Podcasts about right cause

A new MP3 sermon from Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Boasting for the Right Cause Subtitle: Romans (2022–2023) Speaker: James Hakim Broadcaster: Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian Event: Prayer Meeting Date: 6/5/2024 Bible: Romans 15:17-22 Length: 39 min.

Proper Christian boasting glories in Christ's past work to stir up desire and confidence in Christ's future work.

A new MP3 sermon from Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Boasting for the Right Cause Subtitle: Romans (2022–2023) Speaker: James Hakim Broadcaster: Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian Event: Prayer Meeting Date: 6/5/2024 Bible: Romans 15:17-22 Length: 39 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Boasting for the Right Cause Subtitle: Romans (2022–2023) Speaker: James Hakim Broadcaster: Hopewell Associate Reformed Presbyterian Event: Prayer Meeting Date: 6/5/2024 Bible: Romans 15:17-22 Length: 39 min.

In this episode of The Healers Café, Manon Bolliger, FCAH, RBHT (facilitator and retired naturopath with 30+ years of practice) talks with Dr. John Poothullil about his findings on what is actually causing diabetes and what the right cures are. For the transcript and full story go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/dr-john-poothullil   Highlights from today's episode include: Dr. John Poothullil We all inherit a certain amount of fat storage capacity. After a meal, the liver keeps 120 grams of glucose. If you have a high carbohydrate meal, the rest of it is converted into long term storage to fatty acid and to fat, send it to fat cells. If fat cells are full, the fatty acids stay in the blood. Dr. John Poothullil  10:12 So, obesity is a visual thing, it's a cosmetic thing that is should not be a medical concern. For medical consideration, you need to know the fat storage capacity that you inherited. Dr. John Poothullil MD  Every type two diabetic patient should ask the doctor, hey, if I am resistant to insulin, why are you givin   ABOUT DR JOHN POOTHULLIL:  Award-winning author and nationally syndicated health expert, Dr. John Poothullill, practiced medicine as a pediatrician and allergist for more than 30 years, with 27 of those years in the state of Texas. He began his practice in 1974 and retired in 2008. He holds certifications from the American Board of Pediatrics, The American Board of Allergy & Immunology, and the Canadian Board of Pediatrics. During his medical practice, Dr. John became interested in understanding the causes of and interconnections between hunger, satiation, and weight gain. His interest turned into a passion and a multi-decade personal study and research project that led him to read many medical journal articles, medical textbooks, and other scholarly works in biology, biochemistry, physiology, endocrinology, and cellular metabolic functions. This eventually guided him to investigate the theory of insulin resistance as it relates to diabetes. Recognizing that this theory was illogical, he spent a few years rethinking the biology behind high blood sugar and finally developed the fatty acid burn switch as the real cause of diabetes. This led to the publication of Dr. John's first two books, Eat Chew Live; and Diabetes: The Real Cure and The Right Cause. His own diagnosis of cancer inspired him to write. Surviving Cancer and When Your Child Has Cancer. Prompted by the COVID-19 response, he published Your Health Is At Risk, speaking to the vast amounts of disinformation, misinformation, and missing information that is available, especially in regard to lifestyle diseases, and how to discern fact from fiction. This title has won two gold medals in the IPPY and Nautilus Awards in 2023. His sixth publication is available now, The Diabetes-Free Cookbook  Exercise Guide: 80 Utterly Delicious Recipes; 12 Easy Exercises To Keep Your Blood Sugar Low. Dr. Poothullil has written articles on hunger and satiation, weight loss, diabetes, and the senses of taste and smell. His articles have been published in medical journals such as  Physiology and Behavior , Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews; Journal of Women's Health, Journal of Applied Research, Nutrition, and Nutritional Neuroscience. His work has been quoted in Woman's Day, Fitness, Red Book, and Woman's World. Dr. Poothullil has been the health consultant for the nationally syndicated AM radio talk show, America's First News, which is broadcast on over 100 stations across the US. He is also a nationally syndicated columnist for the Price of Business Digital Network. Core purpose/passion: Your health is in your hands and is determined by what they put into your body. Reconnect with your authentic weight. Enjoy your food, mindfully chewing each bite, allowing your brain to guide your choices of what to eat and when to stop eating. Grains and grain products should be less than 30% of your diet. Question long-standing medical theories, such as insulin resistance, which has never been proven. Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube   ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, FCAH, RBHT  As a de-registered (2021) board-certified naturopathic physician & in practice since 1992, I've seen an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.  My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books:  'What Patients Don't Say if Doctors Don't Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship' and 'A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress'.  I also teach BowenFirst™ Therapy through Bowen College and hold transformational workshops to achieve these goals. So, when I share with you that LISTENING to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience". Manon's Mission: A Healer in Every Household!  For more great information to go to her weekly blog:  http://bowencollege.com/blog.  For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips Follow Manon on Social – Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube | Twitter | Linktr.ee | Rumble   ABOUT THE HEALERS CAFÉ:  Manon's show is the #1 show for medical practitioners and holistic healers to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives.  Subscribe and review on your favourite platform: iTunes | Google Play | Spotify | Libsyn | iHeartRadio | Gaana | The Healers Cafe | Radio.com | Medioq | Follow The Healers Café on FB: https://www.facebook.com/thehealerscafe   Remember to subscribe if you like our videos. Click the bell if you want to be one of the first people notified of a new release. * De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!

Our world is full of tough choices.  Some of these are innocuous.  Some have consequences for ourselves and other people.  Here's an example.  A few weeks ago, a Christian denomination voted to ordain women into pastoral ministry.  Then, another denomination voted to affirm their stance to not involve women in leadership.  But both point to the Bible to support their claim.  These truth claims compete with one another, and we are asked to choose between them.  Which one is right?  Which one is on the side of God?  Matt and Merry explore this and other similar competing truth claims we faced throughout history and ones we face today.  How do we know we are supporting the right ones?  How do we know we are on God's side of any given issue?    

This message was recorded live at chooselife CHURCH in Hobbs, NM. For more information about Pastor Kathy Shropshire, visit us online at https://theresmorenow.com​

Dr. John Poothullill joins The Trulyfit Podcast to discuss his latest book and his controversial take on Type II Diabetes._He practiced medicine as a pediatrician and allergist for more than 30 years._Dr. John is an author many times over including,  Diabetes: The Real Cure and The Right Cause and his newest book, Your Health is at Risk: How to Navigate Information Chaos to Prevent Lifestyle Disease._In this latest book, Dr. John takes readers on an insightful journey about the most serious lifestyle diseases affecting Americans today: the pandemic coronavirus, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease._You can learn more about him here :_WEBSITE: https://www.drjohnonhealth.com/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The show interviews experts in various Fitness & Health realms and gives actionable tips for both the general public and the professional.If you're curious about all things fitness & health...you found the right place!LISTEN ONApple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trulyfit-podcast/id1559994164Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/27jDzRtFENn03QQRRFCf5wSUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@trulyfitappFOLLOW USInstagram: @trulyfitappFOLLOW STEVEInstagram: @stevewashuta

Dr. John Poothullill joins The Trulyfit Podcast to discuss his latest book and his controversial take on Type II Diabetes._He practiced medicine as a pediatrician and allergist for more than 30 years._Dr. John is an author many times over including,  Diabetes: The Real Cure and The Right Cause and his newest book, Your Health is at Risk: How to Navigate Information Chaos to Prevent Lifestyle Disease._In this latest book, Dr. John takes readers on an insightful journey about the most serious lifestyle diseases affecting Americans today: the pandemic coronavirus, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease._You can learn more about him here :_WEBSITE: https://www.drjohnonhealth.com/

Taking responsibility is more than accepting what you have done. It is a part of an overall reform to your bias to anything attached to your existence. When creating, speaking, listening, conversing, let your mind stand firm in knowing you could be wrong. You should be trying to prove you are wrong. Because if you cannot prove you are wrong, you must be right...ish.PREVIOUS EPISODES IN THIS SERIES:• Do As I Say, Don't Do As I Do | When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: https://youtu.be/l5USPksLtEE• Do As I Say, Don't Do As I Do | When Actions Speak Louder Than Words: https://youtu.be/SF5IB38RtLIZero to a Million Subscribers Serieshttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMya1ojw4EaZYYr_XXUjx525yu0X56R7AJOIN OUR BBR PRODUCTIONS FACEBOOK GROUP:https://www.facebook.com/groups/220113238028437/PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNELhttps://www.youtube.com/BBRoseProductions?sub_confirmation=1PODCASTS• I DON'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP – https://open.spotify.com/show/5w5lLVduVr55OXwREPIcVSSHOP OUR PRODUCTS• THOMAS J. BELLEZZA's POETRY BOOK; "SHE" – https://amzn.to/2QLZkgA• ROBINHOOD [get a free stock] – https://share.robinhood.com/thomasb1232• ANGELS ON THE BATTLEFIELD on SPOTIFY – https://open.spotify.com/artist/6vQV1dRMKNBHCRku2IsPMU• ALTAYON on SPOTIFY – https://open.spotify.com/artist/06Fw057KQJPoUy4v3TYcQMEQUIPMENT WE USE CAMERA (Cell Phone) LG V40: https://amzn.to/2ZFh7Od MICROPHONE: https://amzn.to/2sfmLUUHEADPHONES: https://amzn.to/2MX6mx7LAVALIERE MICROPHONE: https://amzn.to/2LzJuDNSTANDALONE MICROPHONE: https://amzn.to/2sazM2S POP FILTER: https://amzn.to/2LyvSbTTRIPOD: https://amzn.to/2Lxc8FySD CARD: https://amzn.to/2GR00MgLIGHTING: https://amzn.to/2jVGogJACOUSTIC PANELS: https://amzn.to/2J6Lh50DESKTOP: https://amzn.to/2xmBkfgVIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE: https://amzn.to/2jQToEwTHUMBNAIL EDITING SOFTWARE: https://amzn.to/2GSlXut[THESE ARE AFFILIATE LINKS]The books we recommend... #1 BOOK I RECOMMEND (Wealth): https://amzn.to/2GQwLJv #2 BOOK I RECOMMEND (Mindset): https://amzn.to/2IRfeTg #3 BOOK I RECOMMEND (Networking): https://amzn.to/2IMIleu #4 BOOK I RECOMMEND (Investing): https://amzn.to/2IN9gqt #5 BOOK I RECOMMEND (Warren Buffett): https://amzn.to/2ILQiAs WEBSITES:BBR PRODUCTIONS: http://www.BBRProductions.comTHOMAS J. BELLEZZA: http://www.MakeARightLeftHere.comJD McGIBNEY: http://www.OnTheWingsOfDragons.com Our mission is bringing reality to your dreams by being an affordable all-inclusive company dedicated toward helping individuals, businesses, and ideas find their “yes” into success within any field of interest through consulting, marketing and development. BBR Productions Inc. is a consulting, marketing, and development company where our mission is bringing reality to your dreams by being an affordable all-inclusive company dedicated toward helping individuals, businesses, and ideas find their “yes” into success within any field of interest through consulting, marketing and development.A QUICK DISCLAIMER: Links in this video description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that are provided our company may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. We greatly appreciate your support to our channel so we can continue providing you with free content each week. To help you find success by us breaking down the process to succeed in entertainment! Peace in harmony, truth in action...#Selfawareness, #TakeResponsibility, #IDontMakeThisStuffUp

Andrey Bogdanov is a Russian political strategist, politician and a prominent Freemason, serving as Grand Master of The Grand Lodge of Russia (GLoR) since June 2007. He is a member of the 33° Scottish Rite. The Grand Lodge of Russia, headed by Andrey is recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England (the world's oldest Grand Lodge, "Commission for the Recognition of the Conference of Grand Lodges (Grand Masters) of North America", the Grand Lodge of Ireland, the Grand Lodge of Scotland and by more than 100 other Grand Lodges around the world as corresponding to "standards of recognition". In July 2010, Andrey was re-elected to the post of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia until 2015. In September 2010 Andrey was admitted to the Holy Royal Arch in the Royal Somerset House & Inverness Chapter (London) in the United Kingdom. He subsequently began establishing Royal Arch Freemasonry in Russia. On 28 March 2015, at the GLoR annual assembly, Andrey was again re-elected as the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia. According to the General Regulations of the GLoR, he will hold the post of Grand Master for a further 5 years, until 2020. At that point he will have held the office continuously for 14 years. As a politician, Andrey was a candidate for the post of President of Russia in the 2008 elections, one of the founders and leaders of the Right Cause party (2008-2012), one of the main founders of the Democratic Party of Russia, the Communist Party of Social Justice, the People's Party of Russia, a new The Social Democratic Party of Russia, the Civic Position Party, the People's Alliance and the Union of Citizens, as well as the Third Power bloc. FIND ANDREY ON SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook | Instagram | Twitter ================================ SUPPORT & CONNECT: Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/denofrich Twitter: https://twitter.com/denofrich Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/denofrich YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/denofrich Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_of_rich/ Hashtag: #denofrich © Copyright 2022 Den of Rich. All rights reserved.

Andrey Bogdanov is a Russian political strategist, politician and a prominent Freemason, serving as Grand Master of The Grand Lodge of Russia (GLoR) since June 2007. He is a member of the 33° Scottish Rite. The Grand Lodge of Russia, headed by Andrey is recognized by the United Grand Lodge of England (the world's oldest Grand Lodge, "Commission for the Recognition of the Conference of Grand Lodges (Grand Masters) of North America", the Grand Lodge of Ireland, the Grand Lodge of Scotland and by more than 100 other Grand Lodges around the world as corresponding to "standards of recognition". In July 2010, Andrey was re-elected to the post of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia until 2015. In September 2010 Andrey was admitted to the Holy Royal Arch in the Royal Somerset House & Inverness Chapter (London) in the United Kingdom. He subsequently began establishing Royal Arch Freemasonry in Russia.On 28 March 2015, at the GLoR annual assembly, Andrey was again re-elected as the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Russia. According to the General Regulations of the GLoR, he will hold the post of Grand Master for a further 5 years, until 2020. At that point he will have held the office continuously for 14 years.As a politician, Andrey was a candidate for the post of President of Russia in the 2008 elections, one of the founders and leaders of the Right Cause party (2008-2012), one of the main founders of the Democratic Party of Russia, the Communist Party of Social Justice, the People's Party of Russia, a new The Social Democratic Party of Russia, the Civic Position Party, the People's Alliance and the Union of Citizens, as well as the Third Power bloc.FIND ANDREY ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook | Instagram | Twitter

(1 Timothy 6:11-21) Yearly Theme: “Joy is…” Series Title: “The Fight for Joy” November 22nd, 2020 Follow along in the Bible app @ http://bible.com/events/47479835 Before we get into the discussion of our passage this morning in 1 Timothy 6...

A conversation with Dr Anton Howes about The Royal Society of Arts, cultural factors that drive innovation, and many aspects of historical innovation. Anton is a historian of innovation whose work is expansive, but focuses especially on England in the 18th and 19th centuries as a hotbed of technological creativity. He recently released an excellent book that details the history of the Royal Society of Arts called “Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation” and he publishes an excellent newsletter at Age of Invention. Notes Aton on Twitter: @AntonHowes Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation - Anton's Book Age of Invention - Anton's Newsletter The referenced post about Dungeons and Dragons We don't dig too much into the content of the book because Anton talked about it on other podcasts. He gives a good overview in this one. How much did a steam engine cost in today's dollars, these sources suggest it was roughly $100k , but as anton noted - it's complicated. Transcript (Rough+Experimental)  Ben: the place that I I'd love to start is the,society of arts did something that I feel like people don't discuss very much, which is focused on,  inventions that have positive externalities. So you, you talk a lot about how they, they would promote,Inventions that maybe people,couldn't make a lot of money off of they weren't going to patent. , and it's one of the few examples I've seen in history of like non-government forces really promoting,inventions with positive externalities. And so I was wondering , if you see that.  how could we get more of that today? And like, if there were other [00:02:00] things doing similar work at the time and maybe how that theme has like moved forward in time. Anton: Yeah. That's really interesting question. I'm trying to off the top of my head, think of any examples of other non-governmental ones. I suspect there's quite a few from that period, though, just for the simple reason that. I mean the context in which the society of arts and emerges right, is at a time when you have a very capable state, but a state that doesn't do very much. Right? So one of the, one of the things you see throughout it is actually the society kind of creating what you might call the sorts of institutions that States now take upon themselves all the time, voting positive externalities as you, as you, which is a very good way of putting it. , you know, Trying to identify inventions that the market itself wouldn't ordinarily provide. , later on in the night in the mid 19th century, trying to proper state into providing things [00:03:00] like public examinations or, you know, providing those things privately before you have a state education system. But I think one of the main reasons for that is that you don't really have that kind of role being taken up by the central state. Right. I mean, the other thing to bear in mind here of course, is that a lot of governance actually happens at the local level. And so when we talk about the government, we really mean the central government, but actually a lot of stuff would be, is happening, you know, amongst the, kind of the towns and cities. It seems with that written privileges, the various borrowers with their own often quite bizarre privileges and like the way they were structured,local authorities for want of a better word, although they kind of. Take all sorts of different forms. And I think you do see quite a lot of it. It's just, it wasn't all done by a single organization at the time. So I think that's kind of the main underlying context there. Ben: Yeah. And so I guess sort of riffing on that. , one thing that I was wondering, as I, as I read through the book was like, why don't we see [00:04:00] more of that sort of like non central, central state,Positive externality promoting work done. Now, like you think of philanthropy and it doesn't quite have that same flavor anymore. And I wonder like do, like, my bias would be, would be to think that sort of,there's almost like a crowding out by the centralized state now that people sort of expect that. , and I was wondering like, do you. W w how do you think of it, perhaps there's some crowding out. I mean, the interesting thing, right, is that Britain has actually kind of interesting in that it has quite a lot of these bottom up institutions. Whereas across the rest of Europe, you actually see quite a few top-down ones. Right? So I discussed in the book that there is actually not one, but two French societies of arts, sociology. Those are there's even a third one, which still exists, which is a kind of a later much later one from, I think the late 1938, early 19th, late [00:05:00] 18th, early 19th centuries. , part of the, kind of catch up with Britain project that Napoleon and others start pursuing,But yeah, you have a lot of these princely institutions, ones that depend on particular figures to be their patrons,to promote them,to, you know, provide a meeting space for them to provide them with funds, to provide up, to, to fund anyone who's doing fellowship of that, of that kind. Whereas in Britain, you seem to get basically those stuff that doesn't get funded by the particular patrons, even when they're promised that funding like the Royal society, which they always hoped we'd get some kind of government or, you know, some funds from Charles the second or something never does. , it obviously gets support that, you know, he gives them a Royal base that they can have on the table in front of them when they have that discussions. But that's about it. And the society of arts I guess, is, has to be set up because you have that lack of. , you have that lab because of state support. , I mean, what's interesting is I guess in certain [00:06:00] complex contexts, you do get state funding of these sorts of institutions. The Dublin society becomes the Royal Dublin society, but that one actually does get state funding as part of the kind of compact try and get Ireland to catch up with, with, with Britain in terms of its economy, same with Scotland, the society Scottish society of improvers does eventually get. I guess morphed into what becomes the Scottish board of trustees for fisheries and manufacturers, probably full title one. , so organizations like that, I guess become state ones. I mean, the idea that there, the fact that they're quite uncommon though, is, is interesting. And I wonder if Britain was just a bit better sometimes that they're organizing these things and keeping them going. , the Dublin society is. An outlier. So there's the society of arts. You see lots of these patriotic societies set up to emulate the society of arts across Europe, but very, [00:07:00] very few of them,assisted I think by the 1850s, the only one, like they're pretty much, refounded a bunch of them as kind of discussion clubs. And then since then, I think the only real one to keep going was it's the one on Malta for summary, bizarre reason. , I've kind of forgotten the original question now I've kind of gone. So, so the original question was just around,like why almost like why aren't there more,nongovernmental organizations sort of devoted to promoting,these positive externalities. Like that's, that's sort of the big question I have. So I guess my answer there is partially that. It seems as though if you did have crowding out it was happening just as much then, or at least had that potential. Right? Cause you have these Nobles who could be the patrons. You have the King, who could be the patron. , although potentially you're right in that, because British Monex worth giving their patronage. You end up with these actually ironically more robust institutions because they're [00:08:00] much more broad based and bottom up. Yeah. Being formed and then surviving. So perhaps it's the case that because we just expect the government to do it and the government's extremely rich and actually does give lots of money for lots of different things. We just say, well, it's easier to, just to kind of persuade a politician, to get some money set aside for a new agency in much the same way that you know, today Britain is trying to set up an ARPA. , I think just announced a few weeks ago. , because once the idea gets,enough currency, as long as you can persuade the panels that be the, maybe it's actually quite straightforward to do it. The reason I ask is actually based on something that, that Jomo cure has pointed out, which is how,Kind of like the federalisation of innovation makes it much more robust. , I'm sure you've seen the, the,sort of like the contrast between like the Chinese state. , and then how, like, in, in Europe, comer, [00:09:00] Copernicus could like go, go between Patriot to patron until they found someone who would actually support him. , and so I always wonder about like having multiple sources of innovation and like how to have that happen. , so that was that's, that's sort of something that, that I'm, I'm always thinking about. , I guess you could say that that's, that's present right on the European level. Certainly the big question then is why is it that you don't get it happening in other fractured States? , I think a very neglected part of the case thesis, right? Is that yes, fractured States is one thing, but the other half of that, of the, of the puzzle there is also having a kind of common culture. Yeah. Even if that's. Completely kind of invented right with Swedes who presumably is descended from whatever bar area, really fat calling themselves, you know, Albertus Magnus or, or, or whatever, you know, people who are certainly not Latin from, you know, in [00:10:00] any kind of. I guess ethics sense claiming a Latin heritage or Greek or Latin heritage for themselves. , I guess bricks as well. Right? , many of whom are probably Anglo, Anglo, Saxon, Germanic Anglo-Saxons or, or, or pre Roman council something. , you know, John D is actually referring to himself as the artist know. But, but that, that, that common language, you know, having a lingua franca, French of Latin then of French, and then I guess more, more recently of English having that common set of assumptions, you know, the Republic of letters. Wasn't just about the fact that you could, as a stop gap or safety valve move somewhere, that could be a bit more promising. , I think it's also very much, it very much requires that extra step, whether or not you have had in other places is, is debatable. Right. I think kit mentions, you know? Yes. Career in Japan and next to China, but they don't [00:11:00] quite have the common culture. So even though some Chinese intellectuals will move to Japan there, they get kind of forgotten neglected. It's a really good point. And I had, I appreciate you. You. Bringing up that neglected part. And so it's like then,actually this is a great segue into another thing I wanted to ask you about. , it's like, so we're, we're in the middle of the coronavirus and you've done a lot of work on sort of like the virality of,of innovation itself,and the ideas like that. And,and so. In contrast, it feels like there's a contrast between,sort of the, the industrial revolution where it seemed like people really would,see someone innovating on something and then take it on themselves to start doing something similar. , and then today you see something like Elon Musk doing something awesome, but then you don't see that many people. Replicating that. , and [00:12:00] do you have a sense of the what's what's different or whether I'm,basically that on like some false assumptions that makes sense, like, like, or just generally, how could we,have more of that innovation vitality? I mean, I think a lot of people probably are inspired by people like Musk. , the way in which they're inspired, I guess is debatable. , you do, I think it's important to have. Invention figureheads. If you like people who you can aspire to copy when it comes to improvement, when it comes to tinkering, when it comes to invention, I guess one of the problems with a figure like Musk is that he seems unaware, reachable or unobtainable, right? There's a kind of level of connectedness and wealth. That seems almost like a starting point before you can even. Get us starting the sorts of projects that [00:13:00] he does or involved himself with. And I think that's potentially harmful. And that it kind of, it's some idea I keep coming back to actually, which is that there's the, the myth of the genius inventor is on the one hand. Good. Because people aspire to be like them. But on the other hand, it can be quite damaging if it seems as though. You have to be born with that a couple lucky enough to just be, be a genius of that. , and that I think is very problematic,because that's not a tall, what we see, I think in the 18th century. And it's certainly not what we see in the 19th century, which is this idea. I articulated that you could be anybody in any past station of life. Right? The Samuel smiles self-help mantra is you can be dirt poor. And, you know, a minor or something in, in, in, in,in the Northeast, someone like George Stevenson and yet through the sheer force of [00:14:00] self-education and. Adopting that improving mindset, you can do great things. Yeah. , and so one of the reasons I quite like improvement as an idea, versus like, as something broader like innovation or invention, is that it has that kind of sense of marginality, that sense of tinkering, that sense of, you know, just doing a little bit to make things a bit better. Which can often have very outsized effects. So a problem with a figurehead, like Musk, I think is that it's like, Oh my God. Yeah. Where do you even start? If I said, if I say it, whereas I think if you can construct a narrative false or not, I think that's actually relevant here. Right. But if you construct a narrative where. It's simply through hard work, a bit of, a bit of hard work and just tinkering around the edges and then keeping on optimizing until you get something really great. That's much more accessible. And I think it also [00:15:00] happens to be true. Right. I think, I think that happens to be true that occasionally certain bundles of improvements with these huge outsize effects can make people extremely rich, extremely famous, and then it kind of spirals from there for certain people. But I think focusing on those initial stories is one of the reasons why, you know, I think, I think the Victorian narratives ended up being so effective, perhaps even had an actual impact on inspiring more people to go in and do that, that sort of thing. And that's actually something that,I've, I've comfortably been thinking about, which is the sorts of things that can be tinkered with and improved now feel different than the sorts of things that could be tinkered and improved in the 19th century. Right. So it's like you look at. , like you could actually like tinker with what was sort of the cutting edge technology, right? Like you could tinker with, [00:16:00] , like railroad brakes or you could tinker with,like sailing apparatus, but it's now harder. It's like, you can't really go like tinker with,like a fusion reactor in the same way. , and. Do you think there's something to that? Or like, like that, that, that contrast, I think perhaps there is something in the mid 19th century. You've got this focus, I guess, on. I'm trying to make some of these instruments, more accessible things like a sort of study of arts gets involved with things like having cheap microscopes that you can send out to working men's colleges, mechanics, institutions, all over the country so that people can then use these things and then make new discoveries, or at least know how they work. , you know, the closest thing we have to that now, I guess it's like something like the raspberry PI, you know, these very simple things that you can start tinkering away around [00:17:00] with. , and I guess, you know, maybe in certain respects you want as much as possible to make. Not, not even necessarily knowledge, but to make invention more accessible, you need the materials to become more and more accessible. Having said that if you think of something like the rust free pipe, that is a very complicated piece of machinery that is now available to school kids,that would be like, you know, in the 18th century taking, you know, a watch or something, something extremely complicated and being like, yeah, how the go, you know, like take this apart and do what you will. , you know, these are things,they certainly come down in price so the time, but they're still. They're not cheap to tinker with. I mean, you mentioned, you mentioned shipping, you know, doing any kind of tinkering with a ship is actually extremely expensive. I mean, it's in the 18th century, that's very much on par with trying to tinker with a jet fighter today in terms of the relative cost of it, you know? So, well, let me, let me push back against that a little bit, which is that. It at least like I've, I've never,like actually like built a [00:18:00] ship, but it seems like it's a little bit more modular, right? Like, like you could say, like tinker with the steering wheel of the ship without,necessarily affecting like the whole, whereas. There's, it's not really possible to like the jet fighter is so integrated that I'm not sure how much you could tinker with like, maybe that the instrument panel, but I'm like, that's it. Or it's like, you could, you could tinker with a sale, a sale design. , but you can't really tinker with the engine of a jet fighter. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, I guess something like the steam engine is kind of similar there where most of the time, most of the improvements you make probably involve redesigning the whole. And there are a few, obviously exceptions to that, but you know, something like in reaching the separate condense that [00:19:00] does require actually changing the way it works, the same with Marine engines, you know, the kind of much lighter, smaller engines that you can use on boats, because they're trying to make these things as small as possible light as possible, at least the same with high pressure engines. , I guess, yeah, those, those do require a big upfront cost. And yet what's astonishing now, I guess it's still that you have a lot of people. From all sorts of backgrounds, still, somehow managing to, to make their improvements to it. Model scale, perhaps not at full scale, but then using a model to show the principles and then getting it built at a much larger, much larger way. Actually, I'm not sure if you know this off the top of your head, but like, do you have a sense of how much a steam engine. Costs in term, in, in the 19th century. But in terms of today's money, not off the top of my head, that'd be real. I'd be just like interested in like, [00:20:00] even like order of magnitude, right? Like, would it be like, like 10,000 pounds or a hundred thousand or a million, right. Like. I mean, it depends how you measure these things a lot of the time as well. But if I have the figure to hand, it it'd be a bit easier, but yeah. Cause you can make it to things later. I'll look it up. Yeah. Stick it in the link. Yeah. But there's different ways of measuring it as well. Right. So just the real cost doesn't actually tell you very much because the basket of goods changes so dramatically over time, the labor cost maybe tells you a bit, but then it's probably it's relative to the average. Wage, which is like the labor is wage very often and not, you know, if you're, if you're a middle class in the 18th century, you were actually pretty damn rich. If you're upper class, you'll extremely rate unimaginably wealthy. , and if you're not, then you're extremely, then you're very, very poor. , like the levels of inequality at the time seeing was unfathomable today, I think,Even when we talk about Nicole T increasing, it's really the comparison. Not that bad [00:21:00] people forget that. The very, yeah, it's difficult to appreciate, I think how, how things change qualitatively as well as typically, but then you've also got measures, like, you know, what is the cost of it relative to the size of the economy, which can also be an interesting way of looking at that. , so, and then you've got different ways of, of, of comparing those measures. So it's very difficult to compare the money over time. I mean, certainly these are expensive machines. , making a model even is extremely expensive, requires quite a lot of careful work. , but I wonder how much of that to scale tinkering happens. It's possible that, you know, in. In the process of making machinery with interchange parts and making it as kind of custom built. It's not really custom built, but. As integrated, as you say, as possible, we've made it actually harder to make changes. Perhaps we should be putting more in the way of tweak ability into our [00:22:00] design. Yeah. I mean, like that's, that's a, that's a huge thing. , it's like you see that with,you know, it's like, you can't take the,battery out of most Mac laptops anymore. , most cars you can't tinker with the engine. Anymore. , because you, you do get sort of like re efficiency returns by making things unconquerable. , so, so I, I, I definitely agree with, with you,I really appreciate you bringing in the nuance of comparing,the, the prices now to prices in the past. And,So think that I also wanted to ask is what do you think, like you're, I feel like one of the real historians who engages the most with sort of like the, the technology,world, what do you think that I would guess, I would say like, technology, people get wrong when they're thinking. Historically, like what, what sort of like, almost like cognitive [00:23:00] errors do you use, you see people making that just like make you want it, tear your hair out? What an interesting question. Couple. This is where I offend people. I think this is, I think, I think like, like you gotta, you gotta be okay with that as long as, as long as you like really believe it. Hmm. That's an interesting one. I mean, certainly you occasionally see a sort of simplified oversimplification of certain trends. Right. , but I, I don't know if that's common to technology people particularly, or if that's just general humans, a general human thing,which you probably see quite a lot. But, you know, I have to think about that one. Yeah, we can, we can circle back on it. I'm just, I guess it's just my, my bias is that I think a sort of historical thinking is under [00:24:00] done. , like, like lots of people talk about history, but they don't approach it like historians. And so I would love to just like inject a little bit more of the way that you think into the world. So I try to the general thing, I guess it would be that very occasionally I'll see the kinds of. Historical work, where you're effectively see people reading the Wikipedia page and kind of coming up with this very straightforward, almost linear narrative of this invention and led to this invention, which led to this invention or this understanding led to this invention. And I think what's often missing there is, is the extent to which. A lot of fan is just tinkering a lot of thought that there are so many more steps along the way that go into this and dead ends and you know, ways in which things either, either failed from a scientific point of view or a technical point of view [00:25:00] or. Just kind of, there's a lack of understanding at the time. We'll just from a business point of view where I think dead ends happen very easily in the history of technology. And there are a lot of them and they're probably somewhat unexplored, but on the converse, the other thing I notice a lot is that people often have a bias, I think, towards very technical explanations. , so a good example of this was, so I wrote this,Sub stack this newsletter, this newsletter blog post about the invention of Dungeons and dragons. Yes. I bought that one. I don't think it was quite as, it was probably my most popular one so far, even though, you know, bizarrely that thing, this is the one I spent the least time writing. Mmm. And the most common reaction. So that the overall argument for listeners who may not be aware of it, or probably won't be aware of it was that you have a lot of inventions that are behind that time, [00:26:00] which is the phrase, Alex, tap rock economist users. I quite like it essentially very, very low hanging fruit things that could have been done very, very early. And for some reason just worked. , and I think the reason I was just very few people in the past tinkered. Yeah. , and even fewer, perhaps, you know, of those who did tink or even made things public. So sometimes you get things invented and they actually failed to reveal it, to discover by the way, which is, you know, the word discover is uncover it's to kind of, not just that you found the things that you actually bother to tell someone about the thing and through the transmission of that knowledge, you know, that, that technology as a whole, as a, as a society advances,so yeah, some idea that it is is that you have a lot of these ideas that are, or inventions that could have been done any point within the past. And my main example of this or the one that I discussed that was doughnuts of records, right? This is literally for those who haven't played, literally, you need. Nothing except the people, right? It's it's you just [00:27:00] basically tell a story and then I guess you need dice. But I actually noticed the other day that they had,the 20 sided dice in each, in Egypt, something thousand, something BC, whatever, they found, very intricately inscribed. So you've got all of the raw materials and then all you do is you have the structured plate and the pushback from this was overwhelmingly. No, but there must be other factors, right? That there has to be some kind of constraint. I think the way that, and this is, this is the economist thing like this,cause they're trained to, and I think a lot of people in, I guess the, the technology sector thing like this as well, that there must be some kind of constraint that needs to be overcome. So a lot of people were saying, well, you did have some things like a Creek spiel. , which is this Prussian army game, which was kind of similar. Going back to the 19th century. There were potentially a few, I think it's the Bronte sisters may have come up with a similar form of structured play. , so there was the [00:28:00] questioning from that level, but then the other one was what cable you needed. I don't know the American suburb so that kids are like the invention of Childs so that kids would have, and yes, I get that those things may have contributed towards the specific form that D and D took. But. It still could have been invented earlier, right? These are, these are weak constraints. , and I think a lot of people, they, they tried very, they try very hard to find hard constraints, the same with the famous example,of the. , the suitcase with wheels, you know, people were just like, well, you know, first of all, you need to have, you know, good enough floors in the airport. You need to have a lot of people going to the airport, you know, an international flight because otherwise, what are you gonna use? This thing you need good enough roads for the wheels to work. You need good enough rubber. You probably need the, the ball bearings or something or something rather for this to be technically possible. But the reality is there are, there are absolutely loads inventions that just didn't require, you [00:29:00] know, maybe that's just a bad example. , but there are actually loads and loads of other ones as well. , another one I mentioned. Yeah. And that post, which not many people picked up on was Semafore systems, you know, signaling between ships or from ship to shore. Like you need a flag. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the early, when they, when they discovered it well, when they create invent the one that kind of becomes modern Semifore, you know, people are literally just doing with like a white handkerchief. Yeah, they wrapping around their arms. , the holograph by leftenant James Spratt is the one where they just kind of wrap it around their arms. It almost has a picture of Vitruvian man. , with the, you know, the, the kind of arms different positions all at once holding these handkerchiefs,very long kind of white cloth,or wrapping it around their arm. , the only example I can really think of,you know, The warning system that they used in Elizabethan times for when someone was invading England, which [00:30:00] is a bit like the lighting of the beacons and all the rings, you know, where they just set up a fire, it's like attack, you know, there's no, there's no signaling going on there. And another one I noticed just the other day was from the early 17th century was some kind of signaling system when they were fishing off the coast of Cornwall. But it's actually say what, how. How intricate that system was. So these are inventions though, that, you know, given it probably did exist in Cornwall in the 17th century. Why isn't it used while the Royal Navy until the late night, the late 18th, early 19th century, or even the kind of physical infrastructure that you see in France beforehand, they have these towers with signaling systems. Where they kind of have almost like they look a bit like windmills, except they don't turn around. They just kind of have these shutters that kind of go up and down in different arms of the shutters go up and down for different letters. Why do they only set that up in the seventies and eighties? This would have been useful, you know, underneath. 200, 300, 500,000 years. Exactly. I would say like the Greeks, like why didn't the Greeks [00:31:00] a signal between ships with,and I think a, you know, something when people say, Oh, it was invented earlier. Well then the question is, well, why wasn't it more widely adopted, right? Yeah. Invention does happen all the time. You do get things reinvented all the time. , but there are actually very few hard constraints on, on those inventions. I think that's just as true today. , I mean, one of the really interesting things about, I think a lot of people in today's technology, the sphere, the industry, and I guess the kind of intellectual sphere. Is that if you look at how a lot of them actually make their money, it is often from exploiting, extremely simple things that could have been done quite a bit earlier, which has worked well. They were, but they failed for whatever, either unrelated reason or the conditions weren't quite right. Or they just a bit unlucky. Yeah. Yeah. That's , Man. Okay. So there's, there's a couple of places that I'd love to go from this. I think one that I really want to get your take on is, and I think you're [00:32:00] really sort of touching it here is,if you look there, there are two really big schools of. Thought around history, right? Like, so you have the great man people, and then you have sort of like the evolutionary,sort of, so like, almost like I was, I was looking into this and there's no like single, like anti great man. It's theory, but like, it's, it's sort of like, is it just like, do things come about because like, like singular people really push things through, or is it a much more like, like it would have happened anyway process,and. I, I completely realized that it's not a binary thing, but what I'd love to do is just hear like your mental model of like, how like those, those two poles and where like, how things actually work. I think you, you probably need a bit of both. Right? So in a lot of my own work, I, I guess I'm [00:33:00] methodologically individualist, right? I like looking at what it is that individuals deed and said, and then from what they did and said, try to work out what they also thought or what motivated them, which isn't necessarily the same thing, but, you know, but you can, you can get at it a bit. Yeah. , At the same time, I think it's worth taking it's it's worth taking stuff off the kinds of forces that are pulling the strings, so to speak of those individuals and maybe affecting all of them all at once. So I think you need a bit of both. You have to be aware of the kind of overall macro level arguments. Yeah. Was it just, the prices were right in general, which is, you know, such a kind of broad sweep of coordination of millions, potentially people. Resulting in this single figure, right. , it's kind of spontaneously generated or created a thing. The emergent thing. , but at the same time, you do need to be aware that, you know, people I think do have agency,yes, their context [00:34:00] matters as to how they are mine, their agency. But I think one of the things I've learned is yeah, great, man theory may not exist. Great person theory may or may not be quite right. But so I think bad to throw the baby out with the, of water and say, well, yes, we've just, you know, in the kind of Marxist. Reading of things just at the mercy of these, these suffer national global forces around which we have no say whatsoever. I mean, the reality is that, you know, I think the industry relations is a great example of this because you have this broad acceleration. Imagine with some of these inventions, having these global scale effects on the rest of the world, you know, things like the steam boat. Okay. It's a collective endeavor that leads to that point where you have steam boats, but once steam boats effectively shrink the world, I mean, that completely changes the game when it comes to. Trade patterns, right? Suddenly the whole world can be globally integrated. You can see price convergence across the entire [00:35:00] globe. You see this kind of distinction between this growing distinction, as they, as people put it in the forties and fifties, you know, the periphery and the S and the core, an industrialized series of. The nation's sucking in raw materials from the rest of the world, because those raw materials were profitable. Those countries start specializing in those things alone. And, you know, perhaps they get the industrialized or whatever, you know, those forces are still ultimately caused by the actions of a few individuals. So I guess the way to think of it is that, you know, we should take the individual actions seriously in their context and not necessarily think of them as heroic individuals. You know, changing the course of the river, but they can definitely change the rate of the flow, the, the direction that it, that it flows in. , they can, you know, eat away at the banks a bit more or a bit less. Okay. I think, I think that there's room for change [00:36:00] there. , especially when it comes to network effects and that very much relies on individual initiative. Right. I think we take for granted that, Oh, you know, okay. Let's say a place like Vienna in the early in the year 19th century. It's just, yeah. You know, there's something magic in the air or in the water and people come together. No, you require individuals to be these kinds of. Social butterflies and bring together particular groups. And through those interactions almost create new ideologies potentially right? Where the convergence of different ideas and interest leads to a sort of synthesis. , you know, the Royal society in England in the 1660s is often cited as being a kind of outgrowth of  the circle around Samuel Hartlieb   he draws together all of these different people and they become, essentially a,an invisible college . Yeah, even though he's not really that involved himself in what then happens, the Hartlieb [00:37:00] circle kind of manifests itself as the Royal society later on, even though a lot of the Hotlips circle, you know, you could say we're very associated with the Cromwell Rasheem, you know, during the English civil war, you know, the Royal is sympathizers amongst the mobile we're adjacent to that ended up forming their own society. , so I think you need those sorts of fingers. People like hot flip or someone like Benjamin Franklin, right. Is he's as much a connector as he is an actor. Yeah. Bringing together particular people, sometimes that's just through writing, but often it's through correspondence is through active meeting. It's through setting things up or what the society of arts, which I wrote my book about, right. Would not have happened. Had it not been for the ship assistance of the guy like William Shipley, a lot of people have this ideal of an organization like that, but to actually make it happen, you need to actually do the organizing. So two things that makes me think of a first, actually going back to your point about soft [00:38:00] constraints. , what would you say to the argument that the softer, the constraints, the more important the individual is? So if it's something where it's like the world, just like wasn't ready for it. Like a hard constraint changed and then the world could have it then maybe it's like, okay. It just happened to be someone who made the thing, but then you look at such as the dragons,the inventor, Gary Gygax,maybe he was actually very important,because he was the one to really crystallize the whole thing. In my understanding of that particular example is there are quite a few people hovering around what, what would it, what he kind of hit it hit upon in his kind of unique way. , which strikes me as suggesting that, you know, perhaps there were a bunch of soft constraints that get lifted,in that particular case, or at least maybe not constraints, but things that led to that kind of particular. Form that it took.   I mean, it's definitely a [00:39:00] plausible mechanism, right? That sounds like it probably works. I'm just trying to think through an example of how, of whether or not that that's the case. I guess, I guess the right comparison would be, are there cases where I get or how, how quickly do old ideas that had very solid, hard constraints then get adopted? The moment those hard constraints get lifted. Yeah. Is perhaps the way to think about that. That'd be an interesting. Just like actually like going through those case studies. And I suspect there's quite a few from the 20th century. I mean, I'm trying to think of something like the steam engine, but the problem of the steam engine is that actually the hard constraint of simply not understanding how air works. And then once that gets once, once we do have an understanding of the air, it's actually pretty rapid from there. No, it's a matter of decades. I would say [00:40:00] once they, once they hit upon that, and once they, they realize they can do it with steam, it moves very, very quickly because I've seen, I mean, just today I was apparently there's a Spanish claimants to the adventure of the steam engine from 1606. I've got very worried. So I looked into it because it would have been validated my last blog post. , but I was safe. It turns out,because you know, that the steam mentioned is, as we know it doing the kind of work did from the 18th century onwards very much realized that understanding the weight of the air and then using atmospheric pressure through the steam condensing that you get the, the work being done. Whereas this much early one it's very much just. Basically using the steam itself to push water up. So you kind of get, put the, put the water that you're trying to drain into a tank yeah. Which is lower than the altar itself. And then you kind of push the [00:41:00] steam from the boiler through that up. So it kind of spouts out the top through a pipe, which is not the tool, same thing. Right. The amount of work you can do with that kind of dimension is completely different. , Yeah, I guess the things to look at would be actually, I can't, I can't think of an example. There are certain forms of engine, which I think are only, I think it's the Sterling engine, which are now being looked at again, because at the time that they were come up with in the 1820s, if I remember rightly,The Sterling engine just didn't really have the materials to make it work. Yeah. But now that we can do it, it seems as though they're starting to be a bit of movement around it, but they are, the problem is perhaps half dependence that we've, we've invented all these very good engines that do things pretty well. And to shift to a different path will only be worth it. If it becomes extremely, extremely expensive to, to work or to continue producing or. Well using the [00:42:00] existing laws that we have. Yeah. It's a sort of enhanced two question, I guess, is the sort of case where once you have those sorts of developments, it does start to rely a lot on relative prices in terms of the kind of investment that goes into certain things or the effort that goes into certain things, or when something is invented. You know whether or not it succeeds in the market, it definitely relies on those overall historical forces beyond our control, like prices and costs. Yeah, no, it's just,It's fascinating to think about it. And I appreciate you,actually thinking about it. Like, I feel like everybody has their, so, so many people have their narrative about like, this is the way it works. Like it's all evolution or it's all great people. , and, and so like actually like digging in and thinking about like, okay, like when, when is it, which,I really appreciate,I want to switch a little bit and talk about risk. , So a lot of the things that, that you discussed,blow up when they [00:43:00] fail. And yeah. So I'm, I'm wondering, like, if there's some like, and I feel like people today would not use something, if it would blow up when it failed. Right. So, so,and so, so,I'm wondering, like if there's something. In like, like you need a societal risk tolerance, like of, of like physical danger in order to be able to do this tinkering with,Sort of intense technology, right? Like, so like steamships, they, they blow up when they fail. And like you see all these pictures of,like steam engines that have, have exploded and they, they kill people. , and so it's like, do you think that there's, there's a difference in our level of, of risk tolerance between now and,the, the 18th and 19th centuries. Maybe I'm not, I don't think so though. Okay. I'm trying, I'm just thinking of all of the sorts of things that just [00:44:00] from recent memory, you know, things like washing machines used to explode and fridges explode pretty easily, and it has that risk associated with them. , it's not until certain regulations come into force as the ways they have to be produced to kind of conform to certain standards. I mean, that's only a few decades ago. , And we certainly seeing a lot of inventions with the rocketry going on. Right. Which have a very, very real risk of exploding with absolutely no chance of survival. It's true. But you don't see that many, like, like, ah, I would say like sort of like civilians or, or customers getting on them right now, perhaps. I mean, certainly when it comes down to the wire, people are willing to take the risk for things like, you know, Testing a vaccine for the coronavirus. Right? What I've noticed is actually a lot of people are very bravely putting themselves forward for that sort of thing. I think I read the other day that the children of one of the, one of the [00:45:00] scientists working on it, an Oxford where, you know, very willing Guinea pigs for their moms,work in terms of there's vaccine and, you know, things go wrong with the vaccine. Things can do very, very wrong. Yeah, life-changing Lee or like Killingly I guess,even if they don't kill you, it could, it could affect the rest of your field days. So it seems as though, I mean, usually of course, you've got all sorts of regulation about the stages in which you test things out, and that's definitely different to what happens in the 18th century where, you know, it would gener. Gets his Gardener's son and gives him, you know, he purposely gives him cow pox and then smallpox to see if he gets it. And he's fine. Thank God. You know, or, you know, in the 17th century, the early experiments with track blood transfusions, they get pretty widespread and ultimately it just requires a doctor to kind of persuading their [00:46:00] patient on the, the procedure. , So, I suppose in some ways were more cautious about risk. , and again, even in these early cases, you know, they would often, when it comes to the first small pox inoculations, when they're trying to test them, they choose people who are going to be hanged as they're, you know, so they're, they're not, they're not always choosing people who are volunteering without any other constraints around that. Well, without any other possibilities, that's actually, that's very reassuring. I think it's like a, like there's I have this narrative in my head where we're like super risk averse and like, that's why we can't do anything, but,be very happy. That's actually wrong. I mean, certainly if you look at the number of people who become entrepreneurs and. In terms of just financial risk, basically give everything up and go bankrupt freeze. I mean, I don't see, I don't sense any change there. [00:47:00] Yeah. If anything, probably because the money available given how cheap capital is, it's just like everywhere for whatever idea, no matter how crazy, you know,in a way that in the past, just wasn't available. So. You know, even if society as a whole is becoming more risk averse in terms of regulation and trying to prevent loss of life, the ability to take financial risks as much, you know, we're were able to take as much. Much more risks, I think, than the net before, you know, society is now enabling the risk takers in that kind of stuff. As, as long as you will, could possibly make the money, I think is one of my concerns, I guess. So, but even then, I mean the business cases, aren't exactly what we solid. So that very kind of what's the classic, you know, do this question, Mark. Make some money. Yeah. I will speak to him. I'll also, also,Sell you a hundred dollars for $99 get [00:48:00] all the users. Yeah. , so,another thing that,I wanted to ask you about is like, sort of like in terms of the cultures of innovation is something that I've been struggling with is like almost by definition to really innovate on something. You need to break a spoken or unspoken rule. And,So, like, have you seen anything in the relationship between,like cultures and rule breaking and innovation? Do you know what this actually, maybe also answers your earlier question about something that people mentioned a lot, which is that the. As though it's a kind of us for you, them. I had a narrative where we must take on the entrenched interest and they're going to block us at every turn. Luddites are everywhere. Yeah. That's the classic Silicon Valley. Yeah. And maybe in some ways it's a [00:49:00] useful, even if it's a myth in the sense that, you know, if you're going to troll people together, what better way than to create an enemy for them to fight or to help do. Right. , So maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing and can be quite motivating in a way that isn't necessarily that harmful. Right. Cause it's more about out competing someone,than it is about destroying them necessarily. , no, it's okay. Competition as a word could perhaps be a bad thing cause it, it, it, it. Implies a contest or not really a contest, but maybe combat. Whereas what's really meant is something more like a sports where whoever whoever's first wins, the race versus boxing or something where whoever knocks the other one out is the one, the one who wins, so I think this, this narrative is very common. And I'm so skeptical of it nearly all the time, right? Is that you do have that kind of opposition to invention, but it's always been there. And I don't think, I think it's, I think that kind of opposition is very rarely to innovate invention per [00:50:00] se. I think it's much more commonly in opposition to particular ways in which those inventions affect existing interests. , So the Luddites, for example, a smashing particular kinds of machinery that are, that they feel are framing their jobs, the suite, the captain swing rights, again, affecting particular kinds of machinery. , I mean to, to, to go beyond machinery, think of the kind of anti enclosure movements where, you know, this is an economic change that is potentially improving the, the rental yields of the land in the sense that it's a more efficient use of it. , but it's certainly. Yeah, depending on the kinds of enclosure, it could be kicking labor is off. So the replacing fields with, with sheep,which is, you know, competing like 40, 40 laborers suddenly replaced with one shepherd,So these are things that I think affects particularly interest in the same way that, you know, Uber opposition to Uber, isn't Israel, Haley about kind of general opposition to that kind of [00:51:00] technology. It's usually a kind of just opposition by taxi drivers. Having invested a lot of money in getting these rents and being like, you know, what the hell I've, I've invested all that money. And you're telling me this was for nothing. And I could have just gone and use this app. , Which is understandable, right? It's, it's something that you see throughout. And so I think, you know, a lot of the time when I see this and you see this throughout history as well, I often see something being like, so, and so inventor was rejected by the emperor of China, the emperor of Turkey, or. The queen list with the first. And so they went abroad and took their invention elsewhere. And the moment you actually start to dig into the details of those, they're either completely apocryphal or they're much more about the specifics of the invention and not about inventors in general. , I very rarely come across cases where people are just anti novelty. Because if you're [00:52:00] anti novelty in one direction, you might actually be very pro novelty and other ones, right? The kinds of people who might be very unhappy about things, look, call center to call an employment, probably perfectly happy to have new designs for the silks they're going to wear. You know, there's novelty as a whole is Jen is I think it's we over overanalyze it, we over kind of label it, like creating this kind of fake. We in the same way that I disliked discussions before the scientific revolution or, you know, big, broad terms that cover these huge sweeping things or individualism. Right. I find these very difficult concepts to get my head around because when I actually. Think okay. How would I use this myself? I kind of can put the Gates a bit of a problem now, even industrial revolution to even define it. You require an essay. So, yeah, so, so the upshot is, is it's actually like much more nuanced and complicated. , [00:53:00] Man, I, this is like, this is like the historian's buzzkill. Right? Which is like, you've covered this great theory. I'm sorry. Well, I think it's something that happens a lot and weirdly I think I'm off historians, actually, a lot more willing to entertain the broad sweeping theories. Cause I think, you know, they, they do, I mean, certainly have a certain sort of historian, right? Those who are brought up in the economic history or the Marxist and various other traditions or the long duration kind of traditions, they certainly have these, these broad sweeping theories and they like to tinker with those. , but there's also a lot of historians who are much more specific. And I think you do need a bit of both that, that. But you've got, when you do use it, who's you or your boss killing bit by saying actually it's more complicated than that. , I think that's best when put in relation to the theory as a whole. Yeah. So it should be telling us about our general mental models of how the world works. So yeah, for me, that my [00:54:00] problem with a lot of these Luddite things is they, they kind of give me this instinctual kind of, I don't know if it's such a big. Battle,in that particular way, I mean, actually to give you an example that I've just been writing about right now, just before we started the podcast, I've been reading the work of Daniel Defoe, so famous for Robinson Crusoe,and to foe is both pro improvement and yet seemingly very anti particular forms of technology. Right. The whole book that I've been reading, which is a tour through the islands of great Britain. Is him just going all around Britain and commenting on the recent things that have happened, the economic growth, the improvements, the land, you know, the, the, the change, the changes to manufacture, how many more people are now being employed. And they were formally, you know, how much more trade is going on in these sports. And he's excited about this stuff. He thinks that improvement as a whole is a good thing. He's pro I would say he's a [00:55:00] pro improvement technology. Awesome. Yeah. And yet when you come to specifics, like. The stocking frame. He is lamenting the fact that it's made certain whole villages completely unemployed. Yeah. Cause the, the, the, the economy, that's all the kind of where the growth is, has shifted to other places where those frames were being applied earlier. I mean, he's even talking, you know, very in favor of bands or imported. Silks and important cottons because it affects the wool, the fine wool industry and East Anglia. , and so this isn't his, it's not like he's anti openness or anti, I mean, he's a pro-trade person. I mean, he's someone who is extremely pro-immigration,who was trying to create these settlements almost like charter cities for religious written political refugees in the early 18th century. And yet. When it comes to those specific things, he can still [00:56:00] think that's a bad thing. It's not inconsistent for that. So I guess that's what I mean, there is that we, we should be careful about labeling people as Luddites or anti-technology I guess, where that's interesting though, is that you do at the same time, have certain people who I guess from an ideological perspective will be quite panty. Those things, but they're rarely workers. They're rarely people who are directly affected. I mean, I guess like to a lot of your listeners, it's going to be the kind of. The, I guess, increasing email, traditional feeling between journalists who cover technology and technologists, right. That you see a lot of the kinds of critiques. And I've noticed on Twitter that have that all of this kind of a growing vehemence like that. And that's, that's, that's interesting, right? , and I don't know if that's ideological or, or if it's just the journalists, I find good stories and good stories are usually negative or they involve, I have [00:57:00] people. So if you're put in charge of technology, you're going to be looking for bad people,in particular sectors. And so that might color your whole view. Of the sector, or if you're, if you're asked to come up with the kind of general op-ed about what the state of what's going on, you're probably going to come up with like the bad things that happen, the things to be careful. So, yeah, again, I don't think that's necessarily like anti technologist and I mean, to a certain extent, those people are probably pro a lot of the kinds of technologies that are coming up. They're certainly using them often as well. I think, I think the problem with. Having so much nuance is that it really involves like sitting down and like talking to people and like really trying to understand them and people,often don't want to spend the time doing that. the last question I always like to ask people is,what is something that people you think should be thinking about that they're not thinking enough about. [00:58:00] In a historical way in this is, this is your  or just anything like this. This is your, I think of this as sort of like the, the open, open podium. , no pressure, no pressure at all. It's an interesting one. I guess that changes day by day for me as to what I think people should be thinking more about. Yeah. Well, what about today? Today. I mean, the, the main general one is that, and this, I guess isn't probably as targeted as your usual audience, but as a more general thing is it would be nice if people appreciated technology a bit more and they thought about its evolution a bit more,Or even just the people who were involved in making those things possible. I mean, if you just look around the room that you're in right now, or the space that you're in right now, like the, the nearly everything in it [00:59:00] regarding whether it's actually manufacturer even natural as involved someone doing a bit of tinkering. I mean, I'm looking at a house plot right now and thinking to myself, okay, what even allowed this plant to be here. That's always, certainly not native to England. It's you know, so it probably involves perhaps, you know, greenhouse technology, it involved all sorts of glass, making that in involved people learning how to cultivate it, spreading that knowledge of cultivation probably involves fertilizer improvements. You know, the, the, the, the capacity of improvement is almost infinite. , I guess, I guess this is a kind of other general thing that maybe you'll usual listeners will also be kind of more interested in, which is that, you know, a lot of what we can improve. Isn't just about efficiency. It isn't just about making things cheaper or work faster or work better. , it can, or even simplifying things, which I imagine a lot of people do. It's also about [01:00:00] aesthetics. It's also about beauty. It's also about. Capacity of things to provoke, meaning I guess, or interpretations of a particular kind. , which sounds a bit fluffy. , but I don't think it is. I think, you know, a lot of, a lot of improvement that takes place happens along these kind of unexpected. Lines,where it's, you know, maybe just something like increasing the variety of plants in your garden, you know, in the 17th century, unexpectedly leads to dramatic improvements in agricultural productivity a hundred years later because of the sorts of things that you had to problem solve to do that. I mean, just today I was reading or yesterday I was reading about the first orange trees in England and how. When those were introduced, you know, during the winter they created a sort of shed that would have been put up all of the trees to protect them from the frost. And that actually, you know, does have an impact later on in the kinds of multicultural development that you get later on as well. So yeah, I [01:01:00] guess that's a kind of be open to those artists affected. I wish people were more open to those unexpected avenues for invention.

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Christa Gurka on the show to discuss marketing. An orthopedic physical therapist specializing in Pilates-based fitness, rehabilitation, injury prevention and weight loss, Christa Gurka’s reputation speaks for itself. With two decades of experience training those of all ages and fitness levels, the founder/owner of Miami’s Pilates in the Grove, which serves the Coconut Grove and South Miami communities, believes in offering her clients personal attention with expert and well-rounded instruction.   In this episode, we discuss: -Why you should design an ideal client avatar -How a small marketing budget can make a big impact -Crafting the perfect message to attract your ideal client -The importance of continual trial and error of your message -And so much more!   Resources: Christa Gurka Instagram Christa Gurka Facebook Pilates in the Grove Christa Gurka Website FREE resources     A big thank you to Net Health for sponsoring this episode! Learn more about the Redoc Patient Portal here.   For more information on Christa: An orthopedic physical therapist specializing in Pilates-based fitness, rehabilitation, injury prevention and weight loss, Christa Gurka’s reputation speaks for itself. With two decades of experience training those of all ages and fitness levels, the founder/owner of Miami’s Pilates in the Grove, which serves the Coconut Grove and South Miami communities, believes in offering her clients personal attention with expert and well-rounded instruction.   Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy (00:01): Hi Christa, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on. So today we're going to be talking about three strategies for marketing for cash based practices. And the good thing about all of these strategies is they don't cost a lot of money, right? And that's important when you're starting a business. You know, we don't want to have to take out a bunch of loans, we don't want to have to spend a lot of our own money. We want to try and start up as lean as we can. And so I'm going to throw it over to you to kick it off with. What is your first strategy for marketing for cash based practices? Christa Gurka (00:43): Perfect. So one of the reasons I just want to start with saying why I'm a little passionate about this marketing thing is because myself included when I first started, I really kind of, I felt like I started backwards almost like from the ends. And I think it's really so helpful for people to learn to start kind of from the beginning. Right? So my very first strategy that I think is really, really important is to have a real good idea of who your ideal customer or who your target audience is. And I get often some pushback from people saying, well, everybody can use my services. Of course everyone can use physical therapy. Absolutely. And that doesn't mean you have to single anybody out. But you know, I think Marie Forleo said it or maybe somebody said it to her, but when you speak to everyone, you really, you speak to no one and so slew thing, your who, your ideal customer is, how they feel, how they think. Christa Gurka (01:45): It's very, very beneficial. So if you want, I can kind of go through like a few questions that I use to kind of narrow down who that person is. So one of the things to know when we go through our ideal customer, we actually give this person a name, an age, a gender demographic, married, not married, retired, not retired, education level, median income. And when we do anything in our business now, so we are ideal customer, her name is Georgia. And so we say every time we have a meeting we say, well what will Georgia think about this? Well Georgia like this, so we're Georgia not like this. So that's the very first thing. And we refer to that person as their name. And then you want to go through like what are their biggest fears about whatever problem they're looking to solve. Christa Gurka (02:40): People buy based on emotion. And so get into the underlying source of that emotion is really, it can be very powerful. So what are their fears? What do they value? Right? Cause when it comes to money, people paying for those, it's not always a dollar amount. It's more in line with what do they value? And if you can show these clients that you serve, offered them a value, the money, the dollar amount kind of becomes obsolete. So things like that. What could happen, what would be the best case scenario if this problem were solved for them? What would be the worst case scenario of this problem were never solved. So in terms of physical therapy, let's say generalize orthopedics, right? Back pain. 80 million Americans suffer from back pain. Yeah. So an easy one to start with, an easy one to start with, right? Christa Gurka (03:35): So let's think of, you know, back pain, it's so general, right? But if you can say, what is the worst thing that can happen because of this back pain, right? So maybe the worst thing that could happen is this person loses days at work because they have such bad back pain, they can't sit at their desk or maybe they have such bad back pain that there performance drops and so that cause they can't concentrate. And so now maybe they lose their job or they get emoted because their back pain. So the worst case scenario is maybe they're not, they ended up losing their job because of back pain. So you kind of take it all the way back. And then if you could speak to them about how would it feel if we were able to give you the opportunity to sit eight hours at a desk and not think of your back pain one time and what would that mean to you? So really kind of under covering a lot, a lot, a lot about who your ideal customer is. It's my number one strategy. Karen Litzy (04:39): And I also find that it's a great exercise in empathy. So for those that maybe don't have that real innate sense of empathy, it's a way for you to step into their shoes. And I always think of it as a what are their possible catastrophizations? So if we put it in the terms that the PT will understand, like when I did this number of years ago, I sort of catastrophized as this person. What would happen if this pain didn't go away? I wouldn't be able to take care of my children. I wouldn't be able to go to work. It would affect my marriage. My marriage would break up, I would be a single mom. I would, you know, so you can really project out really, really far and then reel it back in, like you said, and say, well, what would happen if they did work with you? What is the best case scenario on that? So yeah, I just sort of catastrophized out like super, super far and it's really helpful because when that person who is your ideal client then comes to you and you're doing their initial evaluation, you can ask them these questions. Christa Gurka (05:51): Yeah. Yeah. It's very powerful. And I love how you brought in, like you empathize with them and you know, and by the way, a lot of our clients do catastrophize, right? And we have to reel them, we have to reel them back in. So that was a really great point. I also think it can be sometimes on the flip side where somebody maybe comes in and their goal is very benign. Maybe it's, I really want to be physically fit. I want to look good. Right? So you kind of think, well, what's the catastrophe if that doesn't happen? But maybe, maybe they're in a relationship where they're a partner. Aesthetics is a big part of that. And maybe they feel insecure and they feel if they don't present well to their partner, their partnership may dissolve whatever the case may be. So now you're getting to an underlying, it really is more emotional than physical, right? So now you're being able to empathize with them in that way and speak to them in those terms, give them positive things that maybe they don't even realize they need. Karen Litzy (06:53): Exactly. And then it also seems like once you're in those shoes or walking in their shoes, in their footsteps, however you want to put it, that’s when that person does come to you, you can have a conversation with them that's maybe not so much centered around back pain, but that’s centered around their life. And that's when people make that connection with you. Right? So when we're talking to patients who are not sure that they want to start physical therapy, if we kind of get them, they're much more likely to come and see us. So it's not about the back pain, it's not about the knee pain. It's about how are we going to make a difference in their life. And if we can make that, like harking back to what you said earlier, it's an emotional experience and people tend to buy things based on emotions and their gut feelings and how they feel. So if we can tap into that in a really authentic way, then talk about a great marketing strategy. Christa Gurka (07:58): Excellent. Exactly. Karen Litzy (08:00): And then, okay, so we've got our ideal customer, client avatar. Now what do we do? Christa Gurka (08:10): Great. Now what? So you've got your ideal customer, right? And so by the way, people also sometimes think like, well, I don't want to pigeonhole myself into this, right? But by the way, your ideal customer may change. It's okay first of all to change. And he doesn't have more than one. You can have more than one. Certainly we have more than one in our business. And by the way, you may start out thinking about one ideal customer, but the people that keep coming back, maybe somebody else and you're like, Oh, obviously, maybe I have to rethink this. Right? And again, it doesn't mean that you can't serve someone else. It just means that when you're thinking about marketing and stuff, you're going to go after everything should funnel into one specific thing. So then the next step in the marketing is, okay, so where do these people live? Christa Gurka (08:59): And I don't mean live like literally what neighborhood do they live in? Where do they live in terms of getting their news information? Where do they live in terms of being on social media? Where do they live in terms of, you know, what do they value as far as like personal or professional life? So one thing I see is, you know, people you know are like, well, I'm gonna put an ad in the newspaper, that's great. But if you live in an area where nobody reads the newspaper, then you're putting your money somewhere that you're not going to be seen. Or maybe the flip side is, well, I'm going to do a lot of stuff on Instagram. Well, if you were, your clientele is over 65 studies show that most people over 65 are not on Instagram. That doesn't mean they're nobody is, it just means, you know, or vice versa. Christa Gurka (09:50): If your client is 25, they're probably not on Facebook anymore, right? So, then again you can be, this is why it won't cost you a lot because you can narrow down where you are going to spend your money, right? Also, if you're running Facebook ads, which will then go on Instagram you can narrow down in your audience when you build out your audience to be very, very, very specific based on are you a brick and mortar establishment? So are you trying to get people to come in to your place? Right? So you want to say, well, if people are not, if you know that your ideal customer's not convenience as important and they're not going to travel more than five miles, you shouldn't market to people that live or work outside of a five mile radius from your studio. Right? So that's important to know as well as also maybe your customer gets their information from friends or relatives, you know, or like someone said, you know, you need to go see Karen, she's been really great for me and that's how they get to you. Christa Gurka (11:00): So how can you then get in front of your client's friends, right? Maybe you could do an open house, invite a friend, bring them in. Let's do one-on-one, you know, just kind of like a talk, right? Maybe you could bring them in if, say your ideal customer, let's say your ideal customer is in their sixties, what are some things that people in that age group are going through? Maybe you can have a talk about that specific thing. Not necessarily a therapy, but now you get everyone to kind of come to you. It's not even about what you actually do cause you can need them based on where they are. And most people, by the way, they say there's the numbers range, but usually they have to see you about seven times or have seven points of contact with you before they're comfortable buying from you. So these are just way to get people to know, like, and trust you and then they'll buy from you. So that's strategy number two. Once you know really who your customer is and they could take a couple years to really start to peel back all the onion of that, then the next thing is be where they are, be in front of where they are. Karen Litzy (12:13): Yes, absolutely. And, I love that you mentioned the different types of social media and who's on where, because like you said, this is something that isn't going to break the bank because you have narrowed down exactly where you want to spend your money. Right? So we're taking who that ideal person is, where finding out where they like to hang out, what they read, who they're with, all that kind of stuff. So that when you build out a marketing campaign for your business, you kind of know who and where to target. Christa Gurka (12:49): Right? Exactly. Yes. And even so, even with Facebook, yeah. When you build out your audience, right? So you can have a variety of audiences. You can create lookalike audience, which I'm sure is like a whole podcast onto itself, but you can also target people that like certain brands. So when I do my ideal customer, I'm like, well what brand do they resonate with? In other words. So I would say that our brand is a little more towards Athletica versus like Lulu lemon. And that's not to say one is better than the other. It just means that's who my generally customer is. And why, what do they value? They value that customer service. You get, you know, Athletica has like a, you can take anything back all the time, right? So when you build out a Facebook ad, you can also target, that's right. They've bought from Athletica online. Right. So now you're reaching people. So you kind of near just keep narrowing it, narrowing it, narrowing it down, which can be, you know, other interests is your client. Do you do pelvic health? So obviously women, although men do it right, if moms can you target people that like mom influencers on Facebook or on the internet. So these are all just ways that the more you know about them, then you can use that in your marketing strategies afterwards. Karen Litzy (14:15): Absolutely. Fabulous. Okay. So know who the person is, know where they're hanging out. What's number three? Christa Gurka (14:23): Okay. So number three to me is the most important, the most, most important. And that really is messaging. So when you're working with your ideal, when you're working through that ideal customer you know, workbook getting to them, to you for them to use their own language for you. So I see this very, very commonly, and I am sure you can attest to it too. When physical therapists, we love what we do. We are passionate about movement and anatomy and biomechanics but you know what, the general population has no idea what we're talking about. None. Zero. Yeah. And so oftentimes I feel like, and by the way, I'm not saying I did this for a long time too. I think that we're trying sometimes to get other practitioners to say, Oh, that's a really good therapist. So we're talking about pain science and biotech integrity and fascial planes and the general population. Christa Gurka (15:32): The end consumers, like I have no idea what you're talking about. So you need to speak to them at their level based on what their problem is. And kind of like how we spoke about before. It's not always the back pain, it's what the back pain is keeping them from doing. Right. it's not always, let's take pelvic health for example. Right? A lot of pelvic health issues or not necessarily painful. Okay. So say you have moms, this is super, super common stress incontinence. They leak, they leak when they jump and they go to CrossFit and they're embarrassed to start with a jump rope because they, it's not, why? Why do women go 16 years after childbirth? Because you know what? It's not really painful. So they don't consider it a problem. Like physical therapy is not going to help me with it. So, but if you say to them, Hey, that might be common, but that's not normal, and guess what? Christa Gurka (16:25): There's a solution to that, you know? That is something that will resonate with them. Do you like things like, do you feel, do you worry when you're out at a restaurant as it gets later and later that the line at the bathroom is going to be too long and you stop drinking because you're afraid to wait in line for the bathroom? Right. So some women will be like, Oh yeah, I totally do that. Right? Are you afraid to chaperone your child's field trip? Because the bus ride is going to be three hours and you don't think you can hold it three hours on the bus without a bathroom. That's terrible for a mom. She can't chaperone her kids field trip because she's embarrassed that she might have to go to the bathroom. So using their language. So I like to send out surveys very frequently. Christa Gurka (17:09): Google doc is super easy. Survey monkey and ask them things like, what are your fears about whatever it is you're trying to sell. Right. what are your fears about exercise? What are your fears about back pain? How does it really make you feel? Okay. what are your, like maybe even if you could pay and if money was not an issue and you could pay anything, what would that look like for you? How would that make you feel and starting to, then you start to use that language. We've all seen marketing campaigns where you're like, yes, exactly. Totally. That's how you need to get into them. Right? And so maybe maybe as a physical therapist, it's tough for us because we're like, well, no, their hamstrings are not tight. It's not hamstring tightness. It's neural tension and it's the brain and the nervous system, but they don't, they don't understand. Christa Gurka (18:06): So you got to get them in. What they feel is that they have hamstring tightness. So you got to tell them that you can fix their hamstring tightness. And then little by little you explained to them that it's neural tension, right? But if you start off with neural tension, they're going to go somewhere else. And so I kind of like, I use this example a lot if you, cause I think we can all relate to this. We're on tech right now, right? Okay. So if you have, I have a Mac, I have an Apple. If I go to the Apple store, cause my computer crashes or my phone won't turn on and I go talk to what are they, what are the genius bar, the genius bar. And the guy's like, you know, so what I see here is the motherboard has this month and this software program, you only have so many gigabytes. Christa Gurka (18:50): I'm like, can you fix my computer? That's all I want to know. And if he says yes, I'm like, I don't care how you do it. So whether you use taping or I use myofascial release or somebody uses Pilates or somebody uses craniosacral therapy, it doesn't matter to them. So the end consumer, they just want to know that you can solve their problem. People have problems and they want to know that you have the answer to solve their problem. And that's it. So messaging is really, I think, crucial. It's the crucial point of the puzzle. Karen Litzy (19:28): And now let's talk about messaging. Let's dive into this a little bit further. So I think we've all seen different websites of healthcare practitioners, physical therapists and otherwise that kind of make us go like, Karen Litzy (19:43): Oh boy cause it's in cringeworthy in that it comes off as a little too salesy, a little too slick, a little too icky. So how can we compose our messaging to avoid that? Unless maybe that's what their ideal patient wants. I don't know. But yeah, how can we craft our messages that are going to hit those pain points, get that emotion going without being like a salesy, weird gross Christa Gurka (20:18): So the other thing I think that's important to understand is people's buying patterns. And when people say no to you, maybe they're not saying no to you, they're just saying this. It's not a value to me at this time. So one of the phrases, one of the things that I've really restructured, cause I used it, take it very personally, if someone will be like, no, I know and I'd be like, what you mean I could totally help you? And now I'm like, you know what? It's basically I look at it like if I'm at a party or I'm having a dinner party and I serve or Durham and I'm like picking a blanket and be like, no thanks. I'm like, okay, walk away. So I say therapy with Krista. No thank you. No problem. Let me know if I can help you in the future. Christa Gurka (21:04): Right? So the way that I say it is if you just speak honestly to your customer, honestly, to your customers. Nobody can be you at being you. So be your authentic self, whatever that brand is for you. And whether it's your company or you yourself, and let that come through in your messaging. Right? So in other words, like if your messaging is also about mindfulness and positivity and looking past the pain and what is your relationship with your pain or dysfunction that should maybe come through in your messaging that you're more holistic, that you're not going to be a treat them and street them type thing. But maybe if your messaging is, Hey, we're going to treat you and street you and you'll be out of here in 15 minutes, you're going to attract that type of customer. So either one is fine, but I just say really be authentic. Christa Gurka (21:59): And the other thing is, I would say send your website. I don't put a lot, a huge amount of stock in my website to be perfectly honest. I do love my website. I'm a very like, analytical person. So the colors and where everything sits is important. But I don't think as, I'm not a big believer that as much selling goes on your website as a lot of people may think, I think it's a place where yes, people are going to Google, someone gives you a reference at a cocktail party, they're going to Google your website, but they're basically going to look like, does this resonate with me? So what you want to hear is, you know, that tagline at the very beginning, you know, is does that tagline, the first thing that they see, does that resonate with that person? Right. So we use, because we're Pilates and physical therapy, we will, right now our website's a mess because it's got coven. Christa Gurka (22:47): We're close, we're not close. But helping people heal with love, every twist, every turn and every teaser. Teaser is a plot. He's exercise. So we stuck that with love in there because that is part of who we are. We are a community. We care about our clients. So you're not just going to come in here for like two things. We want to help you where you are. So that's, so if someone's like, yeah, that's cheesy for me, then it's okay, they can go down the street. Right. and we don't, I used, by the way, this has come with like 10 years of testing. You just got to test it. You got to test it and you got to see like who does it resonate with? Send it to a bunch of people and ask people for their honest feedback. Give me, you're not going to hurt my feelings. I need to know like, what do you see when you see this? What, how does it make you feel? So ask people their opinions and not physical. Karen Litzy (23:45): Yes. Yes. And you know, I just redid a lot of the messaging on my website and I sent my website from what it was and I'm in a group of female entrepreneurs, none of whom are physical therapists. I sent it to them, they gave me some feedback, I changed a little things. I sent it again, they gave more feedback, I changed some more things and now I feel now they're like, Oh see this sounds more like you. So before what I had in my website is what I thought was me. But then once I really got like had other people take a look at it, they're like, Oh, no this sounds more like you. And yeah, I love that tagline on the front. Like the tagline on the top of my website is world-class physical therapy delivered straight to your door, Christa Gurka (24:28): Which is short and concise and what you do. And it's what I do. Very easy. Perfect people. Oftentimes I see these like tat and they're like, you know, they had their elevator pitch. I'm like, what's your elevator pitch? You know, people talk about, Oh, what's the elevator pitch? I'm like, if you cannot describe what you do and like two sentences or 10 words or less, how do you think other people are gonna if you can't understand it for yourself, how are other people gonna right, right. Like you said, that takes time though. It does. It does take time. I struggled with this for a while, but me always, yes, but I think as physical therapist, one of the reasons we struggle is for a number of reasons. One. If we're business owners, we tend to be overachievers, right? We tend to have weak temp. We're bred from a certain mold. Christa Gurka (25:18): Right? the other thing I think is physical therapist, we're very analytical. We're very left brains, right? We are, I mean I think it's what makes me a really great physical therapist. But then the flip side of that is we're perfectionist. Everything has to be analyzed. And so we get so caught up in like the details of analysis and we went to PT school. So we have to show how smart we are. But being smart also means understanding what your customer's going to understand. And so you kind of have to swivel out of that. So sometimes even in groups when I'm like, when we see people like, Hey, what do you guys think of my website? I'm like, don't ask us, we are not your customer. Go ask your customers like what they think of your website. And so when I was in a group, you know, my coach challenged me to narrow things down as well. And they used to say things like, if you were running through a desert and you like and you were selling water, what would your tagline be like what would you, what would your board say? And you know, people will be like ice cold, dah dah dah. And he was like, just say water. If someone's running through a desert, all they need is water, water will suffice. Water will suffice. Clean water less is more free water. Even less. Yeah. Karen Litzy (26:42): And I remember, this is even years ago, I was doing like a one sheet, like a speaker one sheet. This is a lot off topic but talking about how we need to tailor our message to our ideal audience. So I had, you know Karen, let's see PT and I remember the person was like, does that mean like part time personal trainer? And I was like no physical therapist. Like you need to write that out then because the average person like PT. Okay. Does that mean part time personal? Like what does that even mean? So it just goes down to or sorry, it goes back to kind of what you said of like we have to speak the language of the people who we want to come to see us. Right? And the best way to do that is on our websites is we just have to simplify things and it doesn't mean dumb it down. It just means like simplify. And I'm going to give a plug to a book. It's called simple by Alan Siegel and it's all about how to simplify your language, your graphics, and how everything comes together to create a site that people, number one are attracted to and number two want to hang out at. Christa Gurka (27:53): Right? Exactly. And there's a lot of testing and I'm a big thing like testing. It's just testing, testing, testing. We test our sales page, we test even now with like some of my coaching stuff, working with other female business owners, testing, sometimes going in and testing, switching a graphic, have what you have above the fold. So the fold for those of you that don't know is like when you're on a website, it's you don't have to scroll. So everything is above where you have to scroll. I'll call to action a CTA right at the top. Changing phrases, you know, not using broad language like confidence, like what does confidence actually mean, but maybe making it more specific using language so that that's a really good thing. Helping or like, you know, reading yourself a back pain so that you can live the life you desire and deserve. Christa Gurka (28:57): Right? So changing little, and you can change that by the way, mid campaign, mid launch daily. You could change it if your Facebook ads are so one of the things, if you're, if people are clicking on your ad, but when they're not converting on your sales page, that usually means that either the messaging and your ad is really off and they're, once they get to your sales page, they're not understood. There was a disconnect between what you're offering or your messaging is great, but your sales page sucks. Or vice versa. Maybe nobody's clicking on your ad. Then whatever you're trying to sell them there does not resonate with them, right? So there has to be a connection. And usually when people don't buy, there's either a, with your offer or a problem with your messaging. Christa Gurka (29:49): So test means put it out there, see what kind of feedback you get, and then it's think of it as, okay, what we do in therapy, right? So this, what do we do when we get a patient in, we assess, we treat, and then we reassess, right? So what's going on? Let's try a treatment in here. Let's reassess. Is it better? If it's not better, what do we do? We go back, assess again, and then do another treatment and then assess, right? Reassess. So in marketing it's the same. So let's say you wanted to do, let's say you're working on like a sales page on your website, right? A sales page. I know it sounds salesy, but it's basically your offer, right? If people are getting there, so you see people you can track. By the way, with Google analytics, like people coming to your site, if a lot of people are coming to your site but they're not clicking on the call to action or they're not following through to check out some, there is some disconnect there. Christa Gurka (30:56): So maybe it's the messaging. So then maybe try to change the messaging, tweak the messaging, and then watch the outcome again, maybe people get all the way to the checkout and then abandoned cart. Maybe it means that something they got confused with something at the end. Maybe there's the customer journey wasn't right. They got to the end because they put something in the cart and then maybe your checkout structure is off or something like that. So test it and then just retest until your numbers are like, now we hit it. And by the way, it's taken me. I mean I'm still testing. Hmm. It seems like it's a constant reinvention. Constant, constant. Because the market keeps changing. Especially now. By the way, by the way, right now I don't know why there are. So at the time of this recording, we are in the middle of COVID. So when people come back, your messaging, okay. Is going to have to change, right? So we need to be aware of that. Karen Litzy (31:49): Yes, Absolutely. All right. So as we start to wrap things up here, let's just review those three strategies again. So who is your target market is number one, where are they hanging out? Where are they living? Not physically their address, but you know, where, what are they reading? Where are they hanging out, what are they doing online, what are they doing offline? And then lastly is making sure that your messaging clearly conveys part one and part two. And how you can solve their problem. Awesome. So now if you were to leave the audience with you know, a quick Pearl of wisdom from this conversation, let's say this might be someone who's never even thought about any of this stuff before. What did they do? Christa Gurka (32:40): So in terms of like, never even thought about marketing before or going into brand new, brand new out of PT school are, or brand new, like they want to kind of dive in and start doing their own thing, but they want to do it in a way that's efficient and that doesn't break the bank, right? So I would definitely say, Christa Gurka (33:17): Start with the end in mind. So that's from a great book, right? So so start with the end in mind meaning, but don't start at the end. I think a lot of people confuse that with, they start with the end in mind, but then they go right to the end and they go to marketing, right? So I like to equate everything back to physical therapy, right? So when we learn about developmental patterns, we all know, like we start with rolling and then Quadruped high kneeling, right? So if you take a patient that's injured and has a neuro, you know, and motor control problem and start them in standing off with multiple planes, you've missed a bunch of it, right? So you start marketing without understanding who your ideal customer is and finding out what they think and how they feel. Christa Gurka (34:01): You're going to spend a lot of money and you're not going to know why it's not working. You're just going to think Facebook ads doesn't work or I'm not good enough, which is a very common thing, right? So take the time to do the work. The ground work. Nobody loves to learn rolling patterns. But why is it important? Because if you work from the ground up, you take the time to instill these good patterns underneath. So take the time to do that. And the other thing I would say is just decide, you know, don't go through analysis paralysis. Decide and move. And the only way you're going to know is you got to put it out there. So you know, Facebook lives, Instagram lives. That's, you know, we didn't maybe start when social media was big, but which, so by the way, I have to make a point that I think that's why it's harder for us. Christa Gurka (34:52): So our generation did not, we didn't have, so I didn't even have a computer when I went to college. Nope. Like, so we didn't start with, I didn't have a cell phone like, so it's very different for us because this next generation coming up, they're comfortable on social media. We may not be, but the truth is, it's like everything else, just do it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. So, and you know, if no one's what, well, I'm afraid no one's going to watch it. But who's watching it now, if you're not putting it out nobody. So you're no worse off. Right? So just do, create an action step. Like, you know there's a book and now I forget who the author is. It's called the one thing, right? And you just focus on thing. Focus on one thing that you can do today to improve on understanding your ideal customer. If you're already past that, what can you do today to understand more about your messaging? Karen Litzy (35:50): Easy. The one thing you could just, just choose one doesn't have to be a million things you don't have, it doesn't have to be perfect. No, and it doesn't have to be perfect. Just one thing. Just one thing. Awesome. And now last question is the one that I ask everyone, and that is knowing where you are now in your life and in your business and your practice, what advice would you give to yourself as a brand new physical therapist straight out of PT school? Christa Gurka (36:19): Woof. Mmm. I would probably say be open to the possibility. Yeah. Yeah. Just be open to possibility of what's possible. Yeah. Karen Litzy (36:35): Excellent advice. Now Christa, where can people find you if they have questions they want to know more about you and your practice and everything that you're doing? What the deal? Christa Gurka (36:44): So my business is Pilates in the groves, so they can always find Pilates in the Grove. All has everything about our business. But they can find more about me at christagurka.com.  I have some freebies up there. So that's like Christa Gurka is more really about kind of business strategy. Okay, great. Like launch you know, mindset, that kind of stuff. And then the Pilates and the Grove website really if you want to look at what we do, brick and mortar wise, do it. But like I said, the websites kind of a mess. Right? Karen Litzy (37:21): We understand it's exceptional times. And, I know that you have some free resources and some freebies for our listeners, so where can they find that? Christa Gurka (37:33): Yep. So there is a link which we can either link up in your show notes, right? Or we can, so there's a marketing quiz that I created that basically will put people at, it'll kind of just give you an idea of where you are. Are you like a novice or are you a pro? Have you got this stuff down? And I could probably be calling you for advice. And then based on where you are, it kind of tells you kind of what you should focus on as well as then we have that lead you into. I have a social media and a Facebook live checklist. It kinda just gives you kind of a little bit of, I find structure helps me. So learning how to batch content, learning to say that like, okay, every Monday I'm going to do a motivational Monday post. Every Tuesday I'm going to do a Tuesday tutorial post. I think it just helps me map things out. And so I think it helps business owners also feel less overwhelmed when they can have a calendar. And we have national days. It has like a bunch of national days that pertain to our industry already built out for you, which is easy. Karen Litzy (38:35): Awesome. That sounds great. And I'm sure the listeners will really appreciate that. So thank you so much. This was great. And again, the thing that I love about all these strategies is it takes very little money to accomplish them. Just some time, which right now I think a lot of people have a lot of time. So thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and coming on. Thank you. And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy, and smart.   Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts

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

[00:01:12] So today I'm talking to Chelsea. Chelsea, where in the world are you?[00:01:15] Chelsea: [00:01:15] I'm in Los Angeles, California.[00:01:18] dane: [00:01:18] What's your big goal today for this call?[00:01:20] Chelsea: [00:01:20] A big goal today is to help me zero in on becoming more visible.[00:01:26] dane: [00:01:26] How do you feel when you say that?[00:01:28] Chelsea: [00:01:28] I feel nervous. I should give you a little bit of a background on me is that I am an actor.[00:01:34] I have been an actor for a long time. I've been a performer and a dancer and a standup comedian and dance company owner and traveled all over the world. And then the thing, and. When I went through my different cycles of awakening for the last seven years, being a part of that industry and I was successful, I had a lot of success.[00:01:57] I did it really well, and going into [00:02:00] those rooms started to feel really toxic, like on my actual skin. Like it started to just not feel good. There's so much comparison and competition and blaming and shaming and wow. And in those rooms, it was just too challenging while I was negotiating with so much internally and spiritually to show up like that.[00:02:20] And so I have my own. New relationship to discover with being seen, and I'm very aware that in the last five years specifically as I've been really working with people really end up me really putting myself out there hasn't really happened because I believe I have this interesting block with putting my creations out in the public.[00:02:41] I have had a lot of luck with energetic marketing, so I haven't needed to really happen[00:02:48] dane: [00:02:48] and energetic marketing. Well, look,[00:02:52] Chelsea: [00:02:52] it's also vibrational alignment to just receive clients that are in vibrational alignment. So I haven't needed to like make Facebook ads or feel like I need to be posting every day or doing Facebook lives like I did when I first started doing this work, and then I fell out of it because it felt so inauthentic.[00:03:08] It started to feel way too coachy for me personally in a stereotypical sense. No offense, but like it just started to feel. Not authentic. So I dropped out of that. And then since then, as I've been allowing spaciousness for me to really feel what is authentic for me and really come home as I keep having these different pops and layers of pier, I call them pups and different layers of awakening or however you want to phrase that or look at that.[00:03:32] And as those have been churning and I've been allowing time for integration and for me to be really present with my clients and with myself and really feel that and do my deeper work, it hasn't felt appropriate for me to be like, Oh, and like, by the way, by living by the moon and I don't have a way yet to do that.[00:03:49] That feels really good. Yet I have the strong desire to be seen and to be using my creativity. I'm also like a painter and I want to be dancing and I channel when I dance and [00:04:00] I want to be sharing that and I have this resistance and I know that it's coming from an old paradigm, an old framework of relating to showing up in that way from a place of like, look at me coming from a place of, I can do this.[00:04:14] Rather than a place of sharing, offering, just being present too. And it is as easy as me just doing it and I know that, but I'm still having this resist, like it's an interesting mental loop. I catch myself and it's not often that I have this much trouble pulling myself into another house.[00:04:35] dane: [00:04:35] Do you feel willing and able to kind of go down a little bit more of a vulnerable trajectory.[00:04:40] Chelsea: [00:04:40] That's how I live. Let's go.[00:04:43] dane: [00:04:43] What felt inauthentic about the Facebook posts[00:04:47] Chelsea: [00:04:47] at the time, I was dating like a bigger coach, and that was as I was starting to come into this work, like leaving acting, and so I had such limited reference points. For that entire world of like the healer and the coach and all of that, that I really took on a lot of his tools, which aren't bad at all, but I took them on as like, Oh, this is the way you do it.[00:05:09] I was also young and naive in a lot of ways, and so I just was like, okay, cool. Like I'm just going to do it like this now because that's the way we do it.[00:05:18] dane: [00:05:18] So long ago,[00:05:20] Chelsea: [00:05:20] this is seven years ago.[00:05:21] dane: [00:05:21] So you got into coaching seven years ago,[00:05:23] Chelsea: [00:05:23] ish. Yeah.[00:05:24] dane: [00:05:24] Okay, so your big goal is more visibility in a way that is authentic.[00:05:30] Do you have revenue goals in mind?[00:05:32] Chelsea: [00:05:32] Yeah.[00:05:33] dane: [00:05:33] What are those?[00:05:34] Chelsea: [00:05:34] I love to be making minimum $20,000 a month from my healing work.[00:05:40] dane: [00:05:40] And how close are we? Where do we have to go to get there?[00:05:43] Chelsea: [00:05:43] Or half[00:05:45] dane: [00:05:45] halfway. Okay. And that's through the just natural organic process. So I have a book coming out next year, and one of the first things I teach in that book is that we don't get to decide what works.[00:05:59] It's [00:06:00] really important to teach this first because right now what you're doing is working and it's working without you even really working it. Hmm. So when I say we don't get to decide what works, it's almost like what works. Works without us. So if this is possible to remember, it's the difference between having a few balloons and why don't you just go and it blows up completely and then it just goes a full, it's off in the sky.[00:06:26] That's how good it is. There's one that you have to for awhile to blow it up, and then it just stays there and then the next day you gotta come back and, and that's what most people have. And then there's these balloons that you go and then the wind goes out right away. So then you're exhausted all the time trying to do it.[00:06:47] And there's an energetic response testing, if you will, like use dip your finger and then see if it goes boom. You know, you'd put a drop of water on something and see if it fills a glass. It's the same thing as a metaphor. So right now you have the blows up and goes off and works without you, and you did not get to decide that.[00:07:08] It's like what? That goes deep as possible. Like you did not get the choice in that. I mean, maybe you do great work and your clients refer, but you don't get to decide what works. Chelsea, so often what works is staring at us right in front of the face. And all we need to do is listen to see it. There is a danger because now you're like, okay, I want more visibility.[00:07:30] So yeah, Facebook ads, cause that's what everyone else is doing. I'll do billboards. Stillbirth definitely work. Oh, you know what? I'll write little mini adverts in the back of Cosmo magazine. Oh, you know what? I'm going to target people. Inside of Gmail because Gmail has advertisements around it. And any emails that talk about anything that has anything related to do with me, I'll have an ad show up for, which is actually a great idea, you know, or you know, all have YouTube videos that are 60 seconds.[00:08:00] [00:08:00] That talk about the struggle someone has and then tells a story of one of my favorite clients and invites people to have a discovery call with me and I'll have a YouTube video and it'll play at the beginning of other people's videos that I think if they're watching it, they'd be a good fit for me.[00:08:14] And I mean, you can do that in a day. You could pull up your iPhone from your car and be like, yo, like, what's one of the biggest, most unique issues that you help people with? Something kind of[00:08:24] Chelsea: [00:08:24] niche. I mean, I help people move out of their minds and limited belief systems into their bodies and breathing.[00:08:32] dane: [00:08:32] So that's an expert language. That's your language. What's their language? So there's an extra language in their language.[00:08:41] Chelsea: [00:08:41] Their language is I get out of my monkey mind and I feel and believe in myself and I can take action in my life.[00:08:49] dane: [00:08:49] So I'll give you example one a woman I talked to, a very similar, she's hypnotherapy, not very similar, but you know, she helps people stop smoking.[00:08:56] She helps people get over their fear of public speaking. She helps people leave the house. She helps people build habits to lose weight. So what are some specific problems that people come to you with?[00:09:08] Chelsea: [00:09:08] I'm really good with gas lighting. No gaslighting is so gaslighting. I mean, it's a pretty common psychological term these days.[00:09:16] There's like a trillion articles about it. It's kind of like a taught topic word now. I've been studying this for years, but now it's starting to be a thing. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but gaslighting is. When someone pretty much denies your entire experience. So I would say like, Hey, you know, that woman just looked at me weird.[00:09:35] Anything from that small? And you'd be like, no, she didn't too, like felt really uncomfortable when we were just in that room. It'd be like, no, it didn't. So[00:09:44] dane: [00:09:44] yeah. So how many clients are you working with right now? Six. Okay. And what's one of their problems?[00:09:50] Chelsea: [00:09:50] One of them. A compulsive data.[00:09:53] dane: [00:09:53] Okay, great. Another one,[00:09:54] Chelsea: [00:09:54] self sabotaging their creativity.[00:09:57] dane: [00:09:57] Better explanation than that, maybe what result are [00:10:00] they not able to get on their own?[00:10:01] Chelsea: [00:10:01] Do their art.[00:10:03] dane: [00:10:03] Oh, their blogs. Creating their art. Thank you. Yeah. Next one.[00:10:07] Chelsea: [00:10:07] An ability to authentically connect to themselves and communicate and show up in any type of interpersonal relationship.[00:10:14] dane: [00:10:14] Try again.[00:10:14] Chelsea: [00:10:14] So lack of intimacy, lack of being able to create intimacy with self and other[00:10:19] dane: [00:10:19] closer, there's no way they would probably say that I'm looking to create an intimacy with myself.[00:10:24] Right? If you get a 5% chance,[00:10:27] Chelsea: [00:10:27] they are struggling with finding connection with anyone.[00:10:31] dane: [00:10:31] Okay. So sabotaging connection.[00:10:34] Chelsea: [00:10:34] Yeah, that's a big one.[00:10:35] dane: [00:10:35] What's another one?[00:10:36] Chelsea: [00:10:36] Yeah. Not access to feelings, like feeling completely numb.[00:10:40] dane: [00:10:40] Perfect. And the last one,[00:10:44] Chelsea: [00:10:44] self hatred.[00:10:45] dane: [00:10:45] Okay. So we're going to build a couple structures in your brain for all this stuff to rest in.[00:10:52] So most of the people that come to me that need help are what you would call a technician. Technicians very rarely have a passive or scalable or residual income because they're technicians. They get paid when they spend their time. The skill of a technician and technicians could be anything from a neurosurgeon to construction engineer.[00:11:15] If you'd like to get a free one on one with me and beyond this show, you can find out details@startfromzero.com slash podcast to a musician. And they're beautiful. It's not a negative connotation. Technician technicians have not yet built the structures of the brain to really create any sense of freedom and their business, and the way that they get the freedom is by starting to build the brain of an owner.[00:11:48] Or even you could say, entrepreneur. So the brain of the entrepreneur is obsessed with results and specifics. So self-sabotaging connection, [00:12:00] compulsive dating. Numb to your feelings. That's very attractive. If you wanted to be a billionaire or like even like a 10 millionaire, a hundred millionaire, the way you would get there is first by understanding the spinal cord of a business.[00:12:16] People that are listed as podcasts probably got this down Pat now, cause I say the same things in every episode. I really do. The same principles in the way of real business fundamental. The spinal cord is a customer that uses some kind of mechanism created by a technician to get a result. Now, I just told you, entrepreneurs are generally, the free ones are generally not in the technician role, so they're hiring technicians.[00:12:44] So that means they spend their time looking for customers and talking to them about results and putting technicians in place. So we could use an example of something I haven't done before. An avocado farmer, if you asked an avocado farmer what dream result they would want, they'd probably say a full, ripe harvest full of the best avocados without any waste, whether it's possible or not.[00:13:10] Similar story, dream result. So now I'm an entrepreneur. Since I've got this built so deep into my structure, immediately I would go to work, how to grow avocado, farm expert, avocado, farmers, expert, avocado scientists, avocado science, avocado, experiment, avocado, this, avocado that, and I start to put together a roadmap for how the mechanism could be created.[00:13:31] I'd hire the best genetic engineers of avocados. I'd figure out. I put this whole team together and I'm sitting here obsessed with the avocado farmer having a full ripe avocado farm. A recent business that I built. So I was tired of seeing people struggle to take action. So I built a business that helps people quickly unblock themselves by working with the deeper identity to then allow action to be almost effortless instead of having [00:14:00] friction.[00:14:00] But I'm not an expert at this really. I mean, I could say I'm close, but I don't have the training and I don't have, it's not my profession. So I hired a technician. Who has a metacognitive noticing practice that is the best I've ever seen. Anyway, I hired this whole technician and he created the content I give him.[00:14:21] In this instance, because of the work, he's doing a net 20% of profit and I take 80% I put the course together, I put the information out of him, I record it, I compile it, I organize it, I acquire the customers, I support the customers. I support the brand and all they do is the tech mission part. That's how I approach it.[00:14:43] I'm doing that very same thing with another model right now where we have, I talked to a one-on-one podcast actually, and I said, what's your dream result? What would make this irresistible to buy? So what I asked and he said, well, if I could quit my job, sure. And I said. Are you sure that easy? That simple?[00:14:59] He's like, yep. I was like, are you positive? He's like, absolutely. So now I started talking to people about, here's how you can quit your job. I found a guy who's quit his job, who works at home with his family and makes 20 grand a month on his bad months. His high months make 87,000 I'll make it a month.[00:15:14] And so I give him anywhere between a 10 to 20% profit depending on how much work I'm doing and how much work he's doing and he's teaching that. I found customer, I found result. I hired technician. Yeah. If you want to grow to the 10 million or 1,000,010 million billion, you have to stop being the technician.[00:15:35] You don't have to. It's possible. Like if you wanted to be a technician, you could build a YouTube channel, right. And get advertising for the new. But now, since your passion is working with people on their deepest trauma, as you said before, we recorded this call. I mean, being in a technician role, you still keep technician, but now you are really obsessed about customer end result.[00:15:56] So you got a customer, someone who compulsively dates.[00:16:02] [00:16:00] If you'd like to hang out with people reading the start from zero book, listening to the start from zero podcasts, listening to the book on tape and build businesses with them and do it with people together. Visit start from zero.com forward slash starters.[00:16:21] What result were they wanting?[00:16:22] Chelsea: [00:16:22] They were wanting to have self-respect and find one partner that really honors them and they feel that that relationship,[00:16:32] dane: [00:16:32] that's a good result. It's clear, right? Self-respect and an a partner that meets them all the way. Yeah. So now you put together iPhone videos and you hold your iPhone in your car and we'll give you some scripts, templates to follow.[00:16:48] But you could just as simply Google effective video advertising templates and look for them and plug your thing in. Cause once you understand the entrepreneur's mind is customer result and then mechanism can be learned outsourced. You just figure out what the mechanism is and learn it and then you're just like so abundant.[00:17:05] And this is a very felt sense of massive abundance because. You're no longer limited to your skill of expertise. So you've got a video and it says, are you a compulsive data? Right? Cause you're scared of someone seeing who you really are and you're actually compulsively dating when you really want to find one crate.[00:17:27] Girl. Well, I've identified actually three things that if you remember focused on and doing build, you can stop compulsively dating all together and I wanted to teach them to you for free on the phone. If you qualify to talk to me, click on this link to schedule a time with me and I'll be happy to serve you.[00:17:45] Now that's a YouTube video. And you've recorded on your iPhone, you log into YouTube, you Google how to run a YouTube ad. You figure that out. I said, I don't actually know how to run a Google YouTube ad. I would figure it out as I go. So [00:18:00] now you've got customer and result and these three things that we just made up in the video, right?[00:18:04] The three things to fix compulsive dating. Now you've got to run that ad and you're going to run it right in front of the pickup artist videos on YouTube. You're going to run them in how to sleep with women videos. You're going to run them and how to pick up girls at the bar, and you're going to wake up a few guys out of their trance to earn approval through sleeping with women and stuff, and maybe that's their path.[00:18:30] But you'll probably wake up a few of these men to speak with you. What's going on in your head? I was just landing.[00:18:36] Chelsea: [00:18:36] I mean, I know what you're saying. It's not like I haven't thought about that. Right. And this is part of like maybe a per more personal thing for me in like this current structure of life that I live at the bottom of the ocean.[00:18:49] So I think what, anything, what you've shared with me today. Is you're helping me understand that I actually have to, if I want to be more visible and I want to be able to get clients and that kind of wavelength, I need to shift the way that I hold what I do in terms of vocabulary, in terms of the way that I talk about it.[00:19:10] Because you're right, the expert language is actually the thing that's keeping me in a box that's not allowing me to actually connect with potential clients. In a deeper way, and it's also limiting me. And it's also an excuse I've used.[00:19:23] dane: [00:19:23] What's the one thing, if you would only pick one, that you'd want to talk to them about the clients, the clients you speak with when you speak with them instead of expert language, what would you talk to them about?[00:19:32] Like what do they care about?[00:19:34] Chelsea: [00:19:34] Effectiveness,[00:19:35] dane: [00:19:35] results, results. They don't really care about something effective. I mean, they would, if it gets a result like[00:19:40] Chelsea: [00:19:40] you want to be for me is the same thing. But I understand what you're saying. Yeah.[00:19:43] dane: [00:19:43] Results. Okay. Well, it may not be the same for a customer, right? I mean, effective and then you use it.[00:19:50] If it is, you use it because I'm more interested in what works and making sure you use results or effectiveness. But in terms of customer mechanism result.[00:20:00] [00:20:00] Chelsea: [00:20:00] Yeah, that is a three part system that I like. It's interesting. I know intuitively, but because you're actually putting labels on it and I can see it in a format and all of a sudden I'm like, Oh yeah, that makes sense.[00:20:11] It's very fascinating to me. I come from two parents that are CEOs. Like it's not a foreign concept for me to go into business land, but that is so simple that my very artistic mind is even like, Oh yeah, we can do that. Like, why haven't we done that?[00:20:28] dane: [00:20:28] That's so cool. Next thing is, so you have six segments now you have, so you have customer mechanism result.[00:20:36] Now you have customer pain solution mechanism offer. So compulsive datings customer pain is low self-respect, empty shallow connections on fulfilling relationships. Solution is high quality women. They can connect with mechanism, whatever that is, offer three months coaching at X price. Customer pain solution mechanism offer.[00:21:08] So let's do it for one of them because. We just created one advertising campaign on YouTube based on customer result. Right? You could do one for each and really, really grow your visibility, and you might have to try five to 10 different ads for one to land. Yeah. Cool. So what's one of the ones that speaks to your heart that you'd like to run through?[00:21:31] The example.[00:21:35] If you'd like to learn how to make money and you need a path to do it, visit start from zero.com and you'll see a whole context of how you can actually get started. There's a three phase process that you can go through. If you're a beginner, intermediate, or advanced, go there. It'll tell you exactly what to do, where to go, and how to get started, and you don't need money for some of the options.[00:21:57] And if you do have money, you can buy some of the other [00:22:00] options. It's all laid out for you with crystal. Clear clarity@startfromzero.com where do you go and what do you do? You'll find out there,[00:22:12] Chelsea: [00:22:12] I mean the one that keeps glaring at me is self hatred, just because that is actually a big one for a lot of people.[00:22:19] dane: [00:22:19] Great self hatred. I resonated with struggling with self hatred, so customer. Who's the customer demographic that this person is.[00:22:28] Chelsea: [00:22:28] He is 40 to 50 very successful and like knows that he can be and quote unquote should be accessing deep levels of joy and feeling and connection and is completely numbed out as no idea who he really is and just kind of goes through the every day wondering when it's going to[00:22:50] dane: [00:22:50] change.[00:22:51] So you just spoke your ad great. And it was recorded. So and keep that customer because they've got money. They're not going to waste your time. They're already successful. So they know how to take action with things. There's a lot of things embedded in that person that make them a great customer.[00:23:09] Successful with money is a very good customer cause you know, they take action, you know, they value their time. And you know, they're willing to spend. If someone's on successful and they don't have money, unfortunately, there's probably more to look at. It's a different pill to swallow. Oh yeah. So their pain, you mentioned.[00:23:27] So what's the solution?[00:23:28] Chelsea: [00:23:28] The solution is to move from the head into the body, which for me includes a lot of somatic work that includes working actually with establishing a connection to breath. That includes establishing a connection to source whatever they deem that to be. Whether that's[00:23:48] dane: [00:23:48] almost in mechanism.[00:23:49] Okay, what is solution?[00:23:51] Chelsea: [00:23:51] Solution is connection to self.[00:23:55] dane: [00:23:55] Good. So let's stay here. Being able to smile when they look at themselves in the mirror,[00:24:00] [00:24:00] Chelsea: [00:24:00] being able to smile. Period.[00:24:01] dane: [00:24:01] Customer, 40 50 successful pain, numb to life, self hatred. Don't know who they are. Disillusioned because they've achieved all this. And that solution is to be able to sincerely and wholeheartedly smile at their own image in the mirror at their own life they've created.[00:24:20] You can talk to your client and ask him, I say, what's his dream result? What does he want more than anything? And he might just say, I just want to feel my life again.[00:24:28] Chelsea: [00:24:28] Yeah. He wants to feel[00:24:30] dane: [00:24:30] it's a great solution. Be able to feel, so we went to the customer to find this out. We don't get to decide what works.[00:24:36] We just let what works work.[00:24:38] Chelsea: [00:24:38] It's like reverse psychology of the whole system. I see what you're doing. It's super cool. I just hadn't never thought about approaching it that way. I'm sure you're aware of.[00:24:49] dane: [00:24:49] I know. Yeah. We have over 15 millionaires that I've taught. They did it in like four years time, and a lot of them were employees, you know, and those are 15 that I can count.[00:24:59] I think there's more now and they're off doing their own thing. They're hard to get ahold of, but it's so free. They can't speak with me. And it only takes like these initial seeds to kind of like let them take off. It seems to be the missing thing. It is a big shock that I would have ever had anything to do with something like that and that I would have ever done something this with how much I doubted myself and how much I was scared when I was starting to be in this situation.[00:25:24] Now, I do often feel sort of unworthy of. The greatness that kind of comes through me, that I give to the world. Oh man, this is who am I to give this? And at the same time, it hardly stops me. There are elements that does, but our voices don't have to stop us is what I'm saying. I'm kind of saying this with listeners, so, so much for you, and I might actually be dodging your compliment.[00:25:48] I'll receive your compliment.[00:25:53] Chelsea: [00:25:53] Okay. Okay.[00:25:57] dane: [00:25:57] Took my well throughout, I was doing[00:26:01] [00:26:00] receiving compliments. You saw it here, folks. You saw what it's like to avoid one, so customer pain solution, be able to feel life again. Mechanism. Now you can do. I'll try and do it for you. So keep it simple and you see what you think mechanism is to use breaths, reestablish a connection with the body, and to stay with the body until it's free to live again.[00:26:24] Chelsea: [00:26:24] Well said.[00:26:25] dane: [00:26:25] Okay. And the offer, three months coaching.[00:26:28] Chelsea: [00:26:28] Yeah. Yay. There'll be more, but yeah, for now.[00:26:31] dane: [00:26:31] Well, I mean, it could be less. It could be two month coaching with five people at once.[00:26:34] Chelsea: [00:26:34] Yeah. But I found that at least the way that I work, three months is the minimum that I need to be able to have results as we were discussing results.[00:26:42] dane: [00:26:42] So when you said it could be more, what were you referencing?[00:26:44] Chelsea: [00:26:44] I was referencing that for, I mean, the amount of different containers that could come through that I can feel into that could be possible are many. So I mean, for the sake of this call, yes, that's currently where I'm operating, but that could be six months.[00:26:58] There could be years.[00:27:00] dane: [00:27:00] Cool. So this new customer is going to be another video. I'm picking video for you because you did acting. Comfortable on camera and you'll have a good presence with these videos. But if someone else wasn't like naturally, like someone want to be on camera, I might have them do like Facebook stories, like written stories on Facebook, but that's why I'm recommending this for you.[00:27:21] So it's not like, Oh, everybody go to YouTube videos. It's like. If you have an inclination to be on camera, do it. If you don't, don't, unless it's part of your mission and get over it to what you need to do to, you know,[00:27:32] Chelsea: [00:27:32] call me,[00:27:33] dane: [00:27:33] call Chelsea called folks. I help with this kind of thing. Okay, so now the video, it comes on and it's you like looking like you're talking to someone and it's like, okay.[00:27:43] You know, the great disillusion that with men and society today is to think that once they've achieved, once they've built the life, then things will get better. Then they'll feel. But what happens is we often are leaving our men behind because they ended up building these remarkable lives, but then they can't feel them.[00:27:57] And what's one of the hardest thing for a man to [00:28:00] realize. Is that underneath all the success there might be the smallest tinge of self hatred and self hatred can be at the root of a lot of things. And so I just have a compassion to wake up men to how beautiful they are. And if this speaks to you and you're ready to feel your life again, and you're ready to feel all the success you've built, I'd love to speak with you.[00:28:16] Click on this link to schedule a call with me. That's your YouTube ad. Yeah. Cool. But that one's a little bit different. It's like, I mean, you could do that straight on the camera speaking straight to it. That'd be a little easier with the iPhone. You could do it.[00:28:31] Chelsea: [00:28:31] That visual actually feels a lot better to me.[00:28:34] dane: [00:28:34] Yeah, sure it does. And if you wanted to test it with an iPhone and looking at it first cause it's quick, and then that works, and then you can beef it up and do the other one first. So you're optimizing for speed. Cool. Now, you mentioned at the beginning of the call block, maybe a block with this, and I asked if you wanted to get vulnerable and you said yes.[00:28:53] And then I actually felt that might not be needed to do some work with a block, but give you something so specific that you were able to take action with,[00:29:02] Chelsea: [00:29:02] dear. Right. It's not a block as much as it's lack of clarity on steps, which is what you just gave me.[00:29:08] dane: [00:29:08] That's good cause I was like, Oh, we're going to have to be vulnerable.[00:29:10] But then[00:29:11] Chelsea: [00:29:11] yeah, the vulnerable bits are already done. I feel for me, we're unraveled in here. It's just the actual tangible 3d like, Oh, this is how we live. Cool.[00:29:21] dane: [00:29:21] Good. Do you have any questions for me?[00:29:22] Chelsea: [00:29:22] No. I'm really excited to listen to this back, like reap all of this and to really put it into action. So thank you so much.[00:29:31] That simplicity is. Such a welcomed breath of fresh air. And especially for someone like me who does consider themselves way more of a healer. A lot of this stuff feels stuffy and doesn't feel like heart-centered. And even though I'm aware that as a business woman, I can't just like live in that like pushy Mimi space.[00:29:49] I need to like. Go in and do my work. The simplicity of that I keep saying, but it provides a platform for me to exist on that feels authentic, yet supports my business.[00:29:59] dane: [00:29:59] Wow. [00:30:00] Wonderful is all you're welcome. Good job today. So for years, people have been asking me, what's the big secret? How do I do this? And the answer is simple.[00:30:08] My life took off when I had mentors. Too many people try to do this stuff alone and get stuck and give up. Listen, if you haven't succeeded in business or entrepreneurship yet, it's simple. You haven't. Failed enough yet you haven't been around enough mentors yet. If you combine failure with mentorship, you will fly.[00:30:26] I had someone say, why are so many people so more successful than me? How come I can't get this right? And they said, well, how many times you failed? He's like, wow. A lot of times I'm like, have you failed more than 10 times? He said, no. I was like, you haven't failed enough yet. You haven't been around. A mentor is enough.[00:30:39] Yes, failure is how you learn. Michael Jordan has missed so many game winning shots. You've got to get out there and fail and how are you going to do that if you're all by yourself all alone, beating yourself. In your own thoughts. Listen, I'm going to give you access to my board of advisors, my board of advisors that I talk to sometimes every day.[00:30:57] I'm going to give you access to them every month, live for you to ask questions and get your mindset on straight. They're going to ask you questions that are hard for you to answer. Those are the kinds of people you want in your life. You're also going to get access to not only the board of advisors, but my entire community, the start from zero community, all the entrepreneurs that are practicing these things, building these businesses, you'll get access to.[00:31:19] That this community and this board of advisors and much more with the new program we launched called start from zero.com forward slash starters and you can see how you can get access to my board of advisors and ask them anything you want. Monthly, you'll get automated accountability to stay focused.[00:31:35] You get a community of other people all building businesses with the start from zero methodology. And guess what? You get kicked out of this community if you do not take action. So it is serious people. So if you'd like access to that. Information about that. Go to start from zero.com forward slash starters and it's about time that we get together and strengthen each other and fail together and pick each other back up together and [00:32:00] show each other each other's blind spots and ask the hard questions and drive each other to that golden finish line of a business that you don't have to work in a business that provides freedom.[00:32:10] So you can sit around on a Tuesday and watch HBO if you want. All right, start from zero.com forward slash starters.

Last year we started to dig into the idea of what it’s like to be an IT professional with a strong religious, ethical, or moral point of view, who is also a parent. In that episode we discussed some of the concerns we have with technology, and how we get around those concerns. But like most topics in tech, there is a lot more to say. So today we’re revisiting this topic to extend and deepen the information we shared. In this podcast, Leon Adato, Keith Townsend, Al Rasheed, and Destiny Bertucci about parenting with a bible in one hand and a packet sniffer in the other. Listen or read the transcript for part 2, below. Leon: 00:06 Wlcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious.Leon: 00:53 This is a continuation of the discussion we started last week. Thank you for coming back to join our conversation.Leon: 00:59 Okay, so I'll, I'll run down, uh, my setup, I'm using what, what I officially call pro-sumer. It's not really consumer. It's, it's in between professional and consumer equipment. Qustodio uh, sorry, Ubiquity, uh, network year, which, um, the, the security gateway that they provide, which you don't have to buy if you don't want to, you can actually run it - okay. really geeky - on a container. You can run it in a container or you can run it on a raspberry pi. Uh, that's what I'm doing. Or you can run it in a virtual machine or you can buy the security key and put it on your network. And that gives you actually NetFlow data. So you can not only tell how much bandwidth you're using, but you can tell by, uh, by source and destination. And so you can tell which device was accessing which targets at any given moment and see a breakdown, and see a breakdown by categories. You can see how much social media traffic, how much video, you know, YouTube or Netflix or Hulu traffic, et cetera. So that lets me see that. Um, it has allows me to create multiple networks so I can segregate my IOT devices. Again, Destiny, going back to the whole Ring and Wise camera thing, I can put those on a completely separate network, which doesn't fix the problems we were talking about, about them being hacked. But it does allow me to lock down those devices a lot more than I would my cell phones or the tablets in the house. I can have separate, you know, lockdowns and controls. Um, and unless you create filters, uh, whether they are access control lists or other kinds of filtering that you can do. Uh, I also have Qustodio on every device in the house. So every Tuesday.Destiny: 02:44 I used to use that.Leon: 02:44 Well you're the one that told me about it. Uh, so that's the one I'm using. Yeah. Qustodio on every cell phone, every tablet, every laptop. It even runs on Linux. Yay Linux! So I run that on everything. And that allows you to have per-user controls. It also lets you have really granular settings. Like I can say that my son is able to watch YouTube videos from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And that's it. But he can watch, you know, Netflix or Hulu at different times. And the overall device usage is up to four hours a day and after four hours it shuts down. And you know, on Saturdays there's absolutely no usage until after sundown because obviously he shouldn't be using it. But Keith, to your point, temptation is temptation. You never know. So it lets you have really granular controls about the who, the what and the where that devices and that follows my kids everywhere they go that use the device. So it doesn't matter if they're inside my house or outside my house. Qustodio goes with them. And it does give you some other really nice benefits, like Destiny you told me about, uh, your daughter was in, uh, an accident and you knew immediately she couldn't tell you where she was, but her phone was able to tell you where it was and you were able to get there really quickly because you know, your daughter who was already sort of in crisis and not able to process the information, wasn't able to give over that information. So it has a lot of,Destiny: 04:16 Yeah, I got an alert immediately that something had happened and I had a kid see her GPS location, knew everything that was going on and I was already on my way to get her before she even found her phone.Leon: 04:27 So yeah, it's really, really good stuff. So Qustodio goes on every device. Ubiquity is the network gear. I have a little app called pi-hole, which will, uh, run on a Linux machine or you can run it again on a raspberry pi. It was meant for raspberry pi, hence the name pie hole. And what that does, it's, it's security, but it's also almost an internet speed up. It filters out, uh, spam ads that come into your house. They just never come into your house. The pie hole captures them. So you'll see a page and there's gonna be three ads you can see. And two, you can't because the two, you can't were span ads. So that speeds up the webpage. But it also means that there's a whole bunch of garbage that me and my kids are not even seeing. And that's on a element by element basis on every website.Destiny: 05:16 Which also protects you from the cyber attack. So...Leon: 05:19 okay, there you go. And, and finally, uh, OpenDNS or a Cisco Umbrella, depending what you would call it. And the benefit of Cisco umbrella. It's not just that it's a DNS protector, it's crowdsourced everybody who's using it. Every corporation, when, when the Umbrella system sees a bunch of attacks coming in from a particular IP address, Umbrella blacklists, it automatically, and nobody who is using Umbrella can get to that site. So if an enterprise is suddenly seeing a new cyber attack, you're not going to even get it because that IP address, that destination is automatically puts, you know, black holed, so you're never going to get there. So...Destiny: 06:01 And the cool thing about that, if you remember right when I was talking about this in Australia was the main thing that I loved about Cisco Umbrella is like SD-Wan, especially like the way that they're running their network and the way that they're testing and getting things done. Like you were saying on the blacklist and everything, you are getting that enterprise level new technology and new hacks that are coming to SD-Wan that you are getting prevented from as well.Leon: 06:25 And I will say that for the basic level it's free.Destiny: 06:28 Yup. And then you can get, you know, a little crazy with it, with your little cloud access, security blockers and everything.Leon: 06:33 I will say for those people who are interested in it, um, and again, you know, thinking about the Orthodox Jewish community which tends to go with whitelist only. So I can't get to any site that I haven't purposely white listed that, um, you're only, you can only have a certain number of white list items before you have to pay for it. But anyway, that's my setup. Um, what does everyone else have?Al: 06:52 I actually have something similar to what you just described. I'm just getting into Ubiquity, so I'm curious to learn more about it. Everybody speaks very highly of their products and their services, but I want to filter the content that's coming in or trying to go out. I want to be able to see what, uh, is being viewed online. And this way this can provide me with something to go back to whoever the guilty party is and say, look, this is why I'm here. This is why we implement this and this is why we're going to prevent it moving forward.Destiny: 07:23 So some of the things that I've also implemented, because obviously you know the Qustodio and everything in which that that I've set up before, but I've helped a lot of people use the Mobisip as well. But it also depends on what devices you like. Right? Like like if you have Kindles versus you know, iOS updates or if you have Android versus... There's different things that you can grab. But mobi, sip is one of the ones that I like for like a Windows / Apple kind of a household that you have. And I like setting that up, especially for teenagers because they can request like when they're like trying to do homework, like for health and it has to do with sex or something like that, it'll automatically go to my phone and I can look at the link, bring it up, see if I approve it and approve it from my phone. And it automatically allows them to start engaging with that content. So it's not like, you know something that's not very like quick, if that makes sense. Cause if they're in school using their laptop, cause here they get to use their own laptop or iPads or Kindles or things like that at school then it's something that I can easily like switch on and off. So much so to where even the school now is trying to implement that on their tablets because they were like "how did you do that?" But um, same thing is another product is Net Nanny. I don't know if you guys have heard of that, but net nanny as well. Those are some of the things that I've helped a lot of families set up on with those. A NetGear, they also have NetGear Armor. So here around in New Mexico, a lot of the free wear of which they give people. So a lot of the times, you know a lot of the people that are going to be on the internet will have NetGear. Right? It's usually a Nighthawk in this area and like you can get extenders and things of that nature. But it comes with something called NetArmor that can help you visually like be able to, to track and to do things and to block things at the actual router itself. Something that I do like about that product in the way that they have it set up though is that it's very user driven, if that makes sense. So like if you are new to it, as we were talking about earlier, protect your networks. It'll say "guest network: enable or not?", You just click the box and it'll disable it, right? So disabled that guest network if you're not using it and it'll ha so you can set up reminders, you can do dynamic QoS, like you can block people, you can do scheduling when you can shut down your network, shut it down per device, you know, things like that. But it's very user, um, uh, has a lot of user accessibility to it that I like because it's one of those things where if you're new to it and you're going to be given a router and you're going to be giving everything out of the box and "Here, welcome to the internet." Right? It's very step-by-step on how do I protect myself. And that's something that they've actually started doing in the past six months when they engage that NetArmor. So I think that NetGear is coming around and understanding that Hey there's people out there that don't know what they're doing per se to secure themselves in their home network. So let's see if we could make it wizard driven. Right? Cause anytime it's wizard driven it's fun. So those are some of the things and it comes with the device, right? So I think that it's one of those things that if you are listening and you have NetGear or if you have something that your provider, your ISP has given you to connect to the internet, make the phone call the tech support. Right? Like ask them "What's my username and password ?"if you don't already know it. Cause I know several people who have no idea and ask them, what did you set this up for? How do I log in? Okay cool. Let me turn off my guest network. Let me change my password, let me see what I have going on here. And they will walk you through those, but you can also Google it and figure it out just as much. But you, you have to be the proactive one to protect your fort, right? Like you have to want to protect yourself, which means you're going to have to understand and use the GUI, use the actual website, like dial into it, see what it's doing, look at those logs, set up your alerts, update it, right? Like set it to automatic updates so you get those security updates. So just so that you're implementing that basic cyber hygiene.Leon: 11:28 Right. And there's a few other points of, of that basic cyber hygiene I think that are worth talking about. Um, Al, you hinted at it earlier, but I want to hit it again. Uh, password managers: Period. End of sentence. Whether regardless of what device, regardless of what environment we're talking about, use a password manager for two reasons. First of all, that way you don't have to have everything set to the same password because your password manager will remember it. And two, closely to related. It will generate strong, secure passwords that you don't have to remember. And it will automatically input those passwords into all of your apps. And that is the number one attack vector for people who are trying to get your information is they'll just, you know... When you see in the news, Oh, there was a Amazon S3 bucket that had 2 million usernames and password hashes that were in there. What that means is they now have a library of 2 million people and their password that they say, "Oh, this person uses this password. They probably use it in a few places. Let me try it against this site, this site, this site." And suddenly they have their bank or they have your Facebook or they have your Instagram. And from there they can get into your this and your that and your other thing. And that's how people build an a, you know, an attack against a particular individual. And by the way, these things can all be automated. I think sometimes we think of hackers as "Well, who's really gonna worry about little old me." Nobody's going to worry about little old you. There's a bot for that. There's a, there's a machine that is automatically walking through those 2 million accounts and just running a whole set of predefined processes. And when it finally gets a hit and goes through every other possibility, it sends a report back to somebody and then they start digging.Al: 13:12 Right. And if I could add to it, a lot of people underestimate two factor authentication. It literally takes two minutes to set up and it saves you hours upon hours moving forward.Leon: 13:24 Yes. Everything. They can have two factor authentication, turn it on.Destiny: 13:29 And here's the thing, you have more information and this is statistically shown on your phone than you do in your home. Think about that. Used to, we used to keep files or mortgages or information or bank accounts or statements and everything in our house. You're all accessible from your phone and an application or a website. So if you have stored passwords, things like that and you're not changing them, you're kind of at a disadvantage anyway. And some of the things that me and you have talked about, Leon, especially, ESPECIALLY at conferences, is securing your line, encrypt your phone. I was like, we literally... me in Leon. We're in a conversation one day when the lady was like, "Oh, I don't care if they get my phone, who cares?" I was like, "Oh, I don't know. But if you pay attention over there, they're like literally going through everybody's photos and putting them on display because they can. And they're displaying your bank account that's overdrawn. So I don't know what to tell you right now. Feel like you should probably secure that." And it's those little things like, I mean, I use Avast Secure Line. I mean, it's like cheap for a year to use it. I can constantly connect it and it's encrypted the whole time. It constantly keeps me protected. My kids are that way as well because they're going to school and I'm sorry, but their school does not even have an IT person and like they're in an open network. I'm like, "no." This just isn't gonna work for me. So I, but it's one of those things where it's like you teach them to protect themselves and now they do it on their own. Like my kids will tell you if they see something that doesn't make sense, right? Cause you see something, you say something. And like if they get sent something from their teachers or like, cause now they're using third party applications are using Google drives, they're using all this stuff and people are sharing passwords and my daughter's like "you really shouldn't do that." Well then they found out that one of their friends got all their homework deleted, right? Like it's like they're seeing it in their daily transactions of school to where they are more ahead of changing passwords, not giving your information. Make sure you have more than a four digit code on your phone because they're have friends who break into them like they are figuring out the cyber waters way faster than most parents are right now. And that's, that's okay. But if you have that open forum or if you're having those conversations, you can actually help each other.Roddie: 15:47 Thank you for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website at http://technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes. Leave us ideas for future discussions or connect with us on social media.

I hated dodgeball.  I quit before I even showed up.  Why would I allow myself to quit?  I don't get it.  Here's my story. In this episode, I talk about Dodgeball Days My Quitting Strategy What I learned from it Resources: Miles Taylor from Spartan Spirit: https://youtu.be/yWGwussetCs Transcript: Good morning everyone. This is the Path to 1 Million. This is going to be episode 172 if we take a trip back in the, in the way back machine going back to my high school days and junior high days the days that I hated the most well let's take, let's let me clarify something here. I really wasn't into sports so much as a kid. I did love to play softball when I was little, but I really wasn't much into sports. I didn't have any coordination, didn't have any strength. I wasn't interested in doing it. I actually spent most of my time writing. But sports and activities are much of, you know, any kids life, especially in school. And during one of those years, I want to say it was my freshman year. I think gym class was mandatory, so we had to take, I believe it was a semester of gym. It might've been an entire year, but at least it was a semester of gym. And the days that I hated the most in gym class was when the coach would walk in and he would look at us and he would say, all right, today we're going to play Dodge ball. And half the guys in the class would go bonkers. Right. There were crazy. They were stoked. They were just like, Oh my God, this is so awesome. This is so cool. And I hated it. I couldn't stand it. Every day the coach would come in and say that I would just drop my head and be like, Aw crap. Here we go again. Now at gym for Dodge ball, you know, the coach would always pick, you know, the two athletes start rocking guys and be like, okay, you guys are going to be team captains. So they would go back and forth and they would pick the kids in the class. And of course I was always one of the last ones to be picked, if not the last one picked because I just simply, you know, everybody knew that it wasn't, and he got a Dodge ball, you know, so I was always one of the last ones that were picked and we would go through this and of course then the coach would always turn and be like, no matter what team I was on, he would point to my team and be like, you guys are skins. So that means that we would all have to take our shirts off. So if it wasn't bad enough that I sucked, I now had to expose my skin and bone body to the entire world. So we would get up there and we would start playing Dodge ball. And we had those those red rubber balls, like almost like a burgundy color. And they had like these little stubbles on them or whatever it was. So when the ball actually hit your skin, it felt like it was tearing the flash off. I mean, it just, it stung. And at the end of the at the end of the Dodge ball session, you, you had red welts all over your body. It was just, it just hurt. It was painful. And I didn't like to do it cause I wasn't any good at throwing the balls. I wasn't, and you got to catching the balls. I wasn't good at anything. And so what would happen is, is that we would play one of these games and of course all the good people would, would be out within the first few minutes of it. Right? Cause they're engaged, they're on the front line, they're throwing the balls, they're like, you know, 10 feet away. And I was always in the back hiding. I was flat against the wall that I can potentially be. Balls are flying back far back and forth. And then finally it would wind up where you would have 10 people left on each team and you know, a lot of them were just like me. You know, they really didn't want to be there and they didn't want to play. They didn't want to do it. But you know, you still gotta play, you gotta play until somebody wins. And of course everybody on the line is cheering you on or like come on, come on, come on. If I did manage to get, get my hands on a ball,

Katie Wright is the Founder and CEO at Right Cause, LLC. RightCause is a boutique consultancy specializing in the development of cause marketing strategies and cross-sector partnerships. 8RightCause determines the right cause, the right partners, and the right message for your company to deepen community engagement and strengthen brand reputation.Katie has provided creative, cost-effective, holistic marketing solutions and event management for corporate and non-profit organizations since 2012. Her specialties include: Cause Marketing; Cross-Sector Partnerships; Brand Management; Project Management; Corporate Event Planning; Non-Profit Event Planning; Market Research; Business Development; Ad Creation & Campaign Management; Website Design; Client Relationship Management Systems.If your business is looking for more meaningful marketing and community outreach, RightCause consultants help businesses like yours develop long-lasting cause marketing partnerships and campaigns. Contact kwright@rightcauseconsulting.com to get started!www.rightcauseconsulting.comwww.facebook.com/RightCauseConsultingOn today’s episode we will:• Get to know Katie and hear more about RightCause• Discuss corporate social responsibility programs and how you can increase their effectiveness through cause marketing campaigns• Then we will discuss best practices for collaborations between for-profit and non-profit organizations• Stay tuned all the way to the end of this episode, where Katie will share some examples of cause marketing campaigns that RightCause has worked onOn this episode of the Self Made Strategies Podcast, you will learn about: • What cause marketing is and who uses cause marketing• How cause marketing works with corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) and corporate giving programs• How fundraising works hand in hand with cause marketing campaigns• What about cause marketing increases the efficiency of CSR and corporate giving programs? • How cause marketing goes beyond ensuring compliance to engage in actions that further some social good • How the pursuit of high ethical standards, through cause marketing, drives good public relations for your business• How cause marketing helps to increase employee engagement and retention• How you can measure a cause marketing campaign’s success • The best practices for companies and nonprofit organizations (“NPOs”) looking to collaborate on a joint cause marketing campaign• The pitfalls present in a collaborative partnership between a for-profit business and an NPO• The important terms to have in the collaborative agreement• And so much more!After you’ve listened to the episode, go to www.SelfMadeStrategies.com for more information about our show, exclusive content and to contact the Self Made Strategies show hosts. Make sure you subscribe to the Self Made Strategies Podcast on your favorite podcasting platform. You can find us on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Spreaker.You can also connect with us on: • https://www.facebook.com/selfmadestrategies/ •• https://twitter.com/SelfMadeStratGs •• https://www.instagram.com/selfmadestrategies/ •• https://www.linkedin.com/company/self-made-strategies/ •

On this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy and Smart Podcast, I welcome Neil Pearson on the show to discuss therapeutic yoga in pain care.  Neil Pearson is a physiotherapist, and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. He is a yoga teacher, a yoga therapist and creator of the Pain Care Yoga training programs for health professionals and yoga therapists. In this episode, we discuss: -The components of yoga practice that benefit people with persistent pain -Yoga therapy as a pain education agent -The Pancha Maya Kosha Model of yoga and the biopsychosocial model of healthcare -Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain -And so much more! Resources: Pain Care U Twitter Pain Care U Facebook Pain Care U Website Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain   For more information on Neil: Neil Pearson, PT, MSc(RHBS), BA-BPHE, C-IAYT, ERYT500 Neil Pearson is a physiotherapist, and Clinical Assistant Professor at University of British Columbia. He is a yoga teacher, a yoga therapist and creator of the Pain Care Yoga training programs for health professionals and yoga therapists. Neil is founding chair of the Physiotherapy Pain Science Division in Canada, recipient of the Canadian Pain Society's Excellence in Interprofessional Pain Education award, faculty in yoga therapist training programs and an author. Neil develops innovative resources, collaborates in research and serves as a mentor for health professionals and yoga practitioners seeking to enhance their therapeutic expertise. He is co-editor of ‘Yoga and Science in Pain Care: Treating the Person in Pain,’ available Aug 2019.   Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy:                   00:01                Hey Neil, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on to talk about yoga and science in pain care, which is a title of your new book. And we will talk about the book throughout the podcast, but I'm excited to learn more about yoga and how yoga can work with people in pain. So welcome back to the podcast. Neil Pearson:                00:24                Thanks so much Karen. I can't remember how long it's been since we've been here but it’s wonderful to be back. Karen Litzy:                   00:29                Yeah, I think it's been awhile. I don't know either, but I think it's been a long time, but I'm excited today to talk about yoga and how yoga can be an agent for people in pain. So as a lot of the listeners know, I had a long history of chronic neck pain, so this is something that really interests me, but I will kind of pass it along to you. So how does yoga help as a pain education agent? Neil Pearson:                01:00                Okay. So, maybe I'll start at a bit of a different place, but coming to there, so I guess part of my excitement around this, you know, we've got this new textbook out, it's called yoga and science in pain care. And really what it's trying to do is, is teach health care people about yoga and yoga research and how it can help but also some of the research behind that in terms of why it would work. And also it's sort of tried to go the other way as well as to teach yoga people about pain and about the lived experience of pain. So with the textbook, we're trying to hit both sides, right? Because we really see this as being something that needs to be integrated. And I think we sort of hit a really nice time with this because there's such interest in non-pharmacological pain management now. Neil Pearson:                01:54                Everyone’s starting to recognize that the long-term management of pain or the care of people in pain has lots to do with what the individual does for themselves. Not completely as self-help kind of work, but more as what the person does for themselves under the guidance of people like us as physical therapists and under the guidance of people like the yoga therapists. So that sort of, the sort of broader where this is coming from. And then if we look at sort of how it can help, we can start by looking at some of the research and I guess probably in terms of pain management and pain care the simple thing to do to start with when we say we have now have formal analysis and systematic reviews that show that yoga therapy has been shown to be effective. Neil Pearson:                02:45                That helping people to have less pain, to improve both perception of ability but also measured function and also improved quality of life. Those three things really are the three keys that people want. When we have ongoing pain, we want to have less pain, better ease of movement, and better quality of life. And the research is showing positive findings there. And it's showing positive findings in quite a varied group. So, there's a lot of research on low back pain. I mean, that's the one that has the most research. So much so that the, you know, the American medical association now has a yoga as one of the suggested treatments for people who have ongoing low back pain. But it also shows benefits for people who have rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, a whiplash associated disorder and a irritable bowel syndrome as well. Neil Pearson:                03:43                So there's this growing body of evidence saying that when people have these conditions that they can find benefit from them. And of course, like any area of research, we'd have to say, you know, it doesn't say that it's gonna work for everyone. It just says that if you take a lot of people and you give it to them, there will be some benefit with using yogas. The therapy people always want to know, well, is the yoga therapy better than physical therapy or is it better than going to the gym? Is it better for other movement practices? And we don't have that research yet. The effects sizes of some of the research when people are going through using yoga therapy for pain management are higher than the effect sizes of movement on their own and comparable to the effect sizes. You see when you do research looking at cognitive behavioral therapy plus movement therapy for people with chronic pain, which makes a lot of sense because yoga therapy really does cover a lot of the aspects of the person. And so your listeners may be thinking yoga for people with pain. That sounds actually pretty ridiculous because whenever I see pictures of people doing yoga, there's no way that that's what people in pain are going to do, Karen Litzy:                   05:00                Right? Cause they're always in these positions where even if I don't have pain, I think to myself, how in the heck am I supposed to get into that position? Neil Pearson:                05:10                Well, exactly right. And, and it sort of the other question that often sounds ridiculous to the person who has ongoing pain is like, aren't you listening to me? I told you that movement hurts and you're telling me you want me to move as a way to get better. But movement is the problem. And so it's interesting that the practices of yoga can help people to find new ways to move with more ease. But also, the practice of yoga, we need to recognize really are so vast. We're talking about, if we sort of overviewed yoga, yoga is about learning how to relate to yourself in new ways, how to live in a world in new ways. It is about movement with the postures and it is about doing breathing techniques. And then there are awareness techniques which are akin to mindfulness, but they're a little different. Neil Pearson:                06:10                And then there are also within yoga there are meditation techniques as well. So it really covers a broad, broad spectrum of interventions. And if we go to the literature again around chronic pain and chronic pain care, we see that mindfulness techniques and meditation are showing positive benefits. Movement is showing positive benefits. Gaining knowledge is showing positive benefits, acceptance, commitment therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. All these things show benefit for people with chronic pain. And there are aspects of those all within yoga sort of as this package. And the idea would be that we could, with the person who has ongoing pain, the yoga therapist would be able to do an assessment to see how the pain has changed the person or influenced sort of all the aspects of their existence. And then try to find how we could use different techniques of yoga to help. Neil Pearson:                07:08                So for instance, if a person was, let's take a common example, like the person who has chronic low back pain, but we know that with chronical back pain, often there's anxiety. Often there's grief. Well, there are aspects of yoga that we could use to address the grief or the anxiety. Often when we have ongoing pain, we have the sense of loss of self competence or self efficacy and we could use certain aspects of yoga to address those. Our body tends to get stiff or some muscles, you know, are gripping all the time. And within yoga we can do things to help to release muscles that are gripping or learn how to reengage muscles that seem to be inhibited. And so it's the practice of yoga would be to or yoga therapy would be to go through it and see how this individual is impacted and then see how we could use the different aspects within yoga to put together a plan to address a lot of the changes that are related to ongoing pain. Karen Litzy:                   08:12                Yeah. So I think what you're describing may be a little different than what a lot of, perhaps the listeners are seeing. Meaning yoga is more than just handstands on Instagram and you know, doing these impossible moves and making them look so easy because I think that's what a lot of people associate yoga with. And so what we're talking about here is not just going to a yoga class or not just putting something fun up on Instagram, but the yoga therapist being very intentional in their prescription, the type of yoga therapy they feel this person needs. So it's individualized based on a proper evaluation. Neil Pearson:                09:02                Oh, exactly. Yeah. Although the one difference in yoga therapy is that yoga therapy is not diagnostic, right? So the yoga therapist isn't a trained health care professional. So what the yoga therapist is doing is it's actually applying yoga, getting the person to do different aspects of yoga, like meditation or awareness or breathing or movements. And then seeing how the person is limited in that and then working with them to find a way so that they can do that particular technique to help them to change ease of movement of life pain. Karen Litzy:                   09:40                Got it. Yeah. And there was, you know, something, we spoke about this a little bit before we went on the air, but there was a sentence within the book, the yoga and science and pain care that I had never heard of this saying before. I mean I'm not immersed in the yoga world, but it's the sentence is expanding our view and even altering our perspective to a Pancha Maya Kosha perspective enhances our understanding that pain physiology is studying the person as much as our biology. So can you talk about that for a little bit because I kind of liked that saying so you could expand on that. Neil Pearson:                10:25                Yeah. So there's sort of the two parts of it is that that studying physiology is about starting the person, not just the biology, but then there's also this Pancha Maya Kosha which all start with that within healthcare we talked about the bio-psychosocial or bio-psychosocial spiritual model, which is intended to be an integrated view of the person that everything biological is going to affect everything psychological, it's going to affect everything social is going to affect the person who has spiritual manner and it's all working together as an integrated unit. So within yoga, the philosophy and the view of yoga is that there are different aspects of the individual, so the individual is integrated and whole, but we can look at the individual from different aspects to understand them better. And so I'm this pantry, my kosher view looks at the individual from a physical perspective, from a more energetic perspective, being Pancha is one of the things they're talking about, which really is life force. Neil Pearson:                11:31                And then it really relates a lot to breath as well. But then there's within yoga to SIM Phi, we could say we look at they often call it the lower mind, but it's really getting at the automatic aspects of the human, all that stuff that runs automatically. And then there's above that or you know, I guess above it. There's this other aspect of us that this about us thinking about what we're thinking and it's about us regulating thoughts and emotions and breath and all that stuff. And then the other aspect of us is more the aspect of his that has more to do with spirit and connectedness to the world and everything. And so yoga already looks at the person from that kind of perspective. And with the idea that any change in one aspect of the individual is going to have an effect on the other aspects of the individual. Neil Pearson:                12:25                So if you have a little back pain, it's going to change the way you breathe. It's going to change the automatic functioning of the body. It's going to change the way you think and emote and it will change your connection with yourself, your community. And that then you'll also have as part of its core belief system is that if a person that had low back pain, you could help the person with low back pain by going through any one of those aspects of the person so that you could help the person by affecting the physical body, by working on breath, by working on the automatic system, by working on thoughts and emotions or community that all those, everything interacts. And so that you could, you know, work at it through any of those aspects of your existence. Karen Litzy:                   13:08                Got it. And as someone who has had chronic neck pain for many years, it is very true that the physical pain certainly affects so much else that is happening in your life. It affects your thoughts, it affects your emotions, it affects your relationships, it affects the way you hold your body, the way you relate to your body, the way you see your body. So now I feel like I have a much better idea as to what that sentence means and how yoga can help the individual relate to all of that and kind of put it all together. Cause sometimes when you're in it, you don't see it. Know what I mean? Like you don't see that you're not relating to your body, you don't see that you're moving differently, you don't see that you're breathing differently, you're clenching, you're holding, you just, you don't realize it because it's just the way you are as a result of the pain. Neil Pearson:                14:10                It's so true. And I think one of the key things about what you just said is that the experience of pain often disconnects us from awareness of ourself even so much so that we know now from the science side that sometimes when there's ongoing pain that a person will have a hard time actually feeling the non pain sensations of their physical body. So you know, imagine a person with a low back pain and we asked them to take their attention to the rollback and tell us what they feel there. And typically what a person would do is tell us about their back pain. And then of course I get really sort of funny reaction to people when I say, okay, you told me about your pain. What I want you to do is take your attention back there and tell me the non pain sensations you can feel on your low back. Neil Pearson:                15:02                Which a lot of people, you know, really don't get that. And I say, okay, well you know, just right now take your attention to the feeling of your hands. Your hands are resting. Can you feel your fingers? Can you feel the temperature of your skin in your hands? Can you feel the angle of the knuckles? You probably can feel a whole lot of non pins sensations there and say if you had low back pain, I'd probably say, okay, now take your attention to your upper back, your mid back and notice the non pain sensations. They're just sort of exploring. Scan around. Okay, now what I want you to do is go down to your low back. No, just the pain. Sort of acknowledge it. Now what I'd like you to do is see if you can feel non pain sensations in that same area. Neil Pearson:                15:41                So maybe you need to try to look under the pain or around it or through it. I feel that and it's amazing that some people will say, you know, I really don't experience anything right now except the pain. All I feel there is pain. I can feel my mid back, I can feel my upper back, but my low back, it's pain. That's all there is. And then other people will say, I can sort of feel it, but it feels like it's murky or muddy or hard to feel. And then, you know, we don't often get it with low back pain, but say what was your hand where the pain was? Well often people when they start to do this say, you know, my hand doesn't feel this right shape or size. It feels like it's too big or it feels like it's too small. It feels distorted. Neil Pearson:                16:24                And so it's really interesting is that the practices of yoga specifically get people to take their attention to their physical self to try to reconnect to those sensations. And this is always part of yoga, but in Western science we're finally understanding this. It's really only been in the last five or 10 years where we've paid attention to the distortions of body awareness and body image that are common when pain persists. And, of course this becomes really fascinating to me because the next part is, as a research guy, I get stuck in because I know clinically when a person tells me that, that when I get the person start to work on finding those subtle non pains and sensations of their physical body, that when the person starts to be able to feel those sensations, that there's an associated decrease in their pain. Neil Pearson:                17:20                And then the more the person is able to feel the subtle non-painful sensations of self, the more the pain diminishes. But I can't give you any good scientific explanation for that. You know, we see it clinically, but we can't fully explain it in some sort of, you know, central nervous system or insular cortex or any of those things. We just can't explain it. But to me, that's part of the interesting thing about both the practice of yoga is that it's driven by experience. And yet what the science is now doing is showing is that there's science that says that, you know, the experience of yoga aren't just all in your head. They're actually real measurable changes in the humans biology and physiology. Karen Litzy:                   18:08                Yeah, it's really interesting. And I wonder now you have me wondering, well why do people experience that decrease of pain when they start, you know, looking at the painful areas more than just painful. I mean, are they making changes in the sensory cortex? Is it affecting that idea of smudging that maybe they have a clearer outline of what that body part is now in the brain? And that can lead to changes? I don't know, but it's really an interesting concept. Neil Pearson:                18:45                Well, and the thing about that too is that as we start to study more our sense of our physiological state, we start to realize that body awareness and aspect of it is, or a big aspect of is happening, sort of outside the sensory cortex. It's happening more in the insular cortex. And so I know in the last year I saw one research study that was saying that they couldn't find any smudging and people who had altered body awareness, but they were looking at the sensory motor cortex and didn't look at the insular cortex. And so it's another area as the research goes on, is maybe that smudging is happening in a different place or that alteration of brain activity is happening in a different place than we thought, but certainly the person that is experiencing it and if the person is experiencing it, we hope we can be able to find, you know, the correlate in the brain activity. Neil Pearson:                19:45                Of course our, you know, our sciences far beyond or far behind, the experience that the human has, which really gets back to that other aspect of what you're saying is that that statement is when we study physiology, we hope that by studying physiology and pain physiology, that what we start to do is understand the human more rather than, maybe I'll say it this way often when I go to pain society conferences, there's a lot of biochemistry people there and they're talking about their research and at the end of it, they nearly always say, so what the science says is that here's this target for pain care, for pain intervention. And what they're talking about is that, we could give a chemical to the person to target this thing, this gene or this ion channel or whatever it is to change the person's experience of pain. And of course, my question always when I'm there is, so is there anything that the human could do to change that Karen Litzy:                   20:48                Outside of something pharmacological? Neil Pearson:                20:50                Well, exactly right. And it would make sense if, if we're getting good effects from different treatments. Like yoga therapy that obviously they must be affecting these same biochemical and genetic and epigenetic things within the human. But they're doing them through the person's own, you know, we can say through their own medicine cabinet. Karen Litzy:                   21:13                Right. That medicine cabinet in the brain that David Butler talks about. Neil Pearson:                21:17                Yeah. Yeah. And I think we can expand it into the human right. Because there's a, you know, especially even with the endorphins, cause there seem to be receptors for those all over the body. Karen Litzy:                   21:29                Or even, you know, up and coming research into the microbiome and things like that. I think is also an interesting study in pain and how can we alter our diets or can we alter what we put in our system to change the pain experience? Neil Pearson:                21:55                Oh, absolutely. And I think this, you know, when we get to nutrition, the book actually has a chapter on nutrition. And, one of the things that we find one scan clinically is that some people change their diet a lot and really have very little change in their pain or their quality of life. Other people change their diet even just a small amount and get a massive change. And this, once again is part of the thing that is the complexity of pain care is that, we, you know, as an organism, we are a whole bunch of systems together and sometimes you can change one system a little bit and it really, really changes the organism or the person and others times you change that system a ton and you get very, very little change in the human. And that's one scan, part of the trouble of pain care. But part of the advantage of approaches like yoga therapy is because they're sort of okay with that idea is that everyone's fully individual and we don't have everyone should change their diet this way, or everyone should move their back this way, or everyone should, you know, stand this way or, right, right. It's not a linear model at all. Karen Litzy:                   23:11                Yeah. No, definitely not. And then when you think about pain and you think about it as an experience, and if we're going off of all the different inputs that can be put into the body, that can have impact over one's pain experience, and you think of all the different ways you can alter those inputs, all of a sudden treating the person with persistent pain goes way beyond just movement. Right? It goes into all of those myriad of inputs that you have ability to alter, whether that be as the yoga therapist, a physical therapist, or let's not forget the person experiencing the pain themselves. Neil Pearson:                23:54                Oh, it's so true. Yeah. And with that last comment, you made, the person experiencing pain, the one thing we were really happy that we did within this book was that's her first chapter. So Julietta Belton wrote the first chapter on the lived experience of pain because we wanted to bring it back to, you know, this is why we're doing this work. It's not, you know, it's not that we're all just trying to understand pain. We're trying to help people. But back to movement, one of the things I think is that physical therapists and yoga therapists, anyone who's doing movement therapy, I think one of the really important things that we can do is start to shift our view of movements as though we can use movement for more than helping a person to be flexible, helping the person to be stronger. Neil Pearson:                24:39                And within yoga therapy, we often do this. We'll say, you know, when you're in this yoga posture, it's not just affecting you on the physical level. It's affecting you on every level. And so we can actually use some of the yoga postures to help with other issues related to pain such as, so I was thinking about, so,one when we do a seated forward bend. So maybe if you have back pain, it's really hard to do it, but you still can get in that kind of position where you're sitting on the floor. Legs were straight or bent in front of you and your trying to reach down towards your knees, your shins, your feet, wherever you get to. The metaphor here is of learning how to let go so you can move forward. Neil Pearson:                25:29                And so, we can use a lot of the different yoga postures like that is that we're thinking. So here's a person who is stuck, right? The person is, you know, maybe it's letting go of the need to have a definitive diagnosis because a lot of times that happens and sometimes to be able to, we see the person clinically that, you know, when we're in this multidisciplinary pain management setting, we say, you know, it seems to be this, one of the big things that stuck for this person, they're stuck believing that they need that to be able to move forward. And so we can use movement or postures to try to address other issues like that. Or as maybe another one that makes a little bit more, is more clear. Often we feel a sense of fragility when we have especially low back pain, pelvic pain. Neil Pearson:                26:19                So if we can get you to come into one of the standing warrior postures, when people, the majority of people in a warrior posture, I'm standing with your arms reaching up or out to the sides. There is a sense of strength and stability and connectedness when you do this. And the really nice thing is we could do those postures from a seated position and people still feel that same kind of thing. And so the idea is could we use movement to effect the person on a psycho-emotional level as well? Could we make that out? One of our goals is this person who doesn't feel strong, feels unstable, feels fragile. Could we use movements not just create physical strength, but to address the other changes that are happening to the person? I think so. Karen Litzy:                                           Yeah. I think so too. And I love that yoga has got that part and I hope that other movement practitioners start to think, well, you don't need yoga to do that. Neil Pearson:                27:16                Right? You can use any, you know, think of any movement that we do and how it makes us feel. Could we address it that way. And then the one other thing that movement has tried to address in one of the chapters in the book is the idea of using movements or yoga therapy as an educational agent. So I know your listeners all know about explain pain and that wonderful work there. And what we're doing with explained pain really is it starts with a cognitive behavioral therapy, right? We're changing auditions to change their behavior. And so for a lot of the people that we work with, they may not have learned how to learn by sitting and listening or reading a book. They may have learned how to learn by doing. And so one of the things we're playing around with is the idea of when a person has ongoing pain, could we get the person to move in a way that could sort of, when the person moves that way they feel an increased sense of ease or they get some increased movements. And then you use that change from the movement as the educational agent. Karen Litzy:                   28:21                Saying like, look at what your body can do. Yeah, same thing. Neil Pearson:                28:26                Yeah. Well you can start with, wow, that's awesome. Your pain changed, right? Because that's one of the core messages of explained pain is that right? Changeable. So instead of telling the person that pain is changeable and explaining it to them, if you can get the person to do something and at the end of it, they have less pain or more ease of movement to say, look, it changed. And of course the next step is, and you did it. And so I would then jump into, let's look for all the other things that you could do to actually change this, which is saying to the person your pain is changeable. And you have some influence in it, which is part of what we're trying to do with pain. Karen Litzy:                   29:09                Yup. Yeah. It's like giving them the keys to the car. Neil Pearson:                29:13                Exactly. Karen Litzy:                   29:13                Right. And having them be in the driver's seat versus feeling like they're the passenger and the pain is in the driver's seat. Neil Pearson:                29:24                Oh yeah. That's a really great way of saying it. And I think clinically what we want to do is both with people we, you know, we want to find a way to integrate these things, but I really, really believe that there's a lot of the people we work with would understand pain better if we got them to experience it. Experience what we're trying to tell them. Karen Litzy:                   29:47                Yeah. And we know experiential learning for a lot of people is something that sticks. Neil Pearson:                29:54                Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's the thing is that there were a whole bunch of people that when we explained pain, it changes their cognition, but it immediately they get it, they understand it. It's powerful enough to change their behavior. But then there's other people then some of the research shows this now is that some people have this sort of partial reconceptualization of pain. They understand everything you told them, but they don't apply it to themselves. And so what you're going to need to do at that point is get the person to have the physical experience that matches up with the cognitive experience. And I guess what I'm saying is that what we could do is use the movement practices of yoga or any kind of moving practice for some individuals as the educational agent first and then, I think we need to start to play with that because some people just don't learn well when we talked to them, at least not as well as they do with the physical experience of it. Karen Litzy:                   30:58                Yeah. And I think as the therapist that you can kind of get a sense of this after one or two visits that okay. It seems like they understood, but yet they're not able to apply this to themselves or are they kind of come back to you with the same, I don't want to say the same complaints cause that's not right. But with the same maybe problem solving outlook that they did before when you know, you've kind of spoken about pain and maybe how pain works, let's say from explaining pain and they're still coming back to you with this same idea. The same. I did this so I must have done something wrong. And that's why it hurts because I keep doing this to myself. Neil Pearson:                31:55                Exactly right. There was something in what you said too that made me think that it's possible that that person coming back,  doesn't have the coping strategies that match up with the new information that they learned. So the person's, you know, coped by being saved, being tough and just sucking up and gritting your teeth and pushing through it or coped by fear avoidance. And so we've given them this new information, but the person that hasn't, when the pain worsens, they go back to the coping strategies that don't match up with the new paradigm. Karen Litzy:                   32:29                Right. Yeah. And that was really hard for me to do as well. So what would happen, and I'll give an example of what that means. I think you correct me if I'm wrong, but I used to get a lot of neck pain in my sleep so I'd wake up and kind of feel a pop and then wouldn't be able to move. And what my original coping strategy was hi, I have to call off work today because I need to stay in bed. So I would stay in bed. I used ice, I would use heat but I wouldn't move and that did not do well for me cause like it would help in the short term maybe that day. And then I'd be able to get back into things the next day. But I was still in an awful lot of pain. I mean, maybe I was a nine out of 10 and then I was at seven out of 10 but the seven out of 10 I could function. You know what I mean? Neil Pearson:                33:24                Yeah, absolutely. Karen Litzy:                   33:25                Until I started going through explain pain and moving more. So now if I wake up and I feel that pain, my first thought is not, Oh, I better lay in bed. It's okay, let me get up, let me start stretching, let me start moving, let me go to the gym and at least get on a bike. And now, because that's sort of my new shift in thinking that maybe the pain will last only one or two days and not forever. Because before it was this high level of pain with a higher spike. And now it's just little to no pain with a spike or a flare up, if you will, a couple times a year. But knowing the moment I feel that, that I get my butt to the gym and I realized that movement is the thing that helps and that I shouldn't be fearful of that. So for me, that was the input into my system that helped and everyone is different of course, but I think that's a real life example of what you just said. Neil Pearson:                34:27                Yeah. And I think it's great one because what you've said is that what you've found is that you can change the pain and the ease of movement through movements, but also I think what you're saying as well is there's somehow there's a different relationship with your different perspective on it. You're understanding it in a different way. Karen Litzy:                   34:48                Yeah. It's less as this sort of monstrous threat that's going to take over my life for the next couple of weeks, days, months versus now. It's like a little annoyance that I know I have the coping skills and the mechanisms at my disposal that I can make a change for myself versus going to a doctor for a quick fix of a pain medication or something, which is what I used to do. Neil Pearson:                35:22                Yeah. Well and what I'd say is, well as within yoga and yoga therapy is that a yoga therapy will offer you more on expanding a number of coping strategies or alternatives. We often think of as making people more flexible in their body, but it actually makes us more flexible in how we adapt or modify things when pain persists. So, you know, you wake up in the middle of the night, maybe one of the things is that I'm laying there and actually taking your attention to the pain and exploring the pain. Actually spending some time doing that or the practice of noticing what's happening to your breath. So now or changing your breath or noticing what's happening in your body tension or changing your body tension too. Within yoga there's many, many different ways that you can try to impact things. We often say we want to do practices that have to do with awareness because awareness practices in and of themselves can be a beneficial when we have ongoing pain. Neil Pearson:                36:28                And then there are other practices that are about regulation. So, you know, getting you to breathe in a certain way or hold your body in a certain way or move your body in a certain way or think a certain way. So with the awareness you can have awareness of your breath or your body or your thoughts or your emotions or your energy or the pain. And the same thing with regulation. You can regulate any of those and start to see what happens when you do either of these things. But then the one other bit you said too was about discernment is what you've learned. You've, you know, you've changed your view of you. You're now when you feel the pain, you can discern more about when the pain is like this, I need to do this. And when the pain’s like this, I need to do this. And, I think that's another positive that people can get or the practices of yoga therapy is that you start to actually understand your pain better, right? Be able to discern different aspects of it or different strategies that you need to do at different times where often when we have chronic pain, it's almost like we lose coping, right? Karen Litzy:                   37:37                Oh, there's no question. You lose everything. You lose all perspective on yourself as a human being, you know? I mean, even as someone like me who is, I was a physical therapist when I first had all of this pain and you just completely, everything I learned as a PT flew out my brain. It was gone because all you want is for the pain not to be there. And the reason you want the pain not to be there is because you want to have a life with more choices and more possibilities. Whereas when people are in pain, their choices are you get up, you go to work and you come home. If you can even make it to work, those are your choices. That's all you have. You know, have kids, maybe it's struggled to take care of your kids or suffer through taking care of X, Y, Z. Right? Versus when you don't have pain, your options are, I can get up, I can go to the gym, but I can go to work or I can go to the gym, meet up with friends, go on vacation, you know, clean my apartment, go play sports. So all of a sudden you have a life of very little choice and possibilities to an opening of your choices and possibilities. And it's just because you don't have that pain anymore. Neil Pearson:                38:53                Right. And I think that's one of the beauties of the practices that allow us to start to explore are there things that we actually can do for ourselves to try to change this? Or are there things that people can help guide us to be able to do that? Because I think when we're in that huge pain, what we're looking for is, you know, the thing that will just stop it, of course. And you know, we're living in society where the approach mostly is to look externally. And then one of the troubles that people have sometimes when they start to hear about yoga therapy and sort of the self care part is just this idea that it's almost like it's all up to me, right? You're telling me it's all up to me and what we want to say is no, that that doesn't really work well or we want to do is say, what you need is the expertise of a PT or a yoga therapist or an OT who can help to guide you and be there and you know, cheerlead you and coach you and help you through this. Neil Pearson:                39:53                Because this is really, really hard stuff. You know, learning the techniques of yoga, if people really immerse themselves in it, they'll typically say, this is hard to do. Well, it's way harder to do when you're in pain. Right? Karen Litzy:                   40:09                Right. And you don't want to think like, Oh, I have one more thing I need to do now. I need to do this. I've got all this pain, now I need to do this. Neil Pearson:                40:17                Yeah, yeah, true. Karen Litzy:                   40:19                But yeah, when you position yourself as the guide, you know, I've been reading this book by Donald Miller called the StoryBrand. And in it he talks about the guide who would be, in this case, the yoga therapists and physical therapists and thinking of them as like the Yoda and the student or the hero, he calls them the hero of the story, which would be our patients would be the heroes of our stories are like the Luke Skywalker's. So they're coming to you for guidance, you're helping them, you're giving them the tools, the confidence, in this case, the movement, the education that they need to go out and be the hero of their lives. Karen Litzy:                   41:00                So it's not like, Oh, one more thing I have to do. If we can reframe that for those people in pain, it's more like let us guide you so that you have so much to do. Neil Pearson:                41:13                Absolutely. And you know, there's one other piece that I just want to tack on the end because I'm sure you have some people here listening who have ongoing pain is that one of the really difficult things, and I know some, there's been some blogs talking about this recently that has importance is when we work with an individual who has ongoing pain, actually don't know what the outcome is going to be. I think we can be pretty certain that we can help people to be able to move with more ease and to have some less pain and to, you know, get quality of life. But somehow we need to say to people that, you know, when you do these things, you might be the person who says, you know, the pain is mostly gone and I really can do most of what I could do before. Neil Pearson:                41:56                Or he might be the person who says, well, you know, the pain is better, but it's still there. But what you've been able to do is show me how to get back to allowing my life. You know, the pain is less, but I'd be able to get back. And then there's this other group that will say, you know, it doesn't seem like the pain really is changed at all, but you know, if we've been successful with them, the person will say that, you know, even though the pain is there, you've helped me figure out how to live and have pain. Right. And I think that's one of the struggles that people have when they hear us talking about pain management, is the struggle between you're looking for wanting so much the thing that will stop all the pain. But then not really recognize where maybe recognizing the ideas that for some people that's not the outcome. Karen Litzy:                   42:50                Right. Yeah. And I try and, you know, and that comes, I think as the therapist, I think that comes, that's something that I think experience helps a lot. The experience of the therapist helps a lot because you kind of have a little more confidence to say to the patient, Hey listen, the goal here is to get you doing the things you want to be doing. You may still have pain doing them, but you can do everything you need to do. Would you be okay if you had a small amount of pain and were still able to do everything you want to do? Cause our goal here is not complete elimination of pain or, I mean, yeah, I guess that is the ultimate goal, but being realistic, we have to tell the patient, Hey listen, this may not happen. What if I told you you could do everything you wanted to do and the pain might be there if doesn't really, you're not suffering. It doesn't bother you that much. Would you be okay with that? And that's a hard conversation to have. Neil Pearson:                43:51                Yeah. Well, you know, in the yoga world is it's somewhat easier because anyone who's a yoga therapist has, I mean that's what we've learned. That's really what yoga says is that we will have pain, we will have suffering in life. And the whole practice of yoga and yoga therapy is to actually learn how to live with it and decrease it. But it's not, you know, it doesn't have the goal of saying there's going to be none. Karen Litzy:                   44:21                Yeah. And I think that that's important. It's important to tell patients. And that's the one thing, this is a total rant on my part, so apologize ahead of time. But you know, when you see websites and they're like eliminate your back pain by reading this free resource, well, that drives me bananas and it drives me crazy as a person who did have chronic pain for many years, you're searching for that thing and if someone puts it out there and then you read it and you're like, my pain is the same, I would be like, screw you. It didn't help my pain. It's like a crappy thing to do to someone because I feel like you're praying on very vulnerable people by doing that. And I think that's why. Neil Pearson:                45:08                Yeah, I agree all the way. I mean, it's just not truth. It's a marketing stick. Karen Litzy:                   45:14                Right. Neil Pearson:                45:15                I'm like you, it enrages me. It's hard not to be the police though, right? You want to jump on and say, what are you saying then? And we know that, you know, within our professions, really within all the healing professionals or helping professions, there are people who unfortunately use language like that. Hopefully at some point we will be more compassionate. Karen Litzy:                   45:40                Yes. Yes. I hope so because, Oh man, that is something that just drives me crazy. But I digress. Let's get back to the book. What do you hope people take away from the book after reading it? Neil Pearson:                46:05                Well, I guess the biggest thing that I want people to take away with is this idea that yoga therapy is something we should consider as a one of the paths when people have ongoing pain. Overall, that's what I want people to do. You know, we don't think that yoga therapy is the answer. But we see it as something that can be integrated within our Western medical world with people with chronic pain and so integrated into that system. But also it allows more access because people usually can get to yoga therapy for less of a cost than they could to medical practitioners. So it's more just to see it as you know, as we've talked about, there's this view of what yoga is. Well, yoga is something different from that. And it actually does make sense as one path to consider when we're working towards recovery when pain persists. Karen Litzy:                   47:01                Absolutely. And now before we end, I have one more question for you. And that's knowing where you are now in your life and in your career. What advice would you give to your younger self? Neil Pearson:                47:16                Oh, wow. You know, after I graduated as a physical therapist, I spent the first four and a half years working in hospitals and worked, trauma, ICU. And I worked in a neonatal ICU and cardiac care and all these things. And, the thing that if I were to go back to that spot, I would say, Hey, you're doing the right thing. It's funny because a lot of my colleagues were working, you know, we're stepping right into private practices. And by being in that situation, what I not only did I started working as a physical therapist with this umbrella of protection because there were all these other people who are also working with the same patients in the hospital. But I learned such a humanistic view of what I was doing. Neil Pearson:                48:10                I guess that's because a lot of the stuff we were doing in the hospital had to do with life and death. Now when you're working in a trauma ICU with neonates and so I think you know, cause I know there was a lot of pressure I wanted to work in, you know, sports medicine and in private practice. There was pressure not to be in the hospital. So I guess I'd go back and say you're doing the right thing cause it really helped me to see the person more than the low back or the shoulder or the knee. Karen Litzy:                   48:50                Yeah. You know, I worked in a hospital first as well when I first graduated from PT school. Neil Pearson:                49:00                There are some advantages to that. Karen Litzy:                   49:04                Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it like really increases your empathy and your communication skills. Cause you're like you said you're dealing with pretty sick people. And I wouldn't have traded that for the world. All right, so now where can people find the book? Neil Pearson:                49:28                Well the books on Amazon. Awesome. So that's probably the easiest place to find it. Karen Litzy:                   49:34                Yes. So we'll put the link in the show notes. So if people want to go to podcast.healthywealthysmart.com, they can just click on this episode and go straight to the book. Neil Pearson:                49:47                Great. And if people want to learn anything more about the other things that I work on. My website is paincareu.com I'll share that as well with you on there. You can learn about the pain care yoga training that I do and I have a distance professional mentorship that I do for health care professionals as well. Karen Litzy:                   50:11                Nice. That's awesome. And because you're up in Canada, right? Neil Pearson:                50:16                Yeah, that's right. If you're in Vancouver and you drove East of it four and a half hours over a couple of mountain ranges, I'm in the Okanogan Valley of British Columbia. Karen Litzy:                   50:26                Got it. Kind of. It is so big. Well Neil, thank you so much for coming on. This was a great conversation. I think it's going to give people a lot to think about when they're working with those patients in pain. So thank you so much. And everyone, thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy, and smart.     Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes!

Transcript of Episode: Good Morning! So I am going gonna try something different. I am recording a podcast and I'm also going to video record it just to see how it works out. So we are at the time that this would be released, we will be finishing up or coming to the end of August and many of you are just starting your semester really like reality has hit you. And so you may be wondering how to balance it all. I also get the question a lot about how do I balance a nine to five, having a business and writing and keeping my sanity and in general or like my short answer to that would be I don't believe in balance per se. Like in the sense of everything gets an equal amount of time and energy. I believe in harmony in things you choose in life or you schedule out or design it to the best of your ability in a way that works best together. And when things are in harmony, sometimes some areas. Sometimes some areas in your life receive different amounts of energy and time. So like at the beginning of the semester, you know schoolwork, and writing might take priority over your business or even like your free time with family and friends, right? And vice versa depending on what season you're in. So we all have a season things at different points in seasons take different time and energy and the goal isn't to be perfect, but continuously striving to do your best and to keep moving forward no matter how slow you had to move. So that's the short answer, but I'm sure you're like, okay, well what are more tangible ways to do that, right? And I also don't have notes so this is going to be really dangerous cause I'm going to just be talking off the top of my head. So let's hope that it's, you know, it's organized in a way that you can best receive it. Right? So the first thing mostly when people are asking me this question, they are looking for very like tangible. Tell me the steps and sure people can tell you steps and tell you like, this is what I do. Right, but is that going to help you. And before we even get to actual like steps or tangible do these things. You first have to start with your mind and mindset. As cliche as that sounds, everything comes from how you think about life, how you think about yourself, how you'd think about the things that you have to do. And one of the most difficult lessons for me was choosing those key things that I wanted to focus on and being okay with letting the other things and other people go because I am a recovering people pleaser and you know, I just want people to be happy. I want to try to be there for the people that I love. I want to give as much as possible. If you are familiar with the enneagram assessment, I am a two. And so people pleasing is in my nature. I'm working very hard on my mindset to remove the unhealthy aspects of people pleasing. But that was the most difficult thing in my mind. I'm like, I love people and I love the people who are in my life and I want to help them. And doing so as a detriment or neglecting of myself, my needs, my goals from the outside looking in, people would say, but you're still doing so much or accomplishing things. Yeah. But it was at the expense of my health and just general wellbeing. And so something really had to change. And when I graduated my doctoral program and move into this full time role as the women's resource center director, I realized that I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. So when I first started the role, I would I had moved away. So school wasn't a thing per se, but I still had writing projects or research teams. I was a part of. And, I was really focusing on my business and trying to get that up and get clients and stop playing around like I was doing for the previous seven or six months before. And I was at a new place where I didn't really know anyone. Family, it was like two hours away. But in Milwaukee, not knowing anyone and so starting over. And so I'm always like, well I can bury myself in work until I meet people. And so I would wake up around like five, six o'clock and then I would do like an hour and a half to two hours of work on my business. I would go to work from like nine to five and then from five 30, cause I would drive straight to Starbucks from five 30 to when it closed at 10. I was doing work on my quote unquote business making no money. I think I had maybe one client who did not pay me very much and I was putting in hours and I was doing this like not only was I doing this Monday through Friday, putting on all these hours, but then I would also go on Saturday and work the whole day from like eight or nine until it close. Like I didn't leave Starbucks, I was still in dissertation mode. But I didn't leave Starbucks. I would order in foods and then I would go home, sleep, wake up and do it all over again on Sunday. And that was like weeks and weeks and weeks of doing that until a, of course I hit a wall because you can only do that for so much, especially when you're not seeing other people in real life or talking to anyone. I mean, I saw people at work, but again, they were unfamiliar because it was a new job and I wasn't necessarily going home all the time either. And so it was just very lonely experience. I was overworked, I was tired. And I was really frustrated because at that point I thought like, time equals money. And so if I was putting in all of these hours, why wasn't the money coming that match the amount of work that I was putting in? And I had to find something to be like this, this is ridiculous, right? This is not this, not this. It can't work. So now this side of things like I, I do not work seven days in my business. I work three to four days depending on the week and each day is roughly that I'm working is around the anywhere from three to five hours. My goal is to stay under 15 hours total a week for the business. And so that I can have time to still do my job effectively and still have time for writing and writing, setting aside like six to eight hours a week. To do that. I will admit that I haven't been writing as one should. Cause I've been making excuses. But again, this whole harmony thing of it's there, there's time allotted for it. It's just hasn't been my focus of, of late because I've had other major projects that are loosely related to writing and academic side of things. That will be revealed shortly. But I've been doing that instead of like actually sitting down and writing for publications. Okay. That was a whole tangent. But I wanted to give you an idea of where I am now. I am making way more, like I'm actually profitable in my business. It's, it's steadily growing month after month after month and I'm doing very well at my job getting what do you call it? Getting praise wasn't the word I was looking for, but getting praise for my performance. And actually, you know, being around people and spending time with loved ones and friends and so I feel like it's a more healthy version of what I was doing two years ago. And I'm very excited and so not to say that it's never difficult and at the side that I don't slip back into old patterns because I do have like doing the most and having to pull myself out of there, I can say that I can do that quicker now, pulling myself out of it and I can easily or more easily catch myself when I'm slipping to those patterns and seeing how and correcting myself and taking the time when I need it. So you're like, okay, well that's great. You've been talking for a very long time. Please tell us how you're doing it. So I started off by saying first was the mindset of having to really think about like what type of life do I want to have? Like in this season that I'm gonna work a nine oh five I'm going to have a business and I still want to be publishing. What does the ideal day look like for me? Right? Like if I could, if I had a magic wand and I could do whatever, how would I feel throughout my day? Cause cause two years ago I was feeling very rushed and very frustrated and very like desperate for things to work. It was just very like desperate, high anxiety energy. And that was just making me feel even more beat down. And so I, so it's easy for us to say how we don't want to feel, but it can be difficult to say how we do want to feel. And so that's a question that I encourage you to journal on or to think about or to talk into your phone using your voice notes or whatever app that you have and really ask yourself over a several day period of if I could feel anyway, how would I have my day could look anyway. What would that look like? You know, like how much time in a week would you like to spend with family and friends? How much time ideally would you like to work on your side hustle? How much money would you want to make on your side hustle? How much writing would you ideally like to get done? How would you like to feel while you were doing those writing projects? How many publications a year would you like to have? If you're still in courses, how do you want to feel when you go into class? How do you want to feel when you're preparing for class? How do you want to feel when you're writing? What's your ideal? Would you like to have assignments done a week ahead of time? Now? I don't know these people, I don't, I mean, but there's some people, some of y'all like to do that. Me and my procrastination tendencies, we like to, there's a deadline. There's deadline. That was a tangent. But just thinking about those things of do you not want to be a procrastinator anymore? What do you want? It's the central question. Like what do you want? It could be one of the most difficult questions if it is the most powerful question because a lot of time a lot of us have been socialized to not think about what it is that we want. I was having a conversation where my brother who was saying that a friend of his was saying that you can't when you, cause they were talking about praying, saying doesn't pray or ask for too much because if you asked for too much then you won't get it. But if you asked for a little, you will you more likely to get that. And my brother was saying how he was listening to Steve Harvey and Steve Harvey said the opposite of, Yeah. If you keep asking for a little, you didn't get a little bit of, you asked for a lot, you make your intentions known, then you'll, that's where the real magic happens. And there's a whole another podcast that I will make a note to go out to get more into that question. But I want to get to the other things that I've done for this episode. But really it comes down to what do you want and don't speak in generalities. Speak in very clear details because you are going to be working, you're going to put in this effort and time and how would you know if you made it to your destination if you don't know what your destination is. Like how do you know if you're being successful by your own standards if you haven't defined yourself for yourself, catch the quote Okay. Hashtag side assistant. Yeah, if you haven't defined it for yourself, what do you want? So once you figure that out, then designing your life in a way to achieve what you want. Cause that makes it easier. So that's what I did. I sat down and was like, why do I want this to look like? I don't want to be working every day in my business. I don't want to feel like every time I sit down to do something, it's taken me forever and I don't have anything to show for it. I don't want to go to work. And I know I said it was easier, right? But this is how I started. I was like, I don't want to go to work dreading work and not liking what I was doing and I just don't want to go home every night just feeling like, why am I here? So instead I said, it would be nice if ideally I could just work three to four days a week in my business. It would be nice that when I went to work, it was clear that it was a system. I felt good. I felt like I was actually making a change. Uand it would be nice if I could have at least two publications come out every year. That was what I said I wanted. Okay. So I did that. The next step then was I hired a coach, several coaches actually, but I hired two coaches to start off with. I, I had one before, but I realized that wasn't the fit that I was looking for. And so I signed up to work with two other coaches. One coach was going to, well yeah, one coach was going to help me in organizing the systems for my business too because I was doing too much and I didn't have a set routine or a system to follow because I was just trying to brainstorm and do all these things where I will see something on Instagram and then I would try it again. So I got a set system, right. Hire someone to help me with that and to stop doing team too much. That's, I mean, I know Tamar says it was also like her tagline, so get off the team too much. And then I found, and then I hired a coach to help me with my health and my like mindset and all of that. Right. So I had some accountability there and it had some support and I had someone that I could go to and ask for guidance because sure you can do this alone alone and you can try to Google everything, but you're going to keep spinning your wheels and putting in all this time like I was doing all those days and hours. And it is 10 times a hundred times a billion times better to just find someone who can help you get there without us and all that time and money. Because you may think, well I don't have the money to hire a coach. Okay. But I would say how much money will, will it cause you not to hire someone and money or at what? Or what would it cost you in terms of your time, in terms of your wellbeing and in terms of everything, like at what costs with friends and family? Will you have to pay for not hiring someone to help you. Right? Cause that's also another podcast with money, it's just an exchange of energy. And if you're just trying to keep it, keep it and hoard it then you're telling whoever your God is universe, whatever, that you don't need anymore cause you, you're okay with what you have cause you're holding so tight onto it. So yeah. So hire someone to help me to get a plan. Right. And three, I looked at really how I was spending my time and as I was looking at my time, looking at what was I actually producing. So a lot of times we've been told to write a to do list of things that like we may say like emails, grocery store um. Reading assignments, the class a chapter two, right? We might write our to do list like that. And when you start your day, you just may take the list and just start from the top and go from there. Right. You may not, prioritize it, you may not really think about how long those things are going to take you or if you were like me three years ago you got really deep into trying to plan out your life and made it a whole hobby and had stickers and three, four planners that you would spend hours every Sunday decorating and trying to figure out the best way only to get to Saturday of the week and not have any of it done. But I digress. But yeah, we've been taught to like write out to do lists like that and instead thinking about, okay, what is going to happen at the end by, by you doing these things on the lists, what will that produce? And that's really the list that you should be having is the one, what am I going to produce? What are my results? I got this concept from the life coach school, which is a podcast that I have been listening to for, Ooh, I don't know, like four or five years, six years. It's been a long time. But I'm Brooke Castillo, who is the host of that podcast talks about having a results list instead of a to do list. So what do you want to achieve? Right. So instead of me saying I need to write my monthly emails, I would say 15 emails scheduled in my email management system and then I would go to my calendar and actually plug in or where I was going to do that and give myself a set amount of time. And that's the only time that I had to do it. So when I'm writing, I give myself like two hours and at the end of that two hours, that is it. We're done, we're done. It doesn't matter if it's not finished, we're looking for like B minus c plus work and we're putting it out because I also know that like I was trying to make things perfect and make sure I didn't have any typos. That's not real life. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about the quality of things that you're putting out. However, a lot of us use that as an excuse to stop making progress or to stop moving forward. So I always am in my head saying B minus C plus work. Is it good enough for that? Okay, we're done. And I move on to the next thing that I'm supposed to do. At first putting everything in my calendar a little bit. It's a little bit scary to open it and see all of it. So I don't do it for the whole month because I can't, my brain cannot handle that. But I do that for the week. And if I'm really having a hard time, I do it for the day just to say like, I'm getting these things, these things done and this is what I'm going to do it so that my brain does not have to think throughout the day and I can just look at my calendar. Okay, I need to do this, I need to do that. Right. It's like your results list, but to go a step back, right? So you have a results list and you have the things that you, you know, want to produce right. Get done. I also, before I even schedule it on my calendar, I say what are the things that only I can do? I highlight the things that only I can do. Like I am the only one who can record this podcast right now. I am the only one in my business who can coach. I am the only one ethically, I mean the only one who can write my section of the paper or write my article, right? However, there's a whole other list of things that I'm not the only one who can do it. So if I have something that needs to be mailed out to clients, I don't have to do that. Someone else can do that. Um if I need to go get a couple of items from the store, I don't have to be the one that does that. There's Apps, there's other people that can do that. Right? So looking at your list, what are the things that only you can do? And I want you to be honest, I don't want you to, I want you to try to step out of your controlling tendencies. Cause I know you, yes. You step out of your controlling tendencies. Like do you have to be the one to do that? Or you're just doing it because you don't trust anyone else to do it? Remember, if the goal is to do B plus, I mean to do B minus, c plus work. Do you have to be the one that does it or are you just trying to control the outcome or what's happening? So those things that you don't have to be the one that does it. You need to identify as someone who who can do it, whether that's friends and or family or, or people in your office, nine to five, like especially if you're the director or something like that. Are you doing things that you have no business doing that maybe other employees could do? Or are you looking and holding tight to something and being controlling about it because you want it to be perfect? Are you doing things that is just taken up a bunch of time, but it's very simple to do that. You could show somebody else to do do it. So what I did was I hired my first person at like a virtual assistant to work to do things for me for five hours a week. A lot of times I was really scared cause I was like, who am I to hire someone? And I don't know if I want to pay that money, but let me tell you that it was the best decision I've ever, ever, ever made. Sure. In the beginning there's going to be a little bit of like slow down a little bit going backwards because you have to stop and train that person and tell them what it is that you need. And be very clear about what you need them to do and how they should do it. Right. But once you get past that point, I cannot explain to you how much that frees up your time, your mind, your capacity to get things done. And there are so many people out there, you know, people, you know, other people like who just, they need a little bit of money. And five hours a week? Hell if it's even if it's only like two to three hours a week. Because I want you to think about, cause you know, I just did this, I want you to think about how much money you're spending on eating out or doing things or spending money on things that just doesn't, they don't, they don't matter. [inaudible] And you could take that money and say, hey, so and so, would you mind working doing some things or having me out for two to three hours a week because that, I mean it will just be a big help and I'll pay you. And what you choose to choose to pay is y'all business. But yeah, what you consider to be fair, what agreement you come up with. Would you mind doing this? Also not being afraid to ask friends and family for help too, for things that are maybe more personal that you don't feel comfortable asking someone who may not, who may be a stranger cause your friends and family wants to help you. Cause again, people like me, I'm like, I don't want to burden them. They already have a going on, but that doesn't stop You have a lot going on and it doesn't stop you from helping them and people want to be able to reciprocate, especially if it's a good relationship. A loving, caring relationship. They want to be able to give back and pour into you just like you're giving to them and pouring into them. So allow people that chance to help you. And, Being very clear about what it is or how they can help you, does wonders too. That will make people more willing to show up for you. So if you say, hey, can you go drop this off at the post office in the next two days? That's very clear. Then like, I dunno, I just need help running errands. That's not clear. Or have you say, hey, so and so, I know you like to go to get your groceries on Monday. Would you mind picking me up some ice coffee on your way? Because you probably only have to go to the store for one thing where they're doing their whole shop or you know, paying the extra whatever, 10, $20 a month to be a part of like a shoppers app like instacart or shipped or Amazon is Amazon pantry or fresh one of those and getting your groceries delivered. I know I'm talking about groceries. A lot of it is because I really hate going grocery shopping and so if at any point someone could go get the groceries for me, I'm all for that. And I feel like it just takes up a lot of time. I don't know what it is about grocery stores is a time suck. Okay. Some other things that I used to ask, like I asked people to do is I do a lot of writing. I had to do a lot of writing in terms of for my business, in terms of emails, blog posts when I was, when I was doing blog posts Instagram captions or just, or even writing for publications, I would, you know, I like to do the shitty first draft. I would do that. And then I would just send it to one of my virtual assistants to edit. Right. And it doesn't mean that they like this is what they do, that there's like they're like English majors or anything that's not it. It's just helpful to get somebody else's eyes on it and for them to do that like first round of edits so that when I get it back I can read it and I can go faster. Most of the time when it's emails or something for like social media, I just go ahead and post it because again, we are about B minus c plus work, but when it's like publications and you know reviewer too, I don't want to hear them. I will then go back and like rework it and rewrite it. But having someone that I can just know that I need to send it to and I only have a certain amount of time to send it to them and it's like my virtual assistant that gives me the accountability. I need to go ahead and write it. And it takes the pressure off because I know that's not the final version. Someone's going to give me eyes on it and not have more time to write. It is also helpful. So I just as you are thinking about what it is that you want and you think about writing your results list and you're thinking about the things that only you can do versus the things you need to delegate, I highly, highly would encourage you to hire someone for like two to five hours a week to help you do those things. And again, I know there's a lot of mindset things that comes with that, but that's why I said you working on your mindset, it's the number one thing and the most important thing. Okay. So talked about that. You know, figuring out what I wanted, prioritizing my time. Hiring out help, getting coaches. And then the final thing that I would say that really has helped me to quote unquote balance at all is making sure that I'm taking time for me. I'm not in a, so self care this also let me write all these down cause you know, self care is a whole other thing. To me. Self care is not necessarily about bubble baths and going to get massages and the capitalistic sort of way self care for me is doing what you know you need to do so you can do what you want to do. Right. So part of those things that I just shared with you is it's what I need to do. And being more consistent with that. And then the other part that I started to focus on is doing things that I want to do, having a way to give back and pour back into me. So the first thing I did was go to hot yoga. And at first it was the thing that I needed to do. I did not want to do it, but I said that I needed to do some sort of physical activity and at that time I was not, I did not want to go back to the gym. I just wasn't feeling it. It was freezing outside and I wasn't going outside to walk. And so I was like, you know, like yoga doesn't.. You don't have to do too much. And I'm like, I'm a jazz it up and making it one notch harder, I'm going to go do hot yoga. For those of you who do not know the room at any point is depending on the studio is like around 85 to 90 degrees. With like, I don't know, 80 to a hundred percent humidity. And you are doing yoga. It feels like you are running up hill the whole time. But yeah, to Bikram Yoga for an hour hot Yoga. And I said that I had to go at least once a week. At first it was really difficult. My body just did not move. Being the bigger or the biggest person in the room most of the time, if not all the time was also a whole like mind thing. But I said that I'm going to go at least once a week for a year and see where I am on the other side of that year. While I'm getting close, it'll be a year in October and I have seen major improvements in my flexibility major improvement in my mind, like mindset and I really look forward to it now. It's something that I want to do and it makes me feel good to know that like if nothing else happened for the week, at least I did that one thing, that physical activity. The second thing that I started doing was going to the movies. I love watching movies. And so once a week on Tuesday I mentioned this I think last week. Well on Tuesday that $5 movie ticket going to watch something. And then that also gives me freedom because I can go and watch awful movies and not feel bad for it because I only paid $5, but it's still something at least two hours that pours back into me. And then talking to people, making sure I talk to family, and to friends is that can also be a person who goes in that like talk to people. So whether I'm doing that or I'm on Marco Polo, whether I'm doing that like through like voice notes or Instagram, that has helped and saved me. So I hope that was helpful. I'm hope it wasn't too long winded, but those are the things that I have been doing to live my life in a more balanced, harmonious way. So to recap, first figuring out what it is that you want. Writing it out in very clear detail. Second, finding you a coach, a mentor, a somebody who is living a life or who has been able to achieve a particular thing. So whether it's like writing, whether it's organizing your schedule, whether it's like a business coach, dissertation coach, someone who could, who's who you can see actually getting the results that you want to have in your life. Finding a way to work with them to be around them in a very formalized like capacity where they will show you and they can help you and support you and hold you accountable to achieving the same things. The third thing is figuring out what is it that you need to produce or get done, right? Separating that list into only the things that you can do versus things that you can delegate out that other people can do. Four, is finding people to delegate, delegate to, whether that is that you're hiring someone for two to five hours and, or you're asking friends and family to help you with those, with those tasks and even employees. If this comes down to work things, yes, for a, I don't know what number we're on. Five. putting the things that only didn't you, you can do into your calendar. Giving yourself a time limit that you will get those things done and only giving yourself that time to do it. And only aiming for B minus c plus work. And then the last thing is doing something to fill yourself back up to, to for you to be for your wellbeing. Right? So that's what I've been doing. I would love to know your thoughts on this episode. Please come on over to Instagram. I'm @marvettelacy and I would love to continue this conversation there. Or you can join my free Facebook group, Qual Scholars. And all these links will be in the show notes below. Thank you so much for your time for listening today. And until next time, do something to show yourself some love. Bye for now.

Hello, welcome to office hours with Dr Lacy. Glad you can come back for another week. I'm going to make this week's episode as fast as possible because I am about to go outta town and I'm supposed to be packing and preparing for my trip. But I also needed to record this and I live in an apartment with the AC. It doesn't have central AC. And so we have one unit in the living room and my room, it's all the way in the back of the apartment, but I needed to close my doors that you didn't hear it and I'm burning up. So I'm going to try to make his as quick as possible. So this week's topic is titled "It doesn't matter". And first I want to talk about myself as a fellow procrastinator. I like to say I'm a recovering procrastinator, um, because I used to look at my procrastination as a way of life and I've now have learned to tweak my language. Um, in that I used to feel this immense pressure to be like constantly on top of everything and turning things in early. And then I got to a place where I was just like, that's not who I am like, I get things done right. Don't get me wrong. It's not like don't want to get things done. It's just that I had a different relationship with deadlines. Right and Undergrad I had a, I had a instructor who was like, you just, you just think the world is supposed to like rise or like revolve around you. I was like, no, I don't think the world should revolve around me. However, if you have a stated policy and you had a stated rule in a due date, then I feel like you should abide by it. So if you, I'm a type of person that if you say like something I have two days. I had until like Friday at 11:59 PM to do something or get something done. Best believe, like nine times out of 10 I'm going to take all the way up until Friday at 11:58 PM to do it is I have the attitude like if you wanted it done earlier or if you wanted me to give it to you earlier, then you should have set the real deadline that you have. And, or you could have been honest with me to say like, you know, it's, it's due at 1159 on Sunday, but is it possible that you'd get it to me by Saturday afternoon? Right. I'm just looking for some communication. But if you don't tell me those things, then I take what I thought was the allotted time. So I used to be very much like, I don't care about your feelings. It is what it is. Right? And you can't, I've learned that, you know, rubs people the wrong way sometimes. And so now I do my best at the beginning of a project, whoever I'm working with, someone else to say like, what is your, what is the deadline that you need this by? Is it your real deadline? And like what is the best and what do you need from me in terms of communication? Cause I'm also a person who likes to just take it once I understand what's expected of me, I go and I do my own thing. And you may not hear from me unless I have like questions and then I present it to you because I think part of that is that I'm operating off of things are flexible, deadlines are flexible, requirements are flexible in that if you're asking me to do something that you're not expecting, the final, final version that what I'm going to produce for you is open to discussion to a, I dunno, interrogation or criticism like we all need a starting place. So if you are asking me to do a project, I'm thinking like that first due date you give me is just our starting point and we're gonna change things around and the final version isn't due till much later. I know that means that I'm making an assumption that people have it together and they have a plan and they see the bigger picture. And I know that not everyone operates like that, but that's just how I am. So I went on a whole tangent about who I am, how I show up to say that. Um, um, a lot of people will see that as a very severe procrastinator and that I do procrastinate. I am not going to sit here and say I don't want that. I always meet deadlines. No, because I procrastinate. I'm recovering. I mean, you know, I'm working my steps, I'm doing the program and the whole me communicating ahead of time. It's about me being in recovery instead of being someone who is not actively procrastinating. Okay. Um, maybe you can relate to that. Um, do you consider yourself to be a procrastinator and maybe it's not like in all areas of your life and maybe when you come to like class assignments or writing or turning drafts into your chair, maybe you procrastinate on those things or maybe you haven't unpacked your bag in a whole week. I see that. Or maybe you, you know, the dishes have been in the sink for a few days now and maybe you hadn't did that or maybe you did your laundry two weeks ago and the clean clothes are blending into the dirty clothes and you're not really sure what's what but you just don't go off the smell because that's life. I don't really know what your brand of procrastination is what I'm wondering for this episode though, is how do you talk to yourself in the middle of procrastinating? What are the messages you're thinking to yourself and it's the way that you're talking to yourself, sort of reinforcing the cycle of procrastination that you're probably in right now. And one of the biggest things that I have said to myself that I hear other people saying to themselves in some form of or other is it doesn't matter. So like it'd be something simple like, oh I'm know I said that I was going to read that article today, but it don't matter. I could do it tomorrow cause I got a time. I don't feel like it today. Or you may say something like, I know I sat down and wrote this long four page plan out about how I was gonna Map out my whole dissertation proposal and that I was going to have it done in two weeks. But you know, it's beginning two weeks and I could just start tomorrow because it doesn't matter. Like I got the time and maybe you're not saying that exactly. It doesn't matter. Maybe you're saying something similar as like I don't feel like right now I got all this time, I could do it this way or I can move such and such around and how you know, you're saying it doesn't matter. And one of his form is that particularly if you're only saying like rearranging or rescheduling something in your brain and you don't go to whatever you use to track your time, whether it be a calendar or planner or whatever system you're using. If you don't immediately get up and go and actually schedule like I know I'm supposed to do this thing today at four o'clock but I, for whatever reason I'm not going to do it at four o'clock if you don't physically get up and change it to a new date and time or you don't put it in your planner for a new date, then, you're sending yourself unconsciously and consciously. You're saying that your goal or whatever you were supposed to do doesn't matter. So your dissertation doesn't matter and subconsciously your brain continues to store that information and and then a future is going to be even easier for you to put things off or to watch that next episode on Netflix or to go out with your friends to Chipotle because you already told your brain that like, in this situation, your dissertation doesn't matter or those clothes, they don't matter or whatever `it is that you were supposed to do, doesn't matter because you keep putting it off and so it's no wonder that when you do decide like, okay, today is the day I'm going to write, I'm going to fold those clothes is it seems like the most difficult thing in the world to do, to take the first step. Cause your brain now is confused. It's like well girl, you told us it didn't matter. We had all these plans, we were all set to go and when it came down to it, you put it off or you said that we didn't need to do it then. So this is not a priority. And what's more of a priority is watching Netflix because that's what we do all the time. What's more of a priority is going out to Chipotle cause that's what we do all the time was more of a priority is checking those emails cause we always put that ahead of everything else. What's more important is going to scroll on Instagram because we do that all day, every day. Or talking to so and so. Whatever you are putting ahead of what you're supposed to be doing or what you'd need to be doing then tells your brain that that's more important. And so then your brain will fight and program yours like you to react on a subconscious level and an automatic response to do those things that you keep putting before the thing that you need to get done. So no, it's not going to. Now when you're like, Oh let's sit down and write and no it doesn't. Your brain doesn't want to write. It's kind of, it's confused. It's like that's hard. We're not used to doing that. That takes too much brain power. Let's just go back watching Netflix or scrolling Instagram cause that's easy. We know how to do that. We don't know how to do this writing thing. And so I just want you to think about and how many ways are you constantly telling yourself and very well the small ways or big ways. How often are you telling yourself that it doesn't matter because they started to add up over time. Yeah. So I'm gonna leave it there. Like I said, I was going to keep this short and this is something I'm probably, will keep coming back to over on Instagram. Um, even though I just talked about you procrastinating on Instagram. Yeah, it's work in progress. Um, but I just feel like you could do those things when you schedule it out, like if you have, so I look at Instagram is like my reward. Cause now I feel like I'm going down a tangent, but go with me. I look at Instagram as my reward. So I, every morning I get up and I, um, write out three things, three small tasks that will take me roughly less than like five to 10 minutes to complete each. I write those out and those are my like must do things that I have to do for the day. And once I get those things done, I can do whatever else I want it. So I can watch all the Netflix Watch, like be on Instagram as much as possible because I did those three things. And that's what keeps me moving. And I guess that's a good point to bring up in, which contributes to the procrastination is that a lot of times we will put too much on our to do lists and there's this pressure to feel like you have to cross out everything. I get to do lists every day. And w what ends up happening is your brain can only make so many decisions in a day. It only has so much energy throughout a day before it's like "I need a break" and it shuts down. And it makes you engage in activities that are not, um, probably like productive or conducive to crossing out things on your list. And it's probably [inaudible] but it is something that your brain needs to do to take a break. So if you had like 10 15 things on your to do list for the day and they all required massive amount of time, energy, brain capacity, there's only so much your brain is going to let you do. You might get through a half or maybe one of those things before your brain is like, and we're done. Cause probably like to take even some more steps back. How you wrote out your to do list is probably, it's huge tasks that have multiple steps within them. And it probably takes two, three, four hours to complete one of those things. So if you're trying to do 10 to 15 of those things, one, is out of hours a day and then two, your brain just can't do that. And so that's why I set up my schedule in a way of I choose three things. I'll take five to 10 minutes. So, let me see, what was on my list today. I'm gonna find my little plan here. But like I like I've seen small things I'm not trying to like, so like today's was I needed to call the dentist to schedule my cleaning and fillings. I needed to update my W2 forms at work and I needed to check my business email like, and check it means, cause I write this out and we used to read each one, delete the junk mail and respond to clients. Now the gmail, like all of these things, the call to the dentist took maybe five minutes if that, the W2's took five minutes. And then the g-mail probably took the longest, which was like 10 to 15 minutes. Cause I've been doing good about staying up on it and not procrastinating. Ha Ha. Um, so I feel accomplished because that helps me keep things moving. So I'm doing things for myself. I'm doing things that I need to do that I've been putting off like the dentist, but I need to do it updating W2's and then the client stuff is to keep my business going. Well what's not on this list is I didn't say I need to check all my emails cause I have a personal one. I have a business one, I have one for clients to like or like people who are like, yeah one on one clients are respond to me. Um, I have one for like other programs or education materials or organizations I'm a part of. I don't have my work email and so I don't say check all of those at one time cause that's a whole lot. I've done that some days and it just takes a long time and that's probably the only thing I would do for the day. Um, I don't have, let me go write all these blog posts, let me go do this project for work. Like I don't have all that on the list cause that's too much and my brain can't handle that. I have these three small things that combined takes me less than an hour. You will resist this at first because you'll be like, oh that's not enough. I need to do more than that. You don't understand Marvette. Like, I have so much I need to get done in your day and I can't just identify three small things because that's not going to get me anywhere. And what I'm saying to you is if you think by putting all those things on the list, it's gonna make you want to do them more. You're wrong. And if so I want to, I want you to take a look at your life like are you getting those things done? If you are, how do you feel like, do you feel like you, you're good. Do you feel alive? Now there are very few people who thrive on that and getting a bunch of things done and that's their jam. And I'm willing to bet like most of you, you're not feeling real good. You're not ready to go do some cartwheels and jumping jacks and like fill in the best. After doing all those things, you probably feel real cranky. You probably resent that, you don't get to do other things like other people. You probably been putting off sleep and eating and just enjoying the summer. Right? Cause it's the summer when I'm recording this. If you are able to feel like you get to get things done and enjoy yourself without feeling stressed out, then yes, I'm gonna applaud you however if you're like anything like me and you try to do, all these things that are on your to do list and when you're trying to do all the things, you personally, your health, your wellbeing suffers. Or if you're focusing on your health and wellbeing and your to do list suffers, then I invite you to try out this strategy because it is helpful and when I do this, I am the most productive ever. I get so much done because usually what happens is I'm not fried and my brain isn't tired and so I'm able to do other stuff throughout the day because I'm riding off the momentum of that. I know if I don't do anything else, I got those three things done and on the days when I'm just not feeling it, it's a bad like mental day, health day. I just know I need to show up and do those three things and I'm good. And sometimes those three things are like brush your teeth, wash your face, drink your water. Sometimes that's all it is because sometimes those things are very difficult to do on a daily basis. So I tell my clients to do this, they still look at me like probably how you're thinking right now. Like that's not going to work. And then once they get into it in a week or two, go by like they're amazed, amazed at one how they feel and all the things they've been able to accomplish. So I invite you to try this. You're gonna wake up every morning, you're going to write out three things are going to take you five to 10 minutes or less to do for each item. You're going to say, no matter what happens today, I'm doing these three things. And then at the end of the day you want to come back and say, did you do them or not? And that's it. You don't need a complicated thing. You don't need to write out all these massive fancy to do listen priority programs and project management or you don't need to do all of that. It's just these three things, especially if you're in a deep hole of procrastination like you've been putting things off, especially if you're like I don't know how to go back. I disappointed so many people. I've been putting it off so long I dug a deep hole, especially if it's that and I'm going to invite you just for tomorrow or even today. What are three things that you can do that will take you an hour or less to do all three things. What is something that is so easy but moves you in the direction, a step closer to the end goal. What is, what are three things that you can do and if three is too much, what is one thing you can do just to get started? Okay. For Real, I said this is going to be short, but we're here so I would am curious to know what you thought about this episode. Please come over to Instagram at @marvettelacy and let me know any takeaways, any ah-has. I would love to continue the conversation with you over there and then until next time, do something to show yourself some love. I will talk to you next week. Bye for now.

Ben: Hey everybody! Welcome to Hack That Funnel Radio. Thanks for being here today! We have a special interview with one of the best affiliate marketers in the ClickFunnels community and other communities around. Today’s episode is something really, really cool. We’ve got somebody on who has made $1 million as a ClickFunnels affiliate. Now he’s promoted click funnels, he’s promoted an active campaign, he runs a lot of different products, but he’s made $1 million in that. And so I want to introduce him to you. His name is Spencer Mecham. Ben:                          Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Why did you even get started in this marketing game? Like a lot of people are in the game and they’d been going for forever and they’re not making any money. What got you started and then what turned you on to affiliate? Spencer:                Ah, yes. I have a great email sequence that explains all this. I’ve written down this story so I don’t forget it.  It all began in Hawaii. Me and my wife were huge Hawaii fans. We love to go there as often and as long as possible. At one point when I was in college, we moved there for, for probably six months. We actually moved in with her parents because they were living there for six months at the time too.                                     It was like this random, crazy thing. They were like, Hey, we’ve got an extra room. And we were like, ah, it’s amazing. We’ve got two extra bodies that can fit in that room. And so we moved in and the goal was to move in and then I’ll get a job and we’ll kind of go from there and then we’ll move out after a month or something. But it was the hardest thing on planet earth to get a job. I’ve never had an issue getting a job, you know, it was crazy. I’d go in and I’d go to apply it like every, like the lowest, most menial tasks I could possibly find anything and nothing. I couldn’t get one interview the whole time I was there. So it was this crazy hard, for a variety of reasons.                                     And so I can actually remember sitting at home and I’m as bummed as can be. I’m like, I can’t even get a job like working as a grocery bagger, I can’t get it down to anywhere. And that’s why I started searching. That’s when like I started searching everywhere online, how do you make money, not in physical locations. And so the first way I made money on my own was- have you ever heard of Mechanical Turks? No? So Amazon has this little teeny thing where entrepreneurs like us go out and they have like these really menial tasks, like crazy, menial. They’ll say like, Hey, I’ll pay you a penny each time you like go into this data sheet and like, you know, select these things and do this. I’ll give you one penny.                                     Right? And you’ll just do it over and over and over and over again. And by the penny you’re making money. And so I was, I can’t remember all the tasks I was doing, what they were seriously like 10 cent, 30 cent, 50 cent tasks where I like take surveys, things like that. So that’s what I was doing because I had nothing else to do. Everybody else was at school or work. My wife was interning at the local preschool. So just me home alone, sitting on the computer, feeling bad. I said, Hey, at least I’m making money. I did that for three weeks. I’m just like, I’m making like 80 bucks a week doing and I’m working, I’m doing stuff once a week much for like five hours a day on your computer, clicking.                                     I also realized I had zero skills to bring to the table though as well. So anyway, I did that for a while and that kind of brought me into the mindset of, okay, now I’m going to Google. Like, how do I make more than like 7 cents an hour online, you know, and eventually I get into the stock market. That leads me to the stock market for a year and the stock market is the way I’m going to make money. I start losing a bunch of money there. That led me into- okay, the real estate business is for me, you know, real estate is how you make money. Not! I’m still terrible at real estate. And I’m like, we’re trying it for years. The hardest part.  And then I didn’t give up but I wasn’t making enough money to live either.                                     So I get a job in an SEO agency and this is where affiliate marketing comes in. This coworker, he shows me one day while we’re doing SEO for clients, you know, and he’s like, hey, check out what I’ve been doing. He’s goes this website. He’s made the reviews, vacuum cleaners- it’s like Kirby and the dust bunny or you know, whatever it is. He’s got this site and he’s like, I made $10,000 last month. And seriously, if you go look at this website, it’s literally the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen. Like nineties, it’s ugly. I don’t know where he even got the designs for this, but… so I’m looking at it like, there’s no way. There’s no way I could do worse than this mess and 10 grand a month. And so that was when I was like, I’m going to do affiliate marketing.                                     I’m going to do better than him! And then kind of the rest is history. So then multiple years of me like trying and failing in the affiliate marketing world happened. And then maybe two and a half years ago, things started to slowly click right at that point, I finally have like marketing skills. I’ve spent years building marketing skills and buying courses and trying things and failing. And I started to see little successes and hone in and focus on those little successes. And now I’m a little more successful. So when I got into affiliate marketing, I was like my first sale that I made online. I spent three grand and I made a year or  $297 or $197 you spend three grand to be an affiliate and then I spent three grand on Solo ads. Okay, so you made some money, but I was like, I can not do that again.                                     So that was the pain point now where you are where you are in the affiliate marketing world where you ask, what’s the biggest mistake that you see people trying to do when they start to do affiliate marketing? Are they all trying to throw money at the issue or they all trying to vote wrong? Are they not getting less? What’s the biggest issue that I think they’re not setting up their business and that they need this. You need a system in place before you send traffic to anything and, and not just as an affiliate, right? That’s true for everything. And you need more than just a pitch like, Hey, I’ve got a product, I’m going to throw some traffic towards it. Right. Which is what not only affiliates do, but like most small business owners do the same thing. So I said, I’m selling this and I’m gonna run some ads to it because I’ve got a product, but you need a system, you don’t need a product, you need a system, right?                                     A system of multiple products and a system of multiple channels and avenues of reaching audiences and stuff. And so what I see is most people not setting up a funnel, they’re setting up like single pages. They’re not setting up email automation, they’re not setting up retargeting. They’re starting on the front end and, and sending traffic instead of starting on the back end and saying- okay, I’m going to get a few products, 5 to 10 products I want to promote. And at the same in the non affiliate marketing goal, right? It’s called a “value ladder” and I’m going to get some products and then I’m going to create this some, some version of a funnel where I can capture lead information and then send them on to start selling them. And then I’m going to create an email automation that increases my profits.                                     And once that back end’s in place, then you can go over and say, okay, now I’m going to start throwing as much traffic as possible because I’ve got my system in place and I don’t have to focus on that anymore. I can just focus on traffic and know that like, hey, you know, every bit of traffic that I get, I’ve set up everything to really maximize how much money can be made off that traffic. Now some ads you might have not made much money anyway, but that is the biggest problem. You know, affiliates right now. That makes sense. Cause I built it out and I built a list that I could email once a day and I could do that, but I didn’t have, I have like slightly automated sequence for that launch.                                     I didn’t have anything after that. Like I didn’t know what I was going to do with that. Like I built lists, I’m pretty sure I built like a full list of maybe 10,000 people, which doesn’t sound hugely. This is from my personal visits or my personal is like I just haven’t go that big list I built, I built a big list. But because of like the fact that I don’t email people often like email is dead when it comes into my hands. It’s not the emails that are dead. I suck at email! So I have a thousand people left who kind of listen. That’s so funny cause I that, that now that you’re saying that, it reminded me, that was my first mistake that I made as an affiliate to I, I created a youtube channel that I got lucky in like a couple of videos exploded.                                     I quickly threw in like a random little like thing that pops up, you know, and the youtube video, it’s like, Hey, I’m on this random thing. Then I didn’t have anything in place and I have a list. So that’s still sitting there. The channel is still bringing in traffic. My list is like 2000 people that are sitting in a MailChimp list and they’ve never once received a single email from me because I didn’t have it done ahead of time. And like you said, I’m just, I got too much going on and maybe I’m just too lazy, I don’t know. But to sit there and send them emails every two days or whatever, like I’m just not good at that. Where if I had sat down for like one day and built out a 10 or 15 email sequence that sold them stuff, that’s probably a couple, at least a couple thousand dollars, you know, a months worth of income that could have gone in just by me building that one day sequence. I don’t know. That would’ve been really helpful. And that’s the issue. Like I didn’t, I heard all the things and I had it in my head. But then once you get to that point where like, okay, now I got to start, you don’t, there’s no like, so you have your, your, your course like you built, you built your affiliate business. At what point did you state I need to build my own stuff? Was it like in conjunction with as bonuses? Was it like why, why did you start building your own stuff?                                     My own stuff as in my, like my own list or what do you mean, like my own course or like your own course where you actually started to, yeah. I mean, you start to get this, there’s always in the back of your head is an affiliate. But like what could go wrong here, you know, and isn’t affiliate anything go wrong. Your traffic’s coming from Youtube. Youtube can shut you down if you’re affiliate, you know, you’re number one program is, um, program a or click falls or whatever. They could shut you down or they could sell the company. Or like, there’s a million things that can happen, right? The only thing you really own is that list. And that list is only gonna really respond positively to you if you’ve built that a lot more than just a list, right? If you build out some kind of brand and like they know you and like you’ve, you know, you’ve personalized yourself or your business with these people to where they’re more than a list to you and you’re more than just some guy emailing them every once in a while to them, right?                                     You are a brand that they follow and believe in. So at what point did I decide that? I couldn’t really say like, it’s all been very transitional, you know, the way it is that everybody, like you do this, you see some success and then you kinda just look around like I do like, what’s next? You know? And, and somewhere along the way I was like, well, what’s next is I got to stop relying on other people and try this myself. You know? And so, um, I, you start to see a little success. It really is. Your road just kind of starts to happen, I think as an entrepreneur, right? Like it kind of builds itself one brick at a time in front of you as you’re growing, you know, you see a little success and that kind of opens up some new doors and you just follow it and take the best route as you go.                                     And that’s kind of how it’s been for me. So you literally, you don’t see the whole path, you’re just taking steps and be like, okay, where’s the next door? And you’re just going through all the open doors that open up that are best for you. You’re not like, there’s not some main master plan, just like just take action and it works out. And so I think there always is some kind of master plan in my head, but that’s just never, but then it just changes everything. Weak in my end is always something like, oh, you know, two years from now I’ll be doing this. But like even like 18 months from now, the idea of like being a course creator was never once in my head. I was like, I want to take courses, I want to sell affiliate products, you know, and now here I am like half of what I do is all based around creating courses and selling courses and things like that.                                     And I mean same thing with affiliate marketing, you know I was like I want to be in the stock market. That’s real passive income. And then I find it really marketing starts to work. Like we’ll obviously go all in on a, like you lost three grand in the stock market, you made 10 in affiliate marketing, who cares what you want? Like take that road, you know? Right. Yup. But you had to test all those roads to figure it out and they’re like everyone’s testing all these things. So you’re figuring it out. When was the point where you realized this wasn’t just a fad or easy money? Like this is where you were going to build the foundation. This is where like this is what was going to work and this is how you’re going to set junior family free. Cause like you love the lifestyle, the lifestyle or going back to Hawaii, we’re going to, we’re going to, you know, run an English.                                     So like when did you get to that point where you’re like, we’re at that point, let’s go take a vacation. My big first success, a lot of people might know this, that are listening might not, was the ClickFunnels, uh, dream car. That was like my big first affiliate success. I’d have like a bunch of small ones up until then. But as the background of that, once you get a hundred active ClickFunnels users that have signed up under your link as an affiliate, you get a free car. And so I was at like 20 or 30 when it was like, when it, when it finally dawned on me- oh, I could, this could be real, right? I could actually win this car!                                     Like in the beginning, it’s just kinda like this you’re not really thinking it’s going to happen when you try, but I don’t know. Once you actually start to see success, you think it could happen. And so somewhere around there, I think it’s going to happen. And that’s when I talked to my wife and we actually set up all these plans. I was like, when I hit a hundred, we’re going to go do this. And I think it was Hawaii and I said, when I make my first six contracts, we’re going to go to Europe. And we still haven’t done that yet, but it’s still on the promise. It’s still being planned, I still owe it, so it’s gotta happen. I do think it’s really important to set timelines and goals and things like that, right?                                     Of like, like your goal can’t be all just to make seven figures and retire, right? Like, that can be your long term goal, but, but if that’s like your one goal, then you’re going to fizzle out. So you’ve got to set those little, those little mini goals of like, I’m going to get to 50 and then I’m going to take my family to this place and we’re gonna spend a few days and it’s going to be awesome. You know, and then after that we’ll set up another goal that’s like, it’s close enough that I can see it, you know, and see it coming in the next few months or a year or whatever. So a couple of months ago, I can’t even remember when I went through and I like hacked everything that you’d ever done on all the Facebook, all the, all the pages and all the ads. I think everything was a blast. Ben:                          The biggest key components that makes up all of this work for you is your ecosystem. It’s you got Facebook going, you got youtube going, you’ve got your emails going, like you have this symbiotic ecosystem that’s going. Is that part of like the back system that you need to build before you start doing things that we have multiple communication channels so people actually want to listen to you? Or is that, does that not as necessary?   Spencer:                I think not necessarily, like if you’re, if you think you’re going to build your whole eco system in the beginning, then you’re just going to overwhelm yourself and like you’re trying to like trying to put content in your Facebook group, set up a continent youtube channel, and you just can’t fill it on.                                     You fizzle out. Right? Cause especially most, most people at that point are still at a job, right? They don’t have five hours to create content. So, um, I think you’d start with one. Like I very much started with youtube and that’s all I did for awhile. Right. And then once, once you feel comfortable and systemized in one, then you can add another. So I, I was crushing it. Like once I got through I was like, I know youtube really well. I’ve got a system for putting out youtube videos consistently. Then I added a Facebook group. Well there were no email automation, so let, maybe I’ll go back. Yes, you should build your, you know, automation from the beginning.                                     The first thing you should have an email automation. The way I recommend doing it is building a weeks worth of emails and then adding to your automation every couple of days, just throwing in one marina at the end of it. Um, but then yeah, then you’ll add the youtube or whatever it is for you. And then you’ll add like a Facebook group. And the Nice thing about each one you add is it’s actually much easier each time you add something because you’ve already got content and it’s just a matter of figuring out how you’re going to take that content and reapply it. So I’ve got this channel, I put up this 10 minute video or whatever. Well that’s great. Now I can hop into my youtube, my Facebook group and make a post and like five minutes. I’ve already got the whole outline and everything how it’s going to work for me. I just added the blog. We added our blog like six months ago. We started going all into our blog. Well that’s great. That’s so easy, right? We are already making youtube videos that are like searchable and 10 minutes long and are answering questions. Let’s just add a blog post. So I like that system mimic makes sense because I’m one of those. When I take action, I take a massive amount of action. I’m like, okay, we’re going to build a whole ecosystem.                                     I like doing it all like I know we’re going to go in, let’s dive it like there’s no reason to jump into the kid pool and I have to get out of it to get to the big kid. Cool. And so I’m just like, let’s just throw it in. So I’m, so that makes sense. Going step by step and it does get easier. That’s good to know. When we’re at funnel hacking live, people were walking around and wanting to take a picture with you wanting to get a golden nugget from. And it was weird, right? I was walking with you cause like at that point we become friends to some degree and we were just talking, I’ll take it.                                     And so like we were talking and walking and people would stop me and you’d be like, oh my gosh. Like it was still shocking at one point. When did that happen? And do you think you’ll ever really get used to it? Like it’s a weird phenomenon. When did it happen? The first time that had ever happened and the last time then would have, because I’ve only been to one eight. I’m only in that one tiny circle. Ben:                          Last question is if you had to answer, like if you had this poor starving kid who was like, I need to make money this month, like what is the fastest route to making money that you would suggest? Would it be owning the affiliate product, whether it be creating your YouTube channel? What, like what is the path that you’d be like, oh, just hop on this path and see it ‘til the end. Just push for the next 30 days. Spencer:                I love YouTube, but I love YouTube because it’s passive, not fast. Um, it’d be, I would say it’s Facebook. Like when I look at Facebook’s, the way Facebook is built, anybody can make money in 30 days on Facebook, just through their own personal profile.                                     So like whenever people ask me like I need money now and then we kind of cut out most if we cut out affiliate marketing because the things I teach, cause those are all to not make money now they’re to retire in five years. Right. I would say get on Facebook. Choose your niche, go join 20 groups, go make 5,000 friends. Right? So Facebook is built Facebook hands you an audience of 5,000 people just without that, like without you having to do anything except for like click, add, add, add. Right? And like half the people who have no idea who you are still like okay, um… and then they need to know who you are at that point, right? Like so then you can’t just like, but my crap, you know like who is this? I always say like build that out, go out a ton of friends, go join a ton of groups and then go post and then go post crazy like start consistently posting on your own profile and on these groups if made tons of tons of times a day like to where your name comes to their mind every time that subject is brought up.                                     Like socially, if I was trying to sell my affiliate marketing course right that way I would post five posts a day about affiliate marketing, engaging posts on my Facebook page. I would post in these groups. I go respond to people’s questions in these groups. Right? I’d be like very, very active for I guess if you need to make money in 30 days, I’d be active for 15 days. Right? They’ll take 15 days to where people are like, oh, I know this guy. He’s like, but yeah right. He’s always talking and like posting himself. Um, and then you start doing these little offers, right, where you’re posting lead magnets and then, well, I would say if you need money now, client offers, right? Hey, I’m taking on five people, I’m going to build your funnel. I’m going to set up your ads, you know, something for 500 bucks.                                     And literally, anybody can do that. Like anybody, you can learn a skill in 15 days, that can be enough and you can build your audience in 15 days if you are desperate enough and willing to do that. So the fastest way to hack profits isn’t necessarily to go and create a massive system. It’s just to go and work like a dog and Facebook. If you need speed, yeah. I’d say hop on a Facebook work like a dog. There are so many people willing to hire on Facebook and looking right. And if you could spend 500 bucks, that’s nothing to a lot of these business owners. And while it may feel like a lot to you and, and honestly you just need to be a little ahead of them, right? Like go learn email marketing, go take a course on you to be any on marketing.                                     Go take a course on AdWords. 90% of people I talked to are totally clueless on AdWords, but every single one of them, their business could benefit from it. You could go take an AdWords course in three days and you know, AdWords and you can go grab five clients. 500 bucks a month is, is tiny to a lot of these businesses. So yeah, that’s how I do it. Ben:                          Nice. Thank you. I think you got a cool thing going. It’s like the funnel hacking thing. Like I don’t know how well it’s doing in terms of audience, butbut I think you’ve got a cool idea. Like I keep telling my like I don’t, because I don’t, honestly, I don’t watch any content ever and like I’m terrible at that. But I keep seeing you alive. Spencer:                I want to go in and watch like what this guy’s business looks like right from me and like get a good idea. But then I forget and I don’t, because I seriously don’t ever watch anybody’s content, which that’s all the conversation, but I think you’ve got a good thing I think should build up. I like the same strategy, right? Get 5,000 followers in the dozen friends and the click funnels group and then just start posting like, hey, we went inside this guy’s business today. You know, let me know if you want access and then do those stupid ladder posts and you’ll get, you’ll explode and then go do lives like in other people’s groups. And the funny thing is I’ve been reaching out for interviews because I did those lives for the other, for another business. I’m like, this is funnel hacks because I did those people like, you still doing that cause you do that, my group, like, could you give value to mine?                                     I’m like, yeah, I’ve thought I wasn’t gonna be able to even reach out to you. We’re desperate for, for anything. The youtube video that’s coming out. And so I talked about group owners are desperate, like it’s so hard to like keep pumping out value for these guys. And so interviews as the easiest way. So I would do that. And then all you really need is some is a small lead magnet, right? Like start building your audience. Um, and then, and then for you, like you can just publish your content. You don’t even need an automation in the beginning. You can just can’t email out the content that you’re creating. So yeah, I would say make, make a crick, make a lead man. You probably have like 40 lead magnets. Ben:                          Just start capturing. Yes sir. I will go live in groups and start posting on your own Facebook. Maybe you do a lot. I don’t really know. I can do a lot more. Yeah, I, I’m pretty bad honestly. Like I think my Facebook group is awesome, but I like just hate Facebook. So what I did, and this might take too long now at this point, I’ve created a list of, in my Facebook friends, I have a list of all of the entrepreneurial ones, like my original like 500 friends that I actually care about that are like living around here. And then that’s on a list called entrepreneurs. And when I post, I exclude regular friends and just do my entrepreneurs do, can you do a youtube video about that and pump Thompson up on, on Youtube? Yes. Like that is, that is attractive because everybody’s afraid of being businessy on their, on their Facebook page. Ben:                          And I was talking to Josh 40 and he was like, yeah, you need to delete everybody who is in not your family and friends. And I’m like, that’s painful. But he said, go meet everybody that’s not your family and friends that are your family and friends and dope devoted business. Yeah. I hate when people recommend. Yeah. That drives me nuts. And so I, because like, I’ll even like, I’m ready to do it, but at the time I’m like, I feel like I’m tearing off the bandaid. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t know, to me like to me that takes an approach of like, the only thing I care about on planet earth is making money and building my business. And if you’re a friend of mine, I don’t care. I’m deleting, you know, like I want my face or pages just to make money. I got to know that’s what it says to me. Ben:                          So that’s what I did. And it works. It works pretty well. Um, cause yeah, I hate, I, well it would work pretty well if I posted a lot. I never post, but oh, back when I did post, that’s how I did it. I did that a lot in the beginning. Like when I was selling my course, I posted in Facebook groups, you know, I posted screenshots and uh, and I’m just so glad that doesn’t happen anymore. But everyone kind of does that and beginning all right. That’s why I’m getting people all the time. So you’re a crypto guy. Ben:                          So, um, we’re going to ask two more questions. And this is all post the interview. So what we’re gonna do is we’re going to shut this down here. If you want to go in and see these next two questions, but I need you to do is go to hack that funnel, radio.com when you sign up, you’re automatically going to get my master’s pack that teaches you how to hack, but we’re also throwing in the last few questions of every interview, so go ahead and go and often there, I’ll get you these two questions from Spencer. I want to thank you for being on and if you have not done it yet, go sign up. I’m going to go make these answers. So juicy. Good, so sign up. Spencer Mecham:            Nothing. Was that cool or was that cool? Guys, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, but I actually do something very, very special. After the interview is done, I actually record two more questions. Those two questions spark a whole new conversation and I record those and I’m happy to give you access to that. All you have to do is go to hack that funnel, radio.com when you enter your email address there. I will automatically give you access to every single interviews, two extra questions in the conversation that sparks off of that. Go to hack that funnel. radio.com Ben:                          yeah, your access now.

ow how to deploy it and learn about real estate. Started with the single-family space. And so, the first thing I bought was a fourplex than a bunch of houses. And then I realized it was too much brain damage in terms of just scaling. Right. I mean it's, having 12 insurance policies, 12 tenants and 12 loans and 12 of everything is kind of a pain. And so, learn about multifamily and then kind of the rest of the history. So, I've been running with that since.   James: Yes. I really disliked, the insurance part of the single family because--   Feras Moussa: Yes.   James: --lot of it expires at different times of the year.   Feras Moussa: That's my biggest pain point honestly and I literally will, I'm willing to pay a premium for a broker that'll just take care of it and I just don't have to think about it because it's just not worth the hassle of thinking through and spending the time and effort there.   James: Yes. Yes. I think you can pay like a monthly is the same amount and it's all automated, but insurance is one thing you have to print out and you have to scan, and you have to do all kinds of things.   Feras Moussa: Yes.   James: So, let's go a bit more into the thought process here before we go into the details of your deals and all that. So, three IT guys, right? I'm also with an electrical engineering background with some software. Why do you think a lot of these IT guys like commercial real estate investing, especially in multifamily?   Feras Moussa: Yeah, I mean.   Ben Suttles: From my perspective, I think it's the numbers right. I think it's-- you come from a kind of an analytical side of the brain, right? And I think in real estate, a lot of it is numbers driven. Now there's a relationship side of the business, right? Which we all have to have. We have to have that side of it to raise equity and obviously work with the brokers and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, it's a numbers game, right? You've got to be able to underwrite the deals. You've got to be able to make, projections, financial projections and all that as numbers and spreadsheet driven. And I think that's a lot of why the IT and engineering guys, get into this space. Also, I think the other thing is too is that allows us to be creative. When we're not able to be creative in some, some respects, whenever you're able to kind of put your stamp on the rehab of a property and improve that and, and kind of get out and roll your sleeves up. That's another thing that we were lacking probably in a lot of our jobs. And so, I think, at least personally for me, that that might be part of the reason why, I don't know, Feras might have another take on it as well.   Feras Moussa: Well, no, I think the numbers things. Definitely one of the biggest factors, but it's also, it's a space that you can learn it yourself, right? Meaning, you know, a lot of engineers are willing to go above and beyond, spend the effort, research, read books and learn it. You can do that in this space and, there's not like an engineering exam at the end of it where you have to do, you can pass. Right?   James: Yes.   Feras Moussa: And so, it's the kind of thing where you can learn it and it makes sense, right? The numbers don't lie. And so, two engineers, right? It's like, you can see a clear path of the progression, right? There's not like a leap of faith any point in time. And then the other part of it too is problem-solving, right? I think all engineers like problem-solving as part of the challenge. And to me, that's what I like about multifamily. It's bigger and harder, right? Sure. I could've probably scaled out a rental portfolio part, really wanted to, but I mean, it's just not fun to buy, hundred thousand-dollar assets, $150,000. It's a lot more fun to do bigger projects, a bigger team, and really, work through each issue as it comes up.   James: Yes. Yes. I mean in my mind is a lot about-- I mean real estates, there's a lot of creative thinking that you need to put on and that's really fun, right? Because you want to, I mean, I'm sure when you guys handle deals, we want to solve that problem. Right?   Feras Moussa: Yes, absolutely.   James: You want to break; I'm going to break that deal. Right? Hey, why? Like for me, I always say, how can I break this deal? Why you should, why you should work for me. Right? That's why I think, I'm sure you guys do that too.   Ben Suttles: I was doing that earlier yesterday, man. Yes, man, [inaudible 13:36], how do you blow up the deal, right? And--   James: How do you blow up the deal? There must be something wrong with this deal. Let's find that out.   Ben Suttles: [crosstalk 13:42].   Feras Moussa: Oh yes that's fun. Let's have a deal that makes sense. It's like, this not right, I'm just going to offer a lower, I might've otherwise because something doesn't make me, go 100%.   James: Yes. If that [inaudible] make sense, you are like, let's say to break it. Something must be wrong and when you can't break it then, then it makes sense. That okay, that's [inaudible 13:58].   Feras Moussa: Yes.   Ben Suttles: That's the one.   Feras Moussa: And then the other part too is that it's a people game, right? I mean, so something, some engineers might not like it, but at least me, I mean nothing. Ben, same. We like it because it's a team effort. It's not one person. It's how do you combine people really get the thing done both on, on the GP side as well as the operations side, right? How do you build rapport with your manager, with your regional, whoever it is? Right. And kind of help accomplish the goals and give them motivated. To me, that's part of the fun.   James: Yes.   Feras Moussa: I guess what we do is like project management on steroids.   Ben Suttles: Feras, if you touch us up on that, that was really interesting to earlier which was the project management piece, which I had forgotten about. I mean a lot of us to come from big, we've done big projects, we've worked with teams and let's be honest, and this is a team sport, right?   James: Absolutely.   Ben Suttles: This is, yes you could maybe be solo and respectful, you've got a team in the background that's helping you accomplish your goal and you've got project management or manage that whole entire process in order to get it to close. And then even after you're closing it, right? In order to asset management or to do the asset management, to do the construction management and for you James too, you do the property management.   James: Okay.   Ben Suttles: All of that stuff is, you're juggling a lot of different pieces and making sure that the ball is continuously moving forward towards that goal. And I think a lot of IT and engineering folks come from that background, understand that. So, once you can kind of segue that into the commercial real estate state space, it's just essentially just project management at the end of the day.   James: Yes. Yes. You one might, throughout my 22 years in the corporate world, I think 16 years I was a manager and I was also a project manager and I was a very good project manager. I need all that translates to this multimillion-dollar business that you're managing, right?   Ben Suttles: Yes.   James: Because to make sure your transactions happen correctly; you need to make sure you communicate to people. And that's what we all learned in project management. But how do you over communicate? How do you make sure people don't mess up? How do you take proactive action to de-risk a project? Right? So that's, that's how the game is played. Even in the commercial real estate with this [crosstalk 16:00].   Ben Suttles: And it's never going to be straight forward. Right? There are always challenges.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: So, I mean, that's where, we're those project management skills really kind of come into play because, anybody can run a smooth project, right? And we're nothing ever bad happened, but let's just be honest. There's always something that happens.   James: Yes, yes.   Ben Suttles: And so, you have to, you have to have that, that acumen to be able to, to keep that ball moving forward towards that common goal.   James: Yes. So apart from the, IT education itself, do you guys think that your work experience, the classes that you have been at your workplace and the environment that you have gone through? I mean as given certain edge to you guys as well.   Feras Moussa: I will say absolutely. Like I said, I mean what we do is project management on steroids. Right? And so, having done that for years had-- knowing how to keep track of multiple projects simultaneously. That's another thing too, right? A lot of people will get into the business and they realize like, hey, syndicating start to finish is not a walk in the park. There's a lot that happens, both lending and legal and issues come up and they, it's a lot to keep track of. But then she tried to do two deals at a time. Right. And how would, it's not really two weeks, it's kind of a square, issues. So, I would say absolutely. Right. And then the other thing that we've seen, being on the tech side is how do we differentiate ourselves from other people too, right? How do we, create a better impression for investors? How do you position, everything professionally, right? All of our stuff is mobile friendly. All of our stuff, certain ways. And those are the things that I've brought at least from the tech world, to make sure that we kind of do and do well.   Ben Suttles: Yes, I think, I think efficiencies, right? That you come from that IT engineering background, it's all about productivity, efficiency, how can we automate things and James you probably saw the same thing when he got into space and to completely fracture. A lot of it is backward or outdated and there's a, there's a lot of low hanging fruit stuff, ways that can be improved and I'm sure your team is looking to do that constantly and so are we. And that's all come that comes from our background, right?   James: Background, yes.   Feras Moussa: I told Ben I have to stop myself from wanting to start a software company every few months. Being an entrepreneur and being a software guy, it's like man, this place some of the stuff we do is pretty archaic.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: Yes.   Ben Suttles: I think real estate is the last, most, what it called?   Feras Moussa: [crosstalk 18:28].   James: Fragmented industry, you know, that is, they're like something like AI or something is going to take over soon, right. Because there's so much inefficiency.   Ben Suttles: Yes. But it's, you can take it to an extent, but then there's that personal side, that relationship side. Right. And I think that's kind of, that's, that's one of the parts that I took from my former job, which was, a lot of sales and business development work as well. Right. Taking that, that networking, that relationship building side, that building rapport side into this space. But, I mean, I agree. I think there's their software and AI and these types of things are going to automate a lot of that back-office part of the process and maybe even the analysis piece. But there's always going to have to be those two people coming together to make a deal happen, right?   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: Because ultimately, it's going to be one person or one group and trying to sell on one group trying to buy, and you have to come with some kind of an agreement. Right. And then even after you buy it, right, there's always those relationships with vendors and employees and all those different things that you have to kind of manage to. But anything that we can bring and that we've seen in our past gig where we could make that more efficient here, we're, we're obviously trying to introduce that.   James: Got It. Got It, got it. So, let's go back to the business side of it. So, what are your guys' focus, in terms of market? Right now, currently Atlanta and some cities in Texas, right? Why don't you guys talk about, why did you choose these two markets?   Feras Moussa: Yes. So, in terms of why we chose them, I mean, the same reason you're probably in San Antonio to some degree, right? We're looking for strong, attractive markets that are not a single industry that is growing right. Population and the business side. And then, really the important thing for us to is the yield, right. So that's why we got into San Antonio too, was that we can't find returns in Houston. We look at a lot of bills and use of our base and we don't own anything in Houston, right? We're looking for returns that we can, that that will actually, you are looking for deals that'll give actual turns, foreign investors. That's also why we don't look in Dallas, right? Price points are too high that you having to pay so much that you basically have no yield on the deal. And so that's kind of what really got us into Atlanta. We got us into San Antonio as well and yes, Beaumont's kind of a slight story, but those are the things that we look for. And then in terms of future deals, right? If future markets, so, we've really kind of manage to, I would say streamline a lot more of our acquisition pipeline, right? In terms of underwriting deals, identifying deals and really keeping a pipeline going. And so, what that's allowed us to do, especially with a fulltime asset manager now, is we can look at a lot more deals. So, we've kind of identified two markets that we want to get into, hopefully, this year. Orlando in North Carolina. And that just, just to give us, just to keep our pipeline going. Right. We can keep looking at more and more and more deals. Yes, we'll hopefully be finding something that makes sense.   Ben Suttles: Absolutely.   James: So how do you guys choose your market? So, like now you say Orlando and not Carolina, right? So, I have a lot of stats on Orlando because I know it's growing very quickly. So, let's take, not Carolina. Why did you guys identify? Not Carolina?   Ben Suttles: I mean, I think, I think all of it boils down to population growth, job growth. We also like to find areas and that's not every single market, but I like to see a good concentration of different universities and colleges as well because I feel like a lot of the bigger corporations are going to follow where they're going to have a good funnel of potential students to take from it as well. So, we'll look in college towns as well too, because, but let's be honest, North Carolina, it's got, the research triangle, it's got a ton of universities. And, it's calling to be called the Wall Street of the south. The problem with North Carolina is that we're not the only ones looking there. So, it's, it's pretty competitive there too. But it's got a lot of those good data points that we like to see in terms of population economic growth--   James: Okay.   Ben Suttles: --that you see in Texas and in Georgia. And really, we are, we look at in Texas for quite some time and we found Georgia was very, very similar in a lot of ways to Texas. And so that's the reason we started kind of focusing on Atlanta as well. But it ultimately boils down to, is there enough population job growth to continue to drive demand for the workforce housing that we're, that we're looking for. So, people are always like, well, you're not renting out to fortune 500 folks. So why do you care about that? I'm saying, well, the ancillary service companies and service jobs, they're going to feed into this white-collar job is what we're looking for. So, if you don't have any of the fortune 500 stuff rights, then there's not any real need for a lot of the infrastructure where a lot of these people are going to be working. So, when you, when you look at it in Texas, when you look at it and Georgia, right? One of those people is there. So there has to be serviced workforce type jobs that are going to have to be feeding into that. And that's why we like those markets. And, we see a lot of that same type of thing happening in Orlando and some other markets and Florida and as well as North Carolina. And we've looked in Tennessee, we've looked in some other spots as well. From us we've got so much deal flow coming in that in order for us to be a little bit more strategic work as a team, we've decided to focus on about three or four major markets and then just go deep on those and then we can go horizontal and find out that markets in the future.   James: Got It. So, let's say now today you're getting a deal, right? Let's say from North Carolina, what other steps that you guys take? So today let's say, I mean how do you guys get deals nowadays. Is it through broker relationship, off-market, on the market? How are you guys sorting out the deal flow?   Ben Suttles: Yes, everything in between. A lot of it is brokers. A lot of is people that know what's his buyers, people that you know, we will get the deal closed, right? Whether it's the broker that knows it and they might know. Seller. One thing I tell every broker is like, hey, if you have a deal that you don't have the exclusive on and you need someone to make a pre-emptive offer to try to get that locked down. Like, where are your guys? Right? So, you find ways to motivate the broker is motivated. Other people that know someone that knows someone. So, we, I mean really deals come in all shapes and forms. And so, for us, the biggest volume is definitely the brokers, but it's really, it's not about the ones that they just email outlasted, right? It's really about the follow-up deals that maybe are near, getting to the finish line and getting the finish line in terms of the-- in terms of the marketing, but they haven't had any such interest or for whatever reason. Right. So, I think that's important. So, once the deal comes through in terms of the analysis side of LLC, dig into the P12, dig into the OEM, but more importantly, talk to them. Sorry, go ahead.   James: I'm just saying, what do you look for first in the deal? Do you get a-- so you get a deal, what do you look for? What are the, what do you, what's your sniff test because I --   Ben Suttles: Yes.   James: underwrite everything, right? What's the sniff test?   Feras Moussa: I'll tell you what my first sniff test. I look at what the average rents are and what their price point is, and then I can deduce from that, right.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: Is this going to be anywhere. And really what I'm doing kind of mentally ballparking what the cap might be. Right? But really, I'm looking at what are the average rents and what does the purchase price. Right. And then yield. Is there, are they close enough that I think that there's some meat on the bone, right? It's really what it boils down to. I'll give you a real example. There was a deal in Atlanta that I-- so North Atlanta, Atlanta has a really unique market. North Atlanta is really expensive. South Atlanta is the complete opposite. There's a deal that came through on the northern side and I think the average rents on that deal were like, 850 $900. So, I'm okay, this one might be at a reasonable price point. Right? And so, I'm like in my head, mentally I'm like, okay, let me call the broker. If this is 80 maybe 90 you know, there's a deal to be had here. Hey, call the broker. And it's 130 a door, right? So, I mean, that already instantly ruled it out. And so, you're really looking for some of those kinds of low hanging fruit just to figure out, okay, is this still even in the ballpark for us to look into it anymore.   Ben Suttles: Yes, absolutely. And I think the first sniff test James is really, I mean then the location of it too, right? Do you know what I mean? We're getting the deal flow and these places that we want to be, and we've identified different pockets within those submarkets that we want to be in. So, if it's not within one of those pockets and we're automatically, putting that to the side. Now that doesn't mean that there's not a deal there. Right.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: So those are usually kind of the maybe deals and we're, we want to kind of circle back maybe we're bored or something. Let's do that one-- -   Feras Moussa: Exactly, whether we are bored, we go back and look at those deals.   Ben Suttles: Yes, we'll go back and take a look at those. Right. But we're looking for that are going to be the net, that those are some market pockets, right? That we like. And then from there, right, just like what Feras was saying, you can almost, you can almost immediately tell if it's going to work. Right. And you pencil out so many deals. I mean, we, at this point we've analysed hundreds and hundreds of deals. So, you can on them almost look and say, oh, that's not going to work for us. Right. Just based on what they're asking for. And you can also kind of tell that to, by the price per pound versus, sometimes the median income of the area. Right. I mean, are you going to be able to achieve the rent that it's going to, it's going to take to make that deal work. And if you're going to be maxing out your median income, then it's not going to work either.   Ben Suttles: So, a lot of the things that we look at, population growth, we look at job growth, all those things too. But one of the things that we also look at as the median income, right? And a lot of these is workforce housing, right? So, I mean, you look at, what's the, what's the average rent? We're usually doing the three-x income test. Whenever we're taking perspective tenants in, right? Like everybody should, and then you determine, what the median income level is and if you're going to be maxing that out, you're above that, then the first sign that something is going wrong, let's get ready to skip. They're going to stop paying rent, right? So, you want to make sure that you're under that, right? You don't want to; you don't want to be at the top of the market. Yes. Maybe they can keep up with it for a month or two where they're going to get behind. And so very, very cognizant of that.   Feras Moussa: And to add those, it's not that, if it's a lower income area, we won't buy a deal very well. It's really these are just kind of rules of thumb. And then from that, you start to work back, okay, well if it's a lower income area, can assume they are economic occupancy is going to be much slower. So, you should underwrite it that way. Right? Cause there's a deal to be had anywhere, right? I mean I'll buy any deal at the right price point, right? Assuming as long as it's, to me at least this has been new instead of a growing market. Right. And that's not a deal at f four worry about the city, essentially no one even wanted to live in that general area. But in terms of price points, in terms of, average incomes, all of that, it's really, again, depending on what price point are we buying it at.   James: So, let's say the rent and the price seems reasonable right? At the first sniff test, what's your next level sniff test? What do you guys do?   Feras Moussa: Then and actually started this. The thing I do before that is actually called the broker and just get there [inaudible 29:18].   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: Right? And that's the first, usually, right? Because a lot of times there's more to this story, right? Is it, is it a partnership where you know, one of the sellers passed away and they're looking, you know, they're a little bit more motivated or is it a deal that just, the Bro, I've had brokers a little bit tell me these sellers are terrible operators, right? And you can kind of, and if you have a relationship with a broker, there'll be honest with you about that aspect. Right? Brokers are all, a lot of times brokers, I don't want to say always, but there'll always be, a lot of times we'll say, yeah, you know, you could do this and this and get, a $200 rent pop. Right?   James: Yes.   Feras Moussa: Take that with a grain of salt. But I'm looking for something that's kind of that ancillary information to help the deuce. Like, Hey, is there an actual opportunity to do, what's the value add that we can do is we can kind of take that into what we just talked about. Then kind of once, like you said, once you know the numbers make sense or the deals make sense, then you start to dig in and near. That's where we really do just to, go down to the numbers, right. Look at the t 12, look at where they are today on expenses. Look at where we think we will be on expenses. Where, what does the rent currently, right? What's the spread on just the rent, the market rents versus what their marketing right. Today. I mean kind of, we really starting to put the bigger picture together. Right. And then understanding is, hey, does this make sense at a high level? Right? Yes. That's us. Sorry, go ahead.   Ben Suttles: Oh, I was just going to say, what I mean, we don't even look at the OEM. Right. Do you know what I mean? We're going straight from our perspective, right. That just use your, you'll get, you'll get the skinny from the broker, right? Because they'll usually-- but the marketing packages is the marketing package. Right. And I feel like that sometimes skews people's numbers when they look in. Concentrate on that a little bit too closely. So, it's always best than if it passes your initial test and you talked to the broker and there might be something there and you just go straight to the spreadsheet analysis. Right. Because, I mean if you start trying to dissect what they're going-- what they have in terms of pro forma income and expenses, then you start getting that none of those numbers in your mind. And guess what, there, they're making those numbers work. So, we always, we always go straight to that and then only then do I then look at the OEM and I see how far apart we are. And usually, it's pretty significant. But, it's those classic sales tips, like, below replacement costs and all of these things that they love to say, that makes it sound so sexy.   James: Yes, its--   Ben Suttles: At the end of the day and it has to pencil out. It's all about the numbers.   James: Yes. I remember in one of the deals I never look at the OM until I close because I need a logo for that property. And I say where is the logo and then I called the broker, you understand the OM, I say yes.   Feras Moussa: Oh, you had the floor plan. Yes, we had that for the floor plan. You go back to the OM and grab the floor plan that [inaudible 31:56]--   James: Exactly.   Feras Moussa: --time and effort on.   James: Yes, yes, we did a floor plan and the logo from the OM, that's it.   Ben Suttles: There you go.   James: So, it's interesting. And so, the type of deals that you guys do, I mean, where do you categorize it? Value add deep value add or [inaudible 32:14] yield play or core type of tails.   Feras Moussa: I mean right now we're focused on value add. I mean we would like to do a more, really to me, the ideal deal for us now or given where we are given, our network, et cetera. It's really kind of that B minus space. Right? We've done the heavy value add, it's a lot of work. Right? And those skills have worked out. They performed, but for us, I mean it's just she consumes you, right to some degree. And so, we're trying to less of those and we try to vary it up. Right. Always have a value add going on, having a stabilized going on. Just cause from a bandwidth perspective, right, we can kind of handle one at a time, but we don't want to take on three big value add the one time because then he would get lost in that. And so, I think for us we're typically in that C plus B minus space is really the focus for us.   Ben Suttles: Yes, yes.   Feras Moussa: One day we'll do an ADL but not in, but not-- but it's about matching it to the right equity pool. Right. If we have equity that's okay with the lesser returns. Right. We can go do a B plus or a minus. But so far, we've been kind of in the C plus B minus space.   Ben Suttles: Yes. Yes.   James: Got It. Got It. So, what about that, that strategy? Do you guys do only agency Loan, Bridge, Bridge through an agency?   Ben Suttles: I think we're doing all this. It's really deals dependent. Right. Do you know what I mean? I think the bridge has gotten a little bit of a bad rap. I mean there's, there obviously you have to be careful with it, right? You have to understand that your exit strategy, you have to be able to hit those targets in terms of, especially if it's a value add, tell him the hair on it, which is, it's going to with a bridge, right? You got to be able to hit those timetables in terms of your construction, your rehab in order to refi out of it quickly. And then at the best price point that you can write, because obviously, you don't want to have to bring money to the table. So, we'll do a little bit of the bridge, but for the most part, where everyone, just like every other smart operator, you're looking for agency debt when you can. But at the end of the day, we're looking to maximize returns for our investors. And so sometimes, going bridge versus agency has been a better way in order to do that. And people understand that there's a little bit higher of risk tolerance with those. But we always get a three-year term with two years' extension. So, at the end of the day, it's still five years on a bridge that, it's not something like an 18-month deal. So, I think that that gives people a little bit of, they feel a little bit better about it as well. But we've done agency all the way up to 12 years too. So, it's a little bit about, just depends on the deal.   Feras Moussa: Yes. For anyone listening, I mean I think we have a Ph.D. in the agency space. Unfortunately, we've had issues that people that do 50 deals never hit. So, we've seen it all. And so, if anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out. But we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly on the dead space. So, it's, you kind of, you work through those problems, right? If you get the closing, which is the good news, but then you kind of learn from it and you know, start to figure out what are the things that could be learned from this to basically avoid the situation in the future. Right. We've had, we've really seen a variety of things. Unfortunately--   James: Oh, let's talk about--   Feras Moussa: --that's where Ben lost all this hair.   Ben Suttles: Just one. Just one lender, which I'll tell if you want to email me, I'll tell you which linear it was.   James: Okay, tell me the worst story with an agency, just let's just go--   Feras Moussa: The worst agency story. I'll tell you one, and this is one near and to you James. So, it's in San Antonio.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: San Antonio deal its a, a deal that pencils in really well. And for those of you that know on the agency side, right? With a standing loan, you can do what's called fully delegated, which means that fanny lets the dust lender, which in our case could be Arbor, could be haunted, it can be any variety of them. For us, it was an Arbor deal and lets them operate in the wrong capacity, right. To some degree. And so, there's kind of a box. As long as they're within the box, Arbor could approve the deal, no questions asked. Well yes, we're like three weeks from closing pretty much at the finish line. Money's in the bank. Well, we're already looking at the next field that we had to go on and then kind of going back, what happened was that because it's the San Antonio deal and the deal pencils in really, really well, right from a financial perspective, the lender said, well hey, we can go get your five years IO. And we didn't think much of it. Right. It was like, okay, that's fine. Well, at least we'll back out to where we are today because we run the road at one-year IO. Well, long story short, this deal essentially used to be on a watch list three years ago. The sellers are only deal in San Antonio. They struggled with it. Plus, it was kind of whenever they're in the midst of a lot of rehabs. So, he got on the watch list, it wasn't on the watch list the past few years. And that whole you, that market better than we do James. And that whole area has really turned around from where it was three years ago. But guess what, it was already flagged by Fannie and they just wanted to essentially get it off their books. Right. And so, this is something very, I actually did this just the other day where I, I was talking to a broker about a deal and asked him was the saber on a watch list.   Feras Moussa: That's something I've learned to ask now because and what sucks about it is that once a lender, a dus lender, this gets Arbor went to fanny, right? Once Fannie times in, Fannie is the authority, right?   James: Correct.   Ben Suttles: Versus if we would have just not ever done that, we could have closed the deal agency with Arbor, no questions asked. And so, it's a very unique situation. I don't know anyone that's actually ever encountered that. Right. But these kinds of things do happen. And so just knowing that they can happen, figure on how much risk you want to take because we would have been happy with what we had-- what we could have closed. Right. We were happy with the one-year IO. That was great. That was fine. But it's your kind of get a little bit more than that and then now completely bag of worms. So.   James: Yes, I learn, even I learned about this watch list, last week when was looking at another dealer then someone says, Oh, I backed out because of watch list, I say what is that? Right? Then we realize there are so many other issues with the deal. Right? So that's crazy. Yes. I mean for listeners, just FYI most dus lenders, they have one-year authority on a delegated underwriting. So within, if they give one-year IO, they don't have to go back to Fannie Mae and get approval. But once they go above that they have to go to Fannie Mae. And a lot of things can change when you go to Fannie Mae.   Feras Moussa: Yes. So, I have learned that there are different tiers. Right? So, there's the tier two, tier three. So, if you're at higher leverage that can only give you one. But if you're willing to go down to 65% they can actually approve 5 years IO, no questions.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: So, you start to learn. And again, why did I learn that from a different deal? So, start to understand really the mechanics of what's going on behind the scene. And this is where having the right mortgage broker makes all the difference, right? They can help steer you in the right direction and help catch some of these. So, I mean for the-- for the watch list, the sellers were actually more pissed that we were about the whole, they didn't think that was going to be an issue in terms of us getting the next one. Right.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: And they never thought to just close it. You don't think it's going to be an issue.   Ben Suttles: No, they thought it was off too.   Feras Moussa: Yes.   Ben Suttles: But, do you know what I mean? I think there's that just like, like our earlier part of the conversation. Right. You know, we're project managing these things, things are going to pop up. So, we were able to make it through that process--   James: Right.   Ben Suttles: --and still come out on top in terms of the debt. But yes, I mean we're always looking to maximize returns and risk and minimize risk for our investors. And I think that having this different background and different debt products and having a good experience with some of these different lenders really gives us a good broad overview of the debt market and which deals are going to make sense where, and I think that that's huge when you're looking at who to invest your money with, because know some people, let's be honest. So, they'll just go straight to Fannie, if it's not Fannie or if it's not Fannie then I'm not doing it. Right.   James: Correct.   Ben Suttles: But I think sometimes you're missing out on opportunities there as well.   James: So, wasn't, like three weeks before closing, didn't you guys had a rate lock at that time?   Feras Moussa: No, we're supposed to [inaudible 40:01] lock a few days later.   James: Oh okay.   Feras Moussa: Like little, they're just waiting on the final. Oh, because they went to Fannie, Fannie kind of asked-- this is where really, I think we could have-- it's about positioning the story. Right. Again, I think the lender just went in thinking that it's going to be easy down the middle because really that's what they told us. Right?   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: They didn't even bother. We had a great story for the deal, for the sponsorship team. They tried to do it retroactively and kind of wants Fannie comes in it's really hard to change. But we were literally at the point of rate locking and getting, being done with the steel. Like we will do, so.   James: Yes. [crosstalk 40:36].   Feras Moussa: You do full 360 and charge full 180 and change things and kind of Redo. So, in my mind, it was really, we did, it took us to close if get that deal done.   James: Yes, it's, yes, it's, it's a day just to do it at the end because you're almost at the closing table. Right. So,   Ben Suttles: Yes.   Feras Moussa: Yes. So, so in that situation, just maybe to complete the story, right. The seller realized kind of what happened. They gave us more time, right? They gave us another 30 days they knew that wasn't really for lack of use or lack of anything that we did. And so, we're able to buy more time and then redo the process and kind of, get to where we needed to be.   James: So, did you do a different loan?   Feras Moussa: Yes. So that one we call back every investor because I mean we basically what we did Arbor realized the mistake that they made, which was they should not have gone to the lender, tell Fannie, they should have just closed. And so, they basically gave us a balance sheet loan, right? Which is like a bridge loan on their books that essentially, the short term just to get it off of Fannie's book, --   James: Okay.   Ben Suttles: --then in nine months. Right. So, for us, we kind of turned it into a value add reprice scenario. Right.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: And so, when that case, we will, nine months, 12 months, somewhere around there. Right. We're also pushing our NOI as hard as you can. We'll refi, pull equity out and get back into a panty permanent loan.   James: Got it.   Feras Moussa: And so, but the deal changed, right? And so, we had to call every investor, tell every investor here's what changed, here's what happened. Then thankfully pretty much everyone stayed in the deal. Right? So that kind of-- for us that it's a sigh of relief. But also, it's like, everyone just doubled down on us. Right? So, we're--   James: Right.   Ben Suttles: --going to get babysat through the finish line.   James: Yes, the amount of pressure for you to go, on the contact to rate lock it so much. Right. So, I mean, I don't know, I mean-- there's a lot of pressure on, responsibility. You have so much money tied, and you are under the gun and you have all your reputation out there. You are doing the deal, investors are looking at you, you are to be a leader. You have very strong leaders. So.   Ben Suttles: Yes.   James: Yes, it's a lot of work.   Feras Moussa: Absolutely.   James: So, kind of back to value add, right? So, you guys do value add strategy. So, what's your, what do you think is the most valuable value add?   Ben Suttles: I think, ultimately, what tenants care most about, right? I mean, whenever you're doing value add, unfortunately, you have to cure a lot of [inaudible 42:52]. You have to do a lot of things that you not going to get the best return on your investment on. But the two things that tenants care about, first being their interiors. So, what was actually in my unit, the second thing that they care about is amenities, right. Probably a distance second. Most of the time with the workforce housing, they're caring about what their units look like. And I think that's where you're going to get the best return on your investment when you're doing value add. And then you can obviously update and add on amenities as a secondary thing to that. But unfortunately, with those value adds, you got to do things like roofs and HVAC replacement and other things that just people just say, hey if I'm renting from you, I expect that to be working. So, you know, but you might be spending a hundred or two hundred grand on some of this stuff, right? So, your return on investment is almost nothing, but you have to do it. So, you've got to balance those two things, right? You've got to work in curing that deferred maintenance along with how do I push the NOI and the revenue side by, really updating the property for the way that the tenants are looking at it. So, I mean that's kind of how we look at every value-add play that we do. A combination of those two things.   Feras Moussa: So, James, is your question really specific about ROI? Like what are the things that we putting kind of deferred maintenance aside, what other things would we do to really try to maximize our return?   James: Yes, other than deferred maintenance, like the roof and all the big stuff [crosstalk 44:21].   Feras Moussa: Yes, so I mean it's, its properties specific, right? It's really depending on the asset, what it looks like currently and what is the market doing right now? That said from our experience, right? The most common thing, flooring, two-tone paint, right? And pimping out the kitchen some degree. Right? And you can go as crazy as replacing all the cabinets or you really replacing the front or even just putting fixtures, right? Like for us, fixtures are definitely cheap. Easy to do. It gives a different, pop to the thing, right? Flooring almost always, painted and really two-tone paint. It's important. And the other thing too that we like to do is really putting a backsplash. You can do backsplashes with this kind of stick on backsplash, really, really cheap to do per unit. And it gives the kitchen, which is usually known the seventies, eighties build kitchen, a bit of Pop, right? It gives it something to modernize it. Right? We didn't go as far as putting granted in. Right. But you are putting that in kind of coupled with a resurfacing. It actually looks pretty good. And then, the obvious is white and black appliances. Right?   James: So, let's say--   Feras Moussa: And that's all, white, black or aluminium.   James: Let's say how the interiors, right. So, let's say you guys lost for some reason you thought you had 100% of your interior budget, but now you need like 50% of the budget. What would you focus on, on the interior?   Ben Suttles: Yes, if the property needed any flooring or paint. Right? [crosstalk 45:38] Those are important things to think.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: Yes, I mean, you got appliances too right, but I mean appliances, you're going to be two x in your interior budgeted, just adding those in. But a lot of people they take, there's a price difference between white and black appliances are really not, but there's a perception that they're a little bit higher quality. So, you can even do that too. Right? You got to replace the appliances, but you don't have a whole big budget for that. You can just go from white to black to and I think that adds a nice pop too.   James: Yes, that's a really good point. I mean I realize a lot of times if you give them even white, really nice appliances, people are happy. Right?   Ben Suttles: No. Yes, you can do, right. It's-- I mean, but like, you'll see people like, they're just ecstatic that they've got black appliances. Right now, the market is about the same in terms of pricing.   James: Correct.   Ben Suttles: So, but it's just a perception thing or just, like I said, backslash 150 bucks.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: [crosstalk 46:38].   Feras Moussa: Let me turn the question around to you, James. Would you, the same question to you, right, would you do the same thing, or would you do something else?   James: So, we, so for me, I think my most valuable value add would be just giving them good management, right? So, there are so many bad operators out there, which is mismanaging not respecting the tenants, not taking care of it. So, we just want to make sure, really good management that's on the management side. But if you go back to the interiors, I would say, of course, we do the appliances and we do the painting and flooring. That's what we would, I would say the most, so, but I think, a lot of people just love having good management people who take care of them. Everything--   Ben Suttles: Oh, absolutely. I mean, they want to feel comfortable and who miss their right. People that understand what's going on. I mean, that's to me, and that's why for all of our properties, we're big people, putting, doing parties, doing tenant events, pretending retention vents. Because from the operations side, right. This is, you have the backdoor and you have the front door, right? You don't have people renewing, right. You're going to have delinquency problems, not a delinquency problem, you're going to have an oxygen problem, right? And so really keeping people happy, renewing, right. Well, then it makes it easier on the front end to start the push friends, right? Because you have people that are enjoy working there, living there. Right. You know, for another 10, $20. Sure enough, it's more than the cost of moving. Right. And so that's absolutely.   James: Yes. I think at the end of the day the tenants just want to be felt appreciated. That you just-- so many properties out there. You don't have to be being mismanaged.   Ben Suttles: Yes, clean, quality, safe housing, man. I mean, it seems so easy and the way that I describe it, but so many operators, I've just run some of these properties in the ground and they don't take care of it. Right? And so, the tenants, therefore, don't consider home and they don't take care of it. So when you get a good operator, I know you get a good management company in there and they showed that they're taking care of the property, then by default you're going to get more loyal 10 tenants, you're going to have people that are going to be more apt to take a renewal increase, cause they like, they like coming home again. Right? It's home.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: Versus just a place just to sleep.   James: Yes. Yes. I think one of the episodes, maybe episode five or six, I interviewed, Addie Lauren from California strategic alliance and he had been doing this for 30 years, more than 1 billion in a transaction. And he told me very simple, clean, basic and functional quality is what his motto is that's it. Right?   Ben Suttles: You don't have to get; you don't have to be creative about it. Right. I mean, you know, the space that we plan is essentially workforce housing. I mean, across our whole entire portfolio, our average rents are less than a thousand bucks, right. So, folks aren't looking for crazy amenities and crazy things even in their interiors. They just want a good quality place to come home to and then, and the management side is a big piece of that too.   James: Correct, correct, correct.   Ben Suttles: Yes, she bought up a good point.   Feras Moussa: And then another thing too with good management, right. You get lower delinquency. So, for us, I mean that's night and day. We had a deal that we, one of our heavy value add deals where essentially where we were, I went back and looked at numbers July versus where we are today. We have three times more revenue collected than we will, we did before total, like literally straight revenue you and that's a combination of, cutting back the delinquency, bringing units, align, updating. But I mean, it’s, once people know that it's, someone taking care of the property and enjoying it, people want to stay there. All right. People are eating $200 rep push because guess what, this place has been completely turned around. It's more family oriented and even just bringing more families on board helps to come back for delinquency. So, for us really looking at how do you build that community and some people really cheap about it, but like, hosting these parties is you, I mean, do the math, right? How much does it cost to go get a hundred hot dog and a hundred burgers? Right?   James: Yes.   Feras Moussa: I mean it's very, very cheap, right? To be there and grill it out, have like a little patio, you know, a party, whatever it is. These things are almost, you know, half of the units rented a month, right. It's kind of thing. And so, they're almost rounding errors, errors where we are, but guess what? It changes the dynamics in the property. And so, I mean, some people don't really-- people are very short-sighted. I see. And really it has a much bigger kind of longer-term impact.   James: Yes.   Ben Suttles: And I think going along with the value add, right? I mean, you know, a lot of what we're doing is repositioning the property too, which is kind of where you're going with this James. Is bringing in better management. You're getting a better tenant profile at the same time too. So that's part of the value-add strategy as well, so once you, and once you show them that you care, you've got tenants in there that care than the properties just starts performing. There's a whole-- the energy shifts are palpable. Do you know what I mean? You go from a bad energy deal to a very good energy deal and you have less delinquency. Yes. Better occupancy people more apt to take a renewal increase and you can, you can rent that out more easily because people that prospective tenants that are walking around fuel that same thing too. So that's a huge part of what we do. We don't like to focus the value add just on the what the aesthetic of the property to, it's how you manage it and tenants that you have in there as well. A huge part of it.   James: So, you guys operators, which is the definition. What I mean is very active asset management because you know the details of what's happening on the side by side. Right. So, is that a correct assumption? Right? So.   Ben Suttles: Absolutely.   Feras Moussa: Yes, absolutely.   James: How do you guys manage this third-party property management companies?   Feras Moussa: Man, that's, that's part of the secret sauce. But I mean, it's really is nothing to it. There's nothing secret about it. So, we have an asset manager now that we've brought in who very experienced, 20 plus years if families a property, he manages family really. And so that's starting to help, but we plan to keep a pulse in general on what's going on in every deal. And so, for us, it's really about putting systems in place with each of your property managers, right? And having accountability. Right? And so, we have not brought in property management in house, but we've been successful with managing our property managers. Right? Yes. And it's a partnership, right? It's not like they're your employee. You really need to get on the level of like where they understand like, hey, we're partnering, we're growing together. Right? And so, they've seen that, and you know, yes. Identify the good property managers from the batch. So, there's a whole betting cycle. I don't want to get too far into, but really, we have the weekly calls, we have the weekly reports come in at a certain time. We have certain expectations that within a few days we expect them to follow up with hearing all the action items and did these all get done? Yes or no? Why not? Right? And how do we, I can keep them accountable, so.   Ben Suttles: Yes, it's all about obviously keep it to an agenda, keep into the processes that we put in place to templates and checklists. And we're very upfront when we get into a partnership with these property management companies that this is what we expect, that this is when we expect it. Right. And then we, like we said, we keep them accountable through--   Feras Moussa: And this is the format that we expect, that these are the numbers that we need and sent out.   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: Just to help us track everything the way we want. And then you learn from it. Right. We're not perfect. It's not, it's an iterative process, right. Anytime we identify something that we can improve from one property manager, we applied to the portfolio. The nice thing is really is that having different property managers, we see the strengths and weaknesses of each property manager and you figure out how do we make them all better and so what things can we do across the board to make everything better?   Ben Suttles: Yes.   James: So, can you name like three things that you guys always look out for in the property management performance? When you realize that someone of these three things is not going well, things are not going right.   Feras Moussa: Oh Man. I would say renewals is the lowest hanging fruit. Look and understand what's going on in renewals and how important it is because early renewals are indicative of a lot of other things. Are they following up with tenants for the renewal? Right. Did they really? That's just a-- that's the number that you can kind of look at and realize that there must be other problems going on. I would say that's my answer. I don't know about you, Ben.   Ben Suttles: No, I think, yes, I think you're right, man. Totally. Yes. I think my biggest, my biggest hanging out in delinquency because it's like that's the properties money. Like you know, go out there, how are you going to collect the rent that is owed? And so, when you start seeing that slipping and we're increasing, that's my big red flag that hey, there's something going on here, right? As our management on site, not, not doing their job, or are we getting bad tenants in there that aren't capable of paying the rent that we're asking of them may be what's the, there's a, there's usually a bigger problem going on, but yes, I mean all of these, these metrics we expect on our Monday morning report. And so, we're looking at each of these things weekly and we're also having follow-up calls throughout the week to either our asset management or asset manager or us or having calls with the property manager to track these things. So, it's not like a weekly thing. And that we don't have any kind of insight into what's happening for the rest of the week. If there's a challenge, we're having a follow-up call that week about it as well.   James: Okay. So, do you convert like renewal to percentage and look at, give that as a goal, that what you guys delinquency at two percentage and give that as a goal?   Feras Moussa: It's a balancing act depending on how hard you're pushing. Right? So, it's not like you can just say, hey, we expect 50% renewals across the board. I think it's really, it's deal specific and I mean we're looking at renewals, we're looking at least as we're looking at delinquency, right? We're looking at how much traffic came in versus how much leases got closed and then going in and really both on leases, we didn't close. What's the story? What's the story? What's the story? Sometimes there are cases where you, maybe you, no, you can go save that, that person. Similarly, on the delinquency, we go through what's this person's story? Are they going to pay? Cause really in Atlanta, our delinquency is higher than it isn't and Texas, right? It's just by nature of the market. And so, you, you kind of need to be more flexible in one market versus the other. And so really go through and understand what's the story behind me. Just like whenever we, you asked me earlier about the properties, how we analyse it, you're looking for that story. And so, we talked through each one of these and figure out what makes sense to kind of do moving forward. Because to us, it is very different between different properties.   Ben Suttles: Yes, and I, I would say targeted for delinquency, right? It's always zero. And do you know what I mean? So, the property management companies will say, oh yes, we got zero across our whole portfolio, I'm like, yes right. Do you know what I mean? Not, not the workforce housing stuff. So, you got to be realistic. But I would say your target, there's probably one to 2%, you know, on a stabilized property if you're dealing in the workforce housing space that we are and so that's usually the metric that we're pushing towards. But on the renewal side too. One thing I want to point out, right? When you're doing a heavy value add and you've got a lot of interior budget to kind of burn through and you have units that you need to update too, right? You're not going to be chasing after those folks as aggressively as you would on a stabilized property because maybe you don't have a lot of down units are a lot of vacancies and you need to free up, you know, units actually update them, right? So, you're not going to be as aggressive in renewing those folks. So, we've been able to connect like Feras says, right? I mean, you don't want to, you're not going to burn that bridge completely. So, you're constantly looking at occupancy, versus how much, how many units are we supposed to be turning a month in order to hit that target of, 60, 70, 80 units a year. Right. Because people have, people aren't moving out. What are we going to do? We can't sit on the money and there's usually a finite amount of time that we can, we can actually use that cash. So.   Feras Moussa: To expand on Ben's point too. It's almost like, we have a deal where we almost went the opposite. We don't want renewal. And what I mean by that is that one of our deals in Atlanta, we've pushed rents an insane amount on this deal. Like we're probably up 30% honestly, you know, 30 40% and we still have 98% occupants are choke when they're property managers at one day on the call, it felt to 97 and a half. And then, we called her out on it like, Oh, you're at 97 and a half, you're not a 98% anymore. And she's like, no, no, I just had someone who fucking renewed. She's back at 98, but in that deal, we have interior budgets that we need to go spend. We were literally just sitting on the side-lines. Right. Trying to, so you were kind of that balancing act is because we knew what was below market. Right. And figure out, where can we land on to where we have some people not renewing and we can go in and actually spend the money to even get, you know, that better push.   James: Yes. I think you need to look for where is the base rank, where's the base rank before you really go and spend all that rehab money. Otherwise, you can't be spending, spending, spending.   Ben Suttles: Exactly.   James: You don't know where's your base. Where is your starting point? Right. So, yes, I've had properties where we didn't even spend, we have the money yet, but we already bumped up just because people like it just because we are just a better operator than the previous guy. Right. So, --   Ben Suttles: And you'll get that. Right. Do you know what I mean? You'll just, you're amazed that how much they'll take it on renewal too. And that's great. You know, I mean, I just think it's a balancing act sometimes, but yeah, you have that, you have to kind of see where the market is and, and obviously be strategic with those dollars as well.   James: Yes, correct. Correct. That's right. So, can you give us some advice on how do you choose third-party property management? Because you guys are going in multiple markets, right? How would you give them expectations? Because a lot of, I'm sure a lot of property management company don't like, active asset managers. I couldn't control, [inaudible 59:57] I guess.   Ben Suttles: Well, hey now. [crosstalk 01:00:01].   Feras Moussa: Ben. I think, yes, I think.   James: [inaudible 01:00:04].   Feras Moussa: Well I will say though all of our property managers literally, you ask them, they say we're one of their favourites.   James: Oh okay.   Feras Moussa: So, let's not because we're active or inactive. [crosstalk 01:00:15]. Well, it's, we're doing maybe some of it, but it's more so that we're realistic. Right. I think what I was surprised to hear from them as a lot of people will just sell their property may, here's your budget, here's what you have to go, you know, accomplish. And sometimes it's not realistic. Right. I said before any of your deals because we've already worked on a budget with a property manager, we have an agreement on what that looks like, what the plan is, and we're not just picking numbers out of a hat just to make our deal work. Right. And really kind of do it the other way around. And then, yes, whenever issues come up, we're both, I mean, I hope people on the audience, I get this impression. Ben and I are pretty level headed, pretty easy to work with. And so, they understand things happen. And so, the property management companies, at least they enjoy because we're easy to get a hold of. We understand what's going on the deal. And we're realistic. And so, because I've asked them and pretty much all of them have said that we're one of, we're one of their favourites. Right. And so, --   James: Okay.   Feras Moussa: Now, that said, maybe to answer your question, Ben, do you want to answer? Do you want me to answer?   Ben Suttles: I mean, I, I think, I mean, you've got to be stern, but at the same time, you can have a friendly relationship with them at the same time. Right. But I think it's all about setting the right expectations and just betting them in general. I think it's, it's all you usually start off with referrals. Right?   James: Okay.   Ben Suttles: But I think some of the big things are as, go take a look at some of their properties too. Go secret shop those deals, so you're going to say, okay, hey you, you're a good referral on whatever market. Right. Give me three of the assets that you, and then you fly out there and you go shopping. What does the property look like? Is it clean? Is the management, is the leasing agent and the manager, are they friendly, are they knowledgeable of the property? Are they good or are they leasing it properly? All of these things go back to the property management side and, and as long as that's, that's kind of coalesces with what you've heard about them and everything. That is good. Obviously, the fee has to be online and those roles have, the references have to be there. But I think the biggest, the biggest asset test for us is, vetting the deals that they currently have, and do we like what we see, and they call them out, right? I mean, if they don't, if there's a deficiency saying, hey we went to Xyz property and there's trash on the ground, what's the deal with that and then how do they respond to that? Because that's going to be, -- there are always challenges, but it’s how you respond to those challenges is what I'm looking for on the property management side.   James: Yeah.   Feras Moussa: And then a couple of things too, just to add, I mean it's about what's kind of, what's the impression and feeling you're getting from them? Right. And, and working on a budget with a property management company is actually a great exercise to understand how they look at things and how are they going to meet what you're looking for. And I mean that in multiple, always, right? A, are they, -- is their budget realistic? Right. And B, is there pushback? I mean we actually like when they push back, right? If we say, well we think we can run payroll at x amount and they're like, well no, payroll is going to be this amount. Here are the 10 properties we have nearby to prove it. Right? That's good. Versus we've had property managers that are essential yes people, right? That'll say yes to everything and that's not at all what you want because we need something realistic. We're not trying to, we have millions of dollars at stake, we have other people's money. We're not here to just take a gamble. So, looking at that and kind of what we've found success in is really the people that are in that five to 15,000-unit range, right? The 40,000 guys in too much, they don't care about you. The guys that are smaller, there's just a lot of them. You know this first-hand. There's a lot of back offices that need to happen for a successful property management company. Right. And so, we found that sweet spot seems to be that five to 15 and then to where there our portfolio is enough volume for them, right? That we kind of get that professional preferential treatment where needed and at the same time, right, they're developed enough to be able to, kind of take on and succeed with it.   James: Got It. Got It. Very interesting, very interesting. So, let me ask some question about more the personal side, right? So maybe each one of you can add in on your own site. So, what's, what do you think is the top three things that are the secret sauce, for the success that you guys have been having in terms of closing deals?   Ben Suttles: All right. Go for it man.   Feras Moussa: Partnerships and relationships, right? Most important, first and foremost, right? Being willing to partner with brokers, property managers, other partners, partners, right? On the GP. People that can help us, would the deal, right? Whether it's helping with construction, hel

Let's Talk about Erectile Dysfunction... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry we have Dr. Jennifer Miles-Thomas, she is a Diplomate of the American Board of Urology and is also board certified in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. As we continue the push the message and focus on men's health I wouldn't be truthful to the audience if I didn't stress the importance of sexual health. I talked about this before but as an 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. Sexual health refers to a state of well-being that lets a man fully participate in and enjoy sexual activity and there is a range of physical, psychological, interpersonal, and social factors that influence a man's sexual health. I talked about this before but as an 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. Dr. Jenn walks us through her decision to become a urologist, one of few African American women to hold the title, and we get into the importance of sexual health, opening up about erectile dysfunction and all of the different treatment options associated with the disease. 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: Dr. Jennifer Website Dr. Jenn's IG Urology Care Foundation Mayo Clinic Foundation American Urological Association 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 113 Transcript Episode 113 Transcript... Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com, as well as the CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting, which helps you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy. And this week we have a doozy, of course, this is men's health month. And I thought, no other topic, right? If I had to choose one topic that really hit home and hammer home when we talk about men and ways that we can work on getting them to see the doctor more, know the topic shot to the top of my mind as well as my read my mind than sexual health. And today we're going to be talking about those big two letters, ED - erectile dysfunction. And I thought it get, you know what, I do have some experience taking care of patients with ED, but who better to really educate the community and really expand the knowledge base of the Lunch and Learn community than urologists. And I was very fortunate for this urologist coming on the show, this is Dr. Jennifer Miles-Thomas. She earned her medical degree from Northwestern University school of medicine. She cleared her undergrad degree in biology at Virginia Commonwealth University. She did a general surgery internship at John Hopkins and completed a urology residency as well as a separate fellowship and female urology and neurology at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute. Dr. Jenn Miles-Thomas is a diplomat of the American Board of Urology and she is also a board certified and female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery. So again, I know that may seem like a mouthful, but you know, short and sweet Dr. Jenn is absolutely amazing and she is crazy smart, right? If you had to think about what does all that mean? That's probably just me as those who send in this podcast. She is absolutely brilliant and we're in for a treat. And I could tell you during this interview if I wish you could see some of my facial expressions that I was making during the time when she was really explaining and educating me through Lunch and Learn community members. The different ways and treatment modalities associated with erectile dysfunction. So you guys are in for a treat. Remember like always, if you have not had a chance, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast, leave a five-star review and comment for the podcast as well as make sure you tell a friend, tell a friend, tell a friend to just share podcasts. Especially because I know someone has someone in a family member, especially male, right? Who has not seen a doctor in years. And I hate to say that you're partly to blame, but if someone's not seeing the doctor in years and years, seeing the doctor regularly, that's something that we, we need to address ASAP. If someone is not going to a doctor, especially in male, right? And you're also not going to the doctor, is going to be very difficult for you to try to convince that man that he needs to go see a physician as well. So please take the time to listen, again, we're talking about sexual health, we talk about few things as well, especially associated with Dr. Jenn as far as what she does on the size, especially from a business standpoint. You guys are gonna want to stick around for that. So again, leave her five-star review. Let me know how you feel. And again, thank you for all that you do. You guys have a great and blessed day and let's get ready for another amazing episode here on the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright, Lunch and Learn community again you just heard this amazing introduction from an expert that I definitely think is needed, right? Especially in this month of men's health month. And I have always joked in the past, but I really, I kind of say half-jokingly, a lot of times when I get men to come in my office to see me on an outpatient visit, right? This was this field, right? It was one of the main reasons why they would come, right? Like there are usually two reasons. One, family member drags him. Two, got some sexual issues, right? And of course, obviously I could talk from an internist standpoint, but I figured, you know, let's get an expert to come in and help educate us and you know, kind of get us mindset ready for the month and really show us, you know, why this is such an important topic, right? Even though we kind of say jokingly, right? This is actually an extremely important topic for men, right? Because again, like I said, it is one of the main reasons why I would get him to come see me in my office, right? So again, first of all, thank you for joining the Lunch and Learn community. Dr. Jenn: Oh, you're so welcome. Thank you for having me. Dr. Berry: So, Dr. Jenn, I told them about your amazing bio and just give the audience just, you know, let's say for some reason they skipped the introduction and they want to know, like, who's the person on the podcast this week? Right? Like, tell us something that may not be in your bio. And it says like, hey, you know, this is why I'm who I am. Dr. Jenn: I live in a very interesting life. I am a urologist who is a female, who is African American. So there's only really a few of us across the country. (Yeah. That is so true.) Yeah. What else is interesting? I'm married with three children, so that's a little bit different. Sometimes it's hard to balance a high powered, stressful career and a family. And I've recently gotten into extreme sports, so I've been snowboarding and I just finished a triathlon this past weekend, so I'm kind of all out there. Dr. Berry: Oh Wow. That's okay, alright. I love it. Okay. That's how you started the show, right? This type of show about to go on. Right? (Exactly.) So Lunch and Learn community, we talked, you know, if you caught the most recent episode, if you caught the live streams, you know that June is men's health month and you know that I have made it a point to try to call out my male listeners and my male friends and family members to really stress the importance of health awareness and why we're dedicating a whole month for that? Cause that's always the big issue, right? Like why am I getting home on this specific topic? And why is men's health month so important? Because really it's killing us. Right? And I've talked about it before. The top 10 leading causes in the world, men dominate those categories, right? Why? Because, you know, we're just not taking care of ourselves. So I wanted to get on Jenn to, again, in urology. And like I say, I don't know if you realize it like, especially when you think about urology is usually not one way you think about. But female urologist, right? So just the how like that subcategory namely African-American is, you know, this is a gem that was actually, you know, we're finding here to be able to kind of talk to her, which I'm definitely excited for. So Dr. Jenn, if you would just kind of give the Lunch and Learn little bit introduction on, you know what actually is the urology? Just so you can kind of get in the same mental ballpark of where we're at. Dr. Jenn: Yeah. So it's interesting. So a urologist is a specialist who also a surgeon who works with the organs of the genital-urinary tract. So in English, what does that mean? That means it's a doctor. I know. So that means I’m a doctor who deals with problems of the kidney, the bladder, the testicles, the prostate, the penis, in men and women. So sometimes it's medical therapy and sometimes it's surgery. We do both. But those are the organs we take care of. Dr. Berry: It is really kind of interesting. I'm an internist. For those for some reason is the first time catching a show, I'm an internist so I practice in the hospital. But what made you say, you know, urology is the field for me? Dr. Jenn: So the real story is I thought I was going to be like the female version of Ben Carson. So I was going into med school, but I do neurosurgery, right? But sometimes that's very hard and I'm a big quality of life person and sometimes there are things you just can't fix. And after a couple of cases that were out of everyone's control emotionally, I didn't know if I could do that every day. Sometimes you'll see a 30-year-old who has a bleed and they'll never be the same and some things you can fix them some things you can't. And I said, well, I know I really want to focus on the quality of life. So one of my friends, of course, who's male was said, hey, you should do urology. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's a bunch of old men. Like, why would I wanna do urology? This is real talk. Okay, why would I want to do that? Right. So I did a rotation like we do in medical school, and every time I went into the room, the wives would be, are you going into urology? Let me tell you about my problem. And I was like, well, what's going on here? Like why are these people asking me? And I didn't know at the time that there weren't very many female urologists. So probably when I started they were probably less than 5% in the country. Now it's like seven and a half percent. But I mean, I've been out for more than a decade. Yeah. There are not that many female urologists. There are quite a few residents who are coming through. The classes are more 50-50 which is great. But still, I mean there was definitely a need. So I decided to go into it and I love it. I would never do anything different. This is who I am and what I needed to go into. Because urology, it's one of those fields where it's very technical, it's very surgical. But what you're talking about on a daily basis is what people don't want to talk about. It's what they're afraid to mention. They don't tell other people, they don't even tell their wives or their husbands really what's going on and you're able to give them back that quality of life. So for me, every day it's a gift. Dr. Berry: I’m glad that you touched on that way because I can tell you I've had plenty appointments where the guy comes in for a very vague reason and you know right when I'm about to try to get out there and say “doc, doc before you leave”. Once I know I get one of those, hey doc before you leave, I already know exactly the direction go. It's so taboo that even when they come to see, you know, their regular outpatient clinical doctor for your checkup, it's very tough for them to even come out and say it, which is mind-boggling. Right? Because you would think like, hey no, that issue. If I'm having problems with that area, right? Like I want to make sure like that's the first thing I'm putting down on paper. (Yes.) Nope. They'll say, no, I had a cold and that's why I'm here. I definitely, and I love that you get that even on both friends. Right? Because I would figure it with women, it'd be a little bit more open. So I interested to hear that. Even on both sides, some people are very secretive on, you know, letting them know like these are some of the problems I'm dealing with. Dr. Jenn: Exactly. And I think it's a little bit different because in my world I just directly ask. So it's not that you have to wait and say, okay, as I'm walking in the door and kind of build up the courage, I'm just going to ask you how your erections are, how many times you get up at night, how are your erections? It's just regular, you know, it's a Tuesday. Why not? Dr. Berry: I love it. That's okay. That's fine. Okay, we like that way. Direct, no sugarcoating. This is why I'm here for it. Clearly, this is why you see me now. Now especially for urologic standpoint is that a lot of the different reasons why someone may come to see you just, I obviously we're talking about sexual health. I like this is what are somebody like the common issues and complaints and that you may see it as like, oh, I'm coming to see you for this. Dr. Jenn: Sure. So it's not just erectile dysfunction. A lot of times we'll see people for kidney stones, we'll see people for kidney tumors or bladder cancer, a lot of prostate cancer. Sometimes people will just have blood in their urine or bladder infections or they'll have like testicular pain or especially for women incontinence or leaking during the day and having to wear pads. So we see people for a variety of reasons. Dr. Berry: And obviously, has definitely, something that from your logical standpoint, I think it's a very interesting, right? Because a lot of times I think when we think of surgical specialties, we tend to think that they all they do with surgery. Right? And very interesting to understand like, no, there's a lot of clinical and you know, even psychosocial if I would like to stretch it issues kind of centered around some of the stuff that people are coming to see you for. Dr. Jenn: Exactly. Urology has one of those fields where you can operate and do very large major cases. You can do a lot of bread and butter, common cases. And then as you get older and closer to retirement, there are many things you can just do in the office. So it's one of those professions where you can do it throughout your career. Dr. Berry: Obviously, we wanna, you know, we’ll hit home because this is definitely, you know, the reason why someone's listening to at least this week's episode. Right. So let's talk about sexual health, right? And I know we alluded to it, but like how important is it, right? Especially from the men and women with obviously is men's health month, we'll give them a shy, we'll definitely bring you on. We need to talk about the women because I definitely don't want to make sure you eat them out. (Okay.) In that regards. But especially for men, like I like how important is sexual health for them, right? Like what is some of the like, oh, before I came to see you this house for a little bit after you take care of me. Like this is how I'm building now. Dr. Jenn: So regardless of what's on the news where people say sexual health is very, very important. Why? Because it's part of you. I mean, we're all animals. We all have the same instincts and when something doesn't work or it's change, how do you feel about yourself, you don't feel the same. So it's not that people fall into depression, but they just, they've lost a part of their life, a part of their relationship that was very, very important to them. This is psychological. This is physical. A lot of times with sexual dysfunction, there may be other things medically going on at the same time. So sometimes it's like the red flag of, Hey, where else do we need to look? What else could be going on at the same time? So I'd say this is very important and I think people realize it's important, but there's such a taboo about talking about it. I mean, of course, our popular media has changed and sex is a lot more out there. But when people are talking about their own personal sexuality and health, it's still taboo. Dr. Berry: Do you find the conversation a little bit more difficult because you are a female urologist when you're in your office or is it by the time they come they see you like they've already kind of cleared that hurdle? Dr. Jenn: So it's funny. So I would say that it's generational. So the Millennials, they don't care. They just want their stuff fixed regardless. Any boundaries whatsoever, everything will tell me what they did, how they did it and what they want to do in the future. They don't really have an issue. The kind of middle age, I would say like 30 to 60 takes a few minutes just for going to comfortable. But then they realized my personality is like, Hey, this is, this is just what we do and we're going to just say it and I'm going to ask you questions and we're going to help fix the problem. They get very comfortable. Over 65 or 70 sometimes it takes them a little while because first of all, they're from a generation where they didn't really talk about sex the same way that current generations do, and sometimes they never were really educated about their body or what was normal, what's not normal, what things should look like, what they should feel like, what are other signs? So after probably one or two sessions, then, oh, they open up about everything and sometimes they'll bring their wives. So we all can have the same discussion and figure out what's going on and how we could help. Dr. Berry: Okay, alright. Let’s make it a group appointment. Dr. Jenn: Yep. I have quite a few group appointments. It's okay. Dr. Berry: So speaking of a normal, what's not normal, right? Let talk about, you know, EB - erectile dysfunction, right? For Lunch and Learn community who may have been living under a rock and you know, we haven't seen one of those thousand commercials. Right? What is it exactly? Dr. Jenn: Okay. So the technical definition of ED or erectile dysfunction is, it's the ability to attain or maintain a penile erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance. So what does that mean? That means if you have difficulty either getting or keeping an erection that's good enough for you is what ED is. (Very subjective.) It is. So some people have don't have erections but don't care well, you know, that's perfectly fine. Other people, it takes them a little bit longer to ejaculate or they ejaculate too early and that's fine for them and that's fine. But anywhere in the middle, it's all based upon your own personal satisfaction. Dr. Berry: It was interesting. Do you tend to find common reasons for why that may occur? Is there a couple of things I get they, everyone who follows in this category always seems to have ED or what does someone have some of the causes that you've seen kind of work that are associated with ED? Dr. Jenn: Well, the biggest cause, especially in America is diabetes. (Okay. Alright.) Yeah. So diabetes, like I kind of explained it to people. Well you know what as it affects the small blood vessels and the small nerves and it's kind of interesting because if you relate it back and you say, you know how sometimes your fingertips will tangle or your toes will tangle or they're a go numb and you don't feel them. That's because those little small blood vessels of the small nerves aren't getting what they need because the sugar control is out of control and it's damaging. The same thing with your penis. It basically has really small nerves and sometimes if things aren't going to work it's because your blood sugars have been too high. So you really have to work on getting your blood sugars under control in order to get back some of this function. And when you kind of make it like that analogy, it makes sense. It's something tiny and small and diabetes affects the tiny small blood vessels. Dr. Berry: I love that, especially cause I know for Lunch and Learn community members like we've talked about diabetes and we've talked about all of the effects of diabetes. I even wrote a blog where I said I don't even wish diabetes on my worst enemy just because of all of the different things it's associated with. So now we know, you know, especially for as again, if you're diabetic and you're just blowing it off as just a sugar disease, now you can see, especially from a man, right? Cause we're talking to them in this men month, right? This is another reason why you should take care of yourself. Right? Because you don't want to have ED, you don't want ED to take care of your diabetes. So that's, okay. I love it. Dr. Jenn: Exactly. Now, other things we have to think about too, we’re learning and associating a lot more with heart disease. Because again, it's the small blood vessels that are feeding the penis. So if someone has early onset erectile dysfunction, like their thirties and forties we're also working with cardiologists to screen them and to make sure that they don't have plaques or cardiovascular disease because the small blood vessels are usually affected first. Dr. Berry: Now is that something that comes up just while you're asking a lot of your questions, like, hey, do you have this, do you have that? Do you have this? And then it you just kind of seeing this correlation kind of growing? Dr. Jenn: Yes, definitely. So of course when you're seeing a patient and you have their medical lists, do you know what medications they're on? You know their past medical history, but if someone who's never been in the system, and it's just coming to you for this, this is what we screen for. If you look at the major academic centers, most of them have men health clinics and it's usually an internist or urologist as well as a cardiologist because we're finding that these overall health syndromes, metabolic syndromes are being diagnosed with people first seeking care for erectile dysfunction. Dr. Berry: Wow. Okay. Alright. So again, if you're listening, if you're paying attention, especially for, let's say you have a family member or friend who you know, is suffering from some of these other diseases and it's very difficult to get them to come to the doctor, right? This now you have another weight in, right? You don't want to, hey, you know, you'll take your blood pressure. This can also happen, right? Cause again, usually two reasons. Usually, a family member is forcing them to come to the doctor's office or they got some sexual issues, right? So again, this is another way that we can kind of like start pushing them in back into the doctor's office and getting them right. Again, they're aware of just everything that's kind of going on. Thank you. Thank you for that. (No problem.) So when they come to you and you know what you do your screening and they're checking all the boxes off for ED. Of course, I'm pretty sure by the time they've seen those thousands of commercials. Right? But what are some of the treatment options that are out there? One, what we'll talk about the common ones, the one that they may not even know about? Dr. Jenn: Yes. First of all, of course, I have to say this disclaimer and this warning, everything that you see on TV or can order on the Internet isn't safe for you. (Yes. And then the gas station.) The gas station attendant does not know more than your doctor about your erectile dysfunction. That's all I got to say. But honestly, the FDA did a recent crackdown and urologist across the country got a notification. Some of these medications, I wouldn't say medications in quotes that are available over the internet that thought excellent results in work actually have controlled medications and them like generics and Viagra and Cialis and things like that. And so we get updates and kind of the names of over the counter medications that we need to look out and screen our patients for because yes, everyone knows the names of these brand new medications, but honestly, they're expensive. So people try to find other things that will work instead. But unfortunately, things that aren't controlled by the FDA or go through a rigorous screening process, things that are like natural types of products sometimes aren't always in your best interest to use because they do have active ingredients from drugs that are controlled and there are always potential side effects. You don't really know what you're taking. So I just want to put that warning out there. But the first day and for treatment option is to kind of divide and see what's your actual issue is. So I get the question all the time. Is it my testosterone? Do I need testosterone? (Yes. Let’s talk about that.) Allow me to tell you about testosterone. Testosterone is important for men. So it's actually made by your testicles. So a signal from your brain goes down to your testicles and says, hey, we need more testosterone floating in your bloodstream. When you have normal levels of testosterone, you have a libido. And what's libido? Libido is the desire to have sex or to engage in like sexual activity. Now if you give someone testosterone, you will increase their libido. But that does not mean that they'll get an erection. So you have, when you come in and say, I have erectile dysfunction, can I have testosterone? If your testosterone is low, just know that you may have a libido, but that doesn't always mean that your erection will change. Okay. So what do we do for actual erections? Well, the way I practice, we always go from least invasive to most invasive. I first want to make sure there's nothing medically wrong like there is not a tumor or something else that we can see what's going on that may be causing a problem. But if there's not in the first thing we can try as oral medication, and it's the ones that we know in medical lingo, we call them PDE five inhibitors. And basically what happens is when you get an erection, your brain puts out a signal and the nerves basically send and this transmitter that says, hey, I need blood flow in. And as the cylinders fill in the penis, it cuts off the vein. So you don't draw that blood back out. So your penis just fills and then it stays that way until your brain says, oh, I'm done. And then it stops feeling and it slowly gets smaller as the blood drains back out. So that's actually how an erection work. Now the other thing that's important is an erection is different than orgasm or ejaculation. They are controlled by different nerves. So one set of nerves gives you the erection. The other set of nerves allows you to ejaculate during an orgasm. (So actually problems in different sections.) Exactly. (Okay.) And also you can have an orgasm without having an erection. So that's why we have like a real conversation when we have these things. Because I mean, how would you know that unless you actually asked? It's not like you can just Google it, right? Probably can, but I haven't tried to. It's best if you actually just talked to someone. Dr. Berry: Lunch and Learn community, please talk personal. No Google. Dr. Jenn: So after the medications, there are other things you can do too. So a lot of people know about the medications, some of them are more expensive. But the good news is a lot of generics are now in the market. So yes, there are much more affordable. But let's say you try to medications and they don't work or you don't feel good or right when you're taking them or they don't work well enough. The next one, there's actually a little insert, it looks like a little tablet that you can put at the tip of your penis and it has medication that causes the blood to flow into your penis. That's an option. (Oh Wow. Okay.) There is also an injection. So you know how there are when people have diabetes, there are these little pens that you can inject the insulin. Well, there's a little kind of a little injection that you can inject on the side of your penis and also we'll put medication directly into your penis and cause you to have an erection. Dr. Berry: So let me stop you there. Right? (Okay, good.) When I had my diabetic patients, they're not get drilled and I gotta have that discussion where I'm saying, hey, you know what, the pills not working no more. You have to start injecting yourself and I know the face and the fight against once I have to go that right, like how does that conversation when you're telling the person like, hey those bills aren't the thing for you. We got to start injecting yourself and only if you had to start injecting directly in your penis. Right? Like what is that conversation like in the office? Dr. Jenn: So I get the same response kind of wide eyes like oh that's not going to happen. And then the next question is does it work? And when I say yes it works and people are very happy that can do it, they set out at least try it. Now we don't just send somebody home with the needle to stick in their penis. Like that's not what we do. We actually have nurses. So you come in for an appointment and we have to dose the medication because we want you to be able to get an erection. But we don't want you to have it all day, right? So we have to make sure you get the right dose of medication. So we actually have, it's called ICI, we actually have nurses who would just come see you as an appointment, we'd give you a test dose, we'd make sure you get an adequate erection, and then we also make sure it goes down and usually we have your partner there with you because sometimes people mentally can't do it and sometimes their partners are able to do it for them. Or once they see it they say, oh, it's not as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. It doesn't hurt as much. I had never even heard that I could do that. So it was a little bit weird. But then once you do it and then you get a great erection and it works, people are happy. Dr. Berry: Okay. Now is there, especially, I'm tripping on this injection thing. Is there something like an office right that reverses it or is it just kind of like supposed to go down on its own over time? Dr. Jenn: So it's supposed to go down on its own over time because the medications aren't long acting. They're shorter acting. (Okay.) That's why we do the first trials in the office because if it doesn't go down then we give you medication to make it go down. Now there's also another option that you can have and it's called a vacuum erection device and what it looks like kind of, look at him. Dr. Berry: Lunch and Learn community you could see my face right now. I am learning just as long as relating, I'm like, okay. Alright. Again, I’m an internist, by this time, I'm referring them to the urologist. I don't. Okay, so now I'm processing right with you. Dr. Jenn: Okay. So if vacuum erection device looks like a little cylinder, and what it does is at one end of the cylinder near the base of the penis, it has like a little, I don't know, think of it as like a little rubber band and you can basically like squeezed a little cylinder. And what happens is it's a vacuum, so it draws blood into your penis and then you roll down the little kind of rubber band on it and that rubber band prevents the blood from flowing back into your body. (Okay.) So this is something that's, it's a little bit less spontaneous, but still, there are no needles, there's no medication. That's something natural and you can do it on your own and it does work. All the vacuum erection device. And then if none of that works, there are penile prostheses. So a prosthetic is a device that we surgically put inside of your penis. And usually what we do is we have a little pump that looks like a little squeeze pump that we put next to your testicles and all you have to do is squeeze that pump and then your penis would pump up because we actually have a reservoir with like saline or water in it that fills those little tubes. So if nothing else works, that's a guaranteed way to get an erection. Dr. Berry: Now is the stepwise approach for this patient, right? Is that the end? I'm like, this didn't work, this didn't work, this didn't work. Alright, let's go to the prostheses. Or is it kind of patient dependent when you're kind of deciding like, all right, which route we're gonna go end up mean? Dr. Jenn: So typically it step-by-step, but it's patient driven. So if I see a 30-year-old who's never tried a drug, we're gonna, I'm gonna let them know that there is the option for prosthesis, but that's not what's recommended. So you try to do minimal to get the benefit. And then if you fail or you're not willing to do it, you can move on. But a penile prosthesis, that's the end. That's what we have to offer. It does work, but you can't go back. So once you have the surgery that means that the medications won't work. Injections won't work. You have the surgery. So that's why it's the last thing that we do. Dr. Berry: You mentioned 30-year-old because that gives pressure someone to my own community. It was like 30 because I know they're probably thinking this is a quote-unquote old man's disease. What some of the age ranges that you're seeing with patients with erectile dysfunction that even someone in Lunch and Learn community might be surprised by like, oh my God, they're that old dealing with this problem? Dr. Jenn: Yeah. So from young in the thirties, twenties and thirties sometimes I've seen college kids who everything was fine and now situationally with the new girlfriend or whoever, I'm just not able to get an erection and we kind of work through what's going on because remember, this is all controlled by the brain. There's something going on in the brain that's prohibiting it from making that message to get an erection and there are actual sexual therapists. These aren't like woo on TV people. These are real people who say, okay, let's break it down. What's actually going on in your life that is causing you to feel this way, is causing your brain not to secrete the right neurotransmitters for you to actually have an erection. And it does help. I've seen people who couldn't ejaculate, couldn't have orgasms. They meet with these therapists and they're like, my eyes were opened and things are all good now and it's real. And you just never thought you'd be talking about your sex life with someone, but you know what? It's quality of life. Either you can stay the way that you are or you can get it fixed and since there are people available to fix it, that's what you do and you move on. And you keep doing live in life. Dr. Berry: Exactly. Oh, I love it and tell you I'm loving this conversation guys. I wish you get to see my face during some of the parts so you can understand. It's a learning process for it all. And it's real because these are real-life conversations that we're having on a day to day basis. Again, if you have to scare, some of your friends or family members to get it into the doctor's office, to get this taken care of, please do so. Right? Cause it, it, it needs to be done because this isn't something that, again, I know you see that thousands of commercials and I know we're going to ask Dr. Jenn where should someone go look, right? Cause I know where it, we're saying don't go to doctor Google. Right? We already know, Lunch and Learn community members you all googling when I tell you don't Google, you're going to Google anyway. Even when I tell you don't go to YouTube and watch that surgery beforehand, you're going to do it. They were like, we just know how you all do now. Is there any viable sources that you will say like, hey, if you got to like read up on this subject, like read this website, like is there anywhere that you would point on to? Dr. Jenn: Yeah. So for urologists across the US we have, it's called the urology care foundation. So it's ways to educate patients on urologic conditions. So it's the legitimate source of information. It's not a company trying to sell you anything, it's just the real deal of this is what you need to do and it's written in plain, straight forward English and that would be urologyhealth.org. So Urology is U R O L O G Y health dot org. The other sites that are good and give straightforward information would be mayoclinic.org or webmd.com. Those are actually good, straightforward information and someone who wants a little bit more detail and are like, okay, I've read all that. It's kind of generic but I want more detail. Our Actual Association for Urologist has a great website too for under education and it'll show you what all the guidelines are. So like if you're hearing this from one person, you're not sure, you can actually see what the published guidelines are and every few years, every like four or five years, we all get together and we revise them and say, this is what the data shows us, this is what standard of care is, this is what you should be offering, this is what you need to think about. And that is auanet.org and that's for the urology association and that's the standard of care. So those are ones that are just straightforward. You can get the real deal information with no bias and understand why this has happened. Dr. Berry: And Lunch and Learn community members, just like always, all of these links, especially if you're driving, you're at work, wherever you're at listening to this, all these things will be in the show notes. So you know, I definitely want to make sure we're pointing you in the right direction. Because it's important to hear it because I know you guys, you guys are gonna want to follow up to make sure we not talking crazy. So we've got to point you to the right direction to make sure that doesn't occur as well. So again, I've done thank you for that, right. Because this is again, this has been very eye-opening, mind-blowing experience. I'm learning, I'm out to go to the website right when we're done, just don't make sure I can educate my patients, and of itself with such an important topic at hand, this is a portion of the podcast that I love, right? Because you know, I bring a guest on to really educate our community. But I'm just kinda selfish, right? Cause I also bring them on, right? Cause I really want to promote them right. And you know, say what, how to cause most of the people I kind of see and follow them. I'm shadow following them one way or the other. So I like to see people who are sending out doing some stuff, right? Like, and whether it's medicine, not medicine, doing some stuff is always something that I love to see out of our physicians. So this I like to call it, it's like our promo, our promo appeared. Right? Dr. Jenn, obviously we know you're amazing urologists. Is there anything that you do that someone in Lunch and Learn community may be able to benefit from or any books or whatever? This is your time, right? You tell us what you got going on and anything going on and let us know how we can continue to support you. Dr. Jenn: Well, I told you I'm a big quality of life person, right? So a lot of times what I see, especially with patients in medicine, is that a lot of times people don't search for answers because of money. Medicine is getting more and more expensive and the way that the insurance companies are moving, they're pushing more and more of that onto the patients. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Those insurance companies are really the wealthiest ones in the game. So they're going to determine what we do, (keep that money to themselves.) Exactly. Exactly. So what I do is I actually talk about money. I talk about money on Instagram and online too, and kind of help people figure out how to get a debt, how to build wealth, and how did it get their stuff together. Because if that's one less thing you have to worry about, think about your overall mental health. If you're no longer stressed about having to pay bills if you're no longer stressed about, how am I going to rob Peter to pay Paul, things like that. I think I'm just a person who has a lot of tough conversations and sex and money are the two things that people don't want to talk about in public. (I love it.) So that's what I talk about for sure. So on Instagram now, it was kind of embarrassing because I do put some of my personal life out there on Instagram. So on Instagram, I'm doctor, which is Dr. Jenn, J. E. N. N. M. D. That's probably the easiest place to kind of follow me and kind of see what I do. I put some of the pictures of me out and about doing some of my extreme sports on there too. Dr. Berry: Then that's what I want to go see doing extreme sports. I want to see that. Dr. Jenn: Yeah, well the snowboarding was interesting. I only did the before picture. Right. So it's all good. But yeah, that'd be the best way to follow me and my links to my website. It's drjennmd.com. All that stuff is on Instagram too, so you can kind of get a little picture of my life and how I really role. Dr. Berry: I love it. So we need to talk to Dr. Jenn. Get our messages together and get our sexual health together. Get our money together. Let's get all that. Right? And it’s 2019. We're halfway through the year. Definitely no time like the present especially for a men's health month and making sure we are getting all of our ducks in line, especially when it comes to sexual health and the importance of sexual health and the massive education lesson that we got today. Definitely thankful for Dr. Jenn. Thank you. Dr. Jenn: Oh, you're so welcome. You're so very welcome. Dr. Berry: Yes. So before I leave, how I was like answer this question. How is what you're doing helping to empower men especially when we talk about sexual health? What are you doing to really empower this and get them to make sure that they’ve taken better care to sexual health? Dr. Jenn: I'm asking the questions and I'm educating them because as we know, knowledge is power. If you don't know, you'll get left behind. There are a lot of people out there that have resources that are getting things fixed and done. There's a lot of small little things you can do to change your overall quality of life, but if you don't know what to ask or don't know something is available, you're going to miss out. So I think my role is really to ask those hard questions and educate my patients. People I see, people I come in contact with, that's what my role is to educate. Dr. Berry: I love it. And for those who may know, again Dr. Jenn obviously being a urologist, being African American and female, obviously there's you know, proponent of women's health that really goes into a lot of care to and of course, and I kind of pick and hold there on this episode, really talk about the men, but she will be, I'm going to beg her, we'll be coming back, right? Because I definitely wanted to hear about a lot of the women's health-related amongst sexual health and all the urological problems that I know they got. Right. Why? Because trust me, if you think I'm referring fast when it comes to men talking about sexual health and all the things you best believe once my women patients say like, hey Dr. Pierre, like this is happening. I'm having problems urinating. Anything that goes on in that area, is okay, alright. There you go. So we'll definitely make sure she comes on to really educate us on woman side as well too. So again Dr. Jenn, thank you for really taking the time out to educate Lunch and Learn community. I know this extremely informal cause I'm still like, okay, I'm still thinking about the pump. I was still thinking about it. And you have a great day. Thank you. Dr. Jenn: Alright. Thank you so much. Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

LIVE from Graham Sessions 2019 in Austin, Texas, Jenna Kantor guests hosts and interviews Lisa VanHoose, Monique Caruth and Kitiboni Adderley on their reflections from the conference. In this episode, we discuss: -The question that brought to light an uncomfortable conversation -How individuals with different backgrounds can have different perspectives -How the physical therapy profession can grow in their inclusion and diversity efforts -And so much more!   Resources: Lisa VanHoose Twitter Monique Caruth Twitter Fyzio 4 You Website Kitiboni Adderley Twitter Handling Your Health Wellness and Rehab Website The Outcomes Summit: use the discount code LITZY                                                                     For more information on Lisa: Lisa VanHoose, PhD, MPH, PT, CLT, CES, CKTP has practiced oncologic physical therapy since 1996. She serves as an Assistant Professor in the Physical Therapy Department at University of Central Arkansas. As a NIH and industry funded researcher, Dr. VanHoose investigates the effectiveness of various physical therapy interventions and socioecological models of secondary lymphedema. Dr. VanHoose served as the 2012-2016 President of the Oncology Section of the American Physical Therapy Association. For more information on Monique: Dr. Monique J. Caruth, DPT, is a three-time graduate of Howard University in Washington D.C. and has been a licensed and practicing physiotherapist in the state of Maryland for 10 years. She has worked in multiple settings such as acute hospital care, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient rehabilitation and home-health. She maintains membership with the American Physical Therapy Association, she is a member of the Public Relations Committee of the Home Health Section of the APTA and is the current Southern District Chair of the Maryland APTA Board Of Directors. For more information on Kitiboni: Kitiboni (Kiti) Adderley is the Owner & Senior Physical Therapist of Handling Your Health Wellness & Rehab. Kiti graduated from the University of the West Indies School of Physical Therapy, Jamaica, in 2000 and obtained her Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Utica College, Utica, New York, in 2017. Over the last 10 years, Kiti has been involved in an intensive study and mentorship of Oncology Rehabilitation and more specifically, Breast Cancer Rehab where her focus has been on limiting the side effects of cancer treatment including lymphedema, and improving the quality of life of cancer survivors. She has been a Certified Lymphedema Therapist since 2004. She is also a Certified Mastectomy Breast Prosthesis and Bra Fitter and Custom Compression Garment Fitter.   For more information on Jenna: Jenna Kantor (co-founder) is a bubbly and energetic girl who was born and raised in Petaluma, California. Growing up, she trained and performed ballet throughout the United States. After earning a BA in Dance and Drama at the University of California, Irvine, she worked professionally in musical theatre for 15+ years with tours, regional theatres, & overseas (www.jennakantor.com) until she found herself ready to move onto a new chapter in her life – a career in Physical Therapy. Jenna is currently in her 3rd year at Columbia University’s Physical Therapy Program. She is also a co-founder of the podcast, “Physiotherapy Performance Perspectives,” has an evidence-based monthly YouTube series titled “Injury Prevention for Dancers,” is a NY SSIG Co-Founder, NYPTA Student Conclave 2017 Development Team, works with the NYPTA Greater New York Legislative Task Force and is the NYPTA Public Policy Committee Student Liaison. Jenna aspires to be a physical therapist for amateur and professional performers to help ensure long, healthy careers. To learn more, please check out her website: www.jennafkantor.wixsite.com/jkpt   Read the full transcript below: Jenna Kantor:                00:00                Hello, this is Jenna Kantor with Healthy, Wealthy and Smart. And here I am at the Graham sessions in 2019 here. Where are we? We're in Austin, Texas. Yes, I'm with at least. And we're at the Driscoll. Yes. At the Driscoll. Yes. I'm here with Kiti Adderley, Monique Caruth and Lisa VanHoose. Thank you so much for being here, you guys. So I have decided I want to really talk about what went on today, what went on today in Graham sessions where we were not necessarily hurt as individuals. And I would like to really hit on this point. So actually Lisa, I'm going to start by handing the mic to you because you did go up and you spoke on a point. So I would love for you to talk about that. And then Monique, definitely please share afterwards and then I would love for you to share your insight on that as well. All right, here we go. Awesome. Lisa VanHoose:             00:52                So first of all, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity just to kind of reflect on today's activities. And so, I did ask a question this morning about the differences in the response to the opioid crisis versus the crack cocaine crisis. And I was asking one of our speakers who is quite knowledgeable in healthcare systems to get his perspective on that. And he basically said, that's not really my area. Right. And then gave a very generic answer and as I said earlier to people, I'm totally okay with you saying you don't know. But I think you also have to make sure that that person that you're speaking to knows that I still value your question and maybe even give some ideas of maybe who to talk to and this person would have had those resources. But, I guess it was quite evident to a lot of people in the room that they felt like I had been blown off. Lisa VanHoose:             01:48                So yes. So that was an interesting happenings today. Jenna Kantor:                                        And actually bouncing off that, would you mind sharing how this has actually been a common occurrence for you? You kind of said like you've dealt with something like this before. Would you mind educating the listeners about your history and how this has happened in your past? Lisa VanHoose:                                     I think, anytime, you know, not just within the PT profession but also just in society as general when we need to have conversations about the effects of racism. Both at a personal and systemic level, it's an uncomfortable conversation. And so I find that people try to bail out or they try to ignore the question or they blow the question off and ultimately it's just, we're not willing to have those crucial conversations and I think they almost try to minimize it. Right. Lisa VanHoose:             02:41                And I don't know if that comes from a place of, they're uncomfortable with the conversation or maybe they just feel like the conversations not worth their time. But, I can just tell you as just a African American woman in the US, this is a common occurrence. As an African American PT, I will admit it happens a lot within the profession. But I do think that there are those like you and like Karen and others that are willing to kind of move into that space because that's the only way we're going to make it better. Jenna Kantor:                                        Thank you. Thank you for giving me that insight. Especially so because people don't see us right now, so, so they can really get a fuller picture of it. And now, Monique, would you mind sharing when you went up and spoke, how that experience was for you, what you were talking about and how you felt the issue that you are bringing up was acknowledged? Monique Caruth:           03:37                Well, as Lisa said, we're kind of used to talking and it going through one ear and out the next day and our issues not really being addressed. I think it comes from a point where a lot of Caucasians think that if you try to bring it up, they would be blamed for what was done 400 years ago, 300 years ago. So it comes from a place of guilt. They don't want to be seen as they have an advantage. And I think as blacks we had a role to play in it by saying, oh, you’re white and you’re privileged. So you had an advantage, which structurally there is an advantage. There is structural advantages as I was discussing with Lisa and Kiti last night that as an immigrant, even though I'm black, they're more benefits that I've received being here than someone who was born maybe in Washington DC or inner city Chicago or maybe even, Flint, Michigan. Monique Caruth:           04:51                I can drink clean water, I can open my tap and drink. What I don't have to worry about, you know, drinking led or anything like that. I can leave home with my windows open, my doors open and feel safe that my neighbors will be looking out for me and stuff that I can walk my neighborhood. So there are privileged even though I'm black, that some people that can afford and would I be ashamed of being in that position? No, acknowledge it. And even with an all black community, there are a lot of us, we may not have been born in a world of wealth. I wasn't, my parents sacrificed a lot to get me where I am today, but not because I have somewhat made it means that I have to ignore the other people that have struggled. Monique Caruth:           05:43                And this is a problem that I'm noticing in a lot of black communities, like when someone makes it or they become successful, Aka Ben Carson, Dr Ben Carson, we feel that if I can make it, why can't you? And because some of those people were not afforded the same privileges that you were afforded, and it's kinda not fair to make that statement that if I made it. So can you, and you can't tell people that you worked your butt off and pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you were afforded welfare stuff. Your, you know, your mom benefited from stuff. I was afforded scholarship so that I don't have to have $200,000 in debt. So I could afford to purchase a home after I graduated and all that stuff because I was not in debt. Monique Caruth:           06:47                And a lot of people do not have that luxury. So I can tell people if I can do it, you can do it too. I have to try to find ways to address their concerns and see how I can better help them to move forward and live better. And the problem within our profession is that many in leadership, even though they see themselves as making it, they don't want to have acknowledge that not everyone comes from the same place. It's not a level playing field. And they try to dismiss those by saying, Oh, if I can make it, everybody else can as well. Jenna Kantor:                                        Thank you. Well said. Well said. Kiti. would you mind sharing in light of what everybody said, some of your thoughts on this matter? Kitiboni Adderley:         07:30                While it was interesting to watch the conversation, listen to the conversation today. I have a unique perspective in that I don't practice in the United States. I don't live in United States, but I frequently here taking part in education, but also watching the growth and development of the physical therapy profession. So I'm from The Bahamas and it's predominantly African descent population. Right? And so some of the issues that people of color in the United States deal with, we don't really deal with those in terms of that limitations and privileges. And you know, it's more of a socioeconomic for us. And once you can afford it, then you go and do. And, and I think we're pretty fortunate if we talk about while across the board that most people can afford some form of education and get it. Kitiboni Adderley:         08:30                So I'm in a unique position because I look African American, it was, I don't open my mouth. You don't know. And so I'm privy to some conversations on both sides of the role, you know, and if people are probably, so what do you think about this and how do you feel about that and how does it bother you? And you know, so while I'm not the typical African American and they see them start to take a step back and it sort of gives you the understanding that they don't truly understand that every person of color does not have the same story. And so you can approach us expecting us to have the same story. Right? Cause your three x three women of color here, one's born and bred African American ones born and bred Trinidad and transplanted United States and one's born and bred, still working in The Bahamas and the Caribbean. Kitiboni Adderley:         09:17                Good. So we all have different perspectives that we all come from different backgrounds and different experiences. But it was interesting and when Lisa asked a question and you know like, you know, people say you will, you know you need to bring it up if we don't talk about these things enough. And it's almost like, okay, you bring up the conversation. So the balls in play, it's tossed from one play at an accident and be like, Oh shit, we can handle, listen to bar this draft again. And so the conversation shuts down and you're like, but you didn't answer the question and you're like, you know, well, yeah, okay, well we'll throw the ball up in the air. And at another time, and I think this is where the frustration comes in for people of color that live in United States because you want us to have these conversations were given quote unquote, the opportunity to ask questions or have these discussions and the discussions come up and at the end of it it's like, okay, we just gave you the opportunity to discuss where do we go from here? Kitiboni Adderley:         10:14                What's done, what's the recourse, what's our next step? What's our plan of action? And when we talk about inclusion and diversity, if you're not going to take it to the next step, if you're not going to have a call to action, then what's the point? And this is why probably people of color don't come back out again because what's it's a bit, it's a bit annoying. It's like frustration because you stand there, you're waiting for a response. And I was like, oh, well, you know, this isn’t my field and I appreciate the honesty, but then let’s address this at some point we have to address this. So do we need another meeting just to address this? Do we have to have, you know, just, let's pick the topic and work on it. So like I said, it was a very unique perspective. Kitiboni Adderley:         10:57                I sort of like watching the response of the other people in the room and see how they respond to it, but the conversation needs to keep going for those of us who can tolerate it or have the patience to deal with it at this given time. And, it was a great experience. It was a good experience. Jenna Kantor:                                        I love it. So I would have just one more question for each of you and it's what would you recommend we do as a profession, both individually and as a collective in order to grow in this manner? Monique Caruth:           11:37                Well, piggy backing off of what Kiti mentioned, I was sort of blown away too when he said that that's not his field because he's a reporter, he does documentary stuff all you was asking was one opinion you want asking for, you know, an analysis or anything. It was just an opinion and he refused to give that. And his excuse was, I don't know much about it and what was, it wasn't surprising but no one else in the crowd said well we then address her concern and immediately he was, she didn't put it in a way that made it seem or the crack epidemic was black and the opioid crisis as white. He was the one who drew it up cause I was actually praising her for how skillfully she worded it. I'm learning a lot of tack from obviously Lisa I'm not that tactful and my family tells me I need to be tactful, but it's that no one else said, okay, let's discuss it. Monique Caruth:           12:51                Really. Why, why is APTA making such a big push choose PT. Now. Versus in the 80s when the crack and the crack epidemic was destroying an entire city because DC was known for being chocolate city on the crack epidemic, wiped it out and it got judge all. Alright, it rebuilt it. But now again, it's trying to find like I went to Howard University, you know, I could walk around shore Howard and I'm like, am I in Georgetown? Because you don't recognize, you know, the people live in that. It has driven out a lot of blacks that were living in drug pocket. You know, it's now predominantly, young white lobbyist living in the area. So if we don't have the support of our colleagues, how can we address inclusion? How can we address equity if they're not willing to put themselves out there to say, Hey Lisa, I got your back. Monique Caruth:           14:05                We need to talk about this. We need to discuss it. Let's have a discussion. Your question was not answered. It wasn't even to say that it was acknowledged with a dignified response because we're spending millions of dollars under choose PT campaign. Why is it because the surgeon general is saying, oh there needs to be another alternative because Congress is trying to pass bills to lower the opioid crisis. Why? If you asking people to choose PT what makes it different? Okay. Even with the Medicaid population, the majority of people who receive Medicaid are black and brown. Are we fighting to get make that people have medicaid coverage or other stuff. Or are we fighting running down Cigna and blue cross blue shield and Humana and all those other types of insurances? Because we think the money is in these insurances. When they could dictate whatever they want, then you could provide a service and say you're providing quality service. Monique Caruth:           15:14                But if they say, oh, we're just gonna reimburse you $60 we are getting $60 and people on our income. So people complain on Twitter and on social media about, you know, insurance stuff. But if I see a medicaid patient in Maryland, I am guaranteed $89 and that person has the treatment. They’re being seen, they're getting better. It's guaranteed money. But a lot of people don't want to treat the Medicaid population because they think they're getting blacks or Hispanics. And I hear complaints like I don't really want to treat that population because we are going to have no shows and cancellations and all that stuff, which is bs. It's excuses. And we have to do better as a profession to acknowledge or biases and work on ways to help work with the population that we serve. Because let's face it, America is not going to remain white? It's gonna get mixed. We're going to have some more chocolate chips in the cookies. Okay. All right. It's going to be more than two chocolate chips in the whole cookie next time. Jenna Kantor:                16:33                Before I pass it to you, Kiti, I really like where you're going with this, Monique, and I think it's important to acknowledge why, which I didn't at the beginning. Why, why, why we're tapping on this one incident and really diving in and it's because what I learned today from my friends is that this is a common occurrence in the physical therapy industry. It's not just it and it's not just within our industry. It's what you guys deal with regularly. And if we are talking about our patients providing better patient care, we need to really, really be fully honest with where we are at. Even as they are speaking, I'm constantly asking myself, what are my things that I'm holding within me where I'm making assumptions about individuals? There's always room for growth. So please as you continue to listen to Kiti speak next, just keep letting this be an opportunity to reflect and grow. Kitiboni Adderley:         17:50                Okay, so I recognize that incident was uncomfortable. It was an uncomfortable conversation to have and it's okay to have uncomfortable conversations. As physical therapists, we have uncomfortable conversations with our patients all the time. We have uncomfortable conversations with our colleagues and we have to call them out on some mal action or when they call us out on something that need to do. And because the conversation is uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that we don't have it. We probably need to talk about it more. And so if there's anything that I want to say, I think we need to have more of these conversations and have them until they no longer become uncomfortable until we could actually sit down with, well no, I shouldn't say anybody but, but the people of influence, cause this is what it's really about. We were sitting with very influential people today and all of us there, I'm sure where people of influence and you know, this is what we need, this is what we need to use. And don't be afraid to have the conversation. As uncomfortable as it may make you feel. Why are we having this conversation? We want inclusion, we want diversity, we want a better profession. And those are the goals of the conversation. We shouldn't shy away from it. Jenna Kantor:                                        Thank you. I'm gonna hand this over to Lisa for one last one last thing. Lisa VanHoose:             18:43                So I just want to talk about the fact that part of the conversation was this dodging right? Of a need to kind of have this very authentic and deep conversation. The other part of today's events that I'm still processing is this conversation about the need for changed to be incremental, right? Comfortable. And for those of us that are marginalized to understand that the majority feels like there has been significant change and that was communicated to me in some side conversations and I was challenged by one person that was like, well, I think you have this bias and you're not recognizing the change that has occurred and how that this is awesome that we're even in a place to have this, that we're having this conversation today. Lisa VanHoose:             19:46                You know, that you need to acknowledge that success that we've made. And so I do agree that, you know, what all work is good work and I will applaud you for what has been done today. But I also would say to people who feel that way, step back and say, okay, if the PT profession has not really changed as demographics in the last 30 years, and if you were an African American and Hispanic and Asian American, an Asian Pacific islander or someone of multiracial descent would you be okay with that? Saying that, you know what, I started applying to PT school when I was in my twenties and I'm finally maybe gonna get in my fifties and sixties. How would that feel? Right? That wasted life because you're waiting on this incremental change. And I think if we could just be empathetic and put ourselves in the other person's shoes and say, would I be okay with waiting 30 years for a change? Lisa VanHoose:             20:53                Would I be all right with that? But I often feel like when it is not your tribe that has to wait, you okay with telling somebody else to wait? Right? And so, I want to read this quote from Martin Luther King and it was from the letters from Barringham where he criticized white moderates and he said that a white moderate is someone who constantly says to you, I agree with your goal, with the goal that you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action. Who believes that he can set the time table for another man's freedom. Such a person according to King is someone who lives by a mythical concept of time and is constantly advising the Negro to wait for a more convenient season. And that's how I felt like today's conversation from some, not all was going. King also talked about the fact that that shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than the absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Luke warm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. And I say that all the time because I would prefer that you be very honest with me and say, I don't really care about diversity and inclusion, but don't act like you're my ally. But then when it's time to have a hard conversation, you say, I can't do that. I'm like, choose a side, pick a side. There is no Switzerland. There is no inbetween. Jenna Kantor:                22:25                Thank you so much you guys. I'm so grateful to be having this conversation to finish it with a great Martin Luther King quote, which is absolutely incredible. I'm just full of gratitude, so thank you. I'm really looking forward to this coming out and people getting to share this joy of learning and growth that you have just shared with me right now.   Lisa VanHoose:                                     And thank you for being an ally. We really appreciate that. So we're not, I just want people to know, we're not saying that the African American or the immigrant experience is different from the Caucasian experience. I think we all have this commonality of being othered at one time or another, but yes, with being a white female LGBTQ, I think the complexities of who we are as a human, there's always going to be a time where you're an n of one or maybe of two and you get that feeling that, Ooh, am I supposed to be here? But I think what we're talking about is being empathetic and if we're going to talk about being physical therapists, being practitioners and compassionate, and we're going to provide this patient centered care, how can you tell me you're going to provide patient centered care when you can't even have a conversation with me as a colleague, right. When you can't even see me. So I just want the audience to know, that we're not coming from a place of being victims were coming from a place of really wanting to have collaborative conversations. Monique Caruth:           23:59                I like to view my colleagues as family members. There are times, as much as I love my family, my mom and my dad and my sisters and my brothers in law, there are times we will sit and have some of the most uncomfortable conversations, but at the end of it it’s out of love. It's all for us to grow as a family. And Yeah, you may not talk to the person for like a day or two, but you're like, shit, you know, that's my sister, that's my brother in law. You know, I have to love him. But you know, you try to hear their perspective, you try to make sure they hear your perspective and you come out on common ground so that the family can grow. And we don't treat this profession as a family, the ones who are marginalized are treated as step children. Monique Caruth:           24:57                And that's a bad thing because stepchildren usually revolt. And when they revolt, the ones who are comfortable with incremental change and are afraid of chasing the shiny new object. Because when I heard that comment today, I felt like the shiny new object was diversity, equity and inclusion that people were trying to avoid without saying it outright. And, someone who feels like they have been marginalized. It was like a low blow. So I, for one, appreciate people like you, Ann Wendel, Jerry Durham, Karen Litzy, and stuff. Who Have Sean Hagy and others, Dee Conetti, Sherry Teague reached out to us and say, how can we help? And you need people like that to be on your side. Martin Luther King needed white people. Okay. Rosa parks needed white people. Harriet Tubman needed white people to get where they're, even Mohammed Ali needed white people to be as successful as he is. We all need each other. If we are saying championing better together, how can you be better together if you're not willing to hear the reasons why you feel marginalized or victimized, it's not going to work. Stop turning around slogans or bumper stickers and start working on fixing the broken system that we have. That's all I'm asking for and we got to start working as a family, as uncomfortable as it may be. All right, we'll get over it and you're going to like and appreciate each other for it later on. Jenna Kantor:                26:44                Thank you guys for tuning in everyone, take care.     Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes!

  Let's Talk about Annual Physical Exam... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry I am here to start off men's health month with an episode on just what to expect during your annual wellness exams. Last week on the empower yourself for better health series, I talked about the biggest reasons why men are dying earlier is that we are just unaware of our health statuses. Our lack of going to the doctor, being educated on what are our biggest killers has attributed to the majority (8/10) top 10 leading causes of death worldwide to all disproportinately affect men greater. In fact it would likely be 9/10 if not for the fact that Alzheimers usually increases with age but we are dying to soon to experience it. The annual physical exam is the most appointment you can make when you see a doctor because it allows the doctors to essentially check you from head to toe on what is going on. It is also where we can discover the most problems so it is extremely important to make sure your friends and family members are listening to this episode so they know what to expect. 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: Empower Yourself Series - Episode 65 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 112 Transcript Episode 112 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, who start the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry as well as the CEO of Pierre Medical Consulting, helping you empower yourself for better health with the number one podcast for patient advocacy. This week we bring you episode 112, the focuses on men and their wellness exams. And of course if you listen to this on the month of June, it is men's health month. And if you happen to catch my recent live series on Empower Yourself for Better Health where I essentially kind of lay out the fact that men are dying out here because they're not aware of their health and you know, I hope to put a charge in someone's battery or you know, someone's relative, spouse, somebody to like really push the mill, friends and family members that we have to go get their routine checkups. And a few I want to check out drberrypierre.com/youtube where you can check out that most recent episode where I go through the top 10 causes for death in men and I really kind of lay out the law that says like, Hey, we really don't have any excuses to deal with the issues that we're dealing with now. So check if you have the chance. So again, today we're going to be talking about the wellness exam. The annual physical exam. Most people call it and a lot of times is probably the only way you can actually get your significant other, your brother, your father, your cousin. It's usually the only time you can get them to come into the doctor's office, right? Because again, a lot of times I don't see them very often but if I can almost see him one time, it's usually for their wellness exam. So I want you to just take a little step back and take some tips on what to expect for the physical exam and you know, understand why we might like crunch a lot of things in there because sometimes, especially with our male patients, we understand that that the likelihood that they're going to come back at sometimes kind of low. So we want to take advantage of it when we got a chance. Before I want to go I do want to give a shout out to Dr. Coreos who is a friend in the social media space. She actually runs the hashtag somedocs. And reason why I love her is the fact that she is champion physicians to want to get on social media and really take advantage of all of this stuff that it offers. You guys know for a long time I've really been championed that bill that says like, no, we have to get on social media. Our patients are on social media. And if you want to be respected, if you want to be accredited in your patient’s eye. Again, not talking about accredited in the physician’s eye where you know, you have a couple of journal articles and do some poster presentations and you may speak at a medical conference and two. Because for the most part, most of your patients don't care about that, right? One because they don't go to those conferences. They don't read those magazines so they don't even know. But would they do knows that they check their Twitter, they checked their Instagram and they check their Facebook, they checked their YouTube and you're not there. So she's a big part of this promotion and you know, making it okay for your physicians to one get on social media. And another thing I love about her is that with her hashtags somedocs. If you have a blog posts and video posts, whatever, and you feed tag or she will actually retweet it and kind of share it out. So again, thank you Dr. Coreos for that. I'm definitely much appreciated it. Just wanted to make sure I gave her a nice one shout out because she's definitely helped the show grow for the Lunch and Learn community. So it definitely appreciative all our efforts. So getting back, we're talking about episode 112. We’re gonna talk about men. We’re talking about the annual wellness exam. And sit back for great episode and I'll see you guys later. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright guys. So this is episode 112. This is gonna be a solo episode. And it's funny because obviously if you've been rocking with the show for quite some time, you know and that we started out as a solo episode. This is something that we do and I think we do well. And when we made the change over this past season, season three, we really wanted to make a concerted effort to get the best of the best when it comes to topics of discussion, especially for Lunch and Learn community. And I was very fortunate enough to do that. We've got like two months, almost two months in a row of just amazing guests and like I said, definitely happy for all of their expertise and their support and you know, does the knowledge that they kicked over these past couple months. But I am back with a solo episode and it's funny because actually this episode was going to be a group episode as well, but I was unable to connect with this week's guest. His schedule was busy. My schedules is busy so we were unable to connect. But we'll definitely make sure, you know, we get them onto the shows at some time. Right. We'll, it'll happen for sure. But of course this is June. We're talking about men's health and this episode we're talking about the wellness exam, the quote unquote the physical exam that a lot of times it's the only time I can see some of my male patients and it's something that a lot of times as a physician we kind of cherish and we really take advantage of. Because we understand that if I don't order these tests and I don't ask these questions, there's a chance I may not see this patient in front of me for another year. And for most of my patient specialized outpatient medicine, most of my patients, that's exactly was the case. They were like, doc, I love you but I'm not coming to see you more than once a year. So get whatever you need to get, do whatever tests you to do, ask whatever question you need to ask while I'm here cause it ain't happen. And once I leave and I respected it and I love that. And that definitely took advantage. So what I want to do is first, you know, do you listened to the episode 65, right? Empower Yourself for Better Health Series where I talked about how the lack of awareness and our health has been killing us. And like us, I mean men, right? It's been absolutely killing us. And I talked about top 10 causes of death in that episode. So go ahead, check that out on the YouTube page. But when we stress all of these different factors here, a lot of these things can sometimes, and I hate to say it, but a lot of them could be avoided if they would just comfort a checkup and they would just come and see regularly. And that's why we take so much advantage when we do have you in our office. Right? Because we don't know what's the next time you get to come see us. So if you listen, right? If you're able to get that at your male, father, your cousin, your relative, your friend, spouse, whatever. If you were able to get them to the office, right? Like what should they expect when they get there? Right? I think that's always a question at hand, right? It's like this unknown cloud of secrecy, right? Again, they don't go to the doctor often and a lot of times it's out of fear. Right? And a lot of times it's out of this superhuman attitude that men tend to have. Like, I'm not sick, I don't get sick. I'm okay. Like nothing's bothering me. I think one of the most important questions that we'd like to ask, especially in a hospital setting is do you have any medical history? Right? As usually our questions, right? And for my men, I'm usually keen on asking, okay, if you say you have no medical history, what is the last time he saw a doctor? Because it's very easy to have no medical history if you've been avoiding us for five to 10 years. Right? Like if you haven't seen a doctor, and again that five to 10 years, may sound crazy to some of my Lunch and Learn community members. But I know some people who have not seen a doctor in five to 10 years, like that's just the way they're rocking and you know, God bless them, right? God bless them that something's not clicking up on the inside that we don't know about. But let's say you know, it's been five, it's been 10 years, right? And they haven't seen the doctor. And of course when you ask them to have any medical history, they say no cause they really don't because no one's ever told them. Right? But you are able to get this person into your office and you're able to get the quote unquote physical exam, right. Because first of all, let me tell you something. The physical exam, the actual physical part is, you know, the easiest part that probably takes like three to five minutes at most. But what's most important is all of the ancillary questions you're gonna ask your patient in front of you why you got in there, right? So why you got them there, right? And I always like to start head to toe, right? So first and foremost, for people who may not be familiar with the annual exams, right? The annual exam is the doctor's appointment that you go to, it's usually your longest doctor's appointment and not only is it a long the doctor's appointment, It usually has a whole bunch of labs are kind of associated with it, right? So that's usually when your doctor orders lasts for just about everything. And we're going to talk about those labs later. But it's one of those ones where your doctors has to take advantage and get you, you know, while you're there. And they really liked it, you know, strike while it's hot. So they order every test as every question because they aren't sure if they're not going to see you again. Right? And for some people was honest, right? I used to take care of patients who are in their 19, 20, 21-year-old. Like I don't want to see you in my office more than once a year. Right? Cause there's really no reason, especially if you have no medical history, that you should be seeing me that often. Not say that you can come to me if you, you know, you have a cold or you know, get sick or I'm not saying that. But they were just coming just for like a regular checkup and you have no medical history. You're not taking medications. Right. I don't expect you to be seen more often then, you know, once or twice a year. Right. Maybe you might see him every six months just to kind of keep them in the loop, but you're not seeing them any more than that. So you have your male, right? Let's just, we'll call the male Berry. Right? So Berry, you know, finally mustered up the courage and he makes the doctor's appointment, right? And I talked about this before. A lot of times what pushes Berry to making a doctor's appointment is they have a person like Maria screaming in their ear saying, hey, you need to go see the doctor and they finally do it. Or there's something, some sexual dysfunction issues going on. And Berry's frustrated and he's like, no, I gotta go see a doctor. I got to take care of this. Right? I've seen a commercial, I can take a blue pill and I'm good. I need someone to prescribe a blue pill. So those are usually the top two reasons why, you know, men tend to go to the doctor's office, at least in my experience. So you know, you're able to get buried to come to the doctor's office and you know, he's in a waiting room and you know, he finally get stay room and now he's ready. So usually what tends to occur, especially in your annual wellness exam is. Your doctor usually does a head to toe approach, right? In terms of how am I going to assess this person, how am I going to see what's going on? So usually, obviously from head, we start. I always like to check for vision issues, right? As men, because we're so machismo with it, right? Like wearing glasses is like this taboo thing that a lot of us don't like to do unless we absolutely have to do it. And for the most part there's a lot of diseases that are kind of manifesting with vision issues. So a lot of times when you're thinking, we're just asking about your vision and vision history is because we want to make sure that it may not be contributing and contributed to from another disease like high blood pressure or diabetes, which is very common. So we tend to ask for a vision issues. We want to make sure your eyes are checked. If you wear glasses, you want to make sure he got that done. And we want to make sure you're eating well. And again, the eating well is goes along with the bowel habits because we know the older you get, the more likely you are to have these issues with bowel and bowel dysfunction. And if you're one of my 50 year old gentlemen, right, or 45, depending on your race, right? Uh, and really just kind of varies but just kinda in general, you know, its colonoscopy time, right? And again, it's one of those times where we want to make sure the plumbing is working all the way through and through. Because one of the top 10 leading causes of death for men is cancer, right? So colon cancer is something in screen, when you hit that age because it is something that we should be preventing as long as you get a regular checkup. So a colon cancer is a big one, right? So again, I know I skipped down, but like, so we're checked the vision, now we're checking the heart, right? And the heart exam. Not only goals or just you know, just for listening, but you know, we're checking the blood pressure, we're checking your heart rate. Usually when you came in, right? We want to make sure that you don't have this underlying problem that could lead to disastrous effects that rock. Like I tell people all the time, blood pressure is one of those things that your body can deal with and deal with it a lot until it can't. And once it can't, now we're talking about stroke. Now we're talking about heart attack. Now we’re talking about disease in the feet, right? Like you can't feel and you're foot, right? That’s what happens when your blood pressure becomes such a problem that your body says all right, yeah I'm done. And so making sure that your blood pressure's fine, right? Because again, blood pressure is one of those things that you don't really feel symptoms from low blood pressure, especially when it's high, until it's a problem, right? If you're at the point when you're starting to feel symptoms because of blood pressures on the high side, you need to go see your doctor immediately, right? If you're listening to this and you know when your blood pressure is high, like you can feel it. That means I need to go to the doctor because you should not be feeling it. And if you're at the point where you're feeling when your blood pressure's high, that is a problem. So for heart, we're talking about blood pressure, we're talking about a heart rate. I kind of move actually for men, right? And not important for women. Is that the prostate exam? And this is something that I think personally scares men a lot, not only from doing regular checkups, but because of the prostate exam and the digital administration of the endoscopic scope. I think a lot of men dish, you know, shy away from that whatsoever. And it's funny because I've had men who meet the criteria who meet the age. And I said, okay, all right, let me, uh, let me check your prostate, see how that's doing. And they get stage fright, right? Hey, it's so, it's such a terrifying thing for them, right? It's very weird. I in that instance, right. Especially when you know cancer's a leading cause of death, right? All we have to do is this, there's physical exam tests that we do in our office. And of course it was sometimes was hanging out with blood work, right? But in our office, and you still refuse, you know? Yeah. I'm kind of weary of your decision making. So that's definitely something to think about, especially when we're doing about the abdominal pelvic exam is in the men at certain ages need to be checked for prostate, right. In large prostates. Now I've always said this a lot, that a patient will always tell you what's going on before you have to do any tests, right? So most of your patients, if they're going to talk about, you know, in large prostate, they're going to tell you urinary symptoms, complaints, they're gonna punch in that direction. That still doesn't mean you're not supposed to check but they will kind of point you in that direction to make sure you're going in the right way. So talked about the eyes, we talked about the mouth, we talked about the heart, talk about the abdomen, the lungs as well. Lungs is a big one. I know a lot of you may have seen these COPD commercials. Again, COPD top 10 leading causes of death for men. And you may have seen COPD commercials where this random person is sitting by a lake and because of the COPD medication, now they can breathe again and they can go outside again. And that's all great and dandy, but they don't tell you that usually the patient has COPD because they were a smoker and they were smoking for five years, 10 years, 20 years or they always kind of skip that part, right? That's always tell my patients like you can't skip the fact that this person was smoking for 20 years. Right? So it's not surprising that they're going to have some lung issues. So making sure that your lungs are working well, make sure you're not getting shorter breath easy. That is something you want to be very forthcoming with your physician. And for men, I could tell you what tends to happen with men is that we're so secretive, right, that we're so secretive to our family members, to our friends. So that's why we don't go to the doctor in the first place. But you would think once they get to the doctor's office, this, the veil of secrecy would leave? Nope. A lot of them are secret to the end. Like this to the point where you almost have to call them out like, hey, you know what? Maria sent me over here and said you were having issues with your bowels, but yours ain't they're not. Which is true, right? More often than not. If a person, if a male is sent over to the doctor's office by a female relative, a spouse, someone who says like you need to go to the doctor's office, a lot of times they'll, they'll be in the room with you and not because you know, they don't trust you. It's because they don't trust that their partner is actually going to tell them all of the problems. And that happens with men a lot. We tried to internalize everything and you know, try not to seek help and you know, that's where problems definitely will arise because of it. So I think, so we've talked about heart, we talked about lung, I talked about abdominal pelvis. We talked about the eyes making sure eyes are check as well too. And we had Dr. Candrice who talked about skin cancer, a couple of shows back. So again, the importance of, making sure there's no weird moles or rash or anything that your, your family members kind of played off. We don't want that. So making sure, and again, your skin exams, your regular physician can definitely take care of that while they got you here and kind of move. And if you need something else then see to the dermatologist. So skin exams, definitely an important one as well. And I think last but not the least, is it comes some of the blood testing. So what actually gets tested when we go to get our physical exam? So I could tell you this from a slew of tests, right? We don't have to mention the names because the names that are really important is what they're looking for. Some of our testing, right? We'll look for signs of inflammation, we'll look signs for infection. Some of our tests within that will check to see how stable is the person's blood count is? And blood count is a very important a number to think about because if you have this patient who's coming in and they're giving you symptoms concerning that, they may be bleeding somewhere. You want to make sure that blood count is good. And stable. So blood count is definitely something that thinks about. And then we check for your electrolytes. We check for potassium and we check for sodium, we check calcium, chloride. We check for all of these different things here because we want to make sure your electrolyte nutritional status is adequate because if not we have to take care of it. And we'd take a look at the kidneys. Kidneys are important. You'll notice when I stop and mentioned the disease is because it probably hits the top 10 diseases that killed men every year. And kidney disease is definitely in that ball park, right? So kidney disease, and again, this is a routine test. Again, I know my patient Berry's not going to come for another year, so I got to make sure I get all of these tests done while I got him here. So again, we're checking for kidney function, we're checking for electrolytes, we're checking to make sure your blood counts stable, we're checking to make sure you know the signs of inflammation or infection. And then, moving all, we check for the big gun right? We talk about cholesterol. Cholesterol is a big one for us, right? So we want to check your cholesterol, make sure your cholesterol was doing well. And we had previous episodes where we talked about the thoughts of cholesterol and good and bad, and what medications to take. We're not going to do this here. Moving forward, we checking for your diabetes? Diabetes is one of those things. It's one of those, and I wrote a blog post about this. It's a disease I probably not wish would not wish on my enemy, right? Because there's not a system that's not affected by diabetes. And I think what's happening, it's probably our fault, is that when we talk about diabetes, especially in the General Public Forum, a lot of people focus on the sugar aspect. Like, oh yes, my sugar is high, but they don't realize for us, right? When we hear your sugar's high, I hear, wow, you have concerns that you're going to have some vascular damage, right? Because diabetes is an extremely fast schuller disease, right? It affects the heart. It affects the legs, it affects obviously our kidneys, brain too. So every system that can be fed through the blood system, right, which is everything diabetes can effect, especially when it's uncontrolled. So we're checking for that. So again remember and the test that we run lets me know how well you did in the past three months. So not one of these things where I have to be concerned that this like oh maybe a little bit false or you just had some cheeseburger the next day. Like that's not going to necessarily change this testing here and may adjust your cholesterol testing but it's not going to change that you're testing for your diabetes or how severe your diabetes is. I will sometimes check for thyroid as well cause I want to make sure, and again I'm, I'm kind of foreshadowing get right cause I want to make sure all of your hormones are regulated correctly cause we've already seen that when your hormones are not regulated correctly. Because thyroid is out of whack, it doesn't matter if your hormones get back into that normal rhythm. Your thyroid has to be a normal rhythm as well. So thyroid hormones, a big one as well that we checked quite often. We've checked the urinalysis. Your urinalysis is a big one. And it's big one because it's cheap, but it tells us so much information, right? Urinalysis can tell me if you had blood in your urine, right? You're now tell me if you have an infection. Urinalysis can tell me if you have a stone in your kidney. So all of these different things that your urinalysis does a great job and educating us on, and it's a cheap test as a quick test. Definitely, something that I always like to glean information from. Last but not least, and this is the big one, right? Testosterone levels. Because I know, especially for my men, someone's gonna want to know about testosterone, right? They're gonna want to know about, you know, artificial mutation of testosterone when needed. So a testosterone levels. And usually, it's not, it doesn't come with the annual wellness exam. But if you're giving me complaints and concerns that sexual health may be affected. I'm going to do something about it, right? So I will check a testosterone level just to make sure all your hormones are kind of in line. So that's really the big crux of the annual exam for my men and I really try to kinda hit home all of the big take-home parts to really to let you know that it's not a difficult thing to do. It's not a test you need to be scared of. And I think knowing the answer, right? Because I think a lot of times when we talk about disease processes, some people just don't want to know the answer. But when it comes to, you know, taking care of your health and taking care of your wellness, you have to know what the answer is, right? Because we have no choice because it's killing us, right? And I hate to be doom and gloom, but I really want to stress the point, especially when you have this month of June and you know, everyone's hype about men's health month, but I know what's next month comes around, people ain't going to be at hype anymore. So I want to like make sure I'm shouting it from the rooftops, the importance of getting our stuff together men. So again, I want to thank everyone for listening with me - Dr. Berry. We’re back with a solo episode like I missed you guys. But again, I want to thank you guys for all your support, has been absolutely phenomenal in this past season, this season, right? Season three that we're in as far as the support and effort and people downloading and people leaving five-star reviews. You now had a chance leave that five-star review for me and you guys have a great and blessed day. I'm going to see you guys next week and next week we do have a special guest, right? So you don't have to worry about hearing my voice again solo. Next week we do have a special guest. Because like I said, we like special guests. You guys have a great and blessed day.   Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

22. Zogreo

LIVE from Graham Sessions in Austin, Texas, I welcome Justin Moore on the show to discuss the American Physical Therapy Association.  Dr. Justin Moore, PT, DPT, a physical therapist and veteran of both the profession and the association with more than 20 years' experience, leads the American Physical Therapy Association in the role of CEO. He has been with APTA for 18 years and has held numerous positions, including executive vice president of public affairs, leading the public policy agenda and payment and communications departments, leading its federal and state affairs advocacy departments and serving as the association's lead lobbyist on Capitol Hill. In this episode, we discuss: -How the APTA strives to provide an inclusive experience as a macro organization -What Justin would change about the APTA -APTA’s role in the World Confederation for Physical Therapy -Justin’s biggest takeaway from the Graham Sessions -And so much more!   Resources: Email: justinmoore@apta.org Justin Moore Twitter Justin Moore LinkedIn World Confederation for Physical Therapy Congress 2019 The Healing of America by T.R. Reid Book   For more information on Justin: Justin Moore, PT, DPT, a physical therapist and veteran of both the profession and the association with more than 20 years' experience, leads the American Physical Therapy Association in the role of CEO. He has been with APTA for 18 years and has held numerous positions, including executive vice president of public affairs, leading the public policy agenda and payment and communications departments, leading its federal and state affairs advocacy departments and serving as the association's lead lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Moore also previously oversaw APTA's practice and research departments. He has been honored for his contributions to physical therapy and public policy by receiving the R. Charles Harker Policymaker Award from APTA's Health Policy and Administration Section and the Distinguished Service Award from APTA's Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy. In addition, Moore has written, presented, and lectured on health policy, payment, and government affairs issues to a variety of health care and business groups across the country.   Moore received his doctor of physical therapy degree from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2005, his master of physical therapy degree from University of Iowa in 1996, and his bachelor of science degree in dietetics from Iowa State University in 1993. He was honored by Iowa State University's College of Human Sciences with the Helen LaBaron Hilton Award in 2014 and the university's Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition's Alumni Impact Award in 2011, and he was the Family and Consumer Sciences' Young Alumnus of the Year in 2003. He also recently completed a 3-year term on Iowa State University's College of Human Sciences Board of Advisors. Moore was part of the inaugural Leadership Alexandria class in 2004 and served on the Northern Virginia Health Policy Forum Board of Directors.   Read the full transcript below: Karen Litzy:                   00:01                Hey Justin, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you back. So we have a couple of questions to get through today and we also want to talk about the first half of Graham Sessions. So we are recording live at Graham sessions in Austin, Texas. And I've got a couple of questions for you and then we'll talk about your big takeaways from the morning session here at Graham sessions. So first thing is, and this will probably be addressed at Graham sessions tomorrow, but what is the APTA doing the American Physical Therapy Association doing to address the current needs of physical therapists, physical therapist assistants and students to ensure their membership is quote unquote worth it? Justin Moore:                00:44                Yeah, it's a great question.  It's a question I get often and unfortunately don't have always a great answer because it is such a personal and passionate issue of how do you find value inside this community of APTA. And as you know, value has two meanings, an economic meaning, do you get a return in your investment? And so we look at the physical therapist and the physical therapist assistant of investing in APTA and do they get a return, so there's an economic part of this question, but there's also a principal part. Do you value APTA? And we'd like to focus on that. And then how can we really engage the physical therapist and the physical therapist assistant and really showing value to APTA and getting value from APTA. And I sort of look at it in Adam Grant's philosophy of give and take, you know, the transactional or economic value is what do you get from APTA? Justin Moore:                01:38                And then the give is what do you give to APTA? We're really blessed by our members giving to us and increasing the value for all. And I think the value at the end of the day, the take home value that PTs get from APTA is we're an unabashedly, aggressive about increasing the opportunities for physical therapists. So if you believe in that mission and that value, how do we continue to connect you to your colleagues? How do we continue to build a community that's going to make this career you've chosen make a difference in people's lives, but also return a fulfilling career to you. And so get that return on investment and that value. So, another thing I'll just tie is our board of directors has been really aggressively looking at how do we continue to be relevant to the next generation of clinicians. And we know healthcare is changing. We know business is changing and we have to be getting better at being relevant at the point of care. We have to get better at promoting the value of our profession and we have to get better at connecting our experts. And right now, I think that's what our strategic planning process is about, is how do we become more relevant to those individual clinicians and professionals. Karen Litzy:                   02:50                And I think that's different from a couple of standpoints. One and we’ll probably talk a little bit about this tomorrow, is that APTA is obviously a macro organization. There's 101,000 members. So how do you incentivize members from one not dropping off, So a retention issue, right? And two, how do you attract them in to have that feel of more of a micro organization? Right? Cause it's all about the details and it's all about incentives.  So how can the APTA, which is a very large organization and it needs to be that way. It can't be small. So how do you give a macro organization a micro feel? Justin Moore:                03:35                Yeah, absolutely. It's our greatest challenge. And I think, you know, one of the things that is very good about APTA is we interact with probably 95% of potential members in a five year period. So we have 80% market share of students, 30% market share of practicing professionals. It's a little less than 10% of physical therapist assistants. So we do engage with almost our entire community over a five year period. But we have to return value in the short term to keep them a member. And the greatest challenges that is, how do you let this very diverse clinical community, how do you build a spirit and harness the power of inclusion? So people can find their people so they can find their community inside this large network of professionals. And sometimes APTA has been too complex, too fragmented, and too divisive to achieve that objective. Justin Moore:                04:29                And so we have to look at those themes on a pretty regular basis is how do we become more inclusive? And so how do we help people find their people, their network of individuals, because they're going to get great value in that if they're going to be a better private practitioner, if there going to be a better pro Bono clinic operator? If they can connect to their people that's going to return value, how do we reduce the fragmentation? We all are committed to promoting the value of PT Well, if we're talking about the value of a certain part of PT, we're constantly competing inside the PT world. It really dilutes our impact. And we know that from data is we're a pretty fragmented community. And so we've got to reduce that fragmentation and build unity. And have to be better working together. Justin Moore:                05:17                We're not unified.  The bigger you get, the harder it is to feel the intimacy. We had a consultant work with APTA’s board one time and he put up a matrix.  He said, you can be three of the four things in the quadrant, but you can't be the two things that are across from each other. And the two things that cross each other in that matrix were intimacy and strategic. And so to be a strategic organization, can you still be intimate in an association of one where you address every need, every one, and we have to figure out, we're going to be a complex organization, but we have to figure out how to give an intimate experience, but be strategic in that intimate experience. Karen Litzy:                                           And it's a challenge. It's a challenge for a large organization, but it's good to hear that that's on the minds of the people at APTA. Justin Moore:                06:06                Yeah. I think we've realized that we have fallen short at times of really being able to connect people, really giving people a sense of inclusion. Even though we've tried to be inclusive. If it is not conveying that to the end user or member and they don't feel included then we're missing the mark. Karen Litzy:                                           One thing it's not about is the money. Justin Moore:                                        We can give you in economics, I always tell the story is, you know, it is a federated model, has a complex new structure, but APTA dues are 295 in the realm of that, it's a pretty low price point inside of professional associations.  If you compare us to other medical associations, other nursing professions, it's a pretty low price points. We probably return economic value for transactional value to the member, and show that value pretty well. But if they don't value their experience, it doesn't matter what the price point is. And so that's what we really have to work to achieve. Karen Litzy:                   06:59                Yeah. Not Easy. I look forward to seeing what comes out in the next couple of years there. Okay. Moving on. If you can end with, maybe we already said this a little bit, but if you can change one thing about the APTA organization, what would it be and why? Justin Moore:                07:13                I think it would be to harness the power of inclusion. We've really been focused on that and how do we create a community that at times has been competitive or fragmented and how do we bring them together for commonality and unification around promoting the value of PT, promoting the brand of PT and we're going through a process right now at APTA of rebranding and we're going to be launching that in the next 12 months. And what we found is we went through the research on doing that is we're conveyed way too many opportunities to put your own perspective of what the value of PT is. And we need to really get unified and more inclusive in that march toward promoting our value. Karen Litzy:                   07:57                Simplify the message a little bit more.  It is hard because within physical therapy you have so many options of workplaces and how you work and who you work with and states and personalities. And I mean the list can go on and on. I would imagine having that sense of inclusivity among 101,000 members, but 300,000 PTs across the country is not easy when everyone is so diverse, diverse in race, religion, gender and diverse in practice settings. So it's like you have to not be, I'm trying to do everything but a master of none. Justin Moore:                08:43                If you're trying to do everything, you're actually doing nothing. That's sort of been a challenge for APTA. They're trying to be all things to all people and was at times maybe a little bit mediocre at everything. So we really have to do that. And I think the common theme is we've done some analysis both on the data side and then actually a social listing. And two themes come out about the PT community is we're pretty divisive. So when you guys see this is people like to tear other people down or can say that they're better at a certain thing than others. So if we could get away from that divisiveness and correct that, that would be great.  If an outsider was looking at our dialogues, it would not be a positive experience.  Karen Litzy:                   09:36                I’ve had a patient tell me like what you guys really don't get along.  I’ve seen some conversations on social media. And I was first of all shocked that a patient would actually bring that up so people are looking and they are reading. Justin Moore:                09:44                We've had outside consultants that have look at this and they said they can't believe two things. How some of our acting members tear us down. And so these are people who have already made a decision to join us but yet like to tear down the organization. And then what we found is when we were out looking at the research on our next strategic plan and looking at net promoter scores our highest distractor group, was some of our longest serving members, and essentially we figured out we're not engaging their expertise well enough. And so that was sort of a wake up call for us instead of saying, oh, why are former leaders tearing us down? We said, wait a minute, they're feeling lost. They're feeling not included. They have given a lot of time to this association and now they feel like they've been dropped off a cliff. And so how do we give them a parachute, how do we give them a glider? What can we do to keep them in the spirit of inclusion? Karen Litzy:                   10:36                I think that's great because you know, in some conversations I had yesterday, someone brought up to me that it was really great and it was that the APTA has 101,000 quote unquote experts. So the organization is not the expert. They're the facilitators of all these experts that they have at their fingertips. And just think how much the organization can do by being a stellar facilitator of all those experts. Justin Moore:                11:05                APTA is a vehicle. We don't practice, we don't do research, right? We don't do, we do a little bit of education. We do a little bit for professional development, but we can be a vehicle where our educators can educate, our researchers can publish, our researchers can have access to funding and our practitioners can get that. So we have to really leverage our role as convener. Our role as networker. As a funder. The very basic principle of association is people come together for collective success. So they give us dues you use to put into a collective operation for PR, for advocacy, for all those things. And we've got to get better at that. Include that spirit of inclusion. Karen Litzy:                   11:46                Perfect. Alright, next question. So the World Confederation of PT Conference is coming up in a few months in Geneva in May. So how is the APTA improving its outreach and involvement in the international world of physical therapy? Are you going to be in Geneva? Justin Moore:                11:54                Yeah, it's a big priority for APTA to be an international partner and contributor to global PT. And so WCPT is one part of that. It's not our inclusive effort. But APTA has a long history of involvement with WCPT including being one of the founding countries and including having at least a couple of presidents I believe. So, most recently, Marilyn Moffat was president of the WCPT. So we have a longstanding commitment and contribution to WCPT and the conference in Geneva will be a great community of international leaders where we can go and be in a posture of learning. So a lot of times we're not going to, we go and have a delegation at WCPT, but we're really going to interact with our colleagues in Australia and the UK and the Netherlands and really learn from their successes and how we can apply those back here. Justin Moore:                13:01                I think this morning at the Graham sessions when we heard T.R. Reid and it's a great book. I highly recommend it, but he went around and experienced healthcare in different countries.  That's sort of what we do at WCPT. We go and we talk to the Netherlands of how did they stand up their registry? How did the UK be frontline in primary care, how did Australia get this great expertise in sports and orthopedics and manual therapy? And so what can we do to really leverage that global community to improve care back in the US as well.  WCPT is just like APTA, it’s an organization. And so we have a responsibility as a member. It's interesting, WCPT doesn't have members that are individual physical therapists. Their membership is the organizations that comprise the countries. Justin Moore:                13:49                And so we are one of about over a little over a hundred member organizations at WCPT and we, you know, we take that responsibility very seriously and always are looking for opportunities to contribute to their objectives and especially when they're aligned with our objectives. Karen Litzy:                                           I’m looking forward to going to Geneva. I can't wait. I think it's going to be awesome and I'm actually going to be staying with some international PTs. So one from Canada and one from Ireland. I go to a lot of international conferences. It has really changed the way that I practice, it has changed my outlook on the profession as a whole. And what you find when you talk to therapists from different countries, we're not all that different. The way we practice, the challenges that we all have in these different countries are very similar. And I found that to be very eye opening. Justin Moore:                                        As a physical therapist who's gone into association management, I've gotten huge value from some of my colleagues of other physio therapy associations. Justin Moore:                14:46                So Cris Massis at the Australian physiotherapy association, he's just been a great role model. Someone to learn from. And it's nice because it's safe. You know, we're not competitors. He's got his lane. I got my lane and he's been a great resource. Mike Brennan, who was at the Canadian Association a few years ago has been a great reference and resource and I've just been able to observe a lot of these international CEOs and how they conduct their business. And it's been a great learning opportunity for me as well, a little different clinic than the practitioners. Karen Litzy:                   15:20                The parallels are there and the APTA, we’re as clinicians trying to learn from each other and as heads of organizations you're trying to learn from each other. Justin Moore:                                        It's one of the strongest things is the opportunity to interact with those other CEOs. Karen Litzy:                                           So before we finish up, what were your biggest takeaways from the morning here at Graham sessions? Justin Moore:                                        Well, I thought my biggest takeaway, or I don't know if it’s a takeaway or my biggest observation is a lot of thought provoking conversations are already starting. And this concept, and we're going to face this all the time, this concept of what is next in healthcare reform that was started by a T.R. Reid’s presentation, but also what does that mean for physical therapy and where do we need to change our lens? Where do we need to change our focus and how do we need to adapt to be part of the solution, not part of the problem was a key theme. There's a lot of brains in that room, and so I'm looking forward to how they process over the next several hours and come up with solutions. It's easy to point at the problems, but the solutions are always more complex. Karen Litzy:                   16:29                So thank you so much for coming on.       Thanks for listening and subscribing to the podcast! Make sure to connect with me on twitter, instagram  and facebook to stay updated on all of the latest!  Show your support for the show by leaving a rating and review on iTunes!  

As corporate finance attorney and raising two children of her own, Catherine Hodder was thrusts in the role as family caregiver for her father after he suffered a series of mini-strokes. Suddenly balancing a career, raising children, and taking care of her father, Catherine joined millions of Americans in the Sandwich Generation. Through her experience as a caregiver, Catherine shifted her focus from corporate finance to estate planning and helps guide family caregivers along their journey of caregiving. Listen in and learn about Catherine's new book, Estate Planning for the Sandwich Generation: How to help Your Parents and Protect Your Kids, her caregiving experience with her father and how she is creating Healing Ties all around us!

As corporate finance attorney and raising two children of her own, Catherine Hodder was thrusts in the role as family caregiver for her father after he suffered a series of mini-strokes. Suddenly balancing a career, raising children, and taking care of her father, Catherine joined millions of Americans in the Sandwich Generation. Through her experience as a caregiver, Catherine shifted her focus from corporate finance to estate planning and helps guide family caregivers along their journey of caregiving. Listen in and learn about Catherine's new book, Estate Planning for the Sandwich Generation: How to help Your Parents and Protect Your Kids, her caregiving experience with her father and how she is creating Healing Ties all around us!

As corporate finance attorney and raising two children of her own, Catherine Hodder was thrusts in the role as family caregiver for her father after he suffered a series of mini-strokes. Suddenly balancing a career, raising children, and taking care of her father, Catherine joined millions of Americans in the Sandwich Generation. Through her experience as a caregiver, Catherine shifted her focus from corporate finance to estate planning and helps guide family caregivers along their journey of caregiving. Listen in and learn about Catherine’s new book, Estate Planning for the Sandwich Generation: How to help Your Parents and Protect Your Kids, her caregiving experience with her father and how she is creating Healing Ties all around us!

As corporate finance attorney and raising two children of her own, Catherine Hodder was thrusts in the role as family caregiver for her father after he suffered a series of mini-strokes. Suddenly balancing a career, raising children, and taking care of her father, Catherine joined millions of Americans in the Sandwich Generation. Through her experience as a caregiver, Catherine shifted her focus from corporate finance to estate planning and helps guide family caregivers along their journey of caregiving. Listen in and learn about Catherine’s new book, Estate Planning for the Sandwich Generation: How to help Your Parents and Protect Your Kids, her caregiving experience with her father and how she is creating Healing Ties all around us!

TREE HUGGERS cause fires that become larger uncontrollable ones. The TRUTH hurts and can sometimes even take lives!

Click above to listen in iTunes.. Here's the Pattern I've Noticed 'the Greats' Following... What's going on everyone. This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Announcer: 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. Steve Larsen: Hey, you guys, super excited for this episode here. I've got somewhat of a treat here. This is a little bit different. One of my buddies, Ben Willson, totally the man, been friends forever with him, actually made my first dollar online with him, while I was in college. He's the man. Anyway, he and I chat all the time, super good friends, and he had a question about content creation strategies and how to go about doing it in a way where it doesn't suck up your entire life. What I wanted to do is drop in a Vox conversation that we had about that very topic. So what I'm going to do is I'm actually ... I have the Voxers right here, and I'm just going to drop them in right here, so you guys can hear them. It is a little bit long, but I think the strategies that I say in here should connect a lot of dots for people and help people understand more about how we can produce so much content in such a little amount of time. This is literally how I am doing it. There's more of this that I'm implementing personally, as well, my own processes. Honestly, when you start looking at about how all the gurus actually create so much stuff, most of them are doing variations of this, if not this exact same thing. So let me go ahead and go over to the episode here, and please let me know if you enjoyed this, and give a shout out to Ben Willson for asking the question and sucking this information out of me, because sometimes I don't realize some of the things I'm doing. I'm just doing them. You know what I mean? So this was helpful. Ben Wilson: What am I doing? What am I doing? How should I say this. I spent eight months creating my first info product before I ever sold any of it. You know that I mean? Eight months, and it sucked, and I thought I was doing it the right way, but it was the total wrong way, because I still had not hung around Russell to realize what he actually was doing. Now, though, I know exactly how he does it, which is awesome. The way he pumps out so many freaking products ... because he has a hold. I mean, granted he's got a graphics guy. He's got a video guy. He's got a Facebook guy. He's got this. He's got this, whatever, but he's still the main creative, you know? He is. He's still the main innovator of products there. What I've noticed, watching him, is that ... so I spent eight months creating that first product, and no one bought it for months after it was done. Instead, and this is the scariest thing on the planet, but it is ... How should I say this? Dude, he sells stuff before he ever, ever starts creating it, and it's the way he rolls it out, and he pre-frames it with everybody, so they know that it's not ready. He says, "Hey, look," two weeks from the time that it starts ... I'm sure that, I've talked about this on my podcast before, so you're probably like... That's how, though, like "Hey, it starts in two weeks. Part of the early bird pricing is we're going to give a little price drop as a thank you. It's $9.97 to join." Then one week out, "Hey, it's one week away, $9.97 to join, early bird pricing." Then on the actual day, "Hey, guess what? It's actually, opened today, but we're still accepting the early bird pricing deal," right? Then a week after you've opened the cart. "Hey, good news. You guys don't have to wait like everyone else did. You can get started right now, for just $9.97." Same thing two weeks in. "You don't need to start. There's already two modules that are already done in there for you." But really, what you're doing is, so that's the surface level that everybody sees but what you're actually doing and this is how I build Secrets Masterclass what you're actually doing is you put an ask campaign onto every single module, so you know at least what the models are gonna be but they're not created yet. So on every single module you have an ask campaign. So let's say the first module was about how to drive Facebook ads and module number two is about how to talk to people on the phone, I don't know I'm just making stuff up. Let's say module number three is about whatever. You would go and you would say, "Okay, I'm so excited for this module with you guys." Sorry, "So excited for this module with you guys." Module number one's going to be all about Facebook ads just so I make sure I've got the content correctly, addressing your needs. What is your number one question or challenge about Facebook ads right now? And they're, when they go through and answer it they're giving the freaking content that they're asking you to create. It's funny because I usually go way past what they're expecting, way overboard. I have totally done that on this [inaudible 00:05:17] products thing. 100%, you know what I mean? Because I'm building stuff that they didn't even know existed, which is fine 'cause I'm going to use it in other areas, but I won't probably sell it like this in the future. Anyway, so that's one way as far as rolling out courses and you probably, I mean you probably know that, I'm sure. Here's another way, I'm just going off the top of my head, like here's several ways of repurposing content like an absolute beast. So we'll have, do you know the difference between, this is also one of the major keys, it's the difference between an opportunity switch and an opportunity stack. If you, I know you've read "Extra Secrets" but, when it's an opportunity stack, those are way easier than opportunity switches, with an opportunity stack and we're just doing like one off sales when they're, "Hey we should sell this," but it's not like a continuity, it's not like easily continuity based thing like, Funnel Immersion, do you remember that? I don't know if you ever saw that but Funnel Immersion was like the back archives of all the treatings he had done for his inner circle. So like 300 bucks. It was amazing. And on day two it was like $400 for the same content. On the third day it was $500 for the exact same content because on the fourth day it closed out and you still can't buy it. If you go to Funnelimmersion.com you still can't buy it but what it did is it let us create a product. Sorry. It let us create a product and get paid for the creation of the product. Okay he doesn't like to create content without getting paid for it. So he always sells it first and then he goes out and he creates the content second. So it's the same kind of thing so all he did was he had these pre-created things and all I did was I aggregated them and we sold it, it made 300 grand in like three days it was ridiculous and we closed it out but now what we know is that that offers awesome. So it becomes a very easy upsell in other funnels. So, I can't remember which funnels I'm part of right now, but you can't buy it on the open web, which is awesome because it's let us say in the pitch now, on the first OTO, "Hey this is literally not available on the internet." You know the back archives of X, Y, and Z is $300 and we know it converts well because it sold so well so he'll take these one off products and make them the upsells inside other funnels where it makes sense to have that thing. And I'm trying to think what other ninja strategies or content tips. The repurposing thing that is totally, I'm sure that's kind of self, I'm sure you've done that before too. That's why I like [inaudible 00:08:20] so freaking much, oh my gosh, I just create one podcast episode and it blasts all over the place on youtube and video platforms and also, tons of social medias and the blog and, it just gets repurposed like a beast. It's kind of cool because if you can get your own content strategy down it lets you feel to the rest of the world your like, a hundred guys. When your just like one or two. Here's another cool strategy that I'm actually gonna start implementing it, especially as I go solo. Dude, I know you've noticed content creation takes for freaking ever and it's a huge pain in the butt so I'm gonna start doing what I've seen a lot of other inner circle people do and actually I've actually already been doing it to a smaller degree. And that is a lot of these guys will bash their content in a serious way. Sorry, dude I'm yawning like crazy, I gotta go to sleep soon. [inaudible 00:09:24]at like 2 AM I gotta go to bed now but anyways so what they'll do is this. They will find themselves a graphics guy and like a general social media manager person. Kay, and what they do is and this is what [John Lee Dumas 00:09:44] does, JLD, entrepreneur on fire, I got to listen to him, got to talk with him, he's a cool guy. They will schedule all of their interviews for their podcasts for all of their content creation or every video they're gonna shoot for that, for the next while, you know, three months even and his team gets it transcribed, takes a picture from it to turn it into a meme, they turn it into a podcast, they turn it into a blog post, into an Instagram thing. Anyway they repurpose it into every platform that you can even conceive in a week's time. So first of all it gets passed to this person and they create a meme out of it. And then they hand it off to the next person and they get the next one and they create it out of the meme out of that one and they hand it off to the next person and this next person what they do is, and this is these ridiculous content generating machines that they put together. Yeah, they don't have to spend all the time creating all this stuff. They spend several days at the beginning of each month. John Lee Dumas, I know he does, he told us that he does his interviews the first two days of every month. So they'll only be one hour interviews but they'll be back to back to back to back. He's like they're killer days. They're good days but they're killer. He's like, "I'm totally rocked by the end of it, but then I hand it off to my team they do the editing, then they put it all together, and then they drip it out. Every single day for the next ever." I mean he podcasts literally every day that's like JLD's thing but that's how though, that's how he does it. Stu McLaren, for his membership sites. Dude that dude makes $627,000,000 a year on membership sites that he only actually spends two weeks a year creating. Most people don't know that. Isn't that crazy? So what he does is his membership sites are heavily based on interviewing experts and each month they get a new expert interview, they get a blog post, they get a behind the scenes thing. A lot of cool stuff and the persons paying them $27 a month or something like that and it could be about recipes. Whatever. What he does is he'll fly in twelve different experts and he interviews them all in a single day and he creates all the content and all the models, all the courses, everything over the next week or two and then it's constantly, it's dripped out, so it's evergreen for each person that comes in and he's set for literally a full freaking year and ... it's behind the scenes of all these guys doing all their content in course generating that has been, it really opened my eyes. To think through, like so I'm gonna start doing that because I got a business to freaking run man. But I got to talk to my audience. I try to podcast at least twice a week that's what I want to do though. Dude publishing has changed my life for that one so I can't not publish. Ben Wilson: Not publishing feels like I'm taking away future of thousands of thousands of dollar per day for my self. Because if I publish and I just make a- Steve Larsen: I'll text her to... Ben Wilson: A following out of it like, I think publishing is as powerful of a skill as... because if you can get publishing down, dude some of the worst YouTubers out there have no idea what they're doing at all but they have these gigantic followings. They don't know how to build funnels, they have no idea how to monetize anything, but they get these massive, massive followings, really, really quickly because they figured out how to publish and be an attractive character and tell stories, which is mostly what it is, it's just story telling. And ... anyway that's seriously what that is though. But that's what I've, anyways that's what I've learned. Here's another cool little tidbit, when these guys go and create courses, so they'll go, they'll go usually whatever easiest to create the actual content that's the medium that they'll go for so like, I do podcasting cause it's really freakin' easy for me to repurpose that stuff and... and turns it into a video for me as it's getting publish, which is awesome so I don't have to make a video. So Russel will film an entire module or even an entire course in a single sitting sometimes. He's got so much backlogged content that he doesn't totally need to do that anymore so well I'll just take and pick and grab different things and repurpose from other courses and, you know what I mean like, I do that all the time. That's what Secrets Masterclass is. And then we filmed a single intro video for each module in just a single shot but what these guys will do though for their courses, they call it thud factor. Okay thud factor is if you were to take a book and drop it on a table from a foot high, like what kind of thud does it get so this is an actual thing called thud factor. I think this comes from Danny Kennedy or something like that. But what they do is this, is when they go and create these courses that put things together, it's the same reason ... Anyway let me tell you the thing and then tell you how I'm doing it. Cause I totally have been, which is awesome. But what they'll do is, they'll go film the whole course, they'll take that, they'll get it transcribed and turn it into a workbook, or a news letter or transcriptions, they'll take the videos, they'll put it into a member's area but they'll also take the videos and put 'em into, they'll put it into 12 thumb drives, it could easily fit on one thumb drive but that takes away thud factor. Kay, in the workbook it would make fiscal sense to print double-sided. They don't. They print single-sided because it's thicker and you have more thud factor. So when you get these boxed sets from these people. You open it up and we all consume content in different ways. I never read blogs, I'm shocked when people read mine, I know it's good to have so I do it. Right? Cause there are people that will read it so someone will each out and say, "Hey, I was reading your blog," and I was like, "Wow I forgot I had one." It's all part of the system I put up. And, "This sounds awesome, X, Y, and Z," but like they've never heard my podcast. They're just reading transcriptions from it. Anyways it's fascinating stuff. Russel has all these box sets, all over his book shelves and what they are is their swipe files to him, meaning it's some guy who had awesome thud factor so they went out and it's this right there's a, first there's an actual iPad that has the course pre-loaded on it or you could listen to it on your computer and there's twelve thumb drives with all the courses spread throughout there. Or if you want there's a notepad where all of it has been transcribed and you get a huge massive, three ring binder and it honestly it could have fit on a two inch three-ring binder but it looks so much better it's on a four to six inch reading binder, you know what I mean? And so you get this box that's huge because what they're trying to create inside the person's mind is finality. If there's finality in the brain, right that gives the warm fuzzies to a buyer that they have found a solution, that they've arrived, they come home, that there's no more reason to look anymore cause I found home. So that's how they're doing that. That's just a whole bunch of different content generating strategies man, when it's all said and done it's all about batching it and especially if you're regularly publishing, it's about batching it. If you're course creating it's usually about selling it first so you know it actually sells and then creating one module at a time with them. So that first group that comes in with you is creating a content with you so that everyone that follows up afterwards and is buying afterwards you know that its awesome content because it was basically user created, they just don't know that. Anyways that's pretty much it though. And then they look for ways to duplicate themselves so live QnA calls are amazing, group QnA not one on one. One on one QnA calls to be sold at for a higher ticket price, higher up in the valley ladder. The group coaching QNA calls are awesome because you can record those, get them transcribed, you can give the audio, you can turn it into a video and make a youtube series out of it. You can take that and get it transcribed and put it into a monthly news letter with, "Hey this is the groups'-" dude, tons of people do that kind of stuff and I used to think it was kind of a joke honestly but it is ridiculous how powerful it is. And like there's tons of people who won't ever get on the QnA calls but they will listen to every single replay. You know what I mean? 'Cause that's how they consume content. I don't ever read blogs, I watch youtube videos and I listen to podcasts. That's how I consume content. I don't ever answer my phone and that's ... it's all about this concept that Russel talking long a Vox man sorry about this. I hope this is okay but it all revolves around a concept called conversation domination, I can't remember who first said that but, we wanna dominate every single channel, dominate every single conversation. Gary V taught that back in the 1950s there were like three different channels. NBC, ABC, and whatever alright there weren't that many and the reason Tony Robbins is Tony Robbins is because back when there was only three channels in the TV, he had ads on every single one of them. That's like how he blew up. Right, I mean that's why he's so big. He dominate, I know it wasn't the 50s but 60s or 70s or something like that. That's why he's Tony Robbins because he dominated those channels and so Gary V teaches that the phone is like the TV of the 70s. There's only three or four channels you got YouTube, there's Facebook, Periscope, you know, if anyone gets on it anymore, Instagram. Those are the channels. It's all about conversation domination so you make sure you are auto publishing to every single one of those platforms as frequently as you can because you'll dominate conversation, there's no other room for someone to even think about something else because you are literally dominating all conversation inside of it so that's why Russel publishes so freaking much. It's way more than a single person or follower or lover of ClickFunnels can ever consume and it's actually on purpose. Anyway, I'm probably preaching to the choir on a lot of stuff. I just, I love this topic because, it's a huge deal. It's a big deal. And it blows my freaking mind when somebody does not take publishing seriously because if they actually want to have a successful business, especially in the social media world, and they're not publishing, they're kidding themselves. I kind of scoff at it honestly, it's like okay. Like cool, this is just a wish for you then, it's not a real thing yet. You know what I mean like that's why I wanna, that's the kind of attitude I have towards people when they're like, "Well I don't know that I wanna be publishing," I was like, "Well, get ready to not make money then." You have to and anyway doesn't have to be crazy either, those are, a lot of those are extreme ways, the way I do it is I literally batch, I'll usually record three episodes at a time in my podcast of each one. I go send it, I get it all transcribed on one shot and I send it over to somebody and she turned it into a blog post and she uses this cool tool called SE Oppressor, which mimics Google algorithm so she can see how my blog will rank before we actually publish it, which is kind of cool. It fully works too, it's why Google Click Funnel my stuff starts popping up all over the place. It's totally worked. Just good, that was what I was going for. And then I give her a schedule to release it all on. That's kind of it. But because of... and how she's pushing it out it blasts to like 18 channels or something so. Anyway those are some long freaking Voxes man but anyway helpfully. Steve Larsen: It's Steven holy crap you that, just pieced it together. You just straight pieced it together. So I've heard a lot of the stuff before but in snippets and in little bits and everything like that. What you just packaged in the, those two boxes, that was mind blowing ... I feel like I owe you lots of money for those two Voxes because that was nuts. I actually, I legitimately I think I'm gonna transcribe what you just said and dude straight up, I would, you should easily just make that a podcast, I wouldn't even change it. Dude thank you for seriously taking the time to answer that question. I was literally what I was looking for and to the depth that I needed it 'cause like I said there's a lot of the information that's been said before but you connected the dots to a lot of things as to how you repurpose the contents and then how you go about creating the content and then repurposing it and dude you're a freaking rock star. That was a lot I literally have to listen to 'em again. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Wanna get one of today's best internet sales funnels for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-build sales funnel today.

Touch Me was the first BSR “live event”, moderated by Dr. Kiki Sanford UC Davis in collaboration with the Bay Area Science Festival. Guests were Lydia Thé, UC Berkeley. Benajmin Tee, Stanford. Daniel Cordaro UC Berkeley.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x [00:00:30] Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Good afternoon. I'm Rick Kaneski, the host of today's show. We have a different kind of program today. This past October, the Berkeley Science Review hosted the live event. Touch me as part of the bay area science festival. We've previously featured both the BSR and [00:01:00] the bay area science fest here. Visit tiny url.com/calyx spectrum to hear these past interviews at the event, Dr Kiki Sanford from this week in science interviewed three bay area scientists about the ways animals and robots navigate the tactile world. Lydia Tay from the Battista lab here at Tao discusses the molecular basis of touch in a star nosed mole. Benjamin t from Stanford talks about [00:01:30] touch sensation for robotics and prosthetics and Daniel Codero from UC Berkeley's Keltner lab reviews, how we communicate emotion through touch. Here's the active scientist, Georgia and sac from the BSR to introduce Dr Kiki Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: Hello and welcome to touch me. We are the Berkeley Science Review, say graduate student run [00:02:00] magazine and blog, and we have the mission of presenting science to the public in an exciting and accessible way. So without further ado, I would like to introduce our late show hosts, the amazing Dr Kiki Kiersten Sanford Speaker 5: [inaudible].Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our first guest for the evening. Her name is Lydia Tay and she is a graduate student in Diane about does lab. [00:02:30] She studies the interaction between skin cells and the sensory neurons that are involved in crow chronic itch. So let's talk about some of the basics of touch and how, how it works. Yeah, so all of these, the different sensations we have are mediated by neurons. So these are nerve cells. In the case of [inaudible] sensation or the sensation of touch. Speaker 1: These Speaker 6: neurons, the cell bodies are right outside of our spinal, but then they send Speaker 7: [00:03:00] these long projections out to our skin and also inside in the viscera. And so these incredibly long projections at the tips in our skin have molecular receptors that are responsive to different types of stimulus. And we have lots of different types of touch stimulants, so you have light touch and painful touch. So light touch, like when a feather brushes against your arm, painful touch. When a book falls on your foot, there's also itch and there's also hot and cold. All these different [00:03:30] sensations. And we, it's actually a very complicated system. We actually have lots of different types of neurons that are tuned to respond to these different modalities of touch. And that's actually one of the things that makes it really tricky. So it's not just that there's one kind of neuron, there are lots of kinds and they're all over there. Their projections are all over the body dispersed. Speaker 7: So say in a square inch of the skin on my hand for example, I'm going to have every kind of touch receptor there. Yeah. So you'll have, you know, you'll [00:04:00] have the, if you have, I guess depending on the part of your body you'll have hairs, right? There are neurons that we'll innovate those hairs and then you'll also have those that [inaudible] respond to pain and to cold and hot. And there the innovation, the density depends on the part of your body, so the back is the least intubated spots your if they're, you have like two points of stimulus next to each other on your back. It will be harder to distinguish than it would be say on your fingers. Your fingers are incredibly well tuned. That's [00:04:30] how come people can read Braille. We're very sensitive to texture on our fingertips. Yeah. I've also heard that like that the lips and the face are one of the more represented areas of our Sameta stance. Speaker 7: Matt? A sensory cortex. Yeah, so in this amass sensory cortex, people draw these things called the homonculus where you have [inaudible] the shape of your body is representative of the innervation of these neuron fibers and your lips are gigantic [00:05:00] and your hands are gigantic and then your back is tiny [inaudible] for instance. It's really a funky thing to look at, but that's kind of how our some ass sensation is. That's that's how we feel. The world is mostly through our fingertips on our lips. I guess we find out a little bit about what you do in your laboratory and I know there is an animal that you work with that is just fascinating. So there's a long history in biology of using extreme systems or organisms [00:05:30] to study the question you're interested in. And so since the question we're interested in it is touch, we use an organism that is really good at touch and that's called the star nose mole and it's this really cute mole that lives in Pennsylvania and it has this Oregon. Speaker 7: It is really cute. I think it's just funny to think of it just living in Pennsylvania and winters in Pennsylvania and it lives in these underground tunnels where there's a lot of light. The main way that it farges for food [00:06:00] is using this incredibly sensitive touch. Oregon called the star and it's, it's the star that's located kind of in the middle of its face and it has a bunch of appendages. Each of the appendages has these tiny bumps. Well I remember his Oregon's that are highly innervated with some mass sensory neurons that enables it to do incredible texture discrimination. So tell me a little bit more about the competitive aspect of the star nosed mole. Yeah. So there are these tunnels underground. The star nose mill is not [00:06:30] the only mole that lives there. There are lots of organisms that are using these underground tunnels and they're all competing for the same food. Speaker 7: The little worms I guess. And the fact that the star news mole can identify a worm that quicker and maybe those that are a little bit more difficult to discriminate means that there'll be able to take advantage of food that other moles might overlook. Right. Are they using a, came out of sensation also? Is there or is it only touching the worm that makes the difference? Yeah, so actually [00:07:00] they start by touch. They, they're, they can move their, uh, the appendages on their nose. So they moved there yet it's [inaudible] that's right. And then they touch it and then they actually move the food closer to the mouth. They taste it until like, I know, like do a secondary test to make sure it's actually food and then they eat it. But it's an incredibly quick process. It's amazing. We actually, when, when you look at video, you have to watch it in slow mo to actually see all of that happen. Speaker 7: [00:07:30] You can't see it with the naked eyes. How do you study this in the laboratory? How do you actually investigate that touch and then uh, how they find the food. So there's the behavioral aspect, but there's also the molecular aspect. How are you studying this? Yeah, so that's the aspect that we, I spend most of our efforts on. The great thing about the mole is that it has this incredibly innovated touch Oregon. And so we can look at what molecules are expressed there and if they're using a similar system as [00:08:00] other mammals, we'd expect that. The only difference is that the proteins are involved in touch. Art's simply upregulated. And so we can see what are the highly expressing proteins in these sensory neurons in the mall. They're easier to identify because the mole is like super touch sensitive and then we can take those molecules and test, are they actually important in another organism that is a little bit easier to work with. Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 9: [00:08:30] You are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. This week we have recordings from the Berkeley science reviews. Touch me. Dr Kiki Sanford just talked with Lydia about Tetra reception in the Star News tomorrow. Now she'll discuss [00:09:00] the touch sensation for robots with Stanford's Benjamin T. Speaker 6: I would like to introduce our next guest, Benjamin [inaudible] t who's recently completing his phd in the lab of Gen and bow and he has a master's degree in electrical engineering. He enjoys hiking, artistic Mumbo jumbo, randomly cliche poems amongst other things. Speaker 10: He likes building things and his motto [00:09:30] is make awesome. If we could all give him a warm welcome. Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 10: how did you get into engineering? Uh, it's a difficult question, but I remember it was a pretty naughty kid. I was, yeah. So I used to make a lot of things that was gone. Really big. Spanking for that. Yeah. And, and that got me wondering, well, since I love [00:10:00] to break things, we, I should then how to make things work. And that kind of perhaps subconsciously led me to, to Korea in engineering and science. Awesome. To make things work. Speaker 6: To make things work as opposed to do you still break things to see how they work, how they work? Yeah, I can fix them back now because I have the engineering training. So. So tell me a bit about what you need to be thinking about in creating a material that can act [00:10:30] as a synthetic skin. What kind of factors are you trying to work with and incorporate into that material? Right. It's a great question. So everybody knows the skin is stretchable and the reason stretcher was because he uses organic materials that have fallen state or not so strongly. For example, metallic bonds are very strong. So instead of using metal, we use spiritual materials like rubber, try to tune them to make them really sensitive to pressure. And it's, there's one of my first projects in [inaudible] [00:11:00] that I worked there for five years. So the first project was thinking, well how can we make a piece of rubber, which is, you know, I mentioned the rub is actually pretty strike tough. Speaker 6: Can you make it really sensitive to vibration, for example. Right. How do you take something that could be used as a car tire and how do you make it something that's actually going to react to like I think in one of your projects, a butterfly wing, right? This one of my earliest project. Yeah. Yeah. And then how do you do that? [00:11:30] Right. So, so the week we do that is we create very tiny structures out of this rubber in Vegas. So I can see it. They are about 10 microns or less. So on a simple sending me the square, millions of them. Okay. And the reasoning is when you make really tiny structures on rubber, they become really sensitive. But at the same time they also retain it, the city, which is quite interesting. Yeah. So there's kind of property of scaling with the material that changes its properties. Okay. And then what happens [00:12:00] with the skin that you have created in the lab so far from that point? What does it do? Speaker 10: Well, right now we've usually to saints butterflies for example. Yeah. The real test is, well, can we build a system that can sense pressure and you're trying to see if we can integrate, for example, these kinds of sensors into touch means cell phones for example. I mean it will be impossible to find somebody who doesn't have a touch mean cell formatting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam is powerful because the reason is so ubiquitous is that [00:12:30] humans use touch all the time. Right? And imagine now because electronic devices can understand us through touch, that changes how we interact with digital wall. Right? But right now you touched me into today, don't sense pressure very well. In fact, they learn [inaudible] more statue store. So we hope to integrate this material into touchscreens to allow purchase sensitivity. Speaker 6: Right? Cause right now you have to have your fingertips. It's a, it has to do with properties of your skin touching the screen to allow it to conduct. Yeah. Conduct [00:13:00] electricity. But if you're wearing a pair of gloves, your phone doesn't work to take off your glove and then you have to use to use it. So if your screen would just be touch sensitive, pressure sensitive, yeah. Would be useful. Yeah. So what about industrial robots? Medical robots? Speaker 10: Oh yeah, absolutely. For example, the robot, they fixed new Skywalker's hand and that's actually reality. Now we've certain surgical robots that make pinhole surgeries. Yeah, they're having a hard time now because [00:13:30] it turns out they're doing this penal surgeries actually isn't that easy for a robot because the robot doesn't actually feel inside the body very well. It doesn't know how hot it's pricing. And there has been several cases where these robots actually the imaging who humans, even though the surgery wound is very small. And so for example, you can imagine having this material to be put onto robotic surgeons that can then feel how well or how high the pressing so they don't [00:14:00] post other example accidentally by the doctor, you know, so, so actually twist the animal on Phd. I was, it's making dinner, actually making Lasagna, sizing up some cheese. I actually cut myself, you know, and I realized that, you know, we have focused so much on how we can make the skin or electronic skin so sensitive, but nobody has actually looked at how we can make them heal themselves, as you know, you know? Yeah. When you, when you have a cut, the skin bleeds and it has schools who are complicated process to heal, but in rubber, [00:14:30] how do you do that? It's not that trivial. We actually made a material, there's not only self healing but also conducted. Speaker 6: What's your favorite thing about the work that you currently do? Speaker 10: So I get to break things and make things so, so yeah, besides that, I think the cool part about the work I do is that I have a lot of time to think about what I hope to use these things for what I hope to be. And, and so doing a phd actually gave me a lot of things to a lot of time to think about my next [00:15:00] steps and basically I hope to, to create medical technologies or basically to create great impact. So now I can satisfy my own curiosity, right? So am I able to make impactful people besides just satisfy myself? I think that's, that's why I like what I do. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 9: Trim is a public affairs show about science [00:15:30] on k a l x Berkeley. After Dr. King, he talked with Benjamin t, she interviewed Daniel Cordaro about touch as a modality of emotion Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 6: So I'd like to introduce our third and final guest Speaker for the evening. His name is [00:16:00] Daniel Cordaro and he is pursuing a phd with docker Keltner on the subject of identifying emotion in the face, voice and touch. Thank you for coming in and being able to talk this evening. Yeah, Speaker 11: thank you for having me. Speaker 6: You've been traveling around the world for the last five years, going to different countries, different continents, studying emotion and touch and okay, the yawn question across [00:16:30] cultures across the world, around the world, yawns are endemic everywhere, Speaker 11: not only across cultures and across the world, but also across the species. So all of our Malian friends yawn too. So anybody have a dog here? Have you ever yawned with your dog? Yeah, it happens all the time. So a yawn is a universal, not only with humans but also with other species. But that's, that's exactly what I'm looking at is kind of cross cultural differences. How did you get interested in that? [00:17:00] It's a great question. So I came from chemistry, that was my past life and I kinda got hungry for social feedback. It's chemistry. I'm fairly social discipline. You two guesses. No, it's great. I love chemistry. It's a wonderful way to see the world. When you understand the molecular makeup of something a is not just a table, it's something a little bit more nuanced. I don't know if you can tell. I'm kind of an outgoing guy. Speaker 11: Uh, and one day when I was in a [00:17:30] classroom it was watching the professor and instead of watching professor I turned my seat and I watched the class and I had never done that before. And this idea popped into my head is a, as a scientist it was like maybe I can make predictions about the people in this class. Maybe I can tell who's going to pass and who's going to fail the first exam based what I'm seeing in their non-verbals. I'd never done this before and so I just kind of took notes on 20 random people. Random, they weren't random cause I picked them but I didn't know anything about [00:18:00] psychology so I was just kind of winging it and lo and behold, based on behaviors like kind of engagement, leaning forward and nodding. I see some people nodding, thank you. You're encouraging me to continue. And then other people who are like kind of slouch back and drooling with a half empty can of red bull next to their chair. I kind of guessed which students were going to pass and fail the first exam with about 70% accuracy and I was like, wow, that's better than chance. There's something to this. Yeah, there's something to this. And I took the results to people in [00:18:30] the chemistry department. They were like, get back to work. Speaker 11: You're wasting your time here. And then through kind of a series of serendipitous events, I ended up studying this full time a nonverbal communication, worked with a guy in San Francisco, I named Paul Ekman, who really founded this field of nonverbal expression. And I had the privilege to work with him for about two years before transferring over as a full Grad [00:19:00] student at cal right now, study with Dacher Keltner and the Keltner lab studying cross cultural expressions of emotion of which touches one modality. Speaker 6: Yeah. So what does the bro Hug mean? Speaker 11: What does the bro Hug mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there have been studies done in sports for example, like like the Bro touches like head bombs and butt grabs and like high fives and all of this stuff can actually predict a winning season for a basketball team. Yeah, [00:19:30] that's fascinating. It's really cool stuff. Yeah. Speaker 6: Coming back from earlier conversation with Benjamin and also with Lydia, how would you speak to the other disciplines to try and get them thinking about your research? Speaker 11: Right. Yeah. I think it's an amazing question because what we saw is a nice series of scientists starting from the biological and molecular level, then going into kind of the materials level. And then lastly, how do we make this an emotional process, a more human process. So combining the three [00:20:00] could really take us into the next phase of human evolution, which is to create kind of another copy of ourselves. So I'm hoping that you guys can save me a nice space in a human zoo when the the AI takes over. I'll be part responsible for that because they will be emotionally wise. Speaker 6: So emotion, is it self-reported like taking surveys and saying, when this happened, I felt this way, when this happened, I felt that way. Or are you doing MRI work where you're actually looking at the emotion [00:20:30] areas of the brain? Are you, what are you doing? Are you interested in emotion? Speaker 11: Scientists do all of the above. Me Personally, I like the, uh, the nonverbal expression part. So one experiment asks the question, can two people communicate discrete emotions by using only the forearm? So if somebody sticks their forearm through a dark heart and you have no idea who they are, you can't hear them, you can't see them, but you have an arm in front of you and we give you a list of emotions. Can you convey those [00:21:00] emotions by just using their forearms? How does it, how does it turn out in the laboratory? Use your legs like requesting your, what are your results? So the results are pretty amazing. There are some emotions that are incredibly accurate through touch. So emotions like gratitude and sympathy and sadness, these emotions that require closeness with another. Also emotions like anger and aggressive emotion. Disgust and contempt do fairly well in these studies too, but [00:21:30] not without differences in gendered pairs. So there, there are some gender differences to how touch is conveyed to a, even though you can't see who's on the other side of that curtain, 80% of participants can tell just by the feeling on their arm what the gender of their, their paired partner is. So the differences are pretty interesting. When we have two female partners, happiness scores go through the roof. The ability to convey happiness between two female partners is staggering. It's like 60 or 70% [00:22:00] male partners. No Way. Speaker 11: However, men are really good at expressing anger. We see, we see across all of our participants, people can identify anger from a male encoder. And then the last one is when they're trying to encode sympathy. Women do really well with sympathy and men can't do it. When we have, we have two male partners, they can't convey sympathy. So there are some gender differences here too. But by and large, [00:22:30] there's no, there's no benefit to being male or female. Overall, we all convey these emotions very well on average, but there are just certain emotions that, uh, are different by gender pairs. So studying this and going around the world, what have you internalized and what have you, what have you taken out of your research? Personally, personally? Um, I love what I do. I don't feel like I work a day in my life because I get to travel around and decode the human language [00:23:00] of expression. Speaker 11: Uh, everybody in this room, I don't know who you are, but I know that you speak two languages, your native language and the universal human language of emotion through the face, the voice and through touch and understanding that has given me a profound sense of connection with everyone around me. No matter where I go, I'm never alone because I can always speak to the person next to me at least in some way, shape or form. So that's the biggest thing I think I've gotten out of this experience. Friends, you so much for coming this evening. Speaker 5: You enjoyed it [00:23:30] here in the show. You Speaker 4: can hear more from Dr Kiki on this week in science@isdotorgandtheberkeleysciencereviewisonlineatsciencereviewdotberkeley.eduSpeaker 8: [inaudible]Speaker 9: specking shows are archived [00:24:00] on iTunes. You we've cued a simple link for you. The link is tiny url.com/ [inaudible] Speaker 4: [inaudible] spectrum. A regular feature of spectrum is a calendar of some of the science and technology related events happening in the bay area over the next two weeks. Here's chase Yakka. Boesky Speaker 12: new star is NASA's newest I on the X-ray sky focusing on x-rays at higher energies than the Shaundra X-ray Observatory. Since launch in June, 2012 [00:24:30] new star has been uncovering black holes hidden deep within gaseous galaxies, including studies of the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way. On December 18th Dr. Lynn Kremen ski of Sonoma State University will be giving a talk about the technological advances that made the new star mission possible and will present several of its latest scientific discoveries. This event will be held at the Randall Museum in San Francisco as 7:30 PM on December 18th visit the San Francisco amateur astronomers [00:25:00] website. For more information on upcoming events. Saturday, December 21st join the Shippo Saturday nights space talk featuring Fareed color with the proliferation of privately designed and built spacecrafts. The possibility of commercial space travel is becoming increasingly viable. In this presentation. You'll gain some insight into the future of space travel and understand how our traditional means of exploration are now history. So join the Shippo space team Saturday, December 21st from seven [00:25:30] 30 to eight 15 at the Chabot space and science center in Oakland or Morris Science Speaker 4: and technology related events. Be sure to check out the year round bay area science festival calendar online at Bay Area Science dot o r g I now here's chase and Rene Rao with science news headlines. Speaker 13: A new study published December 1st and the general nature, you've used it, an estimated half million cubic kilometers of low salinity water are buried beneath the seabed on [00:26:00] continental shelves around the world. The water which could perhaps be used to eke out supplies to the world's virgin and coastal cities has been located off Australia, China, North America, and South Africa. Lead author Dr. Vincent post of the National Center for groundwater research and training and the school of the environment at Flinders university says that groundwater scientists knew a freshwater under the sea floor, but thought it only occurred under rare and special circumstances. Our research shows that fresh and brackish [00:26:30] aquifers below the seabed are actually quite a common phenomenon. Says Dr. Post. He warns, however, that the water resources are nonrenewable, we should use them carefully once gone. They won't be replenished again until the sea drops, which will likely not happen for a very long time. Speaker 12: Science daily reports professor Ken at night and his associates of West Seda universities, Faculty of Science and engineering have discovered a revolutionary new energy conservation principle, [00:27:00] able to yield standalone engines with double or higher the thermal efficiency potential of conventional engines. If the effectiveness of this principle can be confirmed through combustion tests, it will not only open up the doors to new lightweight, high-performance aerospace vehicles, but would also lead to prospects of next generation high-performance engines for automobiles. Currently naive group is working to develop a prototype combustion engine that will harness the benefits of his new energy conservation principles. [00:27:30] Most conventional combustion engines today operate with thermal efficiencies around 30% dropping to as low as 15% when idling or during slow city driving. If the group can develop this new engine with the thermal efficiency of close to 60% for a wide variety of driving conditions, they could unleash a new era of automotive transportation. And even surpass the efficiencies of our most advanced hybrid systems. Speaker 13: A recent study by UC Berkeley researcher John Michael Mongo [00:28:00] has shed light on one of the cockroaches, many disturbing abilities. The insects are famously hard to kill due in part to their astonishingly high escape speeds. The bugs move so quickly that they can no longer use their nervous system to regulate their speed. They instead rely on a mechanical enhancement provided by their antenna. Mongo tested the behavior of the critters and Tana on different surfaces and discovered that the tiny bristles on the antenna are able to stick to rough surfaces and bend in such a way as to rent the roaches from slamming into the walls at high speeds. He confirmed [00:28:30] this hypothesis by lasering off the small hairs on some of the pest and running the trials. Again. This time the antenna no longer bents. Well, a peek into the mechanics of the world's most tenacious pest is certainly interesting in and of itself. Mongo is actually applying what he's learned to help design robots that are better able to function at high speeds. Speaker 12: Okay. Speaker 3: The music [00:29:00] heard during the show was written and produced by Alex diamond. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Email address is Doug K. Alex hit young.com Speaker 5: the same time. [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:29:30] Huh? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Interview with Lisa Frasier of The Bay Citizen, a new paradigm for Journalism in the Bay AreaTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Okay. Okay. In 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle admitted that they were losing the battle against the Internet and that the only way forward would be massive cuts in staffing. Google and Twitter had replaced it for news, craigslist for classifieds and local blogs for local civics and politics. A 144 year old institution in the land of innovation had found itself kind of date and out of touch with the future today on method to the madness, we interviewed the CEO [00:00:30] of base citizen.org. Hey, bay area news organization that's attempting to redefine how the bay area gets its news. Stay with us. Speaker 2:[inaudible] Speaker 3:um, my name is Lisa Frazier. I'm president and CEO of the base citizen. The Base citizen is a [00:01:00] new nonprofit news organization. It's an independent organization. Uh, and our mission is to foster and foster civic engagement. We've got by providing fact-based news, uh, really in the core civic issues. Speaker 1:Oh, one of our interview is about what the Internet did to newspapers. Speaker 3:I think the, the Internet has been around now for quite, quite some time, even though it's really a short period and it's impacted a lot of industries in particular the news industry and phenomenally that's been led [00:01:30] by, uh, is driven by consumer behavior. So in reality, what's happening is consumers today, uh, uh, actually read more news or listen to more news or watch more news than, uh, they did before. And that is really a, um, an outcome of the Internet being available, right? Because people are reading news during the day at lunchtime, uh, on smartphones now on tablet devices such as the iPad and what that has, uh, shifted those, those eyeballs, [00:02:00] if you will, to those digital formats for news, which has left people from, uh, subscribing to newspapers. And so what's happening in the industry as eyeballs and people have shifted to the digital, uh, consumption of news. Speaker 3:Uh, the core, uh, economic model of the newspaper has been in decline and predominantly because that is the loss of subscription, uh, which is I e the circulation of the newspaper in towns across the country. And then on top of that, therefore the advertising [00:02:30] revenues also fall, right? Because if as an advertiser, they wanna have the most return on their investment for their advertising dollars. And those audiences in the paper have shifted now over the last few years. That has led to actually a real shift in a real decline in journalism jobs. And in fact, uh, according to, uh, organizations such as Pew, we're at a point now where, um, less than half the states have a newspaper covering Washington DC and therefore [00:03:00] covering their representatives here in the bay area. The work that we did in preparation to starting the base an an, and this was back in 2009, we show that there had been a 50% reduction in journalist jobs. Speaker 3:Um, and what we found is when we looked at the content production of those newspapers in our local area, over time, there was a disproportionate amount of reduction in the civic beats. And those civic beats are governance and policy or you know, City Hall Education, [00:03:30] health, uh, transportation, the environment, justice, social justice and arts and culture. And so that's what the Internet has done in intimate as enable consumers to, uh, to consume news in different places. And that has put a pressure on the previous economic model of the newspaper, [00:04:00] a number of citizens here in the bay area, including, uh, Warren Hellman, uh, chairman of the board of the base citizen, also myself and, and a handful of others, uh, you know, started the conversation about what would this mean in the bay area. And originally, uh, this, the kind of the catalyst for it was an announcement, uh, by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2009. Speaker 3:So, and they will likely to close. [00:04:30] Now obviously they didn't do that, but that's the catalyst for the analysis that then took place, uh, through 2000 and I to really understand what had been lost here in the bay area. And those are some of the statistics I just referred to. And what happened from there is a real in depth view, right, of not only in the field of journalism here, but what would, what innovations are happening across the country. And from that, uh, through 2009, we bet began to put together, um, the blueprint, [00:05:00] if you will, for the Bay citizen. And what we're trying to do on a day to day basis here is to continue to be leading edge. And by that I mean staying up with the trends, uh, of what's happening in innovation in news. Also pushing those frontiers ourselves. Um, and so that we're not only supporting, uh, the citizens of the bay area by providing them the civic news. But we're also doing innovation in the field of journalism [00:05:30] at the same time. And that's what we felt was really important part of the work that we did in 2009 to so not only are there, not only is that the job loss is important because of that important watchdog role that journalists play has, has declined, but also the fact that there is not enough innovation in this field for, you know, for news in a digital era. Speaker 1:The watchdog role of the press was indeed a core concept of the founding fathers of this. Speaker 4:Thomas Jefferson once said, if once [00:06:00] the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I and Congress and assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature in spite of individual exceptions. But to continue shedding light on public affairs, today's news organizations must innovate. I asked Ms. Frazier how they tackle this problem. Speaker 3:So we're a small organization, so it's, it's not that we can have a, for one r and d if you will, whether you're a pharmaceutical company. Um, but what we have done [00:06:30] is, is, uh, structured a couple of key relationships to foster the innovation. One is actually, uh, an important, uh, group within the chain I'm sure you're very familiar with, which is, uh, the Graduate School of journalism that journalism at UC Berkeley. Um, and this was an arrangement and agreement. We may early in 2009, because of his innovation. So working with faculty and students to stay abreast of what's, uh, you know, what's happening in their fields and what things they're trying to do, but also extending [00:07:00] out into the computer science school and the Information School. Uh, because what's happening today is news needs to be more interactive, right? And there are folks over at UC Berkeley in the, those various faculties who are working on, whether it's graduate student projects or some of the professors who are actually working on ways to either look at information and data differently and so and so such that a consumer can actually interact with it. Speaker 3:So adding comments or enabling a dialogue on a database [00:07:30] or, you know, some of the things that they've been doing is, uh, investigating the use of lobbyists, language in legislation, you know, things like that. And we're talking really help transparency in government. It also helps around the innovation of just what our news experience is. Because today it has traditionally been, you know, one way you read a newspaper, you listened to the radio with the, where you can actually change that and so that it becomes interactive. And so one of the investments, you know for what we're doing [00:08:00] is actually really around what we call our data library. And the data library is really a building around data applications so that a story becomes alive to that person. And so there are a couple of examples that um, know I pointed to and perhaps your listeners. Speaker 3:One is bike accidents, right? Safety. We created the bike accident tracker. We just launched it a us our second version last week and I max out bike accidents as reported in the police department over the last five years, the last five [00:08:30] years of available data. And what that tells you is just what are the hazardous roads and safety issues in, you know, for biking in the bay area. And so people are emailing us saying, I'm riding my bike differently in a different way to work. And then other cities are now asking us, you know, for the backend so they can replicate this, um, across, you know, for their cities. And so the way this innovation happens is somewhat testing and trial different things here. For example, that data library becoming very interactive [00:09:00] in the, in the bike accident area and then other, and then as it becomes viral on social media and people read about it through either Facebook or Twitter, then others like us are picking that up and we'll want the support or the ability to do that. Speaker 3:Um, another example is really the whooping cough or pertussis epidemic last year, uh, where um, there was an occurrence of the disease or high parents is, and yet this was not broadly recorded in public media, uh, or commercial media I should say. And then, [00:09:30] and then what happened is we put a database together, we meshed together the data from the um, the current of the disease and the non immunization rates of kids in schools. And so parents actually could look up their school to understand what was the non immunization rate and therefore exposure to the school for this disease. And you know what, I actually, the analysis showed us something like almost 8% of children in the kindergarten year of 2009 [00:10:00] 2010 were not immunized in Marin county. And yet they had a 10 x occurrence of the disease. And this led to conversations not only in parents groups but inside having conversations in city hall about well what do we do in times of epidemic now the growing population of non immunization children. And so that's the innovation of the news in a digital kind of era, which is what we're doing here. Speaker 4:You are listening to k a l x Berkeley in 90.7 FM university and community sponsored radio. [00:10:30] This is method to the madness of 30 minutes show about the innovative spirit of the bay area. And I'm your host. Tallinn is our, we're speaking with the CEO of the base citizen. A local nonprofit news organization launched in 2009 as a response to the decimation of the newsrooms of the bay. I asked Ms. Frazier how the base citizen has used technology to gain competitive advantage and innovate. Speaker 3:We have a, another relationship with the assistant on profit news organization [00:11:00] of ours. Um, the call the Texas Tribune and the Texas Tribune covers our politics for the state of Texas. And in our analysis through 2009, what we found is they were really the only other nonprofit news organization who was, um, fostering, uh, innovation in technology. And so we've merged our tech teams together. And as part of the innovation, what we're, um, we announced in March, we've created at an open source, are we creating an open source technology platform for content [00:11:30] management of a newsroom, um, and then integrating into that all the various business elements. So what this means is while we started with open source technology, uh, to create what is our functioning newsroom, we didn't want to, you know, recreate the wheel here. So we worked with our friends in Texas. We've created this common platform, that common flood platform is now being open source. Speaker 3:We've had over 300 inquiries about people wanting to come onto the platform. The first few fields will come on in [00:12:00] at the end of someone. And what this really means is a real step change in the ability for organizations like us in co, in cities and towns across the country. So the people that come to see me or talk to me, the two people in Raleigh, North Carolina, the person up in the middle of Massachusetts technology is often a barrier. And so this, uh, our ability open sources platform with the support of the Knight Foundation is enabling these organizations to be able to serve [00:12:30] their communities by providing this nonprofit independent, fact-based news. And so in some cases these organizations will be for-profit cause it'd be truly open source technology. And that's exciting. Right. There are now 50 or so nonprofit news organizations yes. Across the country. Is that a relatively recent trend? Yes. Yeah. So I would have said, you know, five years. Yeah, yeah. They'd be lucky to be a handful. And there was some core, you know, folks like the Center for Public Integrity has been around for 20 years. Uh, one of the earliest versions of the base [00:13:00] citizen is actually the voice of San Diego down in San Diego and they're probably in their fifth or sixth year of operation. Speaker 4:Perhaps just as important as the innovation on the technical side of the news organization. The industry now needs innovation. On the economic side as well. The base citizen is run as a nonprofit organization. And I asked Ms Frasier about their model. Speaker 3:So we are, um, you're right, it's absolutely the hardest challenge of sustaining original journalism, uh, in this, in this, you know, this time where we [00:13:30] are today is, um, is the economic model. And interestingly, uh, and importantly, it's not unique to us, right? Meaning not unique to the bay area. It's not only, um, across the country that this is a problem, but it's actually now, you know, it's also a concern globally. And in fact, we've had, uh, over 30 different countries, uh, visit us, uh, organizations, whether they be from the general side or the business executive side on media coming to understand about this model. And so [00:14:00] what we are is really, we're trying to forge forward on a, on a number of things, a number of models taking elements and ingredients of, uh, traditional public broadcasting as well as traditional commercial media. Uh, and so what it is, it's around major donors and foundations. Speaker 3:So, um, so the support we're getting from individuals here in the bay area is, um, a seed funding, if you will. We don't have an endowment. We have a seed fund to get to sustainability by 2014. [00:14:30] It's about the foundation support for the key projects that are donor enabled journalism. Original call it original content journalism to go forward. And like the Knight Foundation, it's around corporate underwriting. So we haven't done much of this today, but enabling corporate, uh, corporations that are here locally be part of the base citizen, be enabling this civic dialogue to underwrite, if you will. Uh, our efforts here. Um, then it's around membership by is the individual contributors, which I just mentioned. [00:15:00] Yeah. And membership is defined as, you know, someone who becomes, makes a donation at the membership level, which is typically wrapped $50 a year, uh, to support our, our organization. Speaker 3:And we're thrilled that, you know, we've actually had quite, quite the momentum around individuals supporting us from the community. And then the last part is around content royalties. And so the New York Times pays us for the content to be a, which is more the traditional content licensing, uh, part of the revenue model, um, to pays us to [00:15:30] produce, uh, the bay area section. And so the reality is we have to address a number of potential revenue streams. We need all of those right to get to sustainability in 2014. Right now we are far more dependent on the individual giving, um, because it takes time to grow a business as you understand. And so for us growing, our organization is really about the community and membership support and the corporate underwriting support. And as that grows right, we've come very less dependent on [00:16:00] a major donors and therefore, uh, the organization's able to sustain itself, meaning it brings in and earns its money through those, the membership and corporate underwriting contributions, uh, to sustain its expense level. Speaker 4:You are listening to k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. This is method to the madness, a 30 minute show about the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali Nasar and we're speaking with Liza Frazier, CEO of the base citizen. Speaker 1:There's this [00:16:30] kind of idea of, of the filter of WHO's, who's the one who I trust to tell me the news. Does anybody can put anything out there? Um, do you think that there is somewhat of a land grab happening or some kind of race to determine who's going to be the new trusted voices in this kind of new millennium of information being everywhere? Or do you think there's room in the landscape of, like you said, people consume news constantly these days? Is [00:17:00] there room for everybody to get involved? Speaker 3:Um, it's probably in between. I don't know that there's room for everybody to get involved. Um, I think that, I don't think I would agree that there's a land gram. I actually think that we have what one would call, um, essentially a media literacy challenge. Um, just like we have a civic literacy challenge with, uh, folks. Yeah. Civics being not as predominant in his school. [00:17:30] Um, uh, curriculum these days, media literacy is becoming, uh, more and more of a topic of discussion. And the reason being is because it is very difficult to desegregate, you know, what was original reporting versus what is an opinion on opinion, on opinion. And uh, you know, and in fact, Pew Research did a study that said, uh, that 80% of blogs start with a piece of original content news coming [00:18:00] out of a professional newsroom. So when you think of that shrinking newsroom, right, that, that, that kind of, that initial source of content, which is where all the bloggers are feeding off originally, not all, but some that are a large proportion of them, um, that Kinda kind of shows you it's very, very difficult and can have a feel of what the land grab. Speaker 3:Um, but in reality, what we also have is in combination of that is the impact of Facebook [00:18:30] and Twitter, particularly Twitter, where, you know, news is now disseminated right through those, through those channels. And yet it's not necessarily the in depth read, right? It's this, the snippets. And so there is this whole fragmentation of the, there are the, um, the reading behavior. And so what happens is when people really want to know something, they're going to dig down. I believe back into brands [00:19:00] that they know. I mean there's a reason people go to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times or s you know, if it's CNN, whatever their preference is, right? They're very well established news brands and here and that's what we're trying to generate here for local in the bay area, we don't do international news, we don't do national news, we only do local news. Speaker 3:And that, that even though there's a plethora of channels and there is a fragmentation of the consumer and where sometimes we'd predominantly competing with [00:19:30] people to spend time on civic news versus going on Facebook or TMZ or whatever their favorite thing is. And that's what, that's what I think will always, you know, truly come out. Right? Cause when you, we see no, when there are big issues, whether it's pension reform, whether it's the elections, you know, the mayor's election coming up, people actually want the deep, the depth. And that's why the, I believe that organizations like the Bay citizen in cities across the country can be successful if they're producing that quality of depth [00:20:00] and the original fact-based reporting. Speaker 1:And it was the disappearance of the capabilities of the bay area newsrooms to do original fact-based reporting across a wide variety of civic Peet's that spawned the base citizen. And it came from the mind of Warren Hellman, who is the chairman and cofounder of San Francisco based Hellman and Friedman, a private equity investment firm that he founded in 1984. The firm has raised over $5 billion in capital in invested [00:20:30] in over 45 companies. Um, helmet has deep ties to Wall Street. He's a director of the Nasdaq. Uh, he worked for Lehman Brothers. Um, he also graduated from cal. Uh, he went to the Harvard business school. He's on the advisory board of the Haas business school, a real power broker who also may be better known to Calex listeners as the funder of hardly strictly bluegrass in San Francisco. The festival that turn 10 last year, [00:21:00] uh, he invests hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to run that festival every year as a gift to the city of San Francisco in the world. And now Mr Hellman is trying to give a different gift to the city of San Francisco in the bay area in general, the gift of news. And I asked Ms. Frazier, the CEO of base citizen what the other news organizations, specifically the chronicle thinks about their endeavor. Speaker 3:Um, I haven't spoken to them, so it's pretty hard for me to really answer that. I mean, some people have commented that, [00:21:30] you know, the competition has been good because of the quality of reporting is, has been [inaudible] has raised. And if that's the case, then I think that's great. Right? Cause I mean, that's the reality of what we want. We want quality news, right. For the local area. And if that's the impact the bases and had on our competitors, then I applaud that. I think that's great. And, and, and competition is very healthy, right? I mean, I think that's an important part of who we are, uh, in any industry and that what inspires us to do more [00:22:00] and keep on going and, and essentially try to do the best that we can. And so, um, I'm not sure what their, their reaction would be to your question, but yeah, that's what the tidbits that I've heard. Speaker 3:What about advantages of nonprofit in the kind of new world of, of journalism? I think we have an advantage because we don't have any legacy, right? I think that, uh, whether a nonprofit or for-profit, I mean someone, some that argue that the news organizations today are truly nonprofit, [00:22:30] even though they're a for profit entities because that's the reality of the economics. But I think our biggest advantages that we started from scratch in January, 2010, um, we don't have legacies or, you know, having to print a paper. We don't have those costs. We don't have to do truck rolls, you know, all those sorts of things. And to us, being able to start with a clean piece of paper, right, is truly, uh, is truly an advantage. Um, and, and I think the other benefit that [00:23:00] you know, we've had is that we're not trying to create a product that people don't understand, right? People have asked us to do this. People have thanked us for doing, for providing this new sores. And, and that is also an advantage, right? So people have missed something. They're thrilled that the BCIT is in, is here and doing it in the, in the ways that we are and, uh, in encouraging us to continue. And so that's to me the two, the two biggest advantages of what we're doing here at the base of Islam. Speaker 1:You're listening [00:23:30] to KALX Berkeley and 90.7 FM. This is method to the madness, a 30 minute show about the innovative spirit of the bay area. And we're speaking with CEO Lisa Frazier of base citizen.org. The base it isn't as a nonprofit news organization founded in 2009 started in 2010 as covering the bay area news scene in a new and innovative. Yeah. Speaker 3:Well we're trying to do here is be very mission driven. I mean, this is about the civic news, the fabric of the community. [00:24:00] Um, it's how we make decisions, whether it's about health issues too, who gets voted into city hall to various propositions. And what we're trying to do is become in a world where there is a plethora of information available on the web that is becoming more and more difficult for consumers to really understand what's an opinion piece versus what is a fact based reported piece. And what we're trying to create here is that the base citizen is a trusted [00:24:30] brand and a name for individuals in the bay area about that civic news. Right? And so that's what this is about. It's, it's very mission-driven. We can't feel the void, right. That has been lost because of the newspaper economic model and, and we're not trying to do that. Speaker 3:And which is why collaboration is an important element of the base citizens model. Because there are, there is great work happening in various, uh, parts of the bay area. And so we have, [00:25:00] as a, to your point, we have 27 different content partners, um, who are working with us. We provide us content, we'll publish as part of the base citizen. They're part of our partner program. And what happens is that they're doing, you know what some people really call very local or hyper local news. And so in Berkeley, you know, Berkeley side is one of those institutions who's one of our partners. And what we're doing is enabling a discussion and a dialogue or at least awareness of issues in the various pockets across [00:25:30] the bay area. Um, does the news rooms themselves, you know, I was just reading last night, the San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000 were over a thousand people, just the newsrooms themselves then now to get a lesson 300 and so, you know, a nonprofit news organization like the base citizen with 32 people, 20 of those, you know, in the editorial function is not gonna replace that. Speaker 3:But in the world today, because our, you know, the folks, [00:26:00] there are people doing various pieces in their neighborhoods, we can come together and collaborate, which is why the relationship, you know, with what the students are doing. I'm at UC Berkeley in know in their various um, you know, mission local and things like those, uh, those news sites to, you know, KGO radio, uh, to what we do. Would you print news in the New York Times every Friday and Sunday, the bay area section, which is what we only produce that there is a way right, to work together to enable that civic news. And [00:26:30] that's what we are doing. We will only be successful if we do that, if, if our news is available to the community. Right? Cause what we're about is not so much as building an institution, but it's about serving the community. And if we serve the community both for our definition, that means provide a news and fact based analysis on issues that are important to the community. If we do that well, the community will sustain us by becoming members of the base citizen, uh, by making a donation [00:27:00] and similar to what people do, whether they're a member of an arts institution or a member of public broadcasting. That's, that's what we're trying to do. So we're really serving the communities what the base it isn't as about, Speaker 1:and of course serving the public good has always been one of the core tenants of a free and open press that does fact-based reporting. And we've had one in this country since its inception. I asked Ms. Frazier was she thought about journalism and what it will look like 10 years from now. Speaker 3:It could be very [00:27:30] different. Um, I think, uh, you know, a lot of people have been saying, uh, you know, I'm to asking years, right, that newspapers will be gone in 10 years. Some people said 20 years and I don't have that crystal wall. But, uh, I really am questioning the longevity of newspapers, especially with the fast adoption, uh, and the depth of adoption of the iPad and tablet devices. I mean, even though that tablet market is not shaken out yet, right, there's still a lot as you know, [00:28:00] like kind of people rolling out various devices at different pricing levels and people are trying to trial and different things. But the people like, uh, the people that s you know, studying the usage of these devices show that, you know, people will read a newspaper the night before, right? Or they've already read it in the morning before it's been delivered on their doorstep. Speaker 3:And so it's just a very interesting, you know, kind of accelerator. I think I probably have the decline for demand in newspapers. [00:28:30] Um, and then what's going to play in is how consumers pay for that, right? Because I mean, obviously there's a, you know, there is now, um, pay walls, um, there's needed pay at the New York Times there. Um, there are, there are some city newspapers and you know, have got put paywalls up. Um, and you're one of our reporters reportedly the chronicles are going to do that. And the chronicles rolled out their iPad app, uh, just this week, I think, or last week. And so there's [00:29:00] going to be just a shift in, in behavior again, right? There was like, your first question was about, well, what is the impact of the Internet? And now I think you're going to be, what is the impact of devices, right? Especially as you know, children today are, are operating, you know, our phones and iPads, you know, with a flicker thing fingers at three, three years of age. So what do you in 10 years, I mean, why would they ever pick up a newspaper Speaker 1:if that's truly the case that in 10 years nobody will ever pick up a newspaper. It's really important for us as a society [00:29:30] to see projects like the bay citizens succeed so that we can have an open and transparent government. I like to think CEO, Lisa Frazier of the bay state is in for talking to us today. I've method to the madness. You can learn more about the base. It is. Am I going to base it as in.org we'll link to it from our site and method to the [inaudible] dot org you can go there also to contact us and see older show archives. Hi Mylene is our thanks for listening. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.