up and get excited about that I get to see my kids and then I get to see my wife. So I love that that is your great success to this point in your life to I would say my family is my greatest success right now. But I don't know that I am mentally treating in that way, which is an issue.But that's great that you acknowledge it. I mean, that's how you can buildon that right? Yeah, for sure. So what are two or three books that you would recommend to fuel your legacy audience?Oh, two or three bucks. So actually, I have my button.I'll give you three books. So these are my three favorite books. Two of them. One of them has been around for a while two of them are newer. Thinking Grow Rich is one of my favorite books that has ever been written I have that there's like three or four books that I will reread once a year and thinking Grow Rich is one of them. the second book I'll give you is called the 5 am Club by Robin Sharma. And he basically as you know, I'm a morning routine guy, and he is he talks about how waking up early can completely change your life. And the way that he writes the book is cool because it's almost like a fictional fairy tale style that he writes the book and he tells a great story while also giving you awesome tips on personal development and business development. So 5 am Club, the last one I'll give you, which is an intense book is called can't hurt me. And it's written by a guy named David Goggins, who was a former Navy SEAL. And he is he's one of the most intense crazy guys are you ever hear about, but hearing his story of just really difficult childhood, he was extremely overweight turned Navy SEAL badass guy is it's a strong powerful story I think a lot of people will enjoy.Awesome. We'll have some links to those in the show notes here. And then also links to where you can get ahold of and find Matt on social media and his website there. So here's my favorite question. I think this is pretty much why I do this podcast because we get to pretend that you're dead. And that's exciting. No, all right. Good. You're dead, right? So so we're in pretend you're dead. And you are now kind of view into the future six generations from now. So your great-great, great, great, great-grandchildren. They're sitting around a table, discussing your life, man. They're talking about what your legacy is. What do you want your Sixth Generation great, great, great, great-grandchildren? What do you want them to be saying about your legacy?Wow, that is a good question right there. I like this question. What do I want them to be saying about me six generations down the road? Um, I think one of the things I want them to be saying is, no matter how many setbacks you have in your life, you can still succeed at anything that you do so I mean, I consider myself to have failed. I don't even know how many hundreds or thousands of times but all at all, if you look at the whole picture, I feel like it's been a pretty darn successful life and I expect to do the same in the future. Meaning that when we do these things I want to try to improve on I'm going to fail 1020 times, but if you succeed once, then it seen as an insane, insanely huge success overall, so I would say, down the road that would be one of the things that I would want them to say is, is to basically keep failing, keep failing. And don't be afraid to screw up because in my opinion, I don't think you can do anything great if you never fail and you never continuously fail and finally figure out whatever it is to have the right success. So yeah, I think that's, that's what I would want to say to I mean, the never give up style attitude. But even more than that, don't be afraid to be yourself. Don't be afraid to fail. Because if you keep going after your passion, eventually you'll get there.Yeah, awesome. Love it. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on this show and sharing your words of wisdom, your story. I'm excited for everybody who has the opportunity or takes the opportunity rather than goes get his book and to learn from him beyond social media. She is somebody who's Excited early in the morning on Instagram, so if you're looking for people who are gonna like you, you're gonna open your phone most people do it. The first thing you see is the excitement of Matt Scoletti, then you're on a good track because he is he's up and moving. AndI love doing those videos about okay.I appreciate that.Awesome.Well, catch you guys next time on fuel your legacy.Thanks for joining us. What you heard today resonates with you please like comment and share on social media tag me and if you do give me a shout out I'll give you a shout out on the next episode. Thanks to all those who've left a review. It helps spread the message of what it takes to build a legacy that lasts and we'll catch you next time on fuel your legacy.Connect more with your host Samuel Knickerbocker at:https://www.facebook.com/ssknickerbocker/?ref=profile_intro_cardhttps://www.instagram.com/ssknickerbocker/https://howmoneyworks.com/samuelknickerbockerIf this resonates with you and you would like to learn more please LIKE, COMMENT, & SHARE————————————————————————————————————Click The Link Bellow To Join My Legacy Builders Mastermindhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/254031831967014/Click here to check out my webinar as well! ————————————————————————————————————Want to regain your financial confidence and begin building your legacy?In this ebook you will learn:- The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy- Clarify you “why”- Create Daily Action Steps To Launch ForwardWant Sam’s FREE E-BOOK?Claim your access here! >>> Fuel Your Legacy: The 9 Pillars To Build A Legacy————————————————————————————————————

By Tammy Zonker, Fundraising Strategist & Keynote SpeakerI’m so excited to announce that I just launched my new weekly Friday5 Show on Ztv!Every Friday, I’ll be coming to you for 5 minutes or with 5 ideas, tips, or strategies to help you transform your fundraising! In my first episode, I talk with you about your TIME. I don’t know about you, but as a fundraising practitioner, I often find myself leaving the office thinking, “Thank goodness it’s 5 o’clock! Now, I can go home and get some work done!” Right? All the internal meetings and constant interruptions.That’s why I created The Intentional Fundraiser – a Self-Management SYSTEM for High Performance for busy #fundraising professionals like you! In this episode, I share 5 of the 10 strategies you can start using today to take back control of your time by being intentional. To get started on the path to becoming a more Intentional Fundraiser, DOWNLOAD MY FREE Intentional Fundraiser Weekly Planner!If you’re on Instagram, follow me on @tammyzonker where I’ll post each episode every Friday on my Instagram TV channel.#Friday5 with @tammyzonker on #ztv #IntentionalFundraiser #FundraisingTransformers #nonprofits #donorlove

Learn More About The Content Discussed...No Boss Talk:https://nobosstalk.comLori Bolen Website: https://www.ithoughtmind.comLori Bolen Instagram: https://instagram.com/ithoughtmindThe Camp Elevate Facebook Group:hereBeth’s Instagram:@bethholdengravesBeth’s website:https://www.bethholdengraves.comProfit HER Way Course:https://www.bethholdengraves.com/profitKeynotes Discussed:And every single time I tell someone what I do, the next thing is, is they ask me, so what does my vibration say about me? (05:35)So to be wealthy isn’t necessarily believing, yes I can do it. It’s about making sure that you’re vibrationally aligned. (09:43)Look at how many lives we’re going to change. When you’re looking at that, that sends an empowering broadcast message. (14:43)What do the billionaires do as a morning ritual? So we talk about, certain people like Mark Walberg who gets up at 4:00 AM. So why does Mark Walberg get up at 4:00 AM? (22:15)That’s the important thing when you’re working with vibration, is to get it to become automatic and readjust that vibe when you want to increase either your wealth or expand your business. (31:44) When Did It Air...December 16, 2019 Episode Transcript...Beth:Welcome to ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’. If you are determined to break glass ceilings and build it your way, this show is for you. I’m your host Beth Graves and I am obsessed with helping you to not just dream it, but make the plan, connect the dots and create what you crave. Are you ready? Let’s get started.Well, hello. Hello, my friends and welcome back to episode number 16. Can you believe it? Thank you so much, if you've been with me since the beginning. And what an incredible fun launch for 2019! I want to encourage you, if there's something on your list that you've been putting off, or that you've been thinking, ‘I don't know if I'm cut out for that, or, why would people want to sit and put the earbuds in, listen to me on their drive to work?’ Whatever that thing is, I encourage you to go for it. That was this podcast. It was a forever launch because I kept questioning the content, the tech, would people want to listen? Would people want to come aboard with me? And guess what? This has been the best way for me to connect with so many new friends every single week. I'm getting screenshots on Instagram messages on Facebook. Just letting me know that my words are helping you, or you're giving me feedback on what kind of guests you want, what kinds of content.And I get to interview some of the most incredible thought leaders in the industry, and today is no exception. I am going to introduce you to a friend of mine, Lori Bolen, who's a vibrational intuitive trainer. If you're not sure what that is, you are going to know by the end. She's one of the most sought after in the United States, and all over the world. And what she does is, she's going to help you consciously create and manifest so that you can build the business of your dreams and live the life that you want to live. So, she started a global outreach company called iThought Mind last year. And what I love the most that you're going to hear her talk about today is, vibrationally what that is and how that helps you to create a life filled with possibilities. So, I'm telling you guys, this is good stuff.But before we launch into the interview and my conversation with Lori, I want to read to you one of our reviews this week. And if you are KWN-Thriver, I want you to either send me an Instagram message and the DMS, hit me up over on Facebook because we want to send you a boss hat. We've got to know who you are and this review, and thank you for taking the time to download, to review and to share the love. And she or he says, ‘every week I look forward to my personal coaching with Beth and her friends. They are sitting in my car with me, coaching me on how to succeed in all areas of my life, not just my business. It's as if she knows what I need to hear. Keep up the amazing work. I am thankful for this podcast and can't wait for next week’. Oh my gosh. Thank you. And I love sitting in the car and being friends with you KWN-Thriver. It's as though I can read your mind, right? And, you said you're looking forward to next week. Well next week we have a podcast with none other than Santa Claus. I'm not kidding you, Santa’s coming live on the podcast and we're going to be talking about how Santa makes his list. So, look forward to that. I can't wait for you to hear from our guest today, Lori Bolen. So here we go.All right, so I just had this awesome introduction that I'm introducing Lori, and some of you listening are thinking, okay, vibration. I know all about manifesting. I've made my vision board. I'm listening to all the YouTube videos, I'm on this entrepreneurial journey. I'm looking back at 2019 and none of it happened. So, Lori is going to debunk some of the mysteries that you have out there because all of a sudden, I think Lori, that 2018 brought about, everybody was manifesting and cutting out pictures and doing all the things. And they're like, wait, but I still don't have it. So, I want you to just give an introduction of your…let's pretend like we're meeting at a party and you tell me what you do, and I'm looking at you like, what? So, let's go. We're at Nikki beach and I run into you and we start having a conversation. How would you describe to me who you are and what you do?Lori:Okay, well first off, I would describe that I'm a vibrational and Intuitive trainer. So, the minute I introduce myself, if you don't know anything about that, you look at me and lean in and go, what is a vibrational intuitive trainer? Now clearly everybody knows intuition. What? Vibration? What is that? So, everybody that is on this planet, 7.7 billion people, we all have energy. We run off a conscious vibration. So, we're always gravitating towards something. So, what I do is I help people understand if what they're gravitating towards is actually aligned to what their goal is or what they want to create for their life. So that's really important and that's what I would be telling you. And every single time I tell someone what I do, the next thing is, is they ask me, so what does my vibration say about me? What am I actually creating in my life? And so, then here we go, kicking in with the intuition for a moment. And the next thing you know, the introduction of maybe a minute or two ends up being like a half hour. And I end up adding another friend to my global outreach. So that's a perfect way that I would explain what the heck I do.Beth:Okay. I love that. So, I think that this audience tells me all the time that they love when we make it super personal. So, let's talk as though we're talking to Kaylee today and Kaylee is, she's imaginary. So, we can't really tap into her vibration. But Kaylee is doing all the things. She's showing up to the Zooms, she's doing some reach-outs, she's reading the big leap and she's doing all of the things, but she's still not hitting her goals. And I equate it in a way to not having a routine with the gym. Okay. So, if I skip the gym or I don't do my intermittent fasting, and all of the things that I know work for me, to make my body feels healthy. When I feel the most confident, when I know that all my ducks are in a row, I feel that Kaylee might need a routine that helps her with her vibration and also with these goals. And then it starts to feel, even when I'm describing it to you, that feels chaotic. Oh my gosh, is she reading this book? Is she waking up early? Is she manifesting in the afternoon? So, if you have an entrepreneur, a network marketer, let's use, that at the beginning levels. How do you start to work with this person to get some of these practices and get it working in Kaylee's life?Lori:Okay. The first thing that I explained is that we're always broadcasting a vibration, and we're always receiving a vibration. So, most people talk about the law of attraction. And I always say the law of attraction is always working. So is your vibration. So, you're always broadcasting something. If she was broadcasting all this kind of chaos and all of a sudden you received that vibration, you would go, Oh, my gosh, wait a second here. What can we do about it? So, the first thing I would do when I work with somebody is to recognize what kind of vibration they are broadcasting. Is it aligning with the way that they view being a wealthy entrepreneur, their goal setting, all of that? Because sometimes someone could have the best strategy in the whole entire world and just be awesome with our strategy, but yet not become a wealthy entrepreneur or hit their goal.And it simply is a level of looking at first, what vibration are they broadcasting? Now what does that mean? Your mind has a consciousness and then it has this subconscious. And in the subconscious we have all the familiarity. So, the longer you are familiar to your routine, the likelihood is it that vibration is going to always have that same outcome. So, if you think for a moment, let's say that you have a goal of increasing your lifestyle to $1 million, okay? And so now you've arrived to that million dollars and you want more. So, you have to up that vibration broadcasting to be able to have that happen. So, it's really important. Here's some simple tools and exercises that I tell people right away. Do you think a lot, are you stressing? Are you in this kind of negative mindset? Well then you automatically know what you're broadcasting.So if you're out there, what do you think people are receiving from you when you're trying to, you know, expand your business? So that's the most important thing. Even though a lot of people will be kind, represent themselves nice, but they're broadcasting a vibration that says, no thanks. So that's why I talk about there are so many people that are entrepreneurs that are poor entrepreneurs, and they really want to be wealthy. So, to be wealthy isn't necessarily believing, yes, I can do it. It's about making sure that you're vibrationally aligned and you're broadcasting that and you're 100% certain of what that vibration is. So, let's say for example, you're a very, very kind and enthusiastic person, which I know you are Beth. So, I know you're broadcasting out there and you're receiving people that are coming to you that are like, wow, what's going on? I'm open to learning more.So that's a really good vibrational signal. So that would be the first thing that I would be asking someone. Sit down and write down what are you representing? What are you broadcasting to people? Do you feel that way? Genuinely are your thoughts in that direction? For example, if you're selling something you don't believe in, what are you broadcasting? You're broadcasting people that aren't going to believe in that either. So that's the number one in everything that you're doing. Pay attention to your vibration. So, here's what happens when you're getting ready to let's say, upgrade your goal or expand your business. Simply because we're approaching 2020, so a lot of people are like, Hey, what's my business going to look like next year? When you take a look at that, you want to really think if you're putting limitations on your thoughts or you're letting your everyday life consume you in a way that's greater than your entrepreneurial business, then you're broadcasting more chaos than anything. Does that make sense?Beth:Yes. And so, because I have the opportunity to work with thousands of women in this network marketing space and in the coaching space, I'll receive messages all day long and something like, ‘I'm just getting crickets on my message’. And so immediately I think, well of course you're getting crickets cause you're projecting that, right? You're broadcasting that. And also, there's this other piece, because most of you listening are network marketing entrepreneurs, or you might be life coaches. I believe so firmly in the power of the network marketing model, in residual income, and that it was a business that was available and accessible to all, that I shared and people just would be like, ‘I got to know what you're doing’. Where I feel that so many people are out there are projecting, or putting out there, ‘Oh well it's this thing. It's not really, it's not really a pyramid, but it's kind of.’ Yeah. And so of course people aren't wanting to hear more about it. So how do we help people? And we all go down that path, whether it's at the gym, or in your marriage, or in your business, to get rid of this self-negative talk.Lori:Well, that's a good question. First off, you can focus on that, if you focus on it. So, think about the law of attraction. What you focus on, you'll attract more of. So, if you are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, the people I'm going to attract aren't going to really believe in what I'm doing’. Or like, ‘that's a pyramid thing. I don't want to deal with that’. Do you follow me? And instead, if you were broadcasting, ‘Hey, you could be an entrepreneur, not only be successful, but at a low cost even’. So that's something that, you know, if you're broadcasting, and like me, I'm very competitive, so I'm competitive with myself. So, it's always like I want to raise that goal, raise it more. Once I get to a level it's like, okay, I want to get to the next level. And so, if you don't put the pressure on your mind, so a lot of times people put pressure on that number, whatever that is, whether it's sales or that number inside their mind. And I don't think I can do this, but I really want to.Well then, they're broadcasting a disbelief. So, what kind of people are they attracting? Because those people are receiving the signal. So, it's really important to pay attention, take the fear out of it, take the negativity out of it, because you have no room for it. So, it makes it easier to hit your goal and sell when you have that winning mindset that you're broadcasting nothing but winners, that they see what you're selling as, ‘Yes, I need that. Thank you. Yes, I want to be a part of that. I want to talk about it. I want to spread the word’. That's how the vibration becomes automatic. You got a broadcast automatic wealth, and this is what I talk about all the time. Automatic sales. You want automatic sales, you want automatic connections, you must be broadcasting that. So instead of looking at the vision board, put a board up that looks at, what am I broadcasting? And read that message before you have reachable moments, where you're like, ’Yes, I'm getting myself in my vibrational alignment till that's what I'm broadcasting’.And then have that winning mentality. And then anyone, if you're an entrepreneur that has a team that you're dealing with, make sure they are understanding, what are we broadcasting as a team? Don't focus on the number and the level. Focus on the broadcasting of it. These were teachable moments as a team. Look at how many people we're going to connect to. Look at how many lives we're going to change. When you're looking at that, that sends an empowering broadcast message where you're like, ‘Yes, I want a part that, and I think that's what you did with Camp Elevate, right? Is you made it this beautiful space and once you broadcasted this wonderful space where people can care and share and say, ‘Hey, we're a part of the team.’ So, I think that's important. So that's what I would be telling anyone. Make sure you have that message and broadcast that out, and know when you receive it back, that's the most beautiful thing.Beth:Well, I always think about when I run into a friend who might have a new love in her life or in the beginning of that relationship, that people just, there's the sparkle and you're like, what are they doing? I need to be a part of that. So, I feel that way with, and I always talk about, when you're in a business for a long time that you have to continue to have those thoughts and yeah, have that energy around your business. Like the paydays, having the this moment of, I'm so grateful for this happening, and I'm falling in love over and over again with the mission. So, this is what happens to me a lot. So, I'm going to problem solve with you. Like you're coming in, we're doing a coaching session is I get people that have the belief, and they're right doing it.So they're believing that they're manifesting, and they're looking at all of the things, and they're doing the work, that you've given them. Maybe they're in one of your business intuitive courses, but they're not actually having conversations with people. They think that if the universe aligns, that they're going to make sales and hit goals. So, a lot of people will say to me, ‘Oh gosh, it must've been so easy for you because you attract these leaders that are, I attract 10’s. I attract tens all day long. And I always have. But I know why. But then there's this, ‘Oh, I don't want to be in the hustle grind mentality and sending these icky messages, while you're projecting the icky messages. But sales and growth as an entrepreneur requires people to actually have conversations. So, I think people get caught in this, I'm going to be in my meditation and manifesting and align my vibration with only these people that are vibrationally qualified. Yet, they're not doing shit behind the scenes. So how do you combine Lori's world and the world of…because you are also a sales Ninja. You also hit big goals. So, I have a group of friends that are, they love this space. It's, you know, and I always say, go to yoga, hang out there, but you got to come home and do the work. So how does it mesh? How do we create a world that were vibrationally where we need to be? We've got the breathing exercises you give, we've got the things on the board, but then we are having conversations.Lori:Okay, well first off there is the law of action. So, think about what you're broadcasting right now. If you're broadcasting, ‘Yes I want to be this wealthy entrepreneur. I love what I'm doing.’ You want to do the action dance. You don't want to walk away from it. It's like when you meet someone that you're in love with and what happens, so much of the time is, like what you said, the sparkle, and then all of a sudden you're in the relationship for a while and you're like, what the heck happened to the sparkle? Familiarity came in, and I talk about this when it's in relationships, business, whatever you're doing in your life. It's not really about meditation and staying in that kind of mindset of a Zen state. Because when you are wanting to attract things in your life vibrationally, you want those actions. You want to attract and do that vibrational dance that I talk about.So when you're in a relationship, you don't want to wait until that sparkle goes away. So imagine for a moment that if somebody was listening to this podcast and maybe they keep hitting the same level of goal and they can't get themselves out of this stuff because vibrationally what that means is that they've ran so much into familiarity that they can't even see, no matter how much they're broadcasting new words, their vibe is stagnant. So, they've got to raise the awareness. Raising the awareness let's take a different route. When was the last time you were in the car and you were on your way somewhere and all of a sudden there's road construction and you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, detour?’ Then you're taking this detour and you're looking around and you're like, ‘how did I not ever see this before?’ So, it's really important that if you are stuck in that level and you're like, ‘gosh, what do I do to get out?’ All right let's take a different approach. Let's take a different action. You can coach somebody all day long, but if they do not take a different action, this is how it is in relationships. If you continue to keep the same action and you keep going eventually, vibrationally, it's not going to be enough. You're not going to be passionate about it. You're going to rationalize and say, huh, well, at least I have this. I'm grateful for what I have. No, be grateful for what you are attracting and what's coming in for you. That's important.Beth:Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay. So, there's so much to get into these 30 minutes. I want to tell you guys that Lori's Facebook page is full of free content. She gives so much away and then we'll connect in the show notes how to connect with her because she's got all kinds of programs. You're like, I need to do this work and you all need to do this work. I need to do it. And that's how I connected with Lori was, I firmly believe if I'm going to go beyond, you might be listening saying, ‘Oh well, she did this, this and this. That's not enough. I have to stay in the work. It's like if you go to church and you're in that community and you detach from it and you're not staying in the word. So, we can do a follow-up, because I know that you guys, we tried to keep it 30 minutes because I think that's gym time. Most people put it in their ear buds for a commute so we can do a follow-up. But today I was on my app at the gym and Nick sent me a workout, and I can communicate with him, and I have my chat with my accountability friends, and I was like, I just killed it, and we're all cheering for each other. And those are the things that helped me to stay on track. So, if you are our trainer, a vibrational trainer, not a fitness trainer, and someone is pretty much brand new to this. They might have messed around with a couple of YouTube videos, maybe they cut out some pictures. Can you give us an assignment? A beginning workout, if we're new to this, that will help us in the first steps? .All of this work is raising the vibration. And I want to say to you guys, as you listen, just get started. It's never perfect work. You're never going to understand it totally. I can look at what Lori's bio, which you heard, and I've done the work and you just get started before you even have an understanding. Don't go into research mode. I got to see if this is for me. Just do a little and then more and then more and then more. So, what's our workout? What's our assignment from you?Lori:Okay, well first off, I'm sure a lot of people that are listening to this podcast are used to listening to other people. What do the billionaires do as a morning ritual? So, we talk about, you know, certain people like Mark Walberg gets up at 4:00 AM. So why does Mark Walberg get up at 4:00 AM?) Because you know he wants to maximize his time. He knows that the first two hours in the morning is the best time for the conscious mind. And so, what that means is that you don't have a lot on your mind. So, what you're doing is, the workout is building the endorphins. So, you need that, but you also need that mental vibration. And I would say think about the T for a moment. So, the T meaning and vibration is your thoughts. So, if your thoughts are negative or you're already prophesizing your day, or strategizing, okay, ‘how am I going to get through the clutter?’ Then you've already broadcasted a signal that says today's going to be a chaotic day. So, you want to make sure that those thoughts are nice and broadcasting what you want that day to be. Then we have the E, the E is about the decision making in our environment, which means our internal environment.So there's only so many decisions you can make in a day before you start to get overwhelmed. That's why someone like Mark Zuckerberg only wears a certain color or a certain outfit because he wants one less decision. So, he can focus on making sure that all the decisions he's making are towards his goal. So, if you've already over made the decision, so okay, you woke up, the thoughts are chaotic, your environment internally is like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ you're overwhelmed on the decisions. So now you're going to have an emotion that's going to broadcast frustration, perhaps disappointment maybe was set yourself already emotionally up for failure. And then that affects your attitude. Your attitude affects your actions. So, the wonder why most people think, ‘if I sit back in a meditation and manifest and I'm in the Zen mindset’. You get that? Well that's the kind of action. Don't want to take an action.That's why they're not getting the outcome. Do you follow me with that? So, the thing that you want to be able to do, besides putting your broadcast message on your board, is to pay attention to your T. The moment that you wake up in the morning, make sure you're vibrationally aligned to that. If you have a situation where you have to make a lot of decisions in your business, time to get an assistant so they can make some of your decisions for you so you don't get overwhelmed. So that's the difference between starting to accelerate. And if you're really wanting to make $1 million are multimillionaire or anything like that, you've got to know that you only have a certain requirement. So, I want to encourage you to put on your board that T and stay focused on that. That would be the very first thing that I would do.So if you are having something going on in your life that is emotionally affecting you in a negative way, you want to back away and not broadcast that into your entrepreneurial business because that's going to get setbacks for you. So, you want to be able to be for a set up in your situation. So, to be in that setup, you've got to number one; have your goal, make sure that you're following your daily T and put forth that wonderful action of that dance to be passionate about what you're doing. And yes, I tell people, sure, meditate. That's a way to fly it the mind. But that's not the way to elevate your business. That's a way to just quiet your mind. Does that make sense?Beth:Yes. And I couldn't help, as you were talking, thinking about the T of sending a 15-year-old son to school, because his first thought is Ugh. So it's a, you know, if you guys have teenagers, just see the contrast of, and when you think about the mornings that you wake up early, your thoughts, you start your day with those thoughts and everything seems to flow and fall into place. Start to pay attention to why that's happening. And then those other mornings when it may be chaos you've slept in, the backpacks are being thrown at each other, the dog is barking, the cat is, and then the vibration has gone, or is so low. So when we feel that chaos, when we feel like this is out of control and your husband's over here chewing on a peanut and you're ready to punch him in the face, and the kid is over here, you know, slumping around. How do we create the T? Because we all do it. Do you ever, I mean you're so trained in this, do you ever have those moments, that I am completely annoyed? I got to bring myself back and I know that you have some of your own methods that you use. So, for me right now, this is what I'm looking for. I'm looking for, I start to feel it slipping. The peanut chewing is annoying me. The dog is snoring in the corner and the kid is driving me crazy. And guess what's going to happen to everything for that day. What do we do when we feel the slip?Lori:Okay, first off, when all of that is happening, that's an indication that you've already used up all your decision power, because the minute you use up your decision power, your fight or flight, your stress responses are heightened. So even the most mild little sound, sounds like it's tremendously getting on your nerves. So when you're completely in that way, I tell people back away and start reading and relaxing and put some your earphones on or earbuds on, listen to something calming, start to relax to get that sensory of that nervous system calm and quiet. And the other thing I want to bring up too that I think is important. So if somebody's listening right now and you're broadcasting good stuff and your vibe, but you're receiving resistance back, I want to answer that because so much of the time when you're sending out good vibes and your broadcasting and you're like, yes, yes, yes. span>What the heck is going on? All these people I'm receiving are, gosh, they're negative, they're reactive. Or maybe you're putting forth those actions and like you said earlier, it's crooked. You're like, what the heck? I'm broadcasting. Where's my people? Come on. And so, what that means in receptive mode. So, if you're receiving a lot of negative people coming your way, you got that? What I encourage you to do at that point is, because your broadcasting message might be too high. So, hold on just a second and listen to me. So, a lot of times we put our broadcasting to a manifestation, perhaps an amount of money that you want. So, let's say right now someone listening is only making $100,000 a year and they want to get up to that million-dollar level. Okay? So you want to just, so if you're broadcast and you're like, ‘yes, yes, yes, I got this going, but what I'm receiving back is people that are negative’, that means you've got to spend time raising that vibration.So you want to back away from that. Backing away from that is easy. So, I give a simple receptive exercise. So just like when that E, you're all that decision power and everything is getting you unnerved. Okay? So, when you're sending out the signal to go from a hundred to a million, the people's actions are different. You've just adjusted your actions to say, wow, my vibration is yes, I'm broadcasting $1 million. Okay? And so, in this situation, you want to be able to back away, have some reflection time. Reflection time means sit back and take a look at what people are you wanting to receive that aren't up to the standard of what you're broadcasting. So, they may be halfway to that point. You follow what I'm saying? So, what would the message be? You can't make the message the exact same. This is what happens if you're $100,000 a year and how you're sending out your message and you are now deciding you want to be that millionaire.We've got to change the message. This is why Beth, I'm sure you can recognize this. You've expanded your toolbox of ways that you're reaching people and how you're doing different things. And so, as you're doing that, it's because you're recognizing, alright, what the people I need to receive has to understand my message. So, you have to change the message. Don't make it the same. So, sit back. If you're experiencing that, if nobody, nobody is addressing you and you're like crickets, then I want you to sit back and say,’ okay, how are they receiving my message?’ So, I may be broadcasting my vibe and my words may be like, Yes, these are million-dollar words, but how the people are receiving them may not feel that way to them. It may feel more like, who do you think you are? Like, why should I buy from you? So, it's important to look at that receptive mode. So, don't forget to do that. If you're having difficulty, sit back, relax, breathe, and what I call profiling, pull file, the people that you're wanting to reach and how they're receiving that message, then they'll automatically start reaching you without really having to do that hustle and grind. That's the important thing when you're working with vibration, is to get it to become automatic and readjust that vibe when you want to increase, either that wealth, or expand your business. So, I hope that makes sense. .Beth:Yeah, it does. And I'm taking crazy notes, because this is, you guys knowing that as you get information, as it comes in, hearing it over and over again, listening to the podcast, going and watching some of the lives, getting on Lori’s newsletter that you can find on her website. If you subscribe that talks about the T and consistently committing to this is every day. I would say to my husband this, it takes a lot of work because you know it's an investment of time, of money, it's a commitment of, I'm not going to live just in this space, in this ordinary space. And it's so beautiful. You start to really commit and do the work and you're honest with yourself of, am I really doing it? Like I know Lori. I know when I'm not up at 4:45 AM, the rest of the day. I know how that's going to go and I will not, I mean projecting this right here, but today everything's in place.I know without question, I know it's happening for me, and my sales site today. I was at the gym this morning and I'm like, I love Dixie chicks. I try to stay away from anything that requires thought at the gym that I have to process. I'm listening to Dixie chicks and I'm smiling at people and some guy is like, what are you listening to? Because I just was a totally different vibration today. It was so high. And then of course my weights went up. The results are starting to come. So, I encourage you guys to do this work. I get really excited about it obviously. So, there's a lot of ways, and I always share this, and we share it in the show notes. There's a lot of ways that you can connect with Lori where she's giving you a lot. If you don't feel like, ‘Oh Hey, I need to check this out, from just stalking a Facebook page. But you work with people at all different levels. Describe how if someone wants to connect with you, work with you in a group forum, work with you privately. I know that we're looking forward to a podcast maybe down the road. So how can this audience get more of you?Lori:Okay, well, currently there are a couple of ways. One of the ways is as I teach people how to put intuition into your business, and that's important because 40% of CEOs currently right now in the world, no matter how much knowledge they have, they're using their intuition. And that intuition then leads you to, let me use, for example, you might be right now on social media doing the hustle, broadcasting that vibe and going, yes, yes, yes, I want to be that millionaire. And then you're not listening to the instinct. Because maybe that's not the time. Maybe you are so unaware that the people that you're actually aligning with and attracting aren't the ones that are going to take your business from zero to a million. And so, it's important to recognize intuition in that. So currently I have a program that's kicking off in 2020 putting the intuition back in your business.And then if someone's reaching out to me on a one-on-one, which a lot of people do because they want things tailored, they want to recognize how much of my familiarity vibe, or I'd been stuck in this relationship for a long while. How do I get passion back into it? Or how do I resuscitate my poor entrepreneurial business into a wealthy one? So, this is things that I do in the custom tailor besides, you know, health and all of these things. So that's what I do. In a one-on-one. And also, you know, I do corporate things and, and different things like that. People are always reaching out to that. So, there's all sorts of ways. But I encourage people, if you're just listening to this podcast and going like, what the heck is this woman talking about? But man, it sounds so awesome. I want to learn more.Check on my video library and on my personal page on Facebook because I give so many tools the right way to manifest using your conscious mind and how to expand your vibe. So, I encourage people, that's a way that they can reach out. I love to give people the tools because the law of vibration is always working. So, whether you're doing the work or not, it's happening. It's happening as you're listening to this podcast right now. So, if you don't like your current reality or it's not enough for you, then clearly, you're attracting more of that vibration. So, it's time to get a new vibe, increase the vibe, broadcast things differently. So that's what I would suggest.Beth:I think it's so cool that it's a possibility, right? That, because I again go back to a 15 year old boy who doesn't want to go to school today and he's like, you know, I talk to him about the T and I have these conversations, and I have friends that had kind of a different, you know, we didn't talk about this when I was growing up. My mom had very high vibration and a lot of that is carrying over into my life. People say you're so lucky. So, if your parents and your listening, all of these things apply to being an entrepreneur, to being a parent, to being a spouse. Even imagine…I just had my giant golden retriever walk up. Your dog’s even feel it. It's so exciting to me. I know you guys; I get all excited about these things that happen. What a gift, right? That this is out there. Okay. One last question that I have for you is, and this is always a surprise question, so are you ready?Lori:Yes. All right.Beth:Okay. So, of all the things that you could have in the world, money is not an option. Is not an issue. Everything that you know, you could find it under your Christmas tree, or it would arrive via Amazon prime. What would you want today on your doorstep?Lori:Oh, for myself. For yourself. Oh gosh, that's a tough one because I'm such a giver, and I like, not to sound, you know, pompous in any way. I actually live such an amazing life; I haven't wanted for anything for years. So, I spend most of my time giving back. So, the one thing that I would want on my doorstep from Amazon is all everything from Amazon so I could turn around and give it to everybody that actually needs it. And that would bring such a joy to me. Just the same way with the tools that I give to help people understand more about how their mind works in the vibration. Because the more you know about how you work, the more these things will happen to you because people say this. I mean, I can remember the first time I went to a car dealer and bought three brand new cars and gave them away.I gave them away to people I didn't even know. And you know, I've bought several homes and gave those away. And you know, you give back when you arrive at a certain level. So, the thing under the Christmas tree that I would want is everything for everyone that at this moment is barely getting by in the world. So, it would give them enough resuscitation so that I could teach them how to increase their vibes so they could do the same thing and give back. I think that's the most important thing.Beth:That's wonderful. Sure, Amazon has delivery. I do love that. And so, okay, so let's start a chain on that. Because no matter what your financial situation is today, I want you to think about somebody in your life and you, you know, you have the intuition to know that even having some, having a gift card for whole foods would help their Christmas. And think of someone, whoever comes to your mind right now and use your intuition to say, I'm going to send this $20 book, or I'm going to send this Amazon gift card, because it's going to help with their Christmas, and don't sign your name. Just send it, let it arrive. Remember may day baskets back in the day? You'd leave a basket on somebody's doorstep. Just do that good deed today and go out and give something and you'll notice like it's like that whole thing when someone pays for your Starbucks. It feels so good. We do that all the time. We'll be like, let's pay for that today. So fun. Right?Beth:All right Lori. Well thank you.Lori:Thank you.Beth:Thank you! You are so welcome. You guys in the show notes, we are going to put all of the ways that you can connect with Lori. Grab her free videos on her page, look at the business intuitive, or the high vibe courses coming up, and of course we always end with Oliver walking up and he starts groaning into the microphone. Oh, and my podcasts are like, you're so professional. Until the dog starts growing. All right, Lori. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to stop this recording. And okay, you guys, if you're listening to this, I'm really serious about, I'm doing it right when we get off. Blessing somebody with a gift today that you are capable of giving, even if it's $10. And how good you're going to feel after you do that. And don't shout it out on social media that you did it. And, or do the hundred percent tip, and do it anonymously and we can raise this entire vibration of this crazy country that we live in. Right? All right. Talk to you guys all next Monday. Thanks for hopping on. And as always, go ahead and do a screenshot of this. Lori, are you on Instagram?Lori:I am on Instagram.Beth:Okay. And how can we find you on Instagram? Because I have them tag both of us so you can reshare it in your stories.Lori:Oh, you're asking me this? And the team that works with me does all of that. So, you put it in the show notes?Beth:I'll put it in the show notes, and I love this when she said she doesn't use right. The decision when we couldn't get the audio, she immediately, and I loved it, she was like, there's no room in my brain. I could see that. So, she called Lauren and Lauren solved the problem. It was so easy. So, we're going to put how to connect with Lori and Instagram. I'm at @Bethholdinggraves. Screenshot this, put it in your direct messages and up in your story so people will hear the podcast, and I'll connect with you that way. I'll catch you guys all next Monday.I want to thank you for hanging out with us today on the podcast. As always, screenshot this shared over an Instagram. I will chat with you over in the DMS. And there's still time to chat with me about the Profit HER Way mastermind 2020 program that we are just getting started in May. I tell you that we have the most phenomenal group of women that are going to be masterminding and working together, starting in January. So, let's get you on that list. Let's see if it's a fit for you. One of my best, best and biggest pieces of advice from an entrepreneur was surround yourself with women that want to see you succeed, that are pushing you to go a little longer, to reach a little higher, and that's what we're doing over in the mastermind. So, you can get on that list to chat with me at BethHoldenGraves.com/Profit and as always, we are doing amazing things in our free Facebook group Camp Elevate. Find us in the show notes or just go to thecampelevategroup.com and join us. We are finishing up a book exchange this week and we have some really, really, really, really amazing free trainings on the way that will be happening before the New Year, as we look at crushing our goals in 2020 and looking at our year in review. So, I'll see you all next week. Santa will be with us. I can't wait.Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’. I’m hoping that you’ve found one thing that you will do today that will allow you to move forward to that big, audacious goal. And I have a favor to ask of you, and that is leaving me a five-star review over in iTunes. Every single week I read your reviews. I love hearing what you have to say, and it allows me to bring you more, to get more people to interview that are doing the thing, breaking the glass ceilings, creating what they crave, and helping you with your game plan. So leave me a five-star review, and when you do, I enter you to win the, ‘You’re Not the Boss of Me’ swag, so make sure you leave it and we’ll reach out to you if you’re the winner. Thanks so much for hanging with me today and we’ll chat with you soon.

In our third See It to Be It podcast interview, Amy C. Waninger chats with PraiseWorks Health and Wellness founder Lynnis Woods-Mullins, a holistic living and wellness expert who focuses on helping women ages 40 and over embark on a successful journey to total wellness for their mind, body, and spirit using holistic practices, nutrition, and fitness. She shares with us how she navigated the transition from corporate America to where she is now and a lot more. These discussions highlight professional role models in a variety of industries, and our goal is to draw attention to the vast array of possibilities available to emerging and aspiring professionals, with particular attention paid to support black and brown professionals. Check out some of the SI2BI blogs we've posted while you wait for the next episode!Connect with Lynnis on LinkedIn and Facebook! She also has Twitter and Instagram!Check out the PraiseWorks website!Read about "Power Up, Super Women: Stories of Courage and Empowerment" on Amazon!Visit Living-Corporate.com!TRANSCRIPTAmy: Lynnis, thank you so much for joining me today.Lynnis: Well, thank you so much for asking me. It's an honor to be able to share with you, Amy.Amy: Well, it's an honor to speak with you. So I was wondering if you could share a little bit about the work that you do. I know that you're a health and wellness expert and a wellness coach, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what that means, what do your clients look like, what do you do for your clients, and we'll start there.Lynnis: Okay. Well, I'm a certified health and wellness coach, and I specialize in working with women over 40, teaching them how to be well and how to live a more holistic life, and I do that through my online magazine. I have online classes. I also have coaching services for groups and 1-on-1. I have a podcast and webcast, and I also just recently wrote a book, as you know, and I focus on helping women make incremental lifestyle changes that can give them big results. I have a weight loss, or what I like to call a weight release, program. I also talk with women specifically about hormonal changes. You know, things that happen as we age and how we can minimize the impact of the aging process. I talk a lot about stress reduction. That's my specialty, stress reduction and anxiety and depression, of which I suffered from all three. And so I really focus on those kinds of things that happen as we age from 40 on, because after 40 there's some things that start happening that are really interesting, and many times you think perhaps you're prepared for that because you've heard your girlfriends talk about it. You might have not heard your mom talk about it, but you witnessed certain things. I'm telling you, everyone is different and every experience is different, and what I really try to lay out to women is that they're not alone in terms of going through that experience, but sometimes it can be a lonely experience because while you're going through it, a lot of times it's you get this inclination to [?] out and suffer in silence by yourself. You don't have to do that. And so my job or my role is to familiarize women with all of the different symptoms that might happen and to give them some encouragement to get knowledge on how to deal with it, because I truly believe that knowledge is power.Amy: You know, as you're speaking, I'm reminded of this thought that I've had repeatedly, that to be a woman is to live in stages of secrets and shame. Lynnis: That's true.Amy: When we're very young, you know, we get the talk about what's gonna happen to our bodies in adolescence, and we're pulled aside, and it's all in very hushed tones and, you know, like, girls passing tampons, you know, like, in middle school. You know, like, you don't want to be found out, right? And then, you know, in our teens, 20s, even our 30s, you know, pregnancy is--there's a lot of mystery surrounding pregnancy, right? Women throughout history have gotten pregnant. Women throughout history have miscarried. Women throughout history have had complications with their pregnancies. But we don't hear those stories. We sort of--like you said, we suffer in silence. We suffer alone. We don't talk about it. We're taught to feel shame about it. And I guess it never occurred to me that I'm on the cusp of yet another, you know, quietly--"go quietly into the night" sort of process and that that's another aspect of our lives as women that we don't talk publicly about.Lynnis: No, you're absolutely right. And yeah, suffering in silence is really true on so many different levels, but I can just share from my own experience. Each time that I got pregnant--and I have four daughters, they're all grown. They're all in their 30s and stuff. Well, one will be 27--each time that I got pregnant, I didn't tell anybody right away. My first pregnancy I wasn't married, so I didn't tell anybody, not even my mom, until I was, like, about seven months pregnant. I lived in a different city, so I just didn't want to talk [about it] because I wasn't married, you know? And I invited her to come and see me for the weekend, and she knew as soon as I opened the door. It might have been because my face was fuller, 'cause normally I'm a really, really thin person. You know, that might have been it, but she said she felt it even before that time. And I think with the other ones I didn't want to tell anybody because I didn't want to be judged by my family or my friends. I was married, but it was like, "Again?" Because they were so close together. One of my daughters--the two middle ones, were born 17 months apart. And, you know, I just didn't want to deal with that. "Don't you know about birth control?" and "How can you be a career person?" and all that, so I didn't tell anybody, and I look back at that and now I'm thinking, "How silly." I was married. It certainly was my prerogative if I wanted to have children. They were not planned. They were all, you know, wonderful "uh-ohs," but I think my biggest thing was that this went against the grain in terms of all of my preparation when it comes to climbing the corporate ladder and here I am pregnant again. I was pregnant basically for 10 years. Basically, you know? Because the ages of my children now are 27, 30, 32, and 34. So pretty close together, and I just didn't want to deal with that "Again?" kind of thing, so I didn't tell anybody. I look back at that now and I'm thinking, you know, "How much did we as women, no matter what the age is, become vested in people's opinion of us?" You know? We spend a lot of time preoccupied with that, and it's very painful because of course we can't read their minds and many times what we're thinking they may be thinking--which many times they're not even close to that, they're too busy with their own stuff--is really just projections on how we feel about ourselves, and I think the biggest message that I'd like to try to send to women in particular over 40, even at that stage when we should be so wise and know it all and know it more, is the need for self-love, because we just don't do that. We are our harshest critics. We don't give ourselves a break, and our breaks--if we do give ourselves a break, there's all this [?] that goes with it. There's that shame and guilt. And in order to really be well, there comes a point in your life when you really have to make a decision to let all that go and to be more present and stop worrying so much about what happened in the past, because what happened in the past really has added to who you are as a person, and that's a good thing. And not to be too preoccupied with the future or the lack of it, depending on your age, because, you know, the future never comes. Tomorrow never comes. It's always today today. And learning how to be more present in terms of your day-to-day existence.Amy: So thank you for that. I think that's absolutely true, and I would imagine that a lot of wellness comes from mindfulness and presence. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into this work?Lynnis: Sure. I have another life. I have had three lives, maybe. Three main lives. You know, [?] this was my third life. Before this, my second life I was a human resource professional and did very well and got up to the, you know, director level, and I had the equivalent of what could be considered the American dream. I was married, had four kids, a big house in [?] and kids going to school and doing well, you know, husband very successful. You know, all of the stuff that you would think is supposed to be the American dream, and being a woman of color even more so, you know? As an African-American, I was earning the upper .5% for an African-American woman and for a woman in general the upper 2%. So I was doing well. But there was something missing in my life, and I had developed an anxiety disorder and didn't even know it, and my anxiety disorder was based upon post-traumatic stress, and my post-traumatic stress was based upon an incident that happened in my life that was a total surprise. I didn't know how to quite deal with it, and my really dealing with had to do with, you know, controlling the outcome. No matter what happened, I was gonna control it. Whether it was controlling my coworkers, my kids, my husband, my neighbors, my friends, you know? My life in general. I was going to control it in such a way where there would never be anymore surprises, which of course is insane.Amy: Yeah, that's not possible.Lynnis: Right? That's insane. It's not possible. So over time, after 27 years of that, I finally had an epiphany--or a breakdown, whatever you want to call it--to the point where I had to take a sabbatical, and I left this wonderful job for a year with the idea of going back, and after a year of reflection and going to--you know, really digging down deeper, I realized that I wasn't happy and I needed to figure out what would make me happy. And in my exploration of what kinds of things I could do to heal myself from this anxiety disorder, because I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and they put me on medication. And I realize now that I was never good at pills and things. I've always been interested in nutrition. I was a dancer in my first life, you know, and I was a nutrition minor in college, so I decided that I was going to find out more about this mind, body, spirit wellness movement, which started, you know, a while back. I got started in 2009. This has been almost 10 years now that I've been in business. It'll be 10 years in April of 2019. So I decided that I wanted to figure out a way to help women not go through what I went through and to begin to take a look at how can we be well in our mind, body, and spirit and to make that our quest? Our quest to be well in our minds, in our bodies, and in our spirits, because it's a continuum. It's not all about the body. It's not all about your spirit. It's not all about your mind. It is a continuum, and if any of those things aren't being cared for, then we're off-kilter and we risk the possibility of being unwell. And so that's how it all started. I put together a company called PraiseWorks, because at that time I thought I would teach women over 40 how to dance, praise dance. I am a classically trained ballet dancer. I have danced professionally. And then when I got in my late 40s, I started doing praise dance at my church. So I was gonna teach them how to dance, and I quickly found out after my first few classes that these women needed so much more than just dance. I had women who were [?] survivors. I had women who were dealing with empty nests and [?] relationships [?] that ended through divorce. Women who had high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, and hormonal. Menopause. All of the things that you begin to deal with as you age, and so I thought "Okay, what else can I do?" And so that's when I went back, got my certification in nutrition and health and holistic living and yoga and Pilates and all this stuff, and came up with these different virtual programs that can help women to be well. And it's been really interesting. It's been quite an adventure, because one of the things that I didn't anticipate, which I'm learning now, is that a lot of the women who were my age--'cause at that time I was ... 51 when I [?]. I still had another 15 years or so of working for corporate America. So everybody thought I was nuts. "How could you just leave, you know, a six-figure salary like that and start your own thing from scratch?" But, you know, I think in many ways I saved my life. I could have still been there, still been working, probably doing okay, making lots of money, but would have had the anxiety disorder or would have gained a whole lot of weight as a result of the medication they wanted to put me on and probably would have began to start falling apart, because any time you're on any kind of medication, if it's not organic or holistic--any kind of pharmaceutical--it fixes normally the symptom and not the causation, and it causes other symptoms later on. So I feel like I saved my own life, and in the process of saving my own life I'm hoping that I've helped women begin to save theirs in terms of making other choices for their lives. And so that began my goal to really get the word out, virtually at first, even though like I said it was a challenge 'cause a lot of women my age, you know, weren't really into, you know, social media and things like that back in 2009, but that's changed over the years. [?] to not just inspire women 40 and over, but my children are saying "Mom, millennials, we need this kind of stuff. We need to know." They're on a quest and searching, and I never really thought about that, but they're right. So now I'm beginning to think about approaching--if you want to get to my age, [laughs] the ripe-old age of almost 62, then you're gonna want to do some of this stuff that, you know, I've [?] over the last 10 years.Amy: Absolutely. It's so much easier to prevent diabetes, heart disease and those kinds of things than it is to recover from them. High blood pressure, high cholesterol. The list goes on, right?Lynnis: And so many of those kinds of diseases, so many of them are lifestyle choices. And then coupled with the fact that growing older your body is gonna go through some changes anyway, and if you had decided to make a lifestyle choice to exercise more, to eat differently, to lower your stress levels, then your aging process could have been a lot more of a positive experience, and I'm trying to send that message out to women and all of the people who love them that there is a different way, that you don't have to go down that road.Amy: And I think, you know, going back to what you said about millennials, I just hearing millennial burnout is such a problem. You know, millennials and Gen Z are taking on so much stress because, you know, for example, college has gotten--the cost of college has gotten out of control. The return on that investment has diminished almost to nothing for a lot of people, and so they're trying to pay back more debt with worse--you know, with lower income than their parents, and then there's still the pressure of "When are you gonna start a family? When are you gonna buy a house?" Right? All of those expectations that we put on people basically from the 1940s, right? "When are you going to fulfill the American dream that's almost 100 years old?"Lynnis: Which is really the American nightmare, trying to achieve that right now, 'cause right now I'm visiting my daughter in D.C., and first of all, I'm immensely proud of her because she has done this by herself, and sometimes I would feel guilty about not being able to help her more once she finished her education, but I'm glad ultimately that she went this way, because I'm not always gonna be here. My husband's not gonna always be here. I had three other daughters I had to try to get through their phases of education, but it's interesting, the lifestyle that she's living is great, but it's extremely expensive. You know, her rent is more than my mortgage--and I live in California, so I don't have a cheap mortgage. But I look at how these--I don't want to say young people. I hate using that phrase because it makes me seem like I'm 1,000 years old, but I'm looking at how they're living and the pace within which you're living. I mean, they never--they're on all the time. They never relax. Even their social thing is--I don't want to say it's a competition, but it's stressful, you know, getting to the place because of the traffic, finding a place to park if you are driving. Or being in public transportation, having to be aware of your surroundings all the time. Then you get there and you have to deal with in your mind, "Okay, how much can I afford?" You know, when the bill comes, and then in-between that you're constantly on your phone. While you're talking to your friends and stuff, you're on the phone, you're doing all this stuff, and I'm thinking, "Wow, this is a lot of fun, but it's stressful fun." There's never a point where people just stop and just be, unless [?], like, "Yoga time," or "Medication time," you know? There's not--there doesn't seem to be a point of really disconnecting. And you're right, we in this society, no matter what age we are, have a tendency to want to meet the expectations of whatever was set before us. You know, for me it was being raised in the 70s and trying to meet the expectations of where my parents were, because they happened to have been college-educated, which was, you know, very unusual back then, because they were still in the early 50s. But now the expectation is my children do the same, but I realize that two of my girls, who had children in their late 20s, it might be a little bit more difficult for them to achieve the same level as I have, because times are different. Times are different. And so I think that part of being well is realizing that and giving yourself a break and realizing that these times are different, and you have to set your own expectations based upon what it is you want for your life. I mean, if you enjoy that pace and that's where you're at that's fine, but if you know that there's something else that you want to do, that's okay too. And with the college experience, I'm telling you--I've always felt this way, but I especially feel this way now. I wish we had more of the European model that gives people opportunities for apprenticeships and things like that, because college is not for everyone, and that does not mean that they're dumb or stupid or any of that. Ask Bill Gates. He'll tell you that, okay? And some of the other folks sitting up there in Google right now. They don't necessarily have, you know, grad degrees. The idea of getting a degree and then going on and getting the grad degree, because you don't know what else you're going to do, and then going on and getting your Ph.D., and then, you know, [?], I don't think that was the expectation at the time. So I think maybe perhaps we need to be more--I hate to use the word authentic. It's become such a buzzword. But more true to ourselves and that inner desire and tapping into that, because I do believe where your passion is, so lies your treasure. Amy: That's a beautiful sentiment. I love that. So for people who are where you were a few years ago, still climbing the corporate ladder, still trying to secure the bag, right, what can you offer them in terms of--what are the signs that they're approaching an unhealthy place? What do they need to watch for?Lynnis: Well, never disconnecting. For me it was two cell phones and a pager and my laptop, and this started back in '92 and went on until 2008, and I was raising kids at the same time and traveling. At one time I was about 60, 70% travel. I would make a turn-around--I would do a red-eye... an early-morning flight to Texas from California and take a red-eye back to be able to get there in time before they woke up the next morning, and then I would work from home because--I would, you know, dial into a landline or whatever back in the 90s, but never disconnecting and thinking that, by never disconnecting, you are being the best that you can be, that you're really doing a great job. The reality is more than likely you're not doing a great job. More than likely mistakes are going to happen. Disconnecting, and you start seeing those little mistakes pop up that, you know, normally you would not make. That's a sign, especially when you know that this a job that you're prepared for and that you're confident in and all of a sudden things start happening. Another sign is the inability to sleep, to be able to disconnect enough to sleep to calm down. Or if you're sleeping, your sleep is constantly interrupted by waking up, going to the bathroom several times during the course of the night, not having a deep sleep. That's a sign. Another sign is when you begin to realize that you don't have any relationships, and I'm not talking about love relationships. I'm talking about friendships. Your friendships are also tied to work, which is not a bad thing, but there was a time where you didn't work at that place and you had friends outside of work or friends outside of your profession. So disconnecting from relationships that aren't work-related. Also not being able to just sit and be. Feeling the need to always be doing something. And I'm not talking--and you can sit and be and binge watch, but you're still doing something, but the idea of just being in a state of being, if you're having problems with any of those things, that's a sign of burnout. Anxiety, which is a common thing that most Americans suffer from that no one is really talking about. My anxiety was so bad for almost 10 years that I thought it was normal. I started drinking coffee because of my anxiety, believe it or not. It seemed to be the only thing that would take away the scary feeling. The scary feeling was I would be going--I would wake up in the morning and it would feel like I was going straight downhill on a roller coaster with no restraints. I mean, like, going down the hill and nothing holding me in, but I'm still in the chair. Somehow I'm not falling out, but can you imagine how scary that is, thinking that you might fall out? That. It was the fear of the unknown. That all came from my post-traumatic stress that I found out later that I had as a result of not really going through the process of grieving. And the post-traumatic stress, and I talk about it in the book, it all came from how I found out that my mother had died. She was hit by a fire truck on her way to work. She was 56 years old. And how I found out was really traumatic, very traumatic, and I had just had a baby, 5 weeks old, and I had a 17-month old and a just turned 4-year-old. So it was--and I was on maternity leave at the time, but I was a regional manager, and I had, like, three or four branches I was in charge of, and what had happened was on the day that she died I had just seen her, and I said I would see her later and went to my office to show everybody my baby. And this was before cell phones. And my dad, I guess I must have mentioned it to him when I was over at the house in the morning, 'cause he was on his way to work too--'cause my parents were in my mid-50s. I was 31. And so I think I had mentioned to them that I was going by my office to show off the baby, and he called me there and he said, "I want you to go home," to the family home, because my grandfather was visiting from Georgia, my dad's dad, and he was just beginning to exhibit signs of dementia. So he wanted me to go home and stay with Grandaddy and that he would meet me there at the house a little bit later 'cause, he said, "Your mom's been in an accident. I don't know how serious it is, but I need you to go home." So I said okay, and, you know, I had a feeling something was wrong, and I had left my organizer--back then they had Ben Franklin organizers. I left my Ben Franklin organizer at work, and we didn't have cell phones back then. Didn't have any [?] numbers. Couldn't remember any numbers 'cause I was so scared. I suddenly wasn't feeling right. So I called my mom's office and, you know, Lucille [?], my mom's secretary, and I said, "Listen, I need to call someone to come and stay with me and I don't have any numbers with me," and she said, "Oh, yeah, I guess you would want to have someone come stay with you. You know, we are so sorry. We loved your mother." And I was like "...E-D? Loved? Past tense? You mean she's gone?" And that's when she realized, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" And then she dropped the phone, and I could hear--then I could hear people in the background crying. 'Cause I mean, it had been, like, not even a whole hour since this had happened, and that's when I began immediately to never have that shock again. Can you imagine? I mean, even now when I think about it I can still feel that... that decision. Boom. Because I have babies to take care of. I've got a job to do. I have a husband. I have a home. And my dad, I've got to be there for him, and I've got to be there for my sister who's still at school, at 17, graduating in a few months, turning 18 next week. I gotta call my sister in LA who just finished her master's [?]. I gotta take care of this stuff, so I don't have time to feel," and, you know, that's where [?], and that's where the anxiety sort of began, that moment, and that was definitely post-traumatic stress. And so I write about that and what I learned from that. They gotta read the book [?].Amy: That's right. So the book that you're mentioning is called Power Up Super Women: Stories of Courage and Empowerment, and Lynnis is one of 17 authors of this anthology, and I'm another author on this anthology. My story is not nearly as traumatic or dramatic, but all of these stories are designed to help women kind of come to terms with who they are, what they want out of life, and how to go about getting it, and there's some truly, truly inspirational stories in this. Lynnis, I have two more questions for you today. I wanted to ask you to finish this sentence. "I feel included when ______."Lynnis: I feel included when I'm contributing something of value to society, to my friends, to my family. I want to be of value. I just don't want to be taking up space. I don't want just because I am successful to be what defines me. I want that success to be tied to adding value, you know? Adding value to someone's life, adding value to someone's experience. I want to build a legacy. I just don't want to be successful and make a lot of money but no one remembers what I did. And I don't know why I tear up [?], but at 62, you know, that's something that's really important to me, to be of value.Amy: Yeah, to leave a lasting impact. I understand that, absolutely. Now can you finish this sentence? "When I feel included, I _______."Lynnis: When I feel included, I feel a sense of joy.Amy: Oh, that's beautiful.Lynnis: Yes. I never really experienced what true joy was until I left corporate America, quite frankly. And it's not that I'm saying corporate America is a bad thing. Corporate America is just a small sliver of what defines you, and if you can arrive at that early on in your career, then you'll be okay, because the real joy you're going to feel are the things that come at you unexpectedly, and in corporate America you don't want any surprises, but in life you do. You want good surprises in terms of, you know, the experiences that you have, and so yeah, it brings me great joy when I am able to feel included that way.Amy: Well, Lynnis, I can tell that you're having an impact, not just on your clients but on everyone around you. You have so much--you exude joy, you exude peace, and I am so grateful to know you. Thank you so much.Lynnis: Well, thank you, Amy. It's really an honor to talk with you. I'm so glad that you asked me. This is exciting.

Let's Talk about Men's Social Relationships... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry we have Dr. Jameson Mercier, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy. His areas of specialization include Marriage/Family Therapy and fatherhood and this week the Lunch and Learn Community is in for a treat as he comes on to discuss the importance of social relationships for men and what happens when the correct ones are not in place. As we wrap up the end of men's health month I thought it would be extremely important to touch on mental health in men. When we talk about men's health month quite often we focus on the big diseases such as prostate cancer, colon cancer, and addiction but I know that I have come across many men who have these poor social habits and how it affects all their relationships. I talked about this before but as a outpatient clinical specialist one of the top 2 reasons why men would come to see me for an appointment was either someone was dragging them to the office or erectile dysfunction complaints. A recent journal article noted: "Social connections can act as a buffer against the impact of stressful or negative life experiences on mental health, the onset of mental ill health, including depression and suicidal behavior and can increase the likelihood of those with mental health problems seeking professional help." Social relation is defined as the relationship between two individuals and I know that after listening to this episode you are going to come away with a much better understanding of why your male family member acts the way they act. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources - These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media Links/Resources: Mercier Wellness The Couples Counsel - Apple Podcast Creole Adventures Guest Appearance on The Couples Counsel Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 114 Transcript Episode 114 Transcript... Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I'm your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com, as well as the CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting, helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy. And this week we end Men's Health Month. Again, we’ve had some amazing guests this month. And I want to touch on a topic that I think gets brush over when we talk about men's health, right? And that's the mental aspect of it. And most importantly, we're gonna be talking about the importance of social relationships in men, right? And when they lack it, what's the problem and what happens when they have a good social relationship, right? And when I was thinking about the topic of hand and I was trying to figure out who should we bring on this episode only had a couple people in mind and I was very fortunate enough to get Dr. Jameson Mercier on podcast to really drive home the fact that if our mind isn't there, if we don't connect. And again this is a very tough topic for men to talk about because when it comes to our emotions when it comes to the mental health when it comes to getting ourselves together for other people, is that something we do willingly. And Dr. Mercier, as a clinical social worker who has a Doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy and he deals with it on the mental health aspect. I've talked about it all the time wherein medicine, I sometimes have trouble getting my men to open up to me to tell me like, hey, I'm having these medical related problems. So you can only imagine the difficulty he may be experiencing and not maybe he actually does and experience when dealing with getting men to open up about their mental health wellness and wellbeing. So again, I wanted to kind of give a little quick little bio just so you can understand just how important this guy, Dr. Mercier is for not only discussion but just the topic of mental health in general. So Dr. Jameson Mercier is a licensed clinical social worker. Like I said, a doctor in Marriage and Family Therapy where he got his Ph.D. and family therapy from Nova southeastern university. He also earned a bachelor's and master's degree in social work from the University of South Florida and Barry University, is areas of specialization include marriage and family therapy as well as fatherhood. He is a qualified supervisor for the state of Florida for clinical social work, family therapy, and mental health counseling interns. Dr. Mercier provides counseling for families, couples as well as individuals. He consults with businesses, nonprofits, churches, and government organizations. He has been featured in various media outlets including Hot 105, The Miami Herald, The Discovery Channel, Bustle, and Huffington Post. He and his wife own a private practice called Mercier Wellness and Consulting. And ladies and gentlemen, most importantly, especially if you have a kind of been up to speed on everything, he and his wife actually have a podcast as well, which is called The Couple's Counsel. And me and my wife had actually had the opportunity to join onto the show and really talk about our relationships and how we deal with growing up with a child with autism. Right. So if you had not had a chance, I will link that episode, link in the show notes as well. Just like you can get a chance to obviously get in touch with their podcast. You listen to their podcast, subscribe to their podcast here. Me and my wife kind of discuss our journey parenting a child with autism. Of course the theme today is Men's Health Month and we're talking about mental health. We’re talking about social connections and relationships and I really wanted to hit this home because again, I've talked about the cancer's a lot, right? You know, earlier this month I talked about just making sure they go do their wellness exam. We had doctor Jen who actually hit home erectile dysfunction, sexual health. So again, we've talked about a lot of huge topics when we talk about men’s health and I figured there was no way I could end this month, a discussion on men's health without speaking on the mental health aspect of it. Right? So like always, if you have not had a chance, go ahead subscribe to the podcast and leave a five-star review. Again, I want you to follow Mercier. All of his information will be in the show notes as well. Get on their podcasts, subscribe to their podcast, five-star review their podcasts as well because it's actually amazing. And get ready for another amazing episode here on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright Lunch and Learn community, you just heard another amazing introduction to Dr. Jameson. I've actually had the opportunity to not only meet in internet spirit out, you know, a lot of us get a chance to talk to, also met personally and been able to collaborate on different events here and there and definitely fortunate enough to get this gentleman. A personal actually well-respected on the podcast. Dr. Jameson Mercier, first of all, thank you for coming to the podcast and educating the Lunch and Learn community today. Dr. Jameson Mercier: It's my honor. Thank you for the invite. Dr. Berry: So you know, I gave your introduction, which again amazing. Again, it's been this running theme that a lot of our guests have our resume that I'm sometimes in awe of as myself. But for someone who, you know, they read it, they read your bio, what is something that they may not be able to know about you that isn't necessarily in our typical bio? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Funny, you should ask I guess a little known trivia or the little known fact I suppose because of the line of work that I'm in. So mental health counseling, I realize maybe a long time ago, but really a few years ago just how much I needed to be able to do something for myself to be able to disconnect and separate and recharge. And so I am, I want to call myself an avid outdoorsman, but living here in South Florida and the city, there's only so much outdoors. (You’re right.) But I enjoyed being outside. I enjoy camping. As a matter of fact, tomorrow we leave for a camping trip and then we leave for a road trip that involves another week of camping. It's going to be a four-week road trip. (Wow.) So I do that because if you do 8, 10, 12 hours sometime working with people, counseling, mental health medicine, as you well know, you need to be able to separate that and give your mind something to focus on other than people's problems and patients who may not be compliant. And so for me, the way I kind of maintain some of my own sanity and my own mental health, getting outside, whether that's fishing, whether that's just going out by the water or anything, really that's something I enjoy and I've started taking the kids, my wife, her dean will join me sometimes. We're documenting some of that. Just side notice, a little passion project. We have a new Instagram and YouTube channel that's called Creel Adventures. Dr. Berry: Okay. Alright. And the links will be in the show notes because I definitely wanna hear about this. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Yeah. And so all that is, is simply, you know, me disconnecting, being out in nature, doing some camping, fishing and just something just to recharge my mental, my emotional so I can come back and be just as good. Dr. Berry: I love it. And when you're doing these things right, you're like there are no cell phones, as disconnected as can be. Right? So it's not like you're going, but you're bringing all the technology with you? Dr. Jameson Mercier: No, no. As a matter of fact, when I go out and I go camping, I tried to get as primitive as possible. Right. You know, so I don't need no hookup for electricity. I don't need anything. (Oh, wow. Okay.) But when you bring your kids, and especially when you bring your wife who maybe lacks the creature comforts, (yes) there's some compromise that needs to happen there. But I could go without it. I don't need it. And you know, that stemmed from a couple of years, three or four years now did I did a show with the discovery channel where I was in the woods for two weeks. It was a survival show. So no, it was not naked and afraid. It was not naked and afraid. There was another show. But when you spend two weeks in the wilderness with a knife, some matchsticks and a canteen of water, you really begin to realize how little you need to survive. How little you need and how much, how good that does just to be disconnected and totally in nature. And so that really was a boost for me and I tried to get out there as often as I can. Dr. Berry: That’s amazing. Again, we'll definitely make sure where he got the links to that because I'm very interested as well. I'm not outdoorsman but you could probably convince me to go for a day or two, where you're going on for a week. So I'm definitely alright. (Do it man. Do it.) A question I ask, obviously when we talk about the disconnection, right? Your primary field is therapy. My wife's mental health therapy field as well. And it's definitely something that I know has made me a better physician because of it and because of the acknowledgment that I can only do so much. Without addressing the mental health aspect of a person. What drove you to that direction in the first place? What was it that made you say, you know what, this is something I could see myself doing? Dr. Jameson Mercier: So there's a couple of stories that come together to answer that for the sake of time, I'll give you the condensed version. When I was young, I was about eight or nine, my dad died and my mother was left to raise my brother and me and my sister. And at the time we did, you know, you have the church that supports you and they come and they kind of sit and pray with you. But we did not get any kind of counseling, traditional counseling, professional counseling. And in hindsight, we could have definitely benefited from even just a few sessions as a family, of grief counseling or of just some regular run of the mill counseling, whatever that might be. You know, just to kind of process what's going on. Because as I got older, I was angry. I was rebellious. Looking back, I was not as destructive as some would say, but I could see how some of my actions stemmed from the loss of my father. And so when I got into college and I was struggling. I was like, you know, let me just kind of figure this out. And when I realized that if I had gotten some counseling, things we've gotten did go different from me as it there's got to be more people who could benefit from what I didn't get. And so originally I wanted to do psychology, but I'll leave that to the guys who like to do the testing and assessments. I wanted to be in the homes with the families dealing with some of these issues. And social work is what I discovered with social work. And once I found social work, I hit the ground running and then I decided to specialize in marriage and family therapy because the issues that we are seeing in society, a lot of times really do stem from dysfunction within the home and within the family. (Let's talk about it. I love it.) What happens, they go unresolved. They go unaddressed and then they cycle and we talk about this, you know, there's that generational cycles. Some people will call it a generation occurs. It's simply a matter of not resolving what you know exists within your family and these patterns we just hand them down. One generation after another. And so I resolved myself to break that cycle within my family and to help other people who are willing to break these dysfunctional cycles and patterns within their relationships. Dr. Berry: What’s very interesting and especially the focus of marriage and family and understanding like where it starts and within. We talked this month, this is Men's Health Month. And when I was thinking about the topics that I wanted to kinda touch on, which is very typical, right? You know, the prostate cancer, colon, all of these things that happen to men and know men do not get in themselves together. I think a lot of times the mental health aspect is when that kind of gets brushed over, unfortunately. And more importantly, especially when we're talking about men and, and I know you, obviously you have kind of established a niche, right? Where you like talking to men. Like that's your thing, right? Which is always interesting. Because like I always figured we'd probably be the most difficult, the niche to deal with. We were terrible. Dr. Jameson Mercier: We are terrible. And I recognize that. I recognize just how bad men are when it comes to talking and communicating. Even with our wives sometimes, you know, the women in our lives, our kids, and it isn't that we don't want to. In my own experience has shown me that everything we want to say or should say is right there behind our teeth. It's on the back of the, on the inside of our lips. A lot of us, yes, we're not taught how to communicate like that. A lot of us didn't see it modeled for us. And so it isn't that we don't get the urge, we just can't bring our lips together to say those things we know are there, you know? So in my practice, when I get dad or a man or husband, whatever he is in life when I get them while they're in my office or on a virtual call, I hold on to that guy. I do not take it for granted because I understand all the things that had to happen (before you could get to it.) Oh man! (Wow. Okay.) You know, and it's interesting when it's almost like a friend, you know, it's almost like bro, I've been for you. And he's like yo, that unspoken conversation that happens and if there's a wife or girlfriend there, they don't understand. But I am just so glad to see men who show up to have those conversations. Dr. Berry: And what I love about, especially the motivation behind episode like this is when, and of course I'm doing my research. I'm looking up mental health and you know, all of the issues that men need to deal with. And I came across this a very interesting article. It was actually in the Journal of American Men's Health. And it hit me. Because it talks about social connections and really the lack thereof. It talks about men's health, it talks about the lack of proper support which led to a lot of the different issues I deal with on the medical side. Whether it's noncompliance, whether it be alcohol and substance abuse, where it on all of these things that I do from a medical side that this article really said like, hey, you know what, if they actually like established some good stuff, in the beginning, it wouldn't be a problem. But unfortunately, we don't. And then we ended up dealing with me, unfortunately. And so I want to talk about like, this was one of this first sentence kind of hit me right off the head. It said social connections can act as a buffer against the impact of stressful or negative life experiences on mental health. The onset of mental ill health, including depression and suicidal behavior and, can increase the likelihood of those mental health problems from being sought. And I didn't realize. Again, I may be naive because of course that's not my field. How important these social relationships and social connections are when it comes to men, that was something that kind of like took me abreast. Is that something that you find not just to be a common thing, but sometimes like it's in that issue where like wow, like yeah, they really have problems from the beginning just talking to people? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Yes, men, we do. But let me give you an example that in my mind and in my opinion crystallizes that phrase that you just read. When you look at the military and you take these 20 men, 50 men, hundred men, whatever the case is, and you put them in a group, you put them through some very difficult stuff. This is even before they go to battle, but you put them through boot camp, you put them through whatever school they're going to together. They eat and sleep together. They do everything together. When they actually do, then go and see theater, they go to war. They have much better cohesion. They operate so much better. When you compare one guy who did not move with them and was dropped in after the fact. So the one guy, for example, was not part of this community. Okay, so there's something about being in a group that does buffer you, that does keep you safe. The guys who are suffering depression, the guys who are battling thoughts of suicide, they're not part of a group. They're not. It's very hard to remain sad and depressed when you are amongst a group. It's hard, one, the group on lets you, but even if you just kind of stay on the periphery on the fringes, there's something that happens there, you know, and they've studied this all along, especially in guys who are in the military. When you move together with a group, when you have that accountability and we don't need 50 guys, one or two good guys, good friends, it is a protective factor. Totally. This is why an AA, they do the group thing and they have the sponsor thing. This is why they are designed like that because that accountability from the groups, it's hard to recreate that. Dr. Berry: Does that kind of like lessen the burden? Does that kind of lesson, oh it totally causes they're gonna face the stressors? But like because you do it within a group setting it's not as much? Is that the thought process? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Yeah. It's not that you don't face it. It is that when you do face it, you have other people on which to share the load. It's funny, we go to school and we study all these things and I realize if I just watch women when it comes to this whole social contract thing. (Okay.) So much because women have this thing down the pack. If you're with five or six women at work or at a conference one we'll get up and they'll say, I'm going to the bathroom and then two or three will get up. I'm coming with you. As men, we don't do that. (No.) We don't do that. We don't even announce it. We just get up. I'll be back. If if we say that much, you know what I mean? And I had this conversation with a colleague of mine. I said, why do you guys announce that you're going to the restroom? And she looked at me, she says, I do? It's something they didn't even notice that. (So kind of like ingrained in them to say, like hey.) Something they do, anybody wants to come. And so go into the bathroom is not about going to the bathroom for them it's about, it's a social activity. Dr. Berry: Especially because the theory that adds there, right? Like that's either ingrained in them. Right? Versus from a like either genetic standpoint or just a social construct. They've grown up since they were little with these similar patterns. Do you find that's the case for men? Right. We're just ingrained to be individual. We're just ingrained to be alone and we almost have to be placed in army barracks type situation before we'll go out and join forces and hold hands. I wonder about that? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Well you know, when I think back and I observed kids, boys play like that. Boys and girls move and little cliques and groups and herds, but there comes a point where we make boys feel like that's not cool. You know, in elementary school boys will go to the bathroom together and boys will actually do like girls do and play in the bathroom. But somewhere along the line, they get this message that boys don't do that. And what we don't realize is, we begin to eat away at something that is very much beneficial. And so when they're young, we tell them they can't hang like that. When they're teenagers, you definitely don't do that for whatever homophobic reasons for whatever negative stereotypes. Men just don't do that until you find yourself in your mid-twenties and 30s and forties and now for you to say to a guy, hey, how are you doing? It's very awkward. (Let's talk about it.) It's awkward. It’s unfortunate, and I'll even take it further. I think there's something about black men in particular where this kind of seeing another man and just kind of approach, hey brother, how are you doing? Are you good? How are you feeling? Approaching another brother, another black man and saying, hey, how's your day going? Are you good? You know, the man, being a man, if we're to be a man, we can't be like that. Dr. Berry: And you know, I'm glad we kind of touched on this because of this kind of segues into my next concern. What is like the role of masculinity? Because I think we've kind of danced around what that it is, right? When they go from elementary school to middle school to high school too, you know, I think we danced around it, at least in my thought. Right? I've talked about it and sometimes I don't want to say sometimes I do blame masculinity in a lot of the different concerns, at least I see on the medical side. Versus them coming to see me for physicals for them even allow me to do certain physical exams that I need to do properly, like a dresser. What has been your experience on the relationship of masculinity and mental health and these social constructs when we talk about their social relationships in general? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Yeah. You know, if you're gonna be a man, if you're going to be masculine, you gotta be tough. You got to keep whatever issues you have inside. And so on your end, it's the medical stuff where at your legs been hurting, your back's been hurting, you walk in all crooked, hunched over, but you gotta be a man. You can't complain about that. On my side, yeah, you might be feeling sad. You might be depressed. You might be crying in your car. You might be sitting in your truck for an hour, just unable to pull it together. But you can't tell nobody that because men don't cry. Nobody wants to hear men complain. All kinds of just jacked up ideas. You know if you're going to be tough, if you're going to be a man, there are just some things that you don't do. Right? All the emotional stuff or the soft stuff, whatever the hell that is or those are, it's unfortunate. Dr. Berry: First of all, I think that’s 100% head on. Right? And for those who, Lunch and Learn community, usually when I talk about, when men come to my office to do the yearly physicals and I see their significant other or family member there, a lot of times they usually won't say nothing unless I ask the question like, oh is there anything else going on? And they'd be like, no. And I'm like, hey you better tell them about this. This is like, they're ready because they just assume like, like this person I'm sitting in there isn't going to tell you the full story. Dr. Jameson Mercier: They know. And so in my case, especially if I'm working with couples, I'll see them together a couple of sessions and then I separate them still. I see them on individual sessions and it's not until I get the guy by himself in my office, I get this whole narrative and I'm like, bro, we've been together for a couple of weeks. Why didn't you say this? And the reason why is because his wife or his girlfriend was there. And I'm like, whoa, how much are you not saying? Because you live with this person. Dr. Berry: Exactly. Interesting. Okay. Alright. Let's see. Let's see. Alright. I don't want to say I'm glad it happens on the mental health side, but I'm glad it's not just a medical. Dr. Jameson Mercier: No, no. We as men have a lot of problems, man. And I say that as lovingly and understandingly as possible. (Sure.) Because we just, I'll tell you a quick story. When I was in college, I was at 24, 25. I went to see my primary and I was working like crazy. I was studying, I had two and a half jobs still broke. So the stress was this way and heavy. And I came down with what I thought was a fever or a cold, and I went to see my doctor and they were like, ah, after a couple of tests they thought I had lymphoma. And so I'm like, I don't even know how to spell that. Like much less what that is. (Wow.) You know? And at the time my wife and I were dating, I go to the doctor and I come back, she goes, how was the doctor's appointment? How did it go? I'm like, eh, it was ok. Dr. Berry: Oh wow. Lunch and Learn community, I'm really laughing because you'd be surprised how often, like that conversation occurs and they'll be like, I just told my husband, he said, nothing went and his appointment was fine. I'm like, no. It wasn't like I told them this, this. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Man, listen. And so the week I went, my wife was supposed to travel for a little bit. My wife, my girlfriend at the time. And so I let her leave without telling her anything. And so I think the following day, however it played out, I had a biopsy scheduled and I'm living with a bunch of guys at this time and I said to the guys, hey, I'm might need a ride to the doctor. I didn't say hospital. (You didn't even tell them why?) And I'm living in a room in a house with four or five guys, including my brother. And so they dropped me off. I walk in, I have my biopsy. In a biopsy, they put you under and it down there like all day. And my wife was looking for me later that night. She was out of town, she couldn't find me. So finally she calls my brother and she's like, hey, I can't find Jameson, what's up? He's like, Oh yeah, I took him to a doctor's appointment. She's like, what doctor's appointment? And then he says doctor’s appointment at the hospital and my wife, she like, (hold on.) sharp tool, man. She goes, who the hell has a doctor's appointment at the hospital? And it's like nine o'clock at night and they're still there? Bro, and so I had to come clean and so, and again, I look back and I’m just like, that is so dumb. That is like so dumb. I'm not too hard on myself because I was in my twenties, but still, that is dumb. And I can excuse the young, my youth, the ignorance of my youth to some extent, but at 40 and 50 and 60, my God, there is absolutely no reason at all. Dr. Berry: And it still happens, for sure still happens. Which is wow, it's very interesting because you aren't telling a unique story bro. (I wish I was. I wish I was.) Okay. Alright, see. Like I said, I like this kindred spirit that we got going on here, right? Because like now I'm seeing how much on the mental health side, you guys clearly have the deal. We have just as much, if not more than we deal with on the medical side because you know, we were so personal. We think like, all right, maybe it's just us, right? Maybe they just don't want to take care. Clearly, even when they're on your end… Dr. Jameson Mercier: Always, universal man, it's universal. And the thing is I think, and maybe this is my bias, it's a little worse on my end because you can see a bad leg, you can see the physical manifestations. Me, I don't know anything. If you don't tell me. (Nope.) If you're not having an episode in my office, if no one saw you having an episode, if you don't come to my office smelling like alcohol, I don't know that you have a drinking problem. (Cool. Let's go.) I don't know that you're not sleeping because even if you're not sleeping, you get a quick nap in you look fine for an hour session. So, and we as men are like, we're just, forgive me, full of shit sometimes. We are manipulators and we've learned the art of covering up the pain. We mask it well. We hide it from strangers and unfortunately, I loved ones in our family. So whenever I get the chance, I sent texts and my friends or I see the campaigns that just say, hey, ask a friend, is he okay? Because there's guaranteed he's going through something and if he tells you he's okay. Call him a liar. (Yes.) Check your boy. Dr. Berry: Talk it. I love it and the reason why I love that because the article, right? I kind of started it all right? It broke down very typical relationships that men tend to have. Right? And then we've touched on, we've already actually touched on quite a few of them and they, they broken out to kind of four categories, right? They talked about the type of man who likes to like compartmentalize their relationship, right? So this is a person who treats his boys like boys, but treats his girl like this girls, right? So he is open. To be emotional to his girl, but not his boys. Right? Like, so in your situation, where you're in the house with not only your friends but a family and you're like, alright, this is the position I'm putting you in this box, but I'm going to tell my girl all this other stuff here. Hopefully, I'm going to tell her all of these, my emotional support. And I think what was interesting is that they found that even a person who has that type of relationship does it really consider themselves emotional. Right? So even when they're talking in the sense of like, I'm just talking to my girl, I'm living my girl, know how she feels. Oh, she just kinda tells me her stuff. They don't even consider themselves the emotional type, even on the, for the women's side, which I thought was extremely interesting. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Yeah. We can't even allow ourselves to consider that. Dr. Berry: Wow. And then there’s another type where we talk about a person who just has some difficulty and confining. Right? So this is a person who, they understand like, you know, I need to tell the person something that, let me just see where he's at. But because they have poor judgment, they don't realize like, oh, Berry not the type you tell that to in a way he's going to laugh at you and make fun of you and then they regress, right? (Yup, Yup, Yup.) And then they're like a closed shell and then it's even harder to get them to open up again. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Listen, I'll tell you another story, does that tell you another quick story. And some of my boys and I, we try to catch a football game every year, right? So whether we drive somewhere or fly somewhere, some years we get it in other years because of work, we can't. One year I was just, I was having some difficulties. My wife and I, we were like disagreeing on some stuff. We were disagreeing on some stuff and for whatever reason, I didn't feel like I could talk to her. I knew I could, but I don't know. We were just bumping heads. And this trip was coming up and I was so grateful for this trip (it's almost like an escape.) Oh, it gave me a way out for a few days and so I go to pick up my boy and then I think we were two or three in the car and we're driving and I'm sitting in the car and I said, man, they say, yo Jay, how are you doing? I'm like man, you know what man, is kind of messed up lately. That's what I said. And I can't tell you how much energy it took me to just kind of slide that just to say that. Right? But then I said that and then the guys in the car, they didn't say anything. (Silence. Just like as if you never even said anything.) They didn't say anything and in my mind I was like, look at these mofos right here, here I am screaming for help and blah blah blah. In hindsight, I was talking to one of them, this was maybe last year or two years ago, and I said, yo, you remember that trip? You remember that time? And he was like, kind of. I was like yo man, I was going through it and he goes, what? What do you mean? I said, yeah, and I said this. And he goes, what? That's all you said? We had a good laugh about it, man. But I'm just like, oh my goodness, it is insane the things that we go through. All I had to say was, guys, I'm struggling. If I had said, guys, I'm struggling, they would have rallied around me. (Right.) But I hid that or I pretended. Dr. Berry: I guess the better question is, would you have been able to get that type of insight where you would have realized that that was the code word you would have needed, right? Because it sounds like you said it, but not in the way they were willing to like, oh I can't, I'm not sure how to interpret this so I'm not going to go in that direction. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Well, here's the thing though. One, I mean these guys are not counselors. So, I've got to give them that much. And so I didn't necessarily communicate it in a way that they would've gotten it. I communicated it in a way that was as painless and easy for me to get it out. And sometimes the two just don't connect. Right? What's easy for me to say doesn't translate into someone understanding that I have some challenges going on. But we spent the whole weekend together, tailgating, drinking, eating and the whole time I'm worried about my relationship and my marriage and they didn't tell crap about that. Dr. Berry: Wow. It's funny. (It’s insane.) It’s insane, it really is because that really is how a lot of our relationships are formed. And whether we, the ones are actually forming that way. Right? Because again, like you know like your boy said, he's like, well why didn't you just say this? Like I would've been ready to help but you didn't say. Dr. Jameson Mercier: If nothing does, he would have been like yo dog, we got you. And you know what? That would have been all I needed at the time because again, I know they can't treat me. Yeah, I understand that. But I could have used a shoulder to lean on but I had to make the first move. Right? I had to be vulnerable in that sense. And that is something that we do not do well. Dr. Berry: Do you think we are capable of doing it well? Because I know we've talked about women because they've been ingrained in society. Has provided and allowed them that space. Do you think we're actually even capable of being that type of person who knows to reach out when they see that social media posts like, hey, reach out to my strong friend. Is that something that we can even do? Dr. Jameson Mercier: Without a doubt, man. We are capable. Because again, as men, as people, we have the capacity to do so much. We have the emotional capacity, we have the mental capacity, we are capable beings. The challenges, we are often not in a community, in a setting that creates a space for that. If you don't grow up observing that, if you don't grow up seeing your father, your cousin, your brother surrounded by men who put a hand on him, who hug him, who embrace each other, men who will cry together. Then you don't do that. You don't do that. You know, if you don't witness it, because it's a skill, right? We're talking about communication. We're talking about personal and interpersonal skills. It is a skill. The same way we can learn to communicate better with the women in our lives. We can definitely communicate better with the men and our friends and our buddies, guys who come to rely on in other capacities. This would just simply be just another form of support for us. We are totally, we are more than capable. Dr. Berry: Okay. Alright. So for the men who are able to grow their skill and practice this skill and be actually proficient in doing it, what has been your experience as far as how has it affected the other parts of the relationship, just in general? What has been your experience for that type of guy who's able to reach out and say, hey, I need help or reach out to them and honestly be the person who someone reaches out to? What has been your experience in those types of men especially from a positive standpoint in regards to their other experiences and health and wealth and everything else? Dr. Jameson Mercier: You know, it opens doors and windows you didn't know was there. Two things I said, you know, the two things that change your life - the books you read and the people you meet. And I've met some brothers who have totally changed my life. Whether it's business connections, whether it's learning about this new place I need to visit or whether it's about just have to find someone with a similar interest, you know? But guys who are able to say that, you know, listen, it sounds cheesy, you feel just a little bit freer. You feel free to move because you're less concerned about all that baggage and all that crap. You got to hide and you got to make sure nobody sees and at the same time you're hiding it, but you're trying to look like you just gliding on the water all the damn time. It allows for so much more to happen once you are able to just express that. Once you are able to say, hey guys, hey, I'm not doing so hot right now. Or if you don't hear from me over the weekend, just a quick phone call. You know, just those little things. It totally changes people's, I know for me being able to do that, and again, it's not always easy. But with the guys in my life who I am able to do that with, the quality of my relationship with these guys, my quality of life and that's not an exaggeration, has dramatically improved. Dr. Berry: I love it. So first of all, I really want to thank you for being able to really come up and kind of open up some of the eyes. And even if it's a right, just some of the mental locks that are there, especially for men. Obviously, it’s Men's Health Month. They’re going to get talked about prostate cancer and all those stuff to deal, right? But the fact that we're not allowing that to do blow over that mental health is important too. Right? A relationship is important. The fact that we're not allowing that to happen. I definitely want to thank you for coming onto the show and really driving home that fact. That I'm not, I don't think anyone else could have, especially because again, and I'm dating myself like as we speak, you're currently doing a Dadfident series, right? On Your podcast which I've been listening to, especially the one with Mr. Tracy Martin. (Yeah.) Another discussion. I mean the fact that you're able to kind of reach out and recognize and you're taking that mantle that it's difficult, right? I know it's difficult because it's difficult on the medical side, I love when, because I know the women are just easier, unfortunately. So I know when I got to do deal with men man, I got to put some work in it. But you're like headfirst. No, this is the group I want to go after. Dr. Jameson Mercier: That's my people's man. That's my people. You know when you recognize somebody going through something that you went through and you learned a few things, so you learn one thing, you got one thing in your pocket and you say, yo bro, just do this. Like, don't even think about it. Do just do this thing. And I'm sure you in in your field as well, you said, yo, just do this one thing and you'll be fine. You know, like I feel like that's what I'm here for. I say, bro, just try this and you'll be fine. All this stuff that you got going on that you're struggling with. Trust me, trust me. (Yes.) Do these two things and you'll be good. Dr. Berry: I love it. Before we let you go, I always want to really highlight the amazing guests that we have here and just really the amazing stuff that they do. So this I like to call is more of my promo type hour. I want you to tell Lunch and Learn community, obviously, you know, what do you get to offer, books, obviously you're everywhere, right? Like, again, if you listen to his bio, this guy's been everywhere. But you have anything you've got going on right now, whether it be courses, books, seminars, speaking engagement, what's going on in your world, obviously outside of this camping trip and that you've got to get off? Dr. Jameson Mercier: The easiest way to find out about us, I'll put this in upfront is mercierwellness.com and so that's the website, everything Mercier. And so by Mercier, I'm talking myself and my wife, Herdyne. We have a podcast where we talk couple stuff, whether that's communication, finances, parenting, we're wrapping up season one and prepping for season two. And so that's a lot of fun. It's a lot more fun than we thought it would be. Dr. Berry: Oh yes. And I can tell you Lunch and Learn community, me and my wife were on there. It was an amazing time. (Yes.) And I will make sure that link is in the show notes as well too. Amazing time. My wife and his wife know each other very well. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Of course, they do right? They’re women. They just know. And even if they didn't know each other, they would know each other because that's what women do. Dr. Berry: You know, so funny story especially that, I hate to cut you off. When your wife was actually reaching out to my wife, she even realizes like I was the husband. So she's like, oh can you get your husband, was like, oh, Mercier. She was like, who’s the husband? Berry Pierre. Oh, Berry Pierre! Like it was totally oblivious. Right? Everything was all about my wife at that time. Dr. Jameson Mercier: That's it. As I tell my wife, you're the connector here, you do it all. That's just how women are and we need women in our lives. So, Mercier Wellness. mercierwellness.com (That’s right.) The name of the podcast is The Couple's Council. That's what it's called. And that's everywhere on iTunes, that's everywhere. Once you're on iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, we’re there. We're getting ready to do, Herdyne and I were getting ready to do like a couple series, a couple’s couple series. One about intimacy because this is also another area when it comes to sex and intimacy. Couples are not communicating about that. Dr. Berry: Wow. And if you think you were going to communicate with anybody, it'd be your significant other. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Who you laying in bed with. Who you just living your life with day in and day out. And so recognizing this need where we were putting together a workshop about couples and intimacy. On the flip side, we're also gonna be releasing some new, starting up some new webinars, online webinars. People can log on and watch about different topics. So in addition to the podcast, we have those things that are dripping out and on the dad fit in front dead. You know, once I say this and I have to follow through with it and I almost don't want to go. Dr. Berry: Let’s go. He’s on record right now. Let's go. Dr. Jameson Mercier: I know, right? There’s a book that semi-done right? It’s called Dadfident: Black Fathers as Primary Caregivers. (Oh! I like that.) The idea that the black fathers don't do that. And that's a bald-faced lie, not all black and brown fathers are locked up or absent. So that's going to drop soon. And there's a couple of things that follow that. So we're busy around here and just trying to do some good work, man. Dr. Berry: I love it. And before you go, I always ask this question, how is what you're doing really helping to empower the men, especially obviously the dads and whatever they're at in life, really improve their mental health and wellbeing and social relationships and everything above. Dr. Jameson Mercier: We are empowered. Once you begin to see that it's possible, you know, seeing is believing. And as men, you know, listen, you could tell me what you want, but show me, show me if you can show me that it works, you might have a chance. And so not only do I preach this and I teach this, but I strive to be even a role model. I don't like that. But I understand why that word exists. You know, I started to be an example to say, hey, it's okay. You know, do this because I do it too. So I understand I'm not selling you something I don't know. And I recognize that seeing someone who looks like you, talks like you, eat with you, who lives your life, do these things that you've been told historically you cannot do. That's where the empowerment comes from. Dr. Berry: I love it. Again, Lunch and Learn community members, definitely an amazing way to end Men's Health Month. But understanding that Men's Health Month is just a mouth. Like we gotta be about our health 24/7, 12 months out the year, right? So again Dr. Mercier, thank you for really blessing Lunch and Learn community, in a podcast with just such amazing introspection to what you have to deal with and really what men have to deal with and how to get better. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Listen, this has been awesome for me as well. Listen, I could talk this all day. I appreciate the invitation and anytime you want to get out there, man, get out in the woods. You let me know. We'd been saying we gotta Hook Up, man. (Yes.) We’re in the same area. Dr. Berry: We were probably like less than half an hour away. We were really in the same county. (There's no reason why we can't make it happen Dr. B.) All right. You know what? This is what we plan it right on the wax here, right? So I will be camping out. I'm putting it out. I'm going to camp. I'm going to go out and camp. Dr. Jameson Mercier: There's gonna be footage of it too. (Yes.) That's fact once it's documented. Dr. Berry: Yeah. Alright. You have a great day. Thank you again. Dr. Jameson Mercier: Thank you. Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

I am planning a Security Summer for my listeners.  I will have some free courses.  I will also introduce you to some of the software that I use for my clients and how you can use it too.  Also, I have some limited opportunities for businesses who have had enough with their security issues to work with me and my team and put their security problems to rest once and for all.   So watch out for announcements on those. The News Industry says Google is skimming billions from them -- listen in to hear the whole story. Have you thought about automation and jobs in the future? Microsoft planning for future jobs in a unique way, I'll be talking about this more today. The NSA is warning about the seriousness of a new vulnerability -- solution PATCH now! I will tell you why they think it is so dangerous. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Transcript:  Below is a rush transcript of this segment; it might contain errors. Airing date: 06/15/2019 Is Google really skimming billions from the news industry, Microsoft planning for future jobs in a unique way, The NSA is warning about the seriousness of a new vulnerability -- solution PATCH now! ---- Come on, is this true? Could it be true? Are publishers losing money because of Google and Google's news service? Or is it getting better? We'll talk about that interesting article from New York magazine and the big complaint by the New York Times. This last week, we've got another hack to talk about! My gosh, this is just amazing. Another Federal Government database got hacked this week. In that database, there were tons of travelers information, including photos that the government's been hoarding, er I mean collecting. By the way, you might remember, I was told you a couple of weeks ago about the feds putting in these new facial ID systems at some of the airports, ports of entry various places and the success that the beta test they conducted. They were using that to track people who were here legally or illegally, with an emphasis on illegally, for various reasons, I think, frankly and they also found some impersonators. So we'll talk a little bit about that and what happened there. Next, we have a murder trial that is getting underway involving a guy arrested last year. Now you've probably heard about the Golden State killer, but I don't think you've heard about this guy. We were hoping this case might set some seriously relevant precedents going forward, but it looks like it might not. However, maybe it will happen in some future cases. Of course, this is Craig Peterson. And we talk about tech every week right here. And more particularly, we tend to talk about security, because for close to four decades, it has been my passion. I first got hacked back in the early 90s. It was a worm, you know, think of computer worms like the kind that happened here or what a year and a half ago when millions of people were majorly inconvenienced by the what happened with the WannaCry worm that crawled through the internet and ransomed machines galore. It bought whole businesses down, except for my clients, right? I gotta, put that out there. We're going to talk about that today, too. Hey, this week the NSA took an unprecedented step and issued a warning which is something they rarely if ever do. Also, Microsoft did something amazing that they have never done before, so we'll get to all of that as well. But let's go back to my original question here today. And that is, frankly, Google and the New York Times. They have well been going at it, and I would call it a fight if you were to ask me. It boils down to a report that came out of the industry. Now can you believe the industry, right? The industry report, this is from the News Media Alliance - Voice of News Media Industry‎. It is an industry group within the publishing news media. You know what, I love that term study because it can be used for almost anything, right? I'm at Starbucks, and I asked a couple of people questions. Well, I just completed a study, and it showed... Well, in this particular case, the News Media Alliance says, that Google earned nearly $5 billion in revenue by stealing news articles from them. So how does that work? If you search for something on Google, they will intermix some news articles in the search results and provide you with a little summary. If you go to news.google com, I don't know if you've ever done that, but news.google.com, you might want to check it out. It has new stories on all kinds of topics, including your local news. How do you get that information? Or I should say, how does Google get that information? Well, they go out, and it does what is called scraping, and it scrapes news sites that are out there. Scraping is an awful thing, frankly. Because there they are, stealing stuff. So, let's talk about what I do and what other news commentators do. You know, this is an editorial, Right? I'm a commentator on the news. I'm not a writer, and I'm certainly not a journalist. I'm a commentator, frankly. So when I'm looking at an article, you'll hear me talk about it. So, for instance, I'm going to refer to some material from New York Magazine here. And they've got some great quotes in it, and I am commenting about it, perfectly legal, I can do all of that. Well, how about Google? When we're talking about the Fair Use doctrine that's in place, and it has been forever in our copyright law? Is it fair use for Google to look through a news site, find an article, summarize that article using some machine learning algorithms. They have some programs that rip thru these articles and summarize it, grabbing a sentence here and there, put it all together and put it up on their site. Google did not write that article. Google may have written, you know, a little bit of the stuff they're showing, but typically, they're just stealing the paragraph or so from the article. If you were not aware, the courts have heard arguments about this very thing, and the way the law stands right now is that Google has the right to do what they are doing because when you click on that search result, it takes you directly into the original site. You might remember the lawsuits that happened a few years back, on what they called, deep links. These were where various companies were saying, "No, no, no, We can't link to an article," you can only link to our homepage. That was because they wanted people to have the experience of going through their website. Well, the experience of going through the website, of course, was to see the ads on their homepage, while you were trying to find the article you want to see. By going through a few other pages, they were collecting hits on these pages, which gave them more impressions. More impressions meant more ad revenue. Why? They base ad revenue on the number of impressions. It depends on the algorithm chosen, impressions vs. clicks. That is a different type of payment. Well anyways, they were hoping they'd get more money. Eventually, those died out as the lawsuits began dying out. So it was decided, no, you can have a deep link, as I do. I have deep links, where I refer to an article, and it says read more typically, you click on that, bam, it takes you right over to the website that has a synopsis of the article or an editorial commentary and then a link to the original article itself. So Google is being accused by this news media alliance of stealing their revenue. There is a great article, as I said, it's from New York Magazine, and you'll see reference to it up on my website at Craig Peterson dot com. It noted that Google estimated that Google News or product without ads brought in an estimated 100 million dollars in yearly revenue back in 2008. So that's more than a decade ago. So what happened was the played fast and loose with that number, and extrapolated forward saying, well, that hundred million in revenue means an estimated 4.7 billion of revenue in 2018 to Google from news content. I am sorry, but that is total crap. What does that $100 million number mean? It was Marissa Mayer, you might remember her, she floated that number at a conference when she was the head of Google search, a decade-plus ago. So what does it mean, frankly? Well, it means that Google estimated the value of its news service. Now, remember, they're not running ads, they're not getting money directly off of that. What's the back end? Well, here's the bottom line on the back end, Google is showing news articles. They have them all there on the news.google.com site, and they're putting them into the search results, as well. The reality is that the traffic from Google search to news publishers sites has risen by more than 25%. Twenty-Five Percent. Now, wait a minute. You're complaining that Google is stealing your news articles, which yes, they are, technically. And you're complaining that this is a massive $5 billion hit approximately, to your industry. But yet, you also in this same press release from the News Media Alliance say that traffic from Google search to the publisher sites went up 25%? Doesn't that stat show that Google News is beneficial to these news organizations? I tend to think so. Frankly, I do. Now you can't deny that Facebook isn't a significant influence out there. Along with YouTube, Hulu, and now Netflix and HBO, and all of these others that have great content available for cheap money. So maybe it's not just losing traffic, because of the, you know, the fact that Google shown it on the new site. Perhaps, it's because the eyeballs are going elsewhere. In the long run, Google is helping them. I don't know. It is all very confusing. I think maybe that's part of what they're intending. It does not appear to be hurting their business at all. Hey, I was thinking this morning, as I was listening to some music. And I was thinking, you know, I used to have to buy CDs, and before that I used to have to buy LPs, right? Earlier it was 45s and back before that there were 78s, remember those things? I remember playing in my grandpa's basement, and he had a real old Victrola. He always had some extra needles sitting there next to it, so we could put in a new one when they wore out after playing on those old brittle records. It was quite an experience. Anyhow, you remember those days. Well, I was thinking, you know, when we're talking about Google News, and we're talking about streaming new sites, and streaming video, and streaming audio, how things have changed. Right now, if you subscribe to Apple Music, or Amazon music, or Spotify, or you name it, Pandora out there. Right now, if you're willing to pay about ten bucks a month, you can listen to as much music as you want to, from current artists through old artists. I am talking about decades of music, 10s of millions of songs for ten bucks a month, ten dollars, that's less than it used to cost for a CD. Think about inflation, Right? When you bought a CD, when did those come out, in the early 80s is when they became quite popular. They were more expensive than an LP. Although they cost a lot less to make that an LP, an LP would cost them about two bucks to three bucks to produce whereas a CD would cost them five cents, but hey could charge more for the CD. Why? The music quality was better, Right? The audio experience was better. So, they could charge more. Oh, I get it. Buying one of those CDs in today's dollars is what about 30 to 40 dollars to listen to, to get one CD, to get less than an hour's worth of music. Typically, sometimes it is only about a half-an-hour or less. Now we get it for ten bucks. It is time for the News Industry to wake up. Everything has changed. Everything is changing. That it's the only constant in the universe, Right? Of course, there's climate change. There has always been climate change. There will always be climate change. No one I've ever heard of denies that. It's just a fact of life. That gets the big question is, have we caused it? Well, of course not. But we're not going there right now. Right? If we wanted to have a discussion, think about Star Trek, for instance. Where there is a global calamity going on and the globe is warming, or it's cooling. We have to assume that in Star Trek, they've got 1000 years worth of climate studies and AI that can predict the weather, climate, etc. Unlike us, who can't get our current weather, right? Even for tomorrow. Artificial intelligence is a real potential, and they have a lot of possibilities here soon and in the future. We don't know what's going on and as someone wise once said: "The only constant, is change." When you're talking about your business, I want you to think about it for a few minutes here. Whether you're an employee, or the owner, or the CEO of the business, what's going to change in the future? Remember, the future is going to be different than the present. It doesn't matter; there will always be change. Well, that's an interesting problem. It's something that, surprisingly, at least to me, Microsoft is trying to address. What Microsoft has done is they are launching what they're calling an AI hub. AI is artificial intelligence, and while we don't have real artificial intelligence, today, and it'll still be a while before we do. They predicted that by 2020, we'd have AI running around, not so much. We do have machine learning and a couple of other types of technologies out there. But artificial intelligence where you don't have to train it, and it learns all by itself. Where you don't even need to teach it how to play a game, but it can figure it out by observation or whatever. Is that AI or is that machine learning? I think most of us would consider that machine learning. AI is coming, but here's the problem. Whether you call it AI or you refer to it as machine learning, this type of automation is going to disrupt a ton of jobs and a lot of lives. There's a great article, in CNET, about this right now. Microsoft has launched this AI hub, and they've done it, explicitly avoiding the east and the west coasts. Now, if you think about the schools that are, you know, on the East coast or West Coast. Right here by me, well just south of me, you've got MIT, you've got Harvard, you've got BU, you've got UNH here in my state. There are all kinds of excellent schools here. Head to the West Coast then you've got Stanford, Berkely, USC, CalTech and many others. And the list goes on and on. So, Microsoft said, hey, listen, we need to find a city where automation will have a substantial impact. That may be in the rust belt or the Midwest. We need to train these people. We need to help them to understand AI help them to understand the transition that will take place. Remember, change is the only constant. During the industrial revolution, we had people all upset. Of course, you don't remember it personally, and neither do I because none of us were alive back then. I don't think. But do you remember the transition from the horse and buggy to the internal combustion engine? Do you remember what happened? What people were doing? What people were saying? You know, we're going to lose all these jobs as teamsters, think of New York City, you had people whose job was to go around with a shovel and a wheelbarrow and clean up after the horses, and not just during parades, right, this was a constant thing. Those people are going to lose their jobs. The people that provide the feed for the horses, the stables for the horses, the ones who breed the horses, that sell the horses, that drive the horses that load the carts and make the carts and make the wheels, and this is all going to change and it is going to be a horrible world. Well, of course, what ended up happening was the exact opposite. We ended up with even more jobs. That's been the case with all types of technology over the ages. You know, I have got a great article that we wrote up on my website at Craig Peterson dot com, you should probably read if you're a CEO or business owner, because it addresses you and your problems, when it comes to automation. If you don't pay attention to this, you will be out of business. Okay, so it's a great article. Craig Peterson dot com, you have to read it. So let's get back to Microsoft here. This project that they're doing is intended to upscale people on how to work alongside AI and robots. They're going to create this learning lab to prepare communities for jobs in the years ahead when this frankly, automation are going to disrupt the economy and the workforce. So, where did they go? What are they doing? They're explicitly avoiding hiring PhDs. And nothing against PhDs. I have a daughter working on hers, right now. It's, it's all well and good, but they tend to be very narrow. It tends not to be the real world, mainly when you're talking about people who are going to be losing their jobs to automation. Yeah, there's going to be some positions lost due to automation. We were talking a minute ago about these newspapers, well, they're all going to lose all of the writers as it will be entirely automated once AI kicks in. Then the same thing holds, for the editors, I don't know maybe editors are going to go first. You can still have people who pick some of the subjects, but eventually, AI will take that over two, because it's going to be better at that as well. Well, Microsoft chose Louisville, Kentucky. Why Louisville? It is because 28% of the jobs in the Louisville area are at risk from automation. Louisville has a strong manufacturing base, you know, you talked about Rust Belt. That's the definition of it. And in Louisville, about 12% of all jobs are in the manufacturing sector. So, Microsoft is investing in some new energy, some resources in the area. They're going to be building a center downtown, a real training center. They're going to hire four people to run this. They want people who have a four-year college degree or less. They're going to train them in how to train people in AI automation, working alongside automated systems, Right? Putting it all together. So kudos to them, frankly, great quote from CNET here, saying "we're really interested in seeing if we can help onboard people who have a two year degree, or most a four year degree, they're going to empower them with the tools, the resources, they're going to need to help everybody out. We think that in the next ten years, we will see more change in our society than we've seen in the last 250 years. Where that takes us, we don't even know. There's so much potential for us to reimagine ourselves and our community. That also means that we have to get ready for what the future holds for us." AI is going to eliminate a lot of low-level jobs, a lot of repetitive tasks, and responsibilities that are easy to automate, like the writers that we talked about. Where are people who are already doing that? I don't know? If you read an article, and you say, man, this is not a very well written, the grammars maybe not great. Well, today people are going out and hiring others that are do something called spinning an article. I hired a writer two years ago, year and a half ago. And she was supposed to be writing original articles for me. She knew that. What I would do is say okay, Here are two or three articles on this topic that have some excellent points. Here are the points I want to emphasize. The idea was I would give her those articles. That way, she had an example of the topic, my detail, and then I would tell her what I thought she should put in the article. That's pretty simple, Right? That's what you usually do. That's how people write books. That's how people get blamed for plagiarizing because they might have just taken a whole bunch of excerpts from other articles put them together, and then you go through, and you rewrite it because it's the expression of the thought that is copyrightable. The ideas are not copyrightable. So, what she ended up doing was she'd take the article, and she would run it through some software that spun the material. What the software would do is change some of the verbs, some of the tenses move a few things around in minor ways. That way, it would pass the tests that I would run on it, Right? I'd run it through Grammarly and Hemingway and a couple of other programs. By the way, if you've never used Grammarly, man, you have to sign up for that. Be sure to sign up for the pro version, because it helps you with grammar and you will become a better writer as you see the corrections that it makes to your writing. Also in the paid or the pro version, it lets you know if any of the wording you used is stolen and or plagiarized from copyrighted material somewhere else. So I would run it through that and quickly double check it and clean it up because her grammar was not very good. Then we would post it. Well, I began taking a closer look at her work after a little while when I noticed some patterns. I fired her on the spot because it turned out she was using this spinning software. None of the stuff she had written for me was original content. I went back and tried to find everything that we had posted that she had put up and removed it. That's what's happening with AI. As AI gets more advanced, and not much more sophisticated, just machine learning gets more advanced, more and more of the articles we see are going to be written by machines. It is estimated right now about half of the new content. Half of it, more than 50%, of the original content posted on the internet is, in fact, machine generated. So consider that. Consider that with your business. What's your business? Is there any chance it could be automated? If you're, you know, an accountant or a tax preparer, automation can easily replace you. In the security business that I'm in, it is getting automated as we go forward more and more. Like the stacks of security software, that we sell at mainstream dot net and the firewalls, they are all fully integrated. There are a billion endpoints that are part of this, and each one is under constant monitoring. We pay to be part of that network and part of that community. That way we know within an hour when something new is spreading and automatically it's taken care of so, our customers don't get hit with it, Right? All of that happens, but we know it's going to be changing. So, keep that in mind. At Craig Peterson dot com, got have a great article that we wrote, we did not spin it up on the website right now. It's aimed at CEOs and business owners, and it's talking about what's going on. We've only got a couple of minutes left. So really quickly here. Maine became the first state in the Union that's prohibiting Internet Service Providers from selling users personal data, without explicit permission to do so. It is from futurism com. It may be the most comprehensive data privacy law in the US. And here's why this is from The Hill. It's the first data privacy law in the US that doesn't put the burden on consumers to make sure they've opted out of the company's privacy infringing practices. In other words, you have that by default. It's going be interesting to see. Well, I'll let you know how it goes, and I'll keep you up on it. Haha, there's so much we didn't get to this week. Cybersecurity all about business, not about consumers. A great article from Alabama regarding the National Cyber Summit conference in Huntsville that happened last week and the two things that came out of the meeting. 1) to some degree, everybody's at risk. 2) nobody cares, according to Dr. Wesley McGrew. We'll have a look at that useful information for all of you. A hack on a Federal database of photos of travelers coming into and out of the US occurred recently. There is a murder trial, that's going to allow DNA evidence from a genealogy site, kinda-sorta, maybe you can read more about that. I have it up on my website from wired com. Man Oh, man, oh, man. When we go into a company, and one of the first things we do is we install software that keeps all our their services, all of their systems, their servers, their desktops, everything up to date, entirely up to date. Now, it sounds like when Microsoft releases Patch Tuesday, and you have automated patches turned on, okay, maybe that's going to take care of your Microsoft patches. By the way, we don't do it right then when Microsoft releases them. We wait a few days a week, typically, and test them, unless it's ultra-critical to make sure it doesn't break things, right? Well, now the NSA is warning about this Windows OS bug. It is a huge bug, a huge deal. Its thought that right now, that particular bug could spread as far as WannaCry from a year and a half ago. Okay, this is huge, huge, huge. You heard it here first. It is a massive vulnerability CVE-2019-0708. If you're my client, don't worry about it. We have you taken care of here. But not only is the NSA issuing a warning notice about this saying to update your systems. Microsoft has issued patches to address BlueKeep, that's this bug, including taking a nearly unprecedented step of issuing patches to versions of its operating system going back to Windows XP. It is enormous, huge, huge, massive. Okay, it could put you out of business. If you're home user, this could lock up your computer, maybe forever. So you've got to take care of this. I think we're going to try and do a webinar on this. Showing you how to use the free tools Microsoft gives you. There's much more you can do and should do as a business. If you want more information, reach out to me, and we can help you — just me at Craig Peterson dot com that is: me at Craig Peterson dot com. If you have any other questions during the week, you can always text me. I am glad to help you out. Just call 855-385-5553 If you join my email list, you can also keep up to date on technology and let you know about seminars, webinars that are coming went up and other essential things, just 855-385-5553 and check to the newsletter from this morning. As well as, of course, Craig Peterson dot com and have a great week ahead. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye ---  Related articles: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Artificial Intelligence are Replacing Our Workforce - What Are Our Options? CEOs and Business Owners Aren't Taking CyberSecurity Seriously - And Are Facing Huge Penalties Week After Week Vulnerability After Vulnerability Using You for Profits Multiple Logins The Bane of Modern Online Life Technology and Databases have Murderers and Rapists Crying Foul ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Do you ever feel like you would be more successful in your journey to better health if you had more willpower and motivation? Does it feel like everyone else has more willpower and motivation than you? Does it seem like all these changes are more difficult for you than other people? You’re going to want to tune in for this conversation with Annie and Jen for the truth about willpower, motivation and what action you can take to feel more successful.   What you’ll hear in this episode: The definition of willpower How decision fatigue impacts the quality of choices we make What’s the difference between motivation and willpower? How preparation sets you up for success Meal planning - why it can be helpful What to do when you can’t rely on motivation and willpower How waiting for motivation gets in the way of change that matters to us The magic in boredom The Habit Hangover - what is it? What keeps successful people going What a study of soda and water in a hospital teaches us about habits How to curate your environment for success   Resources: Atomic Habits by James Clear 53: Secrets From The Eating Lab: Dr. Traci Mann Secrets From The Eating Lab Arms Like Annie Learn more about Balance365 Life here Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode! Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you! Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content. Transcript Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight and wellness. I'm your host Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balance365. Together we coached thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy and confident in their bodies, on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy. Welcome to Balance365 Life radio. Have you ever felt like if you just had more willpower, self control or motivation, you would finally be able to reach your goals? We get it. We hear this a lot and it's no wonder. The diet and fitness industry have led us to believe that willpower and control are characteristics of driven, successful, healthy individuals. And if we just had more, we wouldn't struggle. But is that all we need? Do we really just need more self control? And if so, how do I get it? Cause sign me up! On today's episode, Jen and I dive into the theories and the truth behind willpower, motivation and self control and offer tried and true practical strategies to help you stay on track with your goals even when you're just not feeling up to it. And by the way, if you want to continue this discussion on willpower, motivation, and self control, we invite you to join our free private Facebook group. Healthy Habits, Happy Moms. See you on the inside. Jen, how are you? Jen: Good, how are you? Annie: I'm great. We are talking about willpower and motivation today, which is something that comes up so frequently in our community. Like how do I get more motivation? How do I get more willpower? Right? We hear this a lot. Jen: Yeah and everywhere, right? Even the messages we get out of the fitness industry talks about getting motivated and having more willpower. And sometimes those phrases are used in a way that can feel really hurtful, right? Like you're doing something wrong and everybody else, everybody else around you seems to be very motivated and have a lot of willpower and you feel like it's something you lack. Annie: Right? And if you just had that, if you had willpower and determination and motivation and self discipline, then you could achieve anything. Jen: Right? And how many times have we heard, "I just have no willpower and that's my downfall. No willpower." Annie: Right? Yeah. And so we've done a fair amount of investigation into what really is behind willpower, what's behind motivation, what's behind self discipline? Do you really just need more of it? Because that is the message. Like you said, that we've been sold by the fitness industry that like, "Hey, if you just stick to this thing, if you can just have enough self discipline and motivation to stick to this plan, then you'll achieve your goals." And so then that becomes a way in which people feel like they're feeling like, "Oh, I did this." Like you said, "I'm wrong. I'm a failure. I'm lacking in this element of my life and everyone else is doing it. And I'm not." And is there any truth behind that? And I think what we're going to share today might surprise some people. Jen: Yes. Annie: Foreshadowing. Jen: Yes. Annie: And I want to say, like, you've done a lot of writing on this too because a lot of this is in the first phase of our Balance365 programming called Diet Deprogramming. Jen: Yes. Yeah. Annie: And that's the phase in which we kind of challenge, not kind of, we challenge some of the beliefs that you might hold sold to you by the diet and fitness industry, right? Jen: Yes. And the science around willpower and motivation is very heavy. And so I think today we're going to try talk about it in less scientific but more practical terms. Annie: Yeah. Jen: That make sense to everyone. And they can implement in their lives immediately. Annie: Well, yeah, I mean, we're not researchers! Jen: That's the goal! Annie: I mean, I like to think that I'm pretty smart, but definitely not researcher level. Okay. So let's start with the definition of willpower. Let's just get really clear on that. And the definition of willpower is the ability to exert control and resist impulses. And the truth is that we all have varying degrees of willpower. And on one end of the spectrum you'll have people with almost perfect willpower. And on the other end of the spectrum, you'll have people with almost no willpower. And the vast majority of us are- Jen: Somewhere in the middle. Annie: And like Jen said, there have been a lot of studies done on willpower and a lot of theories and it's kind of an ongoing process and you might find some that kind of disagree with each other. So like Jen said, we're just trying to give you more practical advice on how you can reach your goals without maybe relying on willpower and what is clear is that one of our mentors, Steven Michael Ledbetter, he is an expert in the science of human behavior. It's said that people reporting high levels of fatigue are the ones whose lives require high levels of mental energy expenditure. And do you want to give us that marriage example that you share in Diet deprogramming? Can you walk us through that and so we can see what Steven Michael Ledbetter says applies to real life. Jen: Okay. So yes. So, you had just talked about how people who have high levels of fatigue are the ones whose lives require high levels of mental energy expenditure. So this might include having to make many small decisions or choose between similar options all day long, and so what this, what we talk about in diet deprogramming as we compare two people. We've got a stay at home dad and a working mom and I put out this situation where a working mom, she gets up early kind of before anyone else is awake and she has some quiet time, has her breakfast and then she dashes out the door and on her way out she grabs her gym bag, which is packed and ready to go right by the door and she heads up the door for work. Her day is, you know, maybe not a super high stress job. She has some responsibility, but it's not super high stress. Her lunch breaks are always scheduled. She goes to the gym on her lunch breaks. It's a automatic habit and then she returned home around 5:30, six o'clock. Meanwhile, stay at home dad. This is my dream life. That's why I use this as an example. He wakes up tired because he's been up with maybe a toddler a couple of times in the night. He wakes up to lots of noise too, maybe a baby and a toddler crying "Breakfast!" And immediately he's going, "What am I going to feed these kids for breakfast?" And gulping back coffee and then trying to get those kids dressed because they have an appointment at 10 o'clock and then trying to get himself dressed. And it's just the crazy, right? I think we've all been there. Annie: That sounds familiar. Jen: Yes. And then just getting those kids out the door getting, and then one of them saying they got to poop. So then coming back in to change a diaper, like just like madness constantly. Right. And despite his best intentions to do a workout during nap time that afternoon, he is just so mentally fatigued from everything that happened between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM that by the time the afternoon hits scrolling Facebook and the couch have won him over. And then of course the afternoon to get up from their naps. Similar stuff, making dinner, just that whole crazy and working wife gets home at 5:30 and dinner is almost ready and they sit down for a nice family dinner. They get the kids to bed that night. They go to unwind on the couch. They might share a bag of chips and working Susie goes to bed at a reasonable hour. But stay at home husband is just mentally fatigued, is so sick of being around kids. This is the only time he has in a day to not be with kids and he ends up staying up til midnight like he does every single night. Just hoarding those hours for himself and that might lead to more chips, maybe a beer, watching TV. Then he goes to bed around midnight and it starts again the next day. And so this example I think is typical of what might be happening in a lot of people's households is, you, I don't want to say typical. I'll say it was typical for me for a long time. I don't know if it was typical for you, Annie, but and I would say that even though my partner had taken on the responsibility of earning and that was an enormous responsibility, I felt like my life was chaos, very hard to find a routine when my kids were all little, little. I had three kids under four and it was just that I felt like my mental energy was just, just chipped away at all day long. Just all those little decisions you have to make dealing with unreasonable little kids all day. And it was very hard for me to get the physical or mental energy together. And then it's a downward cycle, right? Like then you have staying up late then broken sleep, can't get up in the morning, can't get going. And you know, we know that spiral, right? Making not so great food choices. Annie: Yeah. it's hard to make great choices when you're exhausted, when you're mentally and maybe even physically fatigued, you're kind of not in a prime position to make a good choice. And the mental fatigue that comes with a long day of decision making, whether it be you, Jen, when you were staying at home or the husband that we described in the last situation, the long day of decision making chips away at your energy and your willpower. So you have the contrast of the working mom who didn't have to make a lot of choices or maybe she made those choices ahead of time. So when she was fatigued- Jen: Right? So she packed her lunch, you know, she packs her lunch the night before, packs her gym bag. Doesn't have to think about those things. And maybe, you know, I think about my husband when he would go to work, there were lots of decisions that needed to be made and he did work in a high pressure environment, but he had assistants, receptionists, you know, like there was a lot of people pushing the ball forward with him, and yeah, so, and I don't want to like create this comparison game. I just might help with conversations between partners or just reflection, right? And so yeah, like, “Wow, how can I reduce the amount of decisions I have to make in a day?” Because what we know is all those decisions is actually contributing big time to your mental fatigue. Annie: Right? And so that's why we talk a lot about things like habits. So when you walk to the fridge, you have your, maybe your lunch for the week, you know, you've got all your power bowls. That's why our power bowl challenge was so successful and we loved it so much is because you don't have to then think at 12 o'clock when you're already starving and like, "Oh gosh, what am I gonna eat for lunch now? And do I want to cook something? Do I want to go grab something?" Because convenience wins. We know that over and over and over again, that whatever is most readily available will likely win out, which we'll talk about how your environment impacts your habits in just a little bit. But essentially what this boils down to in real life that this means, although it may appear that some people have higher levels of willpower than you do, it's probably they've just have just less mental energy expended during the day on large or small decisions. Jen: Right. So that may mean they have less decisions to make, or it may mean that they have habits in place so that they are not making those decisions, right? So you know, if you've listened to our podcast for a long time, you'll know exactly what that means. But if you're new to our podcast, it's sort of how when I open up my phone each time, I don't have to think about what my passcode is to get in, right? But when you go to change your password, you put in your old code, you're like, and then you have put it in again, and then you put it in again. And then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh yeah, I changed my passcode." So that's just an example of where energy is expended in one little way, right? Until that new habit is formed and then it takes no energy for you to do that. Or I was on another podcast, a couple months ago and a farm podcast actually. And, I said to the host, I was trying to explain habits and I said, "What happens when somebody moves the silverware drawer?" And the host, the a male host, Rob, his name was, he goes, "10 years later, you're still reaching to get it out of the old drawer." And that's the thing, right? So habits, having habits set up, like packing your gym bag before bed, if that becomes a part of your night routine and then you don't have to think about it in the morning, "Oh, where's my pants? Where's my shoes? Where's?" Do you know what I mean? And so it's looking at it, you know, case by case. You think, well, these aren't big decisions. Like who cares? But it's actually adding up all those things through the course of a day where you're just like, "Ugh, brain done." Annie: Yeah. Like, you know, the term that comes to mind is just this like exasperated. Like "I can't, I just can't. I can't, I can't." I think I've said that to my husband before like, "I can't make a choice right now. I just need you to do this for me. Like I don't even care." And then he picked somewhere to eat and I'm like "But not that place." Self control is similar. In that when scientists analyze people who appear to have great self control, similarly, it's largely because they're better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self control. And in short, they spend time, less time in tempting situations. And that was pulled from also one of our mentors, James Clear, his new book, Atomic Habits, which if you haven't checked out that book or his blog posts they're great. He's hopefully similar to us really applies information to your lives really easily. Jen: Yeah. But ps, he may not know he's a mentor of ours. We may just be like silent mentees Annie: It's not like we're buddies. Jen: Annie, you took his course a couple of years ago. Annie: Yeah, I did. Jen: Yeah. Anyways- Annie: Maybe admirers. Jen: Admirers of his work. Stalkers? Annie: Creepers. Jen: We're not quite at that level. But and we also talked about this in our podcast with doctor Tracey Mann. She's actually done a lot of research on willpower and she talked about it in that podcast and what she had said is nobody has good willpower. You think, you know, nobody does, in different survey she's done when she asks people to rate their own willpower. Everybody scores themselves low on willpower. So nobody thinks they have good willpower. And this is just an excerpt from her book Secrets From The Eating Lab, which is another book we recommend all the time. "Humans were simply not meant to willfully resist food. We evolved through famines, hunting and gathering, eating whatever we could get when we could get it. We evolve to keep fat on our bones by eating food we see, not by resisting it? So is that a good segway into- Annie: Well, I think the takeaway is there, like you can take some of the pressure off yourself for not having like iron man or whatever, like discipline and willpower like, the truth is no one is like that. That's what we're trying to say is that people that you think have really good willpower have most likely, again, created their lives, created routine, created habits that make other options less tempting. They've made the choices that they want to make the most readily available, the easiest to choose, and the most obvious choice in their lives. Jen: Right? So instead of putting all this energy into kind of shaming yourself and getting down on yourself for not having perfect willpower and motivation, put your energy into what we know matters, which is curating your environment and setting yourself up for success, which I do almost every night with my nighttime routine, I kind of start getting things ready for the next day. Annie: Yeah. And motivation is also something that kind of goes, seems to go hand in hand with willpower. And we've kind of been using these terms thus far interchangeably, but motivation is actually our willingness to do things. And the thing about motivation is at times it can feel abundant. Like you have all the motivation and like, "Yes, we're going to do all the things." And then at other times it's like "I'm just so unmotivated, I can't, I can't do anything at all." Jen: Right. Annie: You've felt like that- Jen: Totally. Annie: You've felt that burst of motivation and I think the myth is, again, it goes back to that people that are achieving their goals or they're going to the gym five, six days a week and they're meal planning and their meal prepping and they're eating the foods that the meal plan and plan and they seem so disciplined also have unlimited sources of motivation. And that is not the case either. No one, no one is riding this motivation high all the time, every day. Jen: Even people who, say, prep meals in advance, I prep some or portion of food I'm usually on the weekends and that sets us up for success during the week, but by no means am I cooking and preparing all of my food. You sometimes see on Instagram, you know, like, people who, like, have all these dishes and they line them up and they post meal prep Sunday Hashtag motivation. Annie: It makes for a great photo. Jen: Yes. And they have all their breakfast, all their lunches, all their snacks, all their suppers lined up for the week. Which, honestly, all the power to you. Some weeks I probably could use that. I just don't have time on the weekends to do in depth preps like that. But I do perhaps some and I do meal plan so I know what's coming. That's when meal planning can be great because it takes away the mental energy of deciding what you're going to eat. But what I will say is even the stuff I do prep, I'm not, I don't always feel motivated to eat it. I'm not like, "Oh, can't wait!" I'm like- Annie: Yes! Amen! Jen: And I think even the people who prep all those meals in advance, they might seem really motivated on Sunday cause they've got all these prep meals, but I bet you by Thursday they're eating the same lunch that they had all week and they're just like not thrilled. Or drowning in BBQ sauce. Annie: I can't tell you how many times I have and this is something I would have done back in my deep dieting years is, you know, this on again off again thing, I would like clean out the kitchen. I'd have this like motivation usually triggered, I mean, let's just revisit the diet cycle here. Triggered by shame. I'd see a photo of myself and like, "Ugh, got to lose 10 pounds!" Clean up the kitchen. I'd run to the grocery store, buy all this produce and lean meats and veggies and fruits and like I'm going to do this so well this week. And then, like, come Thursday I'm like, "Ugh!" Because you get this burst of motivation and then to, like, continue to the follow through is, like, that's much harder and when you rely on motivation to do the things that's bound to happen. That's exactly what we would expect from a human because again, no one is riding this high of motivation, seven days a week, 24, seven hours, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's unreliable and it's fleeting. It comes and it goes, it ebbs and flows. It rises throughout the month, throughout the day. And, like, I notice it, my motivation rises and falls throughout the day and even in particular to do certain things. If I wanted to have motivation to go work out I know that it needs to be mid to late morning. If I wait until 6:00 PM to work out, it's probably not going to happen. Maybe some days, but probably not. Vice versa, if I try to work late at night, I can't work late at night. It needs to be like three, four o'clock seems to be like a really productive hour for me. So if I have something important to do, like, you know, kind of stack your day to where the motivation fits that task. Jen: Which can work. For me, the only realistic time I have to work out is super early in the morning. So I get up at 5:30 and I work out from six till seven three days a week. And I am never, ever, ever hopping out of bed excited, like "I can't freaking wait." It's just become a habit and which can lead us into a discussion about values and goals. But ultimately for me,I made a commitment to do this to my future self. So when I get up in the morning, I just don't let myself question it. Obviously if I've had a rough sleep or a sick kid, I will not get up at that hour. You know, I have grace with myself and I'm realistic. But yeah, I'm never motivated to do it. It's just simply become a habit for me. And something that's very important to me. Annie: I think that's a common mistake people make is they're sitting around waiting for motivation to strike them like lightning from the sky and as a result they're at the mercy of motivation. So they can't take action until they're motivated. That's like this belief that they have in their head. But you can also flip it and action leads to motivation, which research has proven as well. And I think just anecdotally, you would probably say the same thing. I would say the same thing. Like you get that first set in, you get your workout clothes on, you get into the gym and you start the workout and it's like, "Okay, I can do this now." And then you'll do it, and then it snowballs and it's like, and then you retrain your habit loop in your brain, like, I get up, I do the thing. The reward is I feel good. I may be more productive during the day, in the long term I'm improving my health, I'm increasing my strength, I'm learning new skills and then that's how habits are formed. Jen: Yeah, absolutely. Annie: Without relying on motivation. Jen: Right. Yeah. Annie: Boom. Jen: And that's why a lot of people give up on workout routines, right? Like how many people start something new and within three weeks they're done because they just, they lose, they're super motivated at the beginning, everybody is, when I started this new lifting program, well, its Arms Like Annie, it's your program, Annie,, I was very motivated but that really it doesn't last. And then you, then it's boring because then you're just putting in reps. But that's actually where the magic starts happening, I think, is actually those boring stages when you don't want to, that's when you're starting to, you're not relying on motivation anymore and you are truly training in that habit cycle and you might feel yourself resisting and trying to go back to old habits. Right? When my old habit is to sleep till seven, not get up at 5:30. But that's truly when the magic starts happening. That's truly around even where the tipping point starts happening, right, into forming a habit. And so that's why it's important to push through but not push through in the way that push through and find more motivation. It's like just push through like you're there, like this is, this is where it's going to happen. Annie: So that's, inside Balance365, that's something we call the Habit Hangover often. Like, we see that it's pretty common. Like, because people- Jen: This isn't fun anymore. Annie: Yeah. When they're motivated and they're like, "Okay, now this is just hard work and I'm not near as excited as I was when I started three weeks ago. And the newness, the shininess has worn off. Jen: Yes, new and shiny is gone. Yes. Annie: And again, that's another vote that we've said it before on the podcast. We say it all the time in our community. That's why we start habits small because when that motivation falters and it will then you're not relying, you don't need like this Richard Simmons level of willpower and motivation to do the thing that you're supposed to be doing if you start a little bit smaller versus like doing all the things at once. Jen: Yeah. So actually because I had struggled with, we moved a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago, I guess, and since we moved, I really struggled with my workout habit. So it was kind of last fall sometime where I just epiphany, "Look, this isn't working. I'm not being consistent because I haven't been able to find a time in my day that this really works for me. It definitely does not work at night for me." And that's something I just kept trying to do, trying to do, trying to do and then finally I was like, "Look, you're not going to work out at night." And so that's when I started getting up in the mornings and I actually kind of had the epiphany that's really what time works best for me and I had to start going to bed earlier and I started with twice a week actually. I was doing Mondays and Wednesdays only and that felt very realistic for me. And when things did get hard, I would say, "You know what? It's just two mornings a week. Like you, you can do this. It is just two mornings a week." And then when I felt ready, which is about two months after I started, I added in Friday mornings and now that's going really good. And we're going to add in a cardio, just a cardio session. And yeah. So, and that's just, that's really how habits form, right? Like that's so boring. But you scale up as you solidify new skills and habits, then you can add in something else and something else. And then all of a sudden you're living it and you're going, "Oh, this is happening and I'm doing the thing." Annie: I'm doing the thing. Jen: Yeah. Annie: Or the things. So to recap thus far, willpower and motivation is not what keeps most "successful people" going. It's their habits. And the next kind of layer I want to add on to that, which we've already touched on, is that your habits are highly influenced by your environment. And I want to share this study, I think we've shared it before, but really quickly, this is again, something inspired from James Clear shared before, but they did this study of soda and water consumption in hospital. And what they did was they let people choose their soda and their water consumption for two weeks, three weeks, whatever. They collected the data on the sales of each. After three weeks they added, they didn't change anything about the soda. They added water to different locations, more convenient locations throughout the hospital cafeteria. So again, all they changed was made water more available. And as a result, water sales increased and soda sales decreased. And I think that's just such a simple example of how impactful your environment can be on your habits. They didn't say, they didn't promote or push the water or give any marketing about how soda was "bad or harmful" and water was better. They simply just offered it in more places. And people are like, "Oh, there's water. I'll take a water now." Jen: Totally. So in my house, Oh boy, we talk about this all the time. My veggie tray. Annie: Yes. Yes. Jen: So fruits and vegetables are often things that people struggle to get enough in. And you have to make them convenient and part of your environment. One way I do this is one, I buy bagged salads and I just kind of have no shame around that when my salads are pretty much prepped for me, I'm eating them and enjoy them, but I am just not going to start from scratch every single meal to create a salad. That's a lot of work. And or maybe, maybe it's not a lot, but it's too much for me. And a second is I make a veggie tray every, that's kind of part of my meal prep. On Sundays I make a Veggie tray. I've got like an old one of those old Tupperware ones. I make a Veggie tray and then I'm usually restocking it by Wednesday morning. And I bring that out for most meals, lunch and supper for me, my kids. And I also pull from it when I'm packing lunches for my kids school lunches. And I keep all our fruit, most of our fruit, if it doesn't have to be refrigerated, I have it on the counter in just a little fruit basket and we go through fruit like crazy around here. But I have made fruits and vegetables very, I have put my energy into making those two things very accessible and then I don't have to think about it during the week. It just happens naturally. And that's what we're trying to say here, right? Annie: Yeah. And I think the other aspect to that is visual cues are really, really important. So because when you open up your fridge, you see the Veggie tray and it's, like, there. Jen: It's there. It's right at eye level. It's not tucked, you know, it's not tucked away. It's not in the back. I don't have my vegetables tucked in the drawers and the bottom. It's like right there. Annie: Exactly. I even remember you talking about, which you've seen my Instagram videos, you know, my kitchen also houses my dumbbells and kettlebells. But, but you did the same thing too, you were like, look, I'm not getting in a lot of movement and I want to, and it would be simple to incorporate some kettlebell swings, but in order for me to actually do that, I need the kettle bell in my kitchen. So every time you walked by it, so you ended up doing, you know what, 10 swings a handful of times throughout the day. Jen: Yeah. So yeah, so I have a big round Moved Nat yoga mat off my kitchen island. There's kind of just a space off my kitchen that's just blank space. I know not everybody will be able to find a space, but there's other ways to do it. But anyway, sorry, I have this huge round Yoga Mat. The boys use it to sit and play cars on or they sit on it and read. But I also use it, like, it's just there. So if I feel like doing some movement, whether it's getting on the ground and doing some glute bridges or pushups or whatever, my mat is right there and I don't have to go on my gross floors. But, and then I also have just, you know, I have my garage gym,, but I have one kettlebell that I keep up in the kitchen and it's kind of on the lighter end, but I can do, you know, I can do lots of things with it in my kitchen and I, yeah, I see it and I'll do it right. Which I know it sounds silly, but if I'm waiting for water to boil on the stove, I'll go over and do a couple of kettlebell swings or a couple of pushups or, yeah. And I mean that just works well for me. I'm not saying it'll work for everybody, but it just works well for me. And other people might find benefit in having a yoga mat in their living room and some weights, you know, beside the TV. And so when they're watching TV, they might just feel like, yeah, I could get down on the floor, do some bridges, some presses, some, you know, some yoga stretches, anything, right? Because if it's, but it's just about looking at your environment and say, how does my environment support more of what I want in it? And then on the flip side of that, which we talked about with Traci Mann, is how can I put small barriers in place between me and things that I want less of in my life. So for me, I keep, like all our nuts and seeds and chocolates, like really high calorie, high energy foods. I keep a lot of those above my fridge in the cupboard and then I don't, I can't see them. There's no visual cue to eat them. I'm having them when I want them, right. When I think of them and want them and reach for them. Annie: Right. And then you know that if I want them it's because I actually want them, not just because I see them and then I want them, which is like marketing 101. We think that we're in control. We think we're like making the choice. But a lot of times it's like the power of suggestion. Like I've said it before, my kids don't want the Goldfish at Target until they see the Goldfish at Target, at the end cap. Jen: It's why grocery stores put all that stuff right at the checkout. Right? All the trashy magazines, all the indulgent foods, like the chocolate bars, they put it there because they know you're going to be standing there awhile, waiting at the checkout and you're just more likely to grab it the longer you're standing there. Annie: Right. And the other thing about habits too is that, habits and your environment is that we often have a set of habits per the location we're in. So if you think about the habits you have in your bedroom, the habits you have in your kitchen, the habits you have in your, in the gym, the habits you have in a grocery store, you probably grocery shop the same path every time. You have your routine, right? You like grab your produce, you move to meats or whatever it is. Same thing with the gym. You walk to the same space every time, you put your bag down, you go use the same equipment, you probably have a favorite treadmill or a favorite squat rack or whatever. The thing is important to know is that it can be easier to change habits in a new environment. So if possible, like I'm not saying go out and buy a new house, but could you rearrange your furniture so maybe, or take a TV out of your bedroom or rearrange your furniture so it's not facing the TV and it's more conducive to reading or whatever habit you're trying to change. Or put a kettle bell in your kitchen or go to a different grocery store. Like would your shopping- Jen: Rearrange up cupboards or, yeah. Annie: Yeah. You don't have to like completely like burn everything down and start from new. But can you think outside the box of how your environment shapes your habits? Like even, James Clear, and I'm guilty of this, was talking about your environment should have a purpose. So, you know, he was working at his kitchen island. But he also wants to eat in his kitchen. And then it's kind of like, there was no boundary. That's like, now I'm working, now I'm eating, I'm eating and I'm working. So he created a new small environment out of his bedroom for an office or whatever. And like that's his work. When he's working, when he's there, he's working. When he's in his kitchen, he's eating and you know, on and so forth. So- Jen: I just- Annie: Go ahead. Jen: I posted about this in Balance365 a couple of months ago. I totally had that epiphany in the wintertime when it was chilly out, I started working at my kitchen table near the fire instead of my office. And I started snacking more and more and more. And then one day I realized, it's because you're just staring at the kitchen all day. You're just staring at the cupboard, staring at the kitchen and you're just triggered to go grab something to eat. Right. And so I moved back down to my office and that problem is gone. I'm not snacking between breakfast and lunch anymore. Annie: Right. Jen: And it's crazy, right? You think, you know, you think this comes to motivation and willpower again, but you just can't believe how much your environment influences your choices. Right. And again, my goal is not perfection. My goal is balance. So I'm not like saying take all the treats out of your cupboards and all of that. I feel like I have an appropriate amount of treats in my house stored in a space that aligns with the goal I have of balance, right. Annie: Right, right. Yeah. And I think that it's, you know what all of this really boils down to for me and I'm assuming for you is that self control and willpower and motivation can work in the short term. They can be a great short term strategy. And I wouldn't want anyone listening to this to think I'm super motivated, but I somehow have to like contain that motivation or pull back from that motivation because I don't want to like misstep or whatever. Like, no, if you're motivated to do something, you can follow that. Like you can explore it. It's not that it's a bad thing, but the point is, is that a better, in our experience, a better long term strategy for reaching goals boils down to habits and environment. Jen: Right. I don't, sometimes I feel super motivated to go for an extra run or walk or I do an extra workout. But another thing I just want to note is you don't want to, when you're feeling motivated, that's not where you want to set your bar, right? Like you don't, you know, some weeks I have my baseline habits, say, like my three workouts a week and that's just kinda my minimum at this point. I miss the odd one. We just took two weeks off, actually, me and my workout partner and that's all good. We're right back to our three times a week. But the odd time when I feel like an extra run or I feel like an extra workout, I don't bring my bar up there. I don't say, okay, now I'm at five times. I just, you know what, I recognize it as a week, even a month sometimes where I had a burst of energy and I utilize that and that felt great, but I don't bring my bar up there. I just recognize. Annie: Yes. It was just a bonus. Jen: I just feel motivated. Yeah. It was just a bonus. Annie: Yeah. That's great. This is good. I hope that this helps clear up a lot of the questions that we get about willpower and also helps reduce some of the shame and guilt that people might be experiencing if they don't feel those emotions or if they don't feel like they have those traits or those characteristics innately, and then, because I think I, you know, just on a personal note, I think people think that I am motivated, for example, to go to the gym three, four times a week or five times a week. I'm not. Like Jen said, like, there's days where I'm like, "Eh, I don't know." Like I'll text my girlfriend, it's like, "I need you to talk me into this." Jen: Right. Annie: Or "This is workout really doesn't look fun. I don't think I can do this," but it falls back to habits. I dropped my kids off at school, I'd go to the gym and if I can just get my kids in the car, I know that that trigger loop or that habit loop has started with my trigger of getting kids to school. And I know the rest will just fall in naturally thanks to habits. Jen: Yes. And I do think it is really key too, I don't think a lot of people do this and I think it's such a great thing to do is to stop, pause, especially if you've gone through any life transition, like had a baby, changed jobs, moved and think about where you can decrease the decisions you're making in the day. So my nighttime routine consists of, you know, washing my face, brushing my teeth, getting my workout clothes out, putting them right beside the bathroom sink so that when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is get dressed. I get my coffee pot out, the coffee out. So you know, so just in the mornings, I just, I don't have to think. I just get up and do, and then I head down to the gym. Annie: That's great. Awesome. If you want to continue the conversation on willpower and motivation, come to our free private Facebook group with our Healthy Habits Happy Moms on Facebook. Jen, Lauren and I are in there frequently along with some really, really rad community members that have been around for a while and have great contributions, so we hope to see in there. Jen: Yes. Annie: Alright, thanks, Jen. Jen: Bye, Annie. Annie: Bye. Bye. This episode is brought to you by the Balance365 program. If you're ready to say goodbye to quick fixes and false promises and yes to building healthy habits and a life you're 100% in love with, then checkout Balance365.co to learn more.  

Peter Martin shows you different movements and scales you can combine to add variety to your voicings.========================================================What's going on everybody? Peter Martin here, just wanna talk a little bit about two-handed voicings, use of fourths that can be so useful. Just playing around a little bit over "Autumn Leaves." And especially when you combine them with other types of voicings, maybe even kind of block chords situations. Kind of traditional stuff.And then when we play in the fourths, these are all perfect fourths and there's certainly a lot that you can do just moving around chromatically. But don't sleep on the diatonic movement with those fourths.What I mean there is we're just going up, C minor Dorian. You can throw in some chromatic chords too, but the idea being that we don't have to just do, we could do diatonic, just going up that C Dorian scale or B flat major scale.So, you wanna have those in your hands. You can go six notes, you can go five, you can go four. But when you combine them with other voicings, that's when it gets really interesting. Right?All right, happy practicing.========================================================For full length piano lessons with Peter Martin, check out www.openstudionetwork.com/pianoWebsite: https://www.openstudionetwork.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudioTwitter: https://twitter.com/HeyOpenStudioFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeyOpenStudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode of Nobilis Erotica is sponsored by Literotica, the world's most popular online community of self published erotica authors and readers for over 20 years. "Paper Doll" was written by D. Mark Alderton, and is narrated here by Nobilis Reed. D. Mark Alderton has been published by Circlet Press, and was co-editor of the recursive collection, "Like a Circlet Editor." In another life he writes for mainstream publications and is the author of several books of fiction and non-fiction. Most of his family and friends would be quite surprised. "I was in mid-fuck and I was bored. Not surprising. People think testing and refining 'mates is a dream job. Right? All it is, in most people's minds, is spending every day having sex with partners designed to be perfect, from their vat-grown bodies to the actual people running the simulacra. Not everyone can do this, of course. You have to be able to “read” both the 'mate and the puppetmaster. The physical signs are obvious: Cardio. Heightened respiration. Flushed skin. Copious lubrication. And, naturally, physical responsiveness. Our clients don't simply want to go through the motions. They could do that without our help. They want to feel it as an authentic experience. I suppose I'm fortunate in that I have the appropriate “talent” for the job. I can not only check off the physical signs. I can read the mental ones. Is the 'mate making an effort to connect? Since I'm in her mind, I can tell. Is the puppetmaster seeing that she is in the moment, so to speak? The good ones – and I've worked with the best – make you forget this is work for hire. For the half hour or hour that you're together, she not only has eyes only for you, but is becoming increasingly aroused by what you do, and makes sure to let you know it. This is sex taken to the level of perfection. “Better than the real thing” the ads say. It's being with a 'mate whose goal is not only your pleasure but making sure you know that your ministrations are beyond compare. It's brilliant, really. By making both sides of the physical act flow back to the customer, satisfaction is guaranteed. We run the alphabet soup of every possible sexual orientation and proclivity, although my specialty is within the range of male/female combinations. I don't know if the men and women who test the male 'mates experience it in quite the same way but then, as you might imagine, this isn't the sort of job where we hang out in the coffee room and compare notes. So, we'd been going at it for a bit. This 'mate was brunette, a tad plump in the current fashion which is to say in all the right places. She was on her back, her legs wrapped around mine, pulling me into her core. Her nails gently scraped my back and the nape of my neck. Her hot breath was at my right ear as she hissed, “Don't stop! Don't stop.” I could feel her puppetmaster, Ilene, graze my thoughts, looking for clues as to what would really turn me on. We had not been paired before, so this was truly a test run for both of them."

The search results are no longer just 10 blue links. Understanding how your brand can appear in search engines will open your mind up to the wide range of opportunities for your business. https://youtu.be/jEuoEYFl3nIResources for this Episode Raven Tools Guide to the SERPS Search Engine Journal Google Play Podcast Features Darryl: Hi and Welcome to “The My Bloody Website podcast” where we talk about all things online especially for a small and medium business owners or marketers. I'm Darryl King, I've been running a web agency for over 25 years and my co-host Ed Pelgen has been running his online marketing agency for just as long. Our goal is to cover things in a way anyone can understand and to help you improve how you use online in your business. We're about to record episode 40. How do you look on search engines? How are you Ed? Edmund: I'm very good Darryl. And yourself Darryl: excellent, very good for young fella. Edmund: I think this is a great episode because we never walk out of; you typically don't walk out of your house unless you've had a look at yourself in the mirror right? Darryl: Well unless your teenager. Well I’m not actually a Edmund: So I'm wanted to (0:43) mate Darryl: yeah; no; but that's right; it is your right; so, you know; people; last episode we talked about you know doing some things to check out how you self-audit. This one's, I guess taking an even deeper. I was going to say this is episode 40. Just reiterate that so that means we have done three quarters of a year in episodes. So 12 more episodes of the whole year right? Edmund: we should do a big party at 50 to do it on a beach or something. Darryl: fifty two; fifty two; three more episode; that; so twelve more episodes; anyway; so, this is one that probably sits heavily in your mind. You see a lot of this day-to-day when you're doing audits and helping people rank better. What are some of the things that; I guess we're giving people instructions Edmund: Yeah Darryl: of how they can review how they look on search engines. Yeah? Edmund: absolutely; and it's important because the average user probably doesn't realize the amount of variety that exists in the search results. Right? When you do; when you go into a Google search there stuff everywhere right? And the devices are changing and Google is experimenting and they've got ads and everything else and there's a lot to think about; and so; Darryl: yeah and maybe people don't also realize too that its phrase specific. So, if you search for Pulp Fiction “the movie” you are going to get a completely different of search result than if you're searching for pool builder; Sydney Edmund: yeah. So what, why don't we just introduced into the basically out of what's in the search results and then we can talk about the specific; you know, use case type ones to come up; what do you reckon? Darryl: Why don't you do it rather (2:29) Ed/Darryl: (laughing) Edmund: When you run a normal Google search result. And let's just use desktop for an example here because it's probably simpler to start with. So when you do a Google search in the desktop, you'll typically see the paid ads. And the paid ads are (2:42) at the top and they'll typically be the first three or so listings and then beneath the paid ads you'll see what's called the organic search results listings. Now, depending on your search the phrase that you're looking for Google may very well deliver images, it may very well deliver videos. Right? And it may very well to deliver news. Right? All those little elements change depending on the search. So, that's just the very minimum. Right? Amount of variety that is available to you. Right? Other things you want to consider too for example when you do search results. Searches on Google is that the newest features are things called featured snippets. Now, has anyone ever done a Google search with a question and you see a text block that answers your question? Right?

If you wanna know how I've launched all my content, I ripped the audio from my presentation at Russell Brunson's Inner Circle... Hey, what's going on, everyone? It's Steve Larsen. You're listening to Sales Funnel Radio and I'm excited for this episode. What I did for this episode is I wanted to rip the audio from the presentation that I gave at the Inner Circle. We just barely had the Inner Circle, and it was packed. It was one of the bigger groups. It was a bunch of fun, just absolutely loved it. I thought I'd rip from you guys the presentation. If you don't know the way that those presentations are handled, everybody gets up and everybody speaks, but the way it is ... One of the reasons I like this Mastermind so much ... I've seen others, I've watched ... What I like is everybody's very giving, and so what we do is we stand up and everybody gives something incredible to the group; either something that's working, some cool hacks, something that's cutting edge, something that's just jaw-dropping, "Oh, my gosh! That's incredible." You know what I mean? Then, at the end of it there's an ask and you ask, "Hey, these are the things I'm struggling with. Could you guys help me with X, Y, and Z?" That combination between the two where you've given before you ask is amazing. We obviously see that in selling to our customers and selling to everybody. The more you can give, obviously, create this feeling of reciprocity, well, it's no different inside of the Inner Circle. What I did is I ripped the audio from my presentation. We only have 22 minutes, it's really, really fast, so I would love to dive more deeply into this at some point, as this is a topic that I've been obsessing over recently. Anyways, this is cool stuff, and this is how I launched my podcast. A lot of you guys continue to ask me those questions... If you have never heard the episode 60 and 61 of Sales Funnel Radio, it will walk you through my content strategy, how I handle it all, but I think you'll like from the standpoint of, as far as how I stack together my episodes when I launch my shows. This is super powerful. I've had a lot of students now who are actually in top-rankings of iTunes with their podcasts, because of the same strategy that I teach with these, so this is powerful stuff. Know that there is a lot of data behind it, there's a lot of success stories behind it. I know the strategy works, this is how I launched my own stuff. Anyway, take notes if you were thinking ... Especially, if you're going to do a blog, or a podcast or whatever, it doesn't matter if you're going to do a podcast or not. This is any type of content strategy, as far as what do you say? What are you doing? How do you call your shot? How do you become the guru on the mountain without being perceived as an idiot or a jerk or self-centered? This is how you do it, and I'm excited for this episode. Anyways, we'll cut over to the show here and this is the audio again of my presentation to the Inner Circle. Thanks for listening. I spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today, and now I've left my 9:00 to 5:00 to take the plunge and build my million dollar business. The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio. Hey, I'm excited for this, though. I have waited so freaking long to be a part of this group. It's cool. I'm like a combo of really introspective moment, look back, and like, "Yeah," at the same time. That's what I feel like, anyway. It's been a long road, though. When I first saw that email come in from Russell I was walking through the basketball gym, and I started reading the email. I'm like, my face as I'm reading it goes like, "Oh, it's from Russell," and that's when my face starts going, I was like, "No!" I stopped and I responded to him that the Inner Circle is closing. I was like, "Don't close, I'm on my way! I don't have $25,000." I showed him the email like six months ago. He was like, "You know it was an autoresponder, right?" I was like, "Yeah, I know. I just needed to ..." because I didn't see that. Anyway, so it's a good email, though. [inaudible 00:04:01] I could show you some day. I want to show you my support team for how I got here. This is my support team. That's Maya. I call her Thigh master, because her thighs are like the two-year-old 12-ounce steaks. Do you know what I mean? Chewy thigh. Anyway, she's the Thigh master. That's Brnley. I call her Pack and Play, because she will randomly dive at me off of couches with no warning. Anyway, she's awesome, playful. Here's my wife. I call her Princess Babe. That's been the name in my phone since we dated, because ... well, duh. The whole thing started though when I was ... I really wanted to go to Funnel Hacking Live in 2016. I had no cash for it. I started bootstrapping my way there and I started trading funnels for plane tickets. Funnels for hotel nights. Funnels for event nights. Things like that. I remember I was riding my ... I was riding ... Do you know those city bikes in San Diego? You can rent them or whatever, slide a card in. What money I had, I did not want to go and actually spend money on a cab. We were living off loans. I had been building funnels for companies and making them successful. I just hadn't charged for stuff yet, I was just trying to make my story... I was staying on the other side of San Diego, and I had my luggage over my shoulder riding my bike over to Funnel Hacking Live through the city, around the bay. That's how I did it. As I was riding the bike over there, I was like, "I'm going to do whatever this man tells me to do, but I will never publish." That was the sentence that came out of my noggin. I was like, "I'm never, ever, ever going to do this publishing game. I do not want to be one of those publishing people. I will not become a character on Facebook Live. I'm not doing any of that. I'm not doing it." The first- Character in a comic book. Right? The first day ... Right? I know! Then the first day, and part of it was because I was voted the nicest kid in high school in my graduating class, but it was because I was shy. I had this near clinical fear of adults and massive anxiety; huge insecurities, I've dealt with a lot. Even into my early 20s. It's true. That's why I was like, "I'm never going to do that." The first thing he says is, "Everyone should start publishing a lot." I was, "Crap! It's the thing I don't want to do!" I gave a lot to get there. We take the picture. Two day later I was interviewing here, and two days after that graduated, two days after that I was sitting next to The Man. I'm seeing Russell going on the camera, "What's up everybody?" Then, he's over on podcast, "What's up everybody?" Then on blog typing, "What's up everybody?" I'm like, "There's something to this publishing thing. I've got to do this." Since then, I want to ... I didn't ... I spent three hours trying to figure out the question to ask you guys on Wednesday. I realized, sitting here, you guys already answered it. I was like, "Dang it," but I couldn't believe how many of you are not publishing, because I started with, not just with no email list, there was no list. No one knew who I was. I want to show you how I launched these two podcasts, because today we should cross 160,000 downloads. It's freaking nuts. It's the content strategy behind it. I'm going to show you guys real quick the strategy behind it. I just want you to know that it works. Here is, as of six weeks ago, six people I brought through, they're in the top, if not 100, then 25 for the MLM category in iTunes now. I'm going between number one and number two on Stitcher. Darn you, [Simon Chan 00:07:24]. I will beat him. I'm number six in that category. Then, if you look at the Sales Funnel side. I want to show you how I did it as a seriously shy person. Everyone of you have to do this. If you guys have massive businesses with these cool audiences, you are sitting on a goldmine. I want to show you real quick how I did it. With Sales Funnel Radio, the way I started it, that was when I started about a year and a half ago. There's been no ad spend on any of these. Can't spend it profitably yet, so I'm not. Anyways, if you think about this is the concept I came up with as I was launching this. I was so scared I didn't know what to talk about. I chose not to talk. What I did is I thought, I'm going to reach two levels up at all time. If I go through and I say, "If this I me and my level of influence as a brand new person, and there's someone who's a little bit above me, someone who's a little bit above me," and it's like C-list influencers; people who have sway. People with lists... You think through, "Oh, my gosh. There's someone above them. Someone above them. Then there's Russell Brunson. Wow!" Let's say it's Tony Robbins, which in my mind I've switched now. "The Pope!" We got at the very top ... Who's at the top? Batman. Okay? All right. You think through that. I thought, "What if I get other people to do the talking for me and I just provide the platform?" I'm just the platform. It is ridiculous what it has done for me. The Dream 100 comes to you when you are able to boost their status. I started getting a whole bunch of people to just get on my show. This is the pattern that I used to launch that first show. My very first episode wasn't even me talking. I was so scared. I was like, "Who's two levels above?" Then when I felt like I had reached up, I reached another two. I reached another two. I didn't want to be ... and it's no hit against John Lee Dumas, but that's all he does; interview, interview, interview. I don't want to get asked just interview questions. I also want to be seen and positioned as an expert when I do, so I lace in podcasts with myself and what I'm learning. I was sitting with a student in Dallas a little bit ago, a month ago, and we were chatting. He goes, "What are you going to do on episode 157?" I don't know, I'll figure that out when I end 156. He was like, "Well, aren't you going to run out of things to say?" I had this realization. You think I already know what I'm going to talk about. The huge secret is that you're learning with me. I can't batch four months of content, because I don't know if I'm going to be able to scrunch four months of learning into that amount of time. That's not my style. When I saw ... Anyway. When I saw [Peng Joon 00:09:53] do his thing, I was like, "Oh, we're super close to that already." I got six people. We have the sweet concept machine that's been moving and just a few tweaks and we're super close to what he's been doing. This is how I launched the first one. The second one I did, this was amazing, was, I thought through ... If you think through what the perfect webinar script is, it's not just for webinars. It is the basis of persuasion. What I started thinking through is, oh my gosh, what if I just took the first part of the perfect webinar script and I write an ordinance story for the audience I want to be buying from me later. The audience that I believe will listen to me. This is in an MLM space, and I took some concepts that everyone believes you need to be successful in that space. "Talk to friends and family. Lose all your relationships." I go through and I just  rocks at them as hard as I can. I literally wrote a webinar script and I wrote an ordinance story, the three more stories for the secrets and I turned them sideways; so episode number one was the ordinance story, episode number two was this story only for secret number one. The next episode's only the story for secret number two, only secret number three. Then, that let me go through ... By then, they're so freaking sold, so sold. I haven't even sold them anything, but I have tons of people who reach out to me consistently. Many of you have already. You're in here. They're like, "I listen to your podcast. It's amazing. When are you going to ask for my money somewhere?" I'm like, "Well, you just wait." Anyways, this is what I thought, is what if I combined them? That's what I've been teaching to my students lately and it is killing it. They're all over on iTunes and because what they've essentially done is sold their audience on why they should continue subscribing and listening. I combine them. Instead what I do, is I say, okay the first five episodes is going to be literally a sideways webinar. The next after that, I go through and I call my shot publicly and I say, "I have not done the thing that I'm here to show you that I've done yet. Instead, I want to show you that I'm just a few steps ahead and I will document my entire journey, both the successes and the failures. You won't want to miss this. If you don't want to go through the same pain yourself, follow me and sidestep it." It is crazy what happens. We're not at 3,000 or 4,000 downloads a day, but we're about 800-ish now. It's been awesome what that does. It's ridiculous. People feel like they know you so well when you get vulnerable with them. I talk about all this stuff. I talk about how shy I was as a kid. I talk about Russell was going, "What's happening you guys? What's happening guys? What's happening guys?" I learned this and that. It's really cool to see if you take the standpoint of a reporter and become the expert in front of them, crazy what that does. Here's the funnel that I kind of made up, but it works super well. I went through and I figured out, on all the end of my podcasts as well ... I'm going to hurry because there's something I want to ask you guys. I create this ridiculous bait. Something that is so insatiable and I say, go to blah-blah-blah.com and check it out. It's a free course, and when they go opt in, what they're actually doing, on the very first thing is my ordinance story again, that's the first video. Then I tell them, if you opt in, I'll give you this cool free course. Thank you so much. It's like a 72% off  on the thing, still, it's crazy, crazy. I haven't sold anything to them yet. I pre-frame the crap out of them, though. Over the next six days, it's essentially a product launch funnel. They don't know it. "It's a free course," but it's a product launch funnel. Underneath every video is the option for them to go learn and experience more from me. It just goes through my webinar registration page and I sell. My best sales, my best customers, my best advocates, Dream 100 people, future affiliates, all come from my podcast, not my ads. My hardest customers come from my ads. Anyway. That's super cool. I have a four-and-a-half-hour course I created on this.  Which as a gift to all of you guys, I will give it to all of you. It's super cool, if I may say so myself. It's pretty epic. It blows me away. I'm like, "Holy crap! A lot of you guys aren't publishing." I didn't even know how to get as big as you have been without doing this stuff. I'm excited for you to plug that in. If you have any questions, ask campaign. Can I ask really quick, you just ...them, like, "Ha!" Your hardest customers come from your ads. Your easiest customers come from your content ... Anyway, it just makes you think the frame they go through. It makes me want to take all my crappy hard ad customers and shove them to something like a podcast so that they become good customers and then we sell that at that point. Anyway. That's- Well, what I realized ... I studied Ryan Holiday like a beast. When you think about it, what controls public opinion? Publications do. Right? All of our ideas, our cultural ideas, come from the news. Whoever controls content, controls ideas. What I'm doing is creating ... I have the funnel going, which is awesome and it's doing really well, but I'm creating a content machine that can go through and it is repurposing the crap out of everything that I do to the nth degree. I've figured out I spend about $20,000 a month in hard cost in just my content machine only, because it spreads the ideas. I'm trying to change the MLM industry. I will not do that on my own, so instead I create mini-me's, teach them how to do it as well. When we are the only ones talking, the highest ranked on iTunes across blogs and everywhere, we affect ideas and belief. That's what I'm doing. Real quick, I want to ... I got to go. The reason this works is because story amplifies value. When you think about your offers, your offer has generic value inside of it. This American flag, what's the material cost for this flag? $20? Meaning retail value, probably about $20, maybe a dollar to actually manufacture. Watch. This certificate is from a senator ordering that this flag be flown on the White House for me specifically. Now, how much value just got added to this? It's worth way more than $20. I'll not trade it for that either. Isn't it interesting? Most the reason why you can't sell your thing for what you want to when you start doing things on a..., "Oh, my gosh. They just don't believe me." It's because your story suck. They don't understand yet. There's already inherent value in the flag, but what amplifies and explodes on multiples and exponential curve is story, because story gives context. Just one more thing before I ... I got to show you what I'm stuck on, because ... Dark example, a man walks down an alley. He shoots another man, and he dies. Context, it's a war zone. Shifted everything. Story creates context. Context amplifies value... Anyway. Is that helpful? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Freaking, geek out on this stuff like crazy. It's the fastest 22 minutes of my life. Oh, my gosh. I already talk fast, I'm winded. Okay. Wow. Thanks for listening. Yeah, please remember to write and subscribe. Hey, you want me to speak at your next event or Mastermind? Let me know what I can share that would be most valuable by going to SteveJLarsen.com and book my time now.

There ONE skill that protects me against any mishap as I launch funnels... Hey, what's going on everyone. This Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. And we're about to cross 100,000 downloads. I am going to remake an intro. I have loved the intro that I have, but it's time to switch it up. After 100 episodes, what, it's like 120 episodes now almost and almost 100,000 downloads. To celebrate that I'll probably toss it out there. Hey, so I was on stage, I was teaching the Fat Event. It's been super busy, I'm sorry I've not done a podcast here in a little while. Funny story though. I was on stage and I get excited, which I know is hard to imagine. I get excited in general. But I was on stage and it was the second day. It was lie one o'clock. One o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon. And the second day's a long day. For me it's 12 hours on stage at least. Anywhere from 12 to 15 hours, and then Russell will come on as well. And I was just wrecked... Anyway, it's a lot of fun though. I mean I absolutely love it. I enjoy it like crazy. So I was on stage, and I was jumping around. I was getting ... I can't remember what I was teaching about. But I ... The pants that I was wearing. You guys will like this story. The pants that I was wearing were a little bit more like loose fitting. And I was like ... We were jumping around, and I was teaching ... I can't remember what I was teaching. I think I was teaching about like storytelling or something like that. I think I was talking about energy. Why it matters. Anyway, I can't totally remember it was. But basically I jumped and no one else knew, but when I came back down I totally ripped by pants. Like right up my butt cheek. And nobody knew. And so ... And I didn't know how bad the rip was. And so I'm like jumping around on ... "Hey." Like I have no idea what's going on. I just know it's getting drafty back there. And I was like, "What the heck?" Like I've never had this happen in my life ever. And so I ... So there was a whiteboard there, and I write whiteboards a lot. I draw on them a lot to illustrate certain principles and stuff. But I wouldn't turn my back and actually write on the whiteboard in front of me because I didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know how bad it was. So eventually after while I was leaning around the white board writing down. Anyway. And I ... In my mind I was laughing. I was like, "I'm literally going to podcast about this." So this is me doing that. And I decided I would called a break. I was like, "All right. I'm going to call break." And uncouthly remove myself from the room. And so I remove myself from the room and I grab my friend Miles who's also ... He's into ClickFunnels. Employee there. He works at ClickFunnels. He's the DJ basically. Runs all the sound and lights and all that stuff for me while I'm doing those things. And I was like, "Hey man. I need you to be a bro and look at my butt." And he's like, "What?" I was like, "I freaking ripped my pants dude." And so we're hiding in a corner and he looks at my butt and he's like, "Dude, as long as you stand perfectly straight, your shirttail covers it. It's not even a big deal." And I was like, "Okay." So for the next five hours I had the most perfect, unnaturally amazing posture that I have ever had in my entire life. And anyway, no one was the wiser until the next day I told literally everyone that story while I was up there. And I know that some people might think that that's weird, but it's to illustrate a point. Okay. It's to illustrate a point. Whatever weird thing's going in your life, whatever it is that's going on, whatever it is that's happening to you, that develops your attractive character when you start to share those things. Right? I know now not to wear slightly baggy jeans while I'm on stage jumping around. Okay? Who would've known? I'll make that secret 12 in like some stage presenting workshop coming up, or I don't know. Just kidding. But anyway. But it's true though, okay. It's all about ... You guys got to understand this, okay? When it comes to your attractive character, and new opportunities. New opportunities you compete by being brand new. Right? All right. Your attractive character though is also something to be treated not as brand new, but as different. Let me explain what I mean, okay? In creating new opportunities your business should be a new opportunity. Your business is a new opportunity. The product itself is a new opportunity to somebody else. And if you've never ... If this is a brand new concept to you, you should probably go back a few episodes and start listening right? Right. It's a pretty standard idea now to find something that's a brand new product. Brand new idea. Your attractive character though also needs to make some kind of evolvement. Okay? When I was in college I wrote this ebook. It was before I ever read dotcom secrets. I didn't even know who Russell was I think. Wait, I'm thinking timeline. Yeah. I had no idea ... I didn't even know he existed. Okay. And I wrote this ebook, and what I did is I talked about this concept called product big bang theory where most of the time people go out and they say, "Hey come up with something that's totally brand new. Something that's completely out of the box." I call it product big bang theory. Meaning it just popped out of nowhere. "Ah this is something brand new. It's not stemming from anything else." And product big bang theory is an issue, okay? It's scary. It's freaky. It's risky. It's one of the most risky product strategies you could ever have. Instead I called it product evolution. I never actually released that ebook. I probably should. It was good... And so when I saw Russell's book about dotcom secrets, about first funnel hacking what's going on I was like, "Oh. Product evolution." Right? I'm taking what already exists and I'm making it new but I'm stemming it from something that already exists. Right? It's the same thing with like ... So when it comes to products that works really really well. When it comes to your attractive character thought, you can't really stem from another individual. I can't really say ... Why? Why why? Because you need to ... You can't compete on something like a strength. If you compete on things like strength, it's like the scariest thing to do also as far as your attractive character goes. So just follow me here real quick. Okay? I know this is ... I'm getting kind of ... Just follow me for a second. Okay? When it comes to products, you're trying to create a new opportunity but stemming from something that's already successful. Right? It's a combination between funnel hacking and creating a new opportunity. It's a combination between those two. You don't just funnel hack. And you just don't create a new opportunity. You combine them. You do them in tandem. Right? That's like one of the most secure easy ways to actually create a new opportunity for yourself. I'm sorry, a successful business. A successful product. One that is slightly disruptive in nature and creates a mass movement. That's one of the easiest ways. First funnel hack, second create a new opportunity from what you funnel hacked. Not something that totally never existed before. That's scary. Okay? When it comes to your attractive character though, there is always somebody who will be faster, better, stronger, better looking, whatever it is. Right? So you don't compete on those things. Instead, you compete on your differences. There's only one you. There's only one me, and it's very easy for me to stand out when I stopped competing on strengths. Okay. When it came to my attractive character I'm talking about. Just my own ... The way I deliver. The way I talk. My stories. My personas. What I put out into the world. Out into the marketplace as far as my character goes, my brand. There will always be someone faster, better, stronger, better-looking, er, er, er, er. Right? ER, ER, ER, ER. All over the place, right? That's a scary place to go. It's a scary place to be. Right? So I don't compete on strengths. And I don't compete on weaknesses. I'm not trying to, "Well, no I'm worse than you. I'm worse ..." I'm not trying to compete on weaknesses. But what I am trying to do, is I'm trying to compete on my differences. Okay? It's a different way to think about it. It's a ... I don't know if it's a ... Hopefully it's making sense what I'm talking about, okay? Because I talked about this a lot at this last Fat event that your character development is ... It's paramount to how your business runs. Okay? The way your product sells, the longevity of it, followup sales. Not just the initial, but repeat buys, a lot of that starts to depend now on your attractive character. You can get a lot of people to buy something from you once, but to get repeat buyers, there's got to be something attractive about your business, about yourself. Right? And I don't want my attractiveness to be based on strengths otherwise what ends up happening is I link myself and I compare myself to the ideals of pop culture. That's scary, okay? Because pop culture changes momently. Not even daily or hourly. It changes momently. Right? And so what I'm trying to say here with this whole attractive character thing ... I wasn't even planning on talking about this in this one. But I'm just kind of on a roll with it. Stop hiding what's different about you. If you don't normally wear a shirt and tie, do not put one on to go put a picture of yourself on the internet. Right? I made that mistake. If you go to Sales Funnel Broker right now ... So I'm going to go change Sales Funnel Broker like crazy. Right? I love ... To be honest, I like wearing suits and ties. Okay. But it's not the norm. Man, I wear that maybe once very few months. Right? I'll wear a tie for church on Sundays. Right? But not a suit. And I'm wearing a full out suit in that picture. I don't like that. I should not have done that. That was not ... That's what I'm trying to tell you guys. Whatever it is that you ... That's why I tell you guys random stuff like, there is literally ... You guys know I'm really into air soft. It's like paintball. Right? There's a sniper rifle right next to me that I just barely finished rebuilding. Tons of fun. I love that stuff. Right? Why do I talk about random things like that? "Steven what does that have to do with internet marketing?" It has everything to do with internet marketing. Has everything to do with your character. Has everything to do with why people will be attracted to you... Why would I tell a story about me ripping my pants down my butt cheek? Right? It's not just to tell the story. Is it funny? Yes it is very funny. And I was laughing about it ... I wasn't going to say anything. Well I didn't know how bad it was, but I told them all later. Be willing to expose yourself. Okay? Be willing to expose your character flaws. Talk about the things that you're not good at. It's not about ... I'm not trying to say, "Oh look at me. I'm terrible. I'm a Debbie downer." That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is don't be afraid when the story helps whatever you're doing. Do not be afraid to use a story even though it will appear to you to be a little bit to your detriment. It's not true. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not true. That's not how it actually works. Okay? It's so funny. You will become human. You will become human to your audience. You will become human to those who are following you when you are willing to let other sin. And for a lot of entrepreneurs what I've noticed is they ... One sale, that's not super hard. Right? You could build a webinar funnel, tripwire funnel, any funnel, but the followup sales. A lot of that starts to depend now your actual brand. I don't care about brand on the first sale at all. Okay. I really don't. I don't even take time to sit down and start thinking about brand. I build it as I go. It's not something that I ever had to sit down and start thinking about. The way I guess build my brand as I go, I tell stories. Right? When I'm the brand. When you are the brand. And even if you are not the brand. Your company still has stories. Your company still has an origin story even if you don't have a specific face for it... But anyway. That's all I was trying to tell you guys. Don't be afraid of telling stories about whatever it is that's going on about in your life. And so here's some things that's been going on right now. I think the next episode I'm going to do I'm going to walk through some webinar stats. You guys know that I've been on my own now for about five weeks, totally solo. Self-employed. Had a lot of fun with it. It's been a whirlwind. I want to walk through some stats. I'll probably do it in the next episode because it'll be a little bit long. But I want to walk through a few specific things with you. But as far as ... Like that's the business. But for my own personal stuff, how I've been handling it, it's pretty interesting. This is how it worked out. Week number one, like sickening anxiety. Like, "Holy crap. Why did I do this?" Do you know what I mean? And anything ... A lot of things amazing in my life. I've had those feelings as I'm pulling the trigger. Right? Like, "Oh my gosh. Am I sure I want to do this?" You know? And I get that. And I get that. A lot of people get. Week two for me, I was excited. I had the first big successes. Week three and four for me I was gone a lot because I was traveling and speaking like crazy in three different events. And week four was kind of a cleanup week fulfilling of things I sold in the previous weeks. And it's been kind of this whirlwind up and down, up and down, up and down. Right? Where I'm like, "Yeah this is working, oh my gosh." And then I go back, "And oh crap. So many things wrong with what I've launched so far." I'm going back and I'm fixing it. And I'm wrong, but you know things I want to optimize, and change and approve. And just know that like your personal development is as much a part of the business as the business itself. That's what I'm trying to say. That's the whole thing I'm trying to say with it. And being scared to share the stories of things you're going through at a personal level is not helping your business. It will actually hurt your business. It will help you tremendously. It will help get a following around you. So this is what I would do. I would sit down ... This is actually what I do. Behind me right now there is a whiteboard and it is chock full of storylines. Of things that are going on in my life that I can talk about okay? And the longer I've podcasted, the longer I've done anything in internet marketing, the longer I've done anything kind of thing in this game, the more I've realized how much this whole thing is about storytelling. All of it is storytelling. Every funnel is it's own story. The link between the funnels is a story. How I got into it, is a story. It's all storytelling. If there's one thing that you can get good at, it's storytelling. Okay? You can screw up 90% of your funnels, right? And be good at storytelling and they'll still work out just fine. Right? Why? I'm not making that up, okay? I've seen a lot of people with their funnels look like straight up trash, but that's fine. They sell like hotcakes because they're good at the story part. And that's the reality of it. It's not so much what the funnel looks like, it's can you evoke emotion in those who are coming to your pages? Can you evoke over your business? Can you evoke emotion? If you're just another faceless corporation and literally your entire company is represented in a single logo, people are not in love with you. They might be in love with some outcomes that you get. But then if another person comes along and can beat you out, they'll start comparing you on features rather than emotions. Okay? That's super important what I just said. If you want to be compared by features, don't tell stories. Right? And what I'm saying is someone will always be better, faster, stronger, right? And you might be number one. That's great. That's awesome. But man you will fight tooth and nail to stay there which is great. And you know I'm fighting tooth and nail to try and be one of the best funnel builders in the world. And that's what I'm doing. And I have tons people asking me to build their funnels, and I cannot accept them. Way too much going on. But I ... That's the whole reason for it. Get good at telling stories and you'll have to sell hard ... You'll have to sell hard less. Get good at marketing, and it negates some of the need for hard sales. Get good at telling stories and you're not going to have to compete on features. Right? Because there's an emotion behind it. You know what's interesting is as I was launching this webinar, and I'll end it here. As I was launching this webinar, there were ... The very first week there was a whole bunch of issues with it. I mean there's tons of issues with it. I knew that. And my customers knew that. And they were willing to stick through some of the weird things. Some of the tech issues I hadn't figured out yet, or just hadn't put any attention to yet. They were willing to stick through that stuff because of the emotional connection they have felt with me through these podcasts. Right? I'm still on an MLM product and it's doing really well. And I've got a whole separate MLM show and because I have created that connection with those people, I hardly had to sell them very hard at all. Right? Hardly at all. And the weird stuff, that's the whole point of it. Guys, I just had my router, or modem get moved up into my actual office here where my computer is because my speed was slowing down. You know my router was ... They just barely left actually. My speed was slowing down because it was in the other room, another floor actually. And so it was cutting my upload and download speed in half, and I was frustrated. I'm not going to lie. And I was super frustrated. And when I called them, this lady just chummed it up and chatted with me and talked about where I was from, and the people that showed up on the doorstep, they came and they ... When they switched on the stuff they were awesome. And it wasn't just about the business. They took the time to treat me like a human being. Like a person. Like someone they would want to actually talk with. And it was noticeable to me. And I've actually sat and reflected on it here earlier this morning. And it was like, huh. You know what? I was actually totally fine, and I was more understanding because of the stories that they brought me through. Both my own, and their personal ones back and forth and that's what brought the connection. That's what brought the emotion. And I was willing to actually put up with some stuff that was a little bit weird, that frankly if I didn't want to put up with, maybe I wouldn't have needed to. Right? But I did put up with it, and now that everything's fixed it's fine. It's great. Everything's awesome. It's fast. The internet's great. But it's because of the stories, and because of the emotional connection. And if people are continually bombarding you with these features like, "Well this is faster. This is better. This is ... What about this? Can I get a cutdown here?" It's because they have no connection with you. Start telling your stories. Don't be afraid to talk about your pants ripping. Or don't be afraid to talk about the way you got into this. Just publish. This whole funnel game guys. All of it. That's what I'm trying to say. Anyway. I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again. But you can screw up on your funnels in a major way, and be good at publishing and storytelling and you'll still do great. Okay? That's like being insanely ... That's what funnel is. It's a story. It's a progression. Sometimes people have great conversions on their pages, and I start to looking at them and it's like, "Well it's because you're just talking to me like I might be a potential sale. You're not actually talking to me like a human being. What's the story here? What's the hook?" Okay, that's another word for it. "What's the hook throughout the whole thing?" The hook of the headline, the hook of the sales copy. Anyway. Anyway, that's what I'm trying to say. You guys, I hope that makes sense. And what I would do as far as an actionable thing from this episode. I would sit down, and I've got an actual whiteboard right back there, and I just put down storylines of all the things that are going on in my life. And when I'm like, "Ah, you know I kind of want to put a new podcast out there. And there's this principle I want to describe. Cool, what story can I wrap it in?" Right? Get good at story telling. Get good at that piece. And what I would do is if you're like, "Hey Steven, I really want to start publishing," I would seriously challenge that and invite you to reconsider. But if you're like, "Hey I really got a ... I want to practice. I don't feel like I'm good enough at this yet," just start I mean ... Start telling other people's stories, okay? My dad is actually super good at this. So as a kid, he would just tell us random stories all the time. I didn't realize this until literally right now. And he would just tell us stories all the time. And he would make them up right off the top of his head, and they were completely imaginary. But he helped me get good at storytelling because of how he would do it all the time. And then it would be our turn to tell a story. And he came over ... He was over here like a week ago, and I noticed he was doing it with my kids. And I was like, "Huh." I don't think he realized what he was doing with me when he did that. But he lays down on the floor with them, and they're all just kind of looking at the ceiling and he just starts telling a story. And seriously it'll be about my two girls and a make believe kitty. And they go on an adventure. And there is conflict. And there's resolution. And it's literally, it's an epiphany rich story. I don't think he realized that that's what he was doing. But that is it. Okay. And then at the end, he'll ask my little girls to start telling a story. And they're four and two. Right? And they're practicing ... And of course the plot and the conflict, and the characters, and all that's not that amazing. Of course it's not. That's totally fine. It's just getting in the habit of it. Coming up with the imagination piece of it is huge. If I was to go back to school, which I seriously doubt I'll ever do that. But if I was to do that whole piece over again, I would focus on storytelling. I would focus on debate. I'd focus on design. Right? I'd probably get the marketing degree again because I did learn some great things from there. But that would be where the focus is. It's the ability to create. There's a book sitting right next to me, it's called A Whole New Mind. I recommend it to everybody. It's absolutely amazing. It's a book, it's by Daniel Pink. The subtext is Why Right Brain Thinkers Will Rule the Future. And the context of the entire book, and the premise of the book is that, look, especially in Western culture, are you farming right now by necessity? No. Are you sewing your own clothes? No. Are you building a dam to create electricity? No. Okay, the majority of the  basics for life are here. Right? You have to actually work to die of poverty in this country. Right? You do. In almost every country now there's welfare programs. It would be hard. You literally would have to do nothing. Okay? To try and make sure that you would die by starvation. Right? There's programs. It's hard to fail. Okay? Because of that it is such a huge crutch. Okay? Huge crutch for a lot of people's progress because if the need really isn't there, then I don't really need to figure out how to make this whole business work. Right? I don't really need to learn about story telling. But the whole premise of the book says, look, there's so much that is actually taken care of for us right? The left side of the brain, the very analytical side, factory work style. The future belongs to the right brained thinker. The storyteller. The creative. I'm inviting you to learn how to do that. To learn how to be a creative. Okay? And if you're like, "Ah I don't know how to be creative." Guess what? I didn't know how to do that stuff either. Okay? Pretty sure my dad stimulated a lot of that by just telling lots of stories. He'd do it at dinner about his childhood. He'd do it at bedtimes. And he'd do it all over the place. I had no idea. I had no idea until literally like just a little bit ago as I started watching the way he would interact with my girls. And I was like, "Wait a second. This has been like a patter throughout my life." And I wish ... Anyway, I'm just glad I recognized it early on. Tell stories. Even if they're complete make believe, tell stories. Get good at telling stories. Marketing is story telling. Okay? It's the transfer of belief by changing the story inside someone's head. That's all it is. Okay? And your ability to do that is like ... It takes the cake on 90% of the stuff that I teach in this podcast. 90% of the internet marketing world, okay? Just get good at telling a story. Anyway, I'm saying the same thing over and over again now. I just hope that makes sense. And I want you guys to go through and start doing that. And like I was saying before, actionable stuff, guys just start keeping a list of the things that are going on in your life. The little storylines right? And if you look at ... Inside expert secrets, right? What makes a story is a character, right? And a plot, and a conflict. I think those are the three. And just start coming up with that. You're the character. What's [inaudible 00:24:49] storyline? Where's the plot? Where's the conflict? Where's the resolution inside of it? And then boom. Just keep coming up with it over and over and over again. Script writing, I'm not amazing at script writing. But I'm pretty good at storytelling. And because of that I have gotten by pretty well with it. And I did a lot also when I was a ClickFunnels employee. And at least the basic foundation of a lot of those things that I would write would be okay. Especially by the time I left. And they would be just edited rather than scrapped completely because of the storytelling. It's the storyline. The funnel has a story. The page has a story. It all links together. They're all one big story. And it links into your origin story as to why people should get there. Anyway. Sorry to keep saying the word story. Story story story story. So go think through the things that are going on in your life. The things that are strength, the things that are weaknesses, right? But more importantly, your differences. All right? I just told you that I ripped my pants on stage, and it was awkward. And it's because I don't care. It's because it develops my attractive character. You literally have more a bond to me now emotionally than before I told you that. Okay? It takes me and makes me a more real person inside your head. Right? I know that's what's happening. Anyway, start doing that to your own people. That's all I got for you guys. Talk to you in next episode. Bye. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download more prebuilt sales funnels today.

In episode #20, Wilco shares what he's doing to get his day back and to prevent being overwhelmed. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:31: Just realized that a lot of the times that I'm recording an episode, actually, is because I'm feeling a certain way. 01:50: Last week, I went to the U.S., United States, for a mastermind together with Russell Brunson. 03:25: Do not let others control your to-do list. 03:33: Do not check your email. 04:40: Cut down your distractions. 06:38: You can also just disconnect or turn off your Wi-Fi. 06:55: I plan my hours day by day. 08:06: So every single time I start a new task, I write it down. 08:35: So I write down all these things and I'm asking myself like, "Is this something that I should be doing, or is this something that I could hand off to someone else?" 10:12: I want to be the voice and the sort of person of the business. 10:21: I'm flying out to Liverpool for a couple days of basically brainstorming with like-minded entrepreneurs. Transcription: Hey, hey. It's Wilco de Kreij here, back for yet another episode, and it's funny. I actually just realized that a lot of the times that I'm recording an episode, just like this one, actually, is because I'm feeling a certain way, and today, I am feeling overwhelmed, and I figured to just share that with all of you. Not just letting you know that I'm feeling overwhelmed, but letting you know that it's okay, and how I actually resolve it, because obviously, as an entrepreneur, I mean, a lot of you might recognize it as well, there's a lot of things coming at your plate, and there are so many things you can do, but just like anyone else, we only have 24 hours in a day. And for me, personally, I basically have one of two problems. Either my days are not long enough, I need more than 24 hours in a day, or my to-do list is too long. In any case, there's ways to resolve that, and I've figured to jump on this call or call, jump on this episode with all of you to share sort of what I'm doing to get my day back. Because like I said, right now, I don't know what I'm doing, but the day is passing by way too fast, and there's just no way I can get everything done that I want to get done or sort of need to get done in time. The reason why I'm currently more overwhelmed than usual is because last week, I went to the U.S., United States, for a mastermind together with Russell Brunson, and because of all the time difference and all of that, I was away for the first four days. The week's Monday through Thursday, which meant I only had one day, and then this week, because of Easter, we also celebrate that on Monday, and then tomorrow, which, I'm currently recording this on Thursday. I'm not sure when it goes live, but I'm recording this on a Thursday, and tomorrow morning, I'm flying out to Liverpool for another marketing event, so that means that this week, I only have three days, so that's four working days in two weeks' time, which, for me, is insanely ... I usually work a lot, I work a lot more. Let's just say I'm a bit of a workaholic, and also my team depends on that, right? My team depends on that. Right now, we're like 17 or 18 people, and a lot of the things, I'm still in control. I still want to be in control of what exact features we're building. I want to be in control of any exception that we have with one of our customers. There are so many things I want to be in control of, and right now, I just realized that there's just, it's just too much, right? It's just too much, and I think a lot of people can sort of relate with that, and even if you don't have a team, it doesn't really matter whether you have a team or not. Just as an entrepreneur in general, there's just so much stuff that needs to be done, and at times, it can be overwhelming, I think. So what I wanted to do on this call is, or in this episode, is to sort of go through the things that I'm doing to prevent being overwhelmed, even though today, I am feeling overwhelmed, but what I usually do to prevent being overwhelmed, right? So there's a couple things I do on a daily, day-to-day basis, or at least I try to do on a day-to-day basis, and one of ... First one is to do not let others control your to-do list. So the easiest way to fix that is to, when you wake up in the morning, is do not, I repeat, do not check your email. A lot of the times, an email is basically someone else's to-do list, right? So people are going to ask, "Hey, do this. Hey, do that," so if you start your day by checking your email, you're by definition starting off with someone else's to-do list, right? So what I recommend you to do is, do not check it until, for example, I don't know, afternoon, or whatever works for you. I try to check my email only twice a day. I do not always succeed, and the periods where I check my email more often are directly the times that I'm less productive, less efficient, because I'm just being distracted by my emails. Right? All of a ... Sometimes, I read my emails, but I don't really reply, and then later on the day, I read them again, because that's when I actually go into my email box, and I realize that I actually read a lot of the emails twice, just because of the fact that I read them first, didn't want to reply, and then do the same thing over. So that's super inefficient already, there, so first thing I highly recommend you do is, do not let someone else control your to-do list.  Cut back on your email time. Just have like two, one or two set schedules, and also just, in general, cut down your distractions, so cut down Facebook. Cut down anything else that you find distracting, and I found a pretty useful tool. There's actually two tools that I use. I'm on a Mac. I'm not sure if there's something similar for Windows as well, but one of the tools is called Focus. I believe it is Hey Focus, like hey, like, "Hey." Heyfocus.com. It's a real cool tool where you can set basically a schedule in focus times, and during those times that you're focused, you cannot reach any of the distracting sites, so you can add a list of things like facebook.com, Gmail, maybe your statistics, or whatever like new sites, anything that is basically distracting and keeping you off-course, you can add this to your blacklist. And whenever you are scheduled, like whenever you're focused, all those sites will be automatically blocked, even if you restart your computer or do whatever. You literally cannot get access to those sites, right? So what I do is, I actually set up a schedule so in certain time blocks, no matter what I do, I just cannot access those sites, and that helps me a lot. Right? A second app that I use a lot is called Offline Time, and it really, all it does is basically make sure that I'm offline, like I cannot access my internet, so whenever I am writing or doing something that I don't really need internet for, I turn on that app. And when you do that, it's funny that as soon as I open that app when I'm sort of stuck on the task that I'm working on, I realize that I quickly check my stats or quickly want to check Facebook, quickly want to do this, I quickly want to do that. And when that app is on, you'll get a message like, "All right, you're currently offline. You cannot access it." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, sure, of course." Sometimes you even do it without noticing, so these kind of apps, they help me to basically prevent that I'm going through all kinds of distractions, so I use heyfocus.com as well as Offline Time. You can also just disconnect or turn off your Wi-Fi, just to make sure that ... It helps if you're offline, no one else can sort of reach you, and you are sort of in the zone, so cut down on your email, cut down on your distractions. What else I do is, I plan my hours day by day, so instead of just saying, "Hey, I'm going to do this, this, and this," I'm actually thinking like, "All right, how much time is every task going to cost me?" And I sort of plan it in like, "From 9 to 10 I'm doing this. From 10 to 11 I'm doing that," and that makes sure that when it's like a certain task is from 9 to 10, and it's 9:40 and I'm still not done, I'm like, "Oh, damn, I only have 20 minutes left. I need to rush instead of just spending countless, wasting hours on a certain task that should just cost me an hour, of course." Now, obviously, that's not always working as well as I make it sound right now, but that's usually the goal. And once again, I notice that every single time I do it like that, every single time I sort of set up my day on a day-per-day, hour-by-hour basis, and I plan my day, every task over the whole day in advance, and do that the evening before, it just helps me to be so much more productive. So those are just some things that I try to do on a day-to-day basis, but there's also some things that I do on a more irregular basis, so that would be, for example, right now, so right now I am feeling overwhelmed. There's not enough time for all the things that I wanted to do, so these are the times that I'm sort of just starting to realize, "All right, so what are all the things that I'm currently doing? What are all the things that I'm writing on?" So every single time I start a new task, I write it down.  I write down, "All right, I'm answering support. I'm answering this," or, "I'm communicating with the designer how a certain feature should look," or, "I am doing research for a new feature for viral, for a new tool for Connectio," or whatever it is, right? So I write down all these things, and then at the end, like after a couple days or a week, I have like a list of things, of all the things that I'm spending my time on, and then one by one, I'm asking myself like, "Is this something that I should be doing, or is this something that I could hand off to someone else, or maybe I could even automate, especially if you don't have a team yet?" And a lot of the tasks that I'm doing, a lot of the tasks that I'm spending time on I realize that I should actually not be the one doing. Some things I want to keep in control, like deciding what features we're adding and things like that. I'm a bit of a control freak, so I think it will be best if I would still do that, but some things, I just do not need to do them. But I just, once time passes by, I sort of take these things on my to-do list, and I just do them, right? So it's only when I actually, I'm overwhelmed, as I am right now, that's when I start to realize like, "All right, do I really, really need to do these things?" And if I don't, I try to offload them to my team, which is going to be on my to-do list for next week, so now I've just written down all the things that I'm doing for this week. And then next week, I'm going to try to offload quite a few of those tasks, again, to my team, to basically win back my day. I'm going to also be more strict to myself in terms of the email and distractions and my day-to-day and hour-by-hour planning, which is going to be good. So next week, I'm hoping to have all my days back. I'm hoping to be in control of how I plan my days. I have not been in control this week, so it should be better next week. So that's pretty much it. I just wanted to share this with all of you real quick, because I know for a fact that a lot of entrepreneurs, they have similar challenges, I would say. So right now, I'm going to go offline. I've got a webinar to prepare for, which is one of the things that I still need to do myself. I want to be the voice and the sort of person of the business, right? So I want to be the one who is doing all the webinars and things like that, so I'm going to prepare for that, and then wrapping it up, and tomorrow morning, I'm flying out to Liverpool for a couple days of basically brainstorming with like-minded entrepreneurs, which helps me to keep myself sharp, and from the next week on, just a lot of good stuff coming. So, hope everyone has a great day, and I will talk to you all soon.          

Welcome to episode 344 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. All right, beginning of a new quarter means it's time to check in on your social media numbers, if you haven't yet. And yes, I don't just mean your social media numbers. I want you to check in on how your content's doing, how your website is doing, how things are converting, where your revenue goals are. I like to check in on all the things a lot because there is a wealth of information and answers to a lot of our pressing questions that we're spending thousands of dollars asking coaches and consultants and paying people to execute on things. A lot of times the answers to the question are in the data and other times it's good to check in to see if the things they're telling us or doing for us are, you know, well, working. So that's what we're gonna start with. I want to talk about some of the social media numbers you need to be paying attention to and why they matter. Daily, I like to check in on my vanity metrics, my follower counts, a real big picture. Has anyone been engaging in the last couple of days or really in the last 24 hours? Full disclosure, I don't do this every day. I don't do it on weekends, just my work days. This is one of the things I do to literally start my day because it will impact where or how or what I am going to be doing during my social networking time. By social networking, I mean actual engagement on social media. It will really be impacted by how those numbers are doing versus my goals. So whenever I'm checking in on these things I'm looking at where my goal is and where my results are coming from so I can see if they're lined up. I actually keep these in an excel doc in my Google drive and it gets opened every single morning. We look and see what's working and what's not working. Again, basically our vanity metrics are the email lists, the Facebook followers, the Twitter followers, the Instagram followers, and a real brief look at engagement, what's happening engagement wise. The whole thing takes about 10 minutes. But what's cool is when I check in on these things quarterly, and I do my big review of the 12 weeks, if I hit my goals, if I missed my goals, and I evaluate what needs to be changed going into the next 12 weeks, it's nice to have that comparison of the daily numbers because I can see where my numbers were at the end of March versus the beginning of January or even the end of March to the beginning of March. I can see where there was growth, where there was some stagnant activity or, in all honesty, where maybe there was a decrease. Maybe I did a big promo push to ... Great example of this, in March we did an affiliate promo for Denise Duffield Thomas, who I'm a big big fan of and she's one of the two people who I promote their content and their courses as an affiliate, and that obviously caused some unsubscribes on my email list, which is absolutely fine. I'm a big proponent of not being upset about unsubscribes. But, I could see very clearly in my numbers where there was stalled out growth. Although there were still people subscribing and growth to my email list, you can't actually see that growth because there were also unsubscribes happening and a little bit of a peak rate versus where they usually are. Knowing what's going on and being able to see a whole stretch of numbers is really helpful. That's why I make sure I track those daily. On the flip side of that, weekly I'll go in and I'll actually look at my email list because I send an email once per week. I'll look at subscribes, unsubscribes, clicks, where they're clicking, what they're clicking on. I do this because, guess what guys, it will impact any testing or changes or evolving that I want to do to the email the next week. So, once a week I actually check in on those numbers. Again, I'm not somebody who gets upset about unsubscribes. I'm not somebody who lives and dies by the number on their email list, how many people I have. Everybody loves having a large list. Everybody loves seeing that number go up because it means their community size is going up. Obviously that's really important and that's really valuable, but the numbers I watch most are my opens, my clicks, and my conversions, meaning is the money actually in the list. Because sometimes, it can be really easy to think "Hey, the money's in the list. If I just keep growing it, I'll be making bank." Right? No. You want to make sure the money is in the list because there are people who are actually interested in what you're talking about on the list. This is something that I had to really come to terms with early in my business, because I was so about list growth and so about having this massive list. But literally no one on my list was buying. Whereas now, I'm fairly confident when I send out an email that there's going to be a certain percentage of purchases because it's a targeted environment. I'm not only sending out to people who are active and interested, but I am also sending out content that is directed at them based on their segment, meaning they are somebody who needs help with Facebook. So when I send them a Facebook thing, it's a no brainer that it's a yes for them or at least a click and a conversion through some follow-up emails or whatever. So it's really really important that you have a quality list and it's well segmented and that it's gonna take action. Names for the sake of names, email addresses for the sake of email addresses, not fun. You guys know, as members of this community, I'm really transparent about what's going on. This is actually one of the things I'm really tightening up in quarter two. We're really evolving how our email sequence systems and segmentation and, in all honesty, list clean-up happens in this year. I'm actually going to be implementing some new funnels that will drop people off the email list if they don't engage after a certain amount of time. If they're not clicking, if they're not replying, if they're not engaging with the content, there's no reason for me to continue to email them. There's no reason for me to continue to pay to have them on my list. When your list starts to get to a certain size, you have to pay a larger amount. There's no reason for me to be filling that space with information that they're not going to engage with. Again, this is a big big big big big project that we have going on behind the scenes for Q2, which is implementing a whole lot of new funnel structures into my own email marketing. So you might see some cool, crazy, weird emails. Okay, they won't be weird, but you'll see some segmentation happening either because you're going to get slightly different copy or whatever the case may be. Cool? I'm excited about it. But that's what I want you to be checking on weekly is your email content. If you're somebody who sends out a piece of email once a week, you need to be checking in on that stuff. One caveat to that before I go to the other piece of weekly things, if you are in a launch period or you are doing some sort of promo and you're sending out extra emails, which is fine, do that. It's important that you sell to your email list, because, again, that's the only way there's actually money in this mythical list. You might want to check on these things a little more often. When I'm in launch mode, I check email daily because it's entirely possible that there's an email going out to some section of my audience every day over the course of the launch period, depending on how big the launch period is, obviously. So it's something I do check more often when we're in active launch mode. The other thing I check weekly is we check podcast numbers, what shows are doing really well, what episodes are still getting some steam. That actually helps fill the content calendar because we obviously are going to do more of what you listen to. It'll also help with Facebook Lives because I'll repurpose content from the podcast for Facebook Lives when we run into popular episodes. Also we will make sure our download numbers are on track. If I tried something different with an episode or I had a guest or whatever, I want to know if that's working or it's not working really really quickly so that I don't do it again or that I do it all the time now, depending on the reaction. So we do check on content. The same can be said for your blog posts. We did the same thing for our Linked in publisher posts. We look at the engagement. We look at the clicks through back to the website, all of that, once a week so that we can make sure that this stuff is working. Right? All right. Then once a month I go through my daily and my weekly stuff and look at the big picture. What does this mean? I'm accumulating this daily data, this weekly data. What does that mean big picture? We go into Google analytics and we sort of dig in to what's happening. Maybe where we're losing people or where people are converting more often than other places and what does that mean for the following month. The reason I do this stuff so often is I want to be able to make tweaks and changes very quickly so that I can see growth. This is actually something I learned from reading the 12 Week Year. I don't actually execute the 12 week year. I have friends that do but I don't have that structure. I look at 12 months and then I break it down into quarters. So I have 12 week goals, but I don't treat them as separate years, if that makes sense. They all sort of rely on each other for the big picture of the 12 months. But really looking at the things that are happening day in and day out so that I can make decisions really quickly. Sometimes when you do 12 month planning like I do, it's easy to get into the habit that you only need to check in on these things once a year and it can really slow down your growth, and your progress, and your development, and the evolution of your business because you're just simply not checking in often enough. So I do, I check in really really often so I can make these adjustments really quickly. Oftentimes they're adjustments you won't necessarily notice because I try to test only one thing at a time, try being the optimal word there, but it's really important that I look at these things on the regular. Now, as far as the next steps, head over to the backstage community. In the most recent area, I think it's third or fourth down, there is a social media focused daily, weekly, monthly numbers. Exactly what to measure inside of there just for your social media. Then of course in the private community you can ask specifics about your stuff and content emails, those kind of stats, how to make those work for you. Should you have additional questions about those pieces, that really is the place to go to ask those questions. If for some reason you have not yet joined us inside of Hit the Mic Backstage, well now is the time to do it, hitthemicbackstage.com, but I know most of you are, in fact, members because you get that it's, again, the show upgraded. There's video trainings and the opportunity to ask me questions. You can post questions in the private community anytime, but of course I'll be there live from 10 to 12 Pacific Time every Wednesday, which means you'll get an immediate answer during those hours. That's it for today. I will see you guys backstage and of course I'll see you next Tuesday. So have a great week, bye. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

This podcast comes from the third chapter in Dial Down the Drama: Why Moms and Daughter's Can't Get it Right All the Time,which was published at the end of October 2015. No mom or daughter can get it right all the time, but we feel the pressure to do so. This pressure drives us to do more and do it better. I call this the Pressure to be Perfect. Not only do we feel this pressure, but your daughter feels this pressure too. She feels pressure to have the perfect hair, body, friends, boyfriend, and grades, even when she acts like she doesn't care. This pressure is a setup for drama between you and your daughter. You want to get this parenting thing right and so your self esteem can be linked to how well your daughter is performing or behaving. If your daughter is doing well in school, you feel good about yourself as mom, if her grades drop, you feel like your making a D on your mom report card. Because your daughter is hard wired to be imperfect and actually the same applies for you, basing your self worth on how she is doing will take you on a stressful emotional roller coaster. All of this craziness is driven by Powerless Parenting Messages. In this episode I look at replacing these with new messages that will empower instead of shame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SWEET Human, I am so happy you are here. This week is major. Right? All of our global relationship cracks and holes and vulnerability exposed, feeling all of the feels. So glad to be here together.