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Listen in today's episode as entrepreneur extraordinaire Mark Walker shares Direct Digital Holdings journey. Mark reveals how laser-focusing on people, processes and credibility grew revenues from $6M to $120M in just five years. His insights on genuine networking and understanding capital raising are invaluable. We also explore leveraging AI for personalized ads and how concentrating on small wins propels growth. Mark's servant leadership style emphasizes collaboration in decision-making. Transitioning from private to public, Mark outlines assembling experienced boards through professional connections. Continuous learning, reading and informed networking develop strong leadership. This glimpse into Mark's exemplary journey offers a treasure trove of strategies for success. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Mark Walker, the co-founder and CEO of Direct Digital Holdings, emphasizes the importance of people, processes, and credibility in scaling a business from $6 million to $120 million in revenue within five years. He explains that adopting an "it's okay to fail" mindset and involving every team member in the hiring process can lead to a more efficient and collaborative team. The unique sales strategy of Direct Digital Holdings is shared, which involves dividing their sales groups into hunters and farmers, contributing to their remarkable growth. We discuss the significance of focusing on small wins and leveraging AI for personalized ads in accelerating business growth. He mentions that his leadership style is rooted in servant leadership, emphasizing collaboration in decision-making. Walker explains his strategy for assembling a board of directors to transition a company from private to public, highlighting the advantages of collaborating with law and accounting firms to recruit experienced board members. He stresses the importance of continuous learning, networking, and staying informed in maintaining effective leadership. Walker reveals his love for Gatlin's Barbecue and his dream of taking a 30-day sabbatical in Asheville, North Carolina. He explains that maintaining a genuine network of connections before needing something is a valuable tool for success. Walker also shares the importance of a company culture based on integrity, service to each other, and accountability. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller GUESTS Mark WalkerAbout Mark TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode, you will meet Mark Walker, co-founder and CEO at Direct Digital Holdings. Mark shares his views on how the importance of focusing on people and processes will help accelerate and manage the growth of your company. Mark, I want to thank you for being here today and being a guest on our podcast. Mark: Yeah, thank you for having us. Chris: So let's just get started by you telling us, tell us, direct Digital Holdings. What is that company? What are you known for? Mark: Yeah, very simply, direct Digital Holdings. What we do is we help companies buy and sell media and we leverage technology to do it. We have a buy side platform where we actually work with roughly about 250 different clients all across the United States, focused on the middle market, and when we look at the middle market, there are companies that are five to 500 million in revenue and we help them purchase media in order to drive our way of performance for their company. The second half of our business is Colossus SP, which is a supply side platform, and that side of the business we help publishers such as USA Today, gannett, hearst, brands of that Nature actually sell media in an automatic or programmatic way throughout the digital ecosystem, and so we work with about 26,000 publications, helping them sell media online and that's everything from digital banner ads to CTV, ot, streaming audio ads and help them generate revenue for their publications and for their websites. Chris: That's great. So what was your inspiration to start this company and grow it to where it is today? Mark: Yeah, absolutely. My business partner and I. We actually worked on another publisher, ebony Media, and while we were at Ebony we saw how the value chain of the programmatic ecosystem and media buying was changing. We saw that publishers were having difficulty specifically multicultural publishers were having difficulty getting connected into the programmatic ecosystem because their websites were too small and typically the larger players in the marketplace would want to work with publications that had 10 million unique visitors Well, anyone less than that. They didn't think it was worth their time giving them the technical expertise, know how, wherewithal, to connect into the programmatic ecosystem and purchase media automatically. So we saw the opportunity to buy two nascent platforms. One was Huddle Masses, which was the initial buy side platform. The other one was Colossus, which was the sell side platform. We put them together underneath one brand direct digital holdings and we started off with roughly about $6 million in revenue, and this year we're projected to grow to about 120 million in top line revenue over the course of these five years, and we've been really blessed and honored that many clients and partners have decided to work with us over this time. Chris: Yeah, I get a meant remarkable growth. Let's talk about a little bit. So this is your first stint at being an entrepreneur. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah it's myself and my business partner, Keith Smith. It's our first time really stepping into the role of operator. Previously I worked at startups. That's really where I first got my digital expertise and worked at Deloitte, worked at NRG Energy here in town and then also at Ebony Media. So all the while I've been working in the digital space, but this is my first entree into entrepreneurial space, really around the digital platform. Chris: So what were some of the lessons that you've learned, starting basically your own company and taking on that leadership role where everything you know, the buck stops with you? Maybe explain to our listeners, maybe, some of the things that that you've learned along that journey. Mark: Yeah, you know, I would kind of frame it up into three different categories. Chris: One one. Mark: It was about building up credibility in the marketplace. Having a good name, having a good reputation, having a network that you could lean on, I can tell you has been categorically valuable. That network is what I've leaned on for board members, what I've leaned on for contacts, relationships all throughout my career and really it's been 20 years of building up relationships that has come to fruition through this organization. Chris: That's number one. Mark: The second was really building up the credibility as well as the connections, but really the credibility of learning a craft and an expertise. That's been the second thing. And staying inside of the digital space and having 20 years of experience, it just kind of gives you secondhand knowledge of how things are gonna operate and how digital operates and flows. And then the third piece is understanding how to raise capital and put capital into the ecosystem. My business partner he came from private equity, worked on Wall Street and so he had the expertise and really brought that to bear, and so really it's been the culmination of those three things that we made a good partnership in bringing all three of those together. That's actually allowed us to have the success that we've had today. Chris: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean you can't, I think, overemphasize the importance of building really good relationships throughout your career, because you never know what you're gonna need to lean on them. Mark: No, that's exactly right. Yeah, my buddy, he gave me a saying a long time ago. He said network before you need something, and so I kind of lived by that ethos and I thought it was actually a good way of thinking about relationships. And usually if you do something good or nice for someone, even though you don't know how it's gonna come back to you, nine times out of 10, it always comes back when you need it, and that's really has been the story of our career and also our experience working with direct digital holdings. Chris: Yeah, I like that Network before you need something which said in other ways be genuine, right, build relationships in a genuine way, and then, yeah, it's always nice to help people out, and then if you do that from a point of genuineness, then it gets returned. It always gets returned somehow. So let's talk a little about your growth. I mean 6 million to 120. What are some of the things you feel like you and your co-founding partner have done to help kind of manage that growth, Because sometimes rapid growth can destroy a company. Anything that you can kind of share with us, that you think you all have kind of put into place to kind of manage this growth so that it's a healthy growth and that the company is sustainable. Mark: Yeah, absolutely, you know. It was really, you know, going from 6 million to roughly we did. God took about 30 million through an acquisition and so that was a good push for us and then, from that 30 million, really the next trunch from 30 to 90, which is what we did last year we really started working on processes. I can't stress enough in my experience back at Deloitte as well as with NRG really emphasize the importance of process people. You can't grow without people and you can't grow in an organized fashion without processes. And so we internally have been focused for the last two years really building up the processes and bringing new people into the organization to work specific tasks you think about when we look at organizations inside of us, inside of our organization. Part of the training had incorporated is you look at the functional first. Remove all the bodies, just think about the functions that need to be executed, think about the KPIs and the accountability, and then you start assigning the right person for the right role within those functions and understanding that each leader can only manage roughly four or five people effectively. So, we've definitely have had an emphasis and a focus on people, processes and accountability in KPIs inside of our organization. And that's really has led us really to take it from 30 to 90 million. And then we're putting more processes in, more what we call our third and fourth layer of employees inside the organization for us to really take that growth from the 90 to the 120, hopefully from 120 and beyond. Chris: That's great. So totally agree process and people, especially people, are the most important right. You can't no chance of achieving that kind of growth without good people. So what are you doing? And I don't know, how's your employee head count grown when you were at the six and even maybe the 30 to now? How many people are we talking about? Mark: Yeah, so back when we were at six we had probably eight, nine people total. Today we're at 85. So definitely like 12x growth from where we started off. The good thing is we've hired a significant amount of people with experience, a wealth of experience inside of the industry. So that really cuts down on the learning curve. And then the next piece is giving people the distance and direction where we're trying to go, and give them the guide rails. We'll let them figure it out. The thing I try to say internally is if I had to tell you how to do your job, then one of us is not doing their job effectively. So my goal is to hire people who understand and aren't afraid to fail. Put them inside of a structure, give them the distance and the direction of the resources that they need to try to accomplish a task and hopefully, get out the way and try to remove boulders when necessary. That's been kind of our leadership philosophy inside the organization and we think we empower our employees to actually accomplish a task that we put in front of them and hopefully we can celebrate at the end of the year for them achieving it. Most of the times nine times out of ten they actually outperform. So we think if we set up the right structure, giving them the right resources to help, them and then giving them the proper distance and direction and get out of the way. usually that's an effective way If you hire the right people, for them to be effective in their jobs. Chris: I like that. So, going with the people theme, you got to get them in the right seat, give them direction. What are you doing there at Direct Digital to foster a culture and so that people want to stay? Let's talk a little bit about that. Mark: Yeah, the culture that we really try to foster is one based on integrity. So if you're going to say something, follow up and do it. If you don't do it, take account of it before it. That's number one we try to foster that. We also foster service to each other, and that's the biggest one. My job as a leader is really to be of service to the employees, so take it serious to try to provide service to them and getting them what they need in order for them to execute effectively, and so we try to instill that inside of our leadership team and view it as it's not you doing what I say. It's about you enrolling in what we're trying to accomplish, and then let me help you get there. And so, even though we give big goals to our employees, we feel like it's all of our jobs to own that goal. And so I'm right there making phone calls. I still go on sale pitches. Last night, I had a client dinner we're still out here boots on the ground and if I'm not the number one salesperson trying to help generate sales and leads for the team, then I feel like I'm not doing my job. So that's kind of how we think about it. And when we try to hire employees, the word we termed as we want strategic doers. I like that. Yeah, we don't. We, you know, we're very deliberate that, especially in the growth phase that we're in, I need a strategic doer, someone who can be strategic but someone who doesn't mind rolling up their sleeves and getting dirty and running a report or making a sales call or generating leads. We need everybody doing it and then if you do effective job, then hire more resources underneath it. You can start moving into the strategic role. Yeah, Every employee starts off that way. We think it's a bit of an effective way for us to grow. Chris: Kind of that mindset of do what it takes to get the job done. Yep, well, it sounds like you know a lot of collaboration to kind of a team, teamwork, team, teammate mentality. Yeah, but you talked about you know just your hiring process, anything that you guys were doing there. Do you think they're somewhat innovative in how you go about the hiring process to make sure you're getting the right people? And maybe any challenges you faced in the last few years, given the environment and the economy? Mark: Yeah, when we come to the hiring, what we adopt as our philosophy is everybody touches them. So if the team is going to interview, if the person is going to be working on team, everybody on team has a say. Everybody on team has veto authority. And then the one thing I try to remind the leaders is the problem is going to be the problem. So if one person identifies a weakness, another person identifies a weakness, then that's probably the weakness in that person and it's not going to change. So then you have to ask yourself the tougher question Is that weakness detrimental in this role, or is that something that can be covered up or managed? And so that philosophy has been very instrumental in us being effective and we've been very. When we have our debriefs after we interview someone, everyone comes together. One person feels like I don't think they're going to be a good fit or I don't feel comfortable working with them. Then that's a no across the board. So very rarely have we made a decision that the collective wasn't comfortable with that person coming into the organization. Maybe it's my old fraternal approach to things, pledging a fraternity, and my business partner he actually played football at UT, but feel like a team and a collaborative approach is always the best way to try to find the best candidates and make sure you can protect the culture of the organization. Chris: Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I think that you've got that cohesiveness. You just can't put a price on it. And one person you hear it a lot in sports right, but a bad apple in the locker room or can destroy a good team, or quite the opposite. Maybe not a group of the best stars, but they get along. They can play above their natural ability. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Chris: And. Mark: I love that yeah. Chris: So let's talk about a setback that maybe you've encountered in the last since starting at the company. Explain, maybe a setback you've encountered, what you did to overcome that, maybe what the learning was and how it's made you or the company better. Yeah, absolutely. Mark: You know, in moving and growing this fast, sometimes you miss processes and you know the way that we view it. One person didn't miss a process. We all missed the process. So for us you know, we've done that before where you know you have might be a process set up to protect the organization and you missed it. Sometimes you got to go in and everybody has to rally around and say, okay, guys, let's figure out what happened. There's no fault to be assigned, but really what it is. Let's figure out where did the process break down and we're all collectively accountable. So, that's really the approach we've taken, what I think it actually helped us. It actually helped us Really identify are there any other holes that we have in the organization we need to plug up? You know, you know what you know, but you don't know what you don't need. You don't always know what you don't know Right, and so it's that piece that, unfortunately, usually errors get pointed out and that's the correction that you have to go in place. But we try to take an attitude of it's no one's fault, it's all of our problem, let's all own it, let's take accountability for it, let's fix it. Chris: I'd have to believe that helps foster that it's okay to fail type of mentality you talked about earlier. Right, that if everyone's kind of you feel like everyone, that's your coworkers are in it with you, then you're more likely to take that risk, knowing that failure is not going to point fingers at you as a result. Mark: Absolutely, and that usually usually helps, because if everyone's in there with you together, then you're okay. You know you got coverage. Chris: Yeah. Mark: So that's the best benefit that you have. Chris: Switching subjects a little bit, let's just when you think about what you guys are doing and both sides of your business, anything kind of innovative that you all employed, that you think has really helped the trajectory of the company and this growth you've seen. Mark: Yeah, I would say a couple things. One, we bifurcated our sales groups, so we have lead generation and then we have our sales closers. That has been instrumental. Let the hunters be the hunters, let the farmers be the farmers and let them both work collectively together. That has been instrumental to help us grow. Specifically on our buy side business, we've been growing solid 10-20% year over year. That's a tougher business to grow but the level of growth that we've been able to see has been very effective for us. Very proud of what we've been able to accomplish on that piece On the sell side of our business, which has been growing 100-200% year over year we've been able to really foster an environment where a lot of companies will go in and try to get the big whale. We play a lot of small ball inside of the game, so a lot of fruit what I call was low hanging fruit had gotten left by our competitors. We called, we made calls, not to the highest level person, to the lowest level person, told them to test out our platform and, sure enough, we were able to grow that business that way. Our business leader was very innovative on that approach, calling what we call fingers on keyboards those are the decision makers, the day-to-day decision makers to get them to try out our platform and through those efforts we were able to grow effectively. So sometimes, especially when talking to other entrepreneurs, sometimes look for the slow hanging fruit. Don't try to hit the home run, try to hit the single. The single will get you on base and that gets you actually in the game. That's kind of the strategy we've taken. Chris: I think that's great advice for some of our listeners out there that maybe trying to grow their company they just started is. You know, you don't always have to hit the home run of the Grand Slam right, you can start small and let that momentum build. What about AI? How do you see AI playing into your business model and what changes do you think are going to be coming down your path where you may need to make some adjustments? Mark: Yeah, no good question. When it comes to AI, I think what you're going to start saying is it's definitely been around for some time, or some level of machine learning has been around for some time. We think of it in two different counts. We think of behind the house and then in front of the house. Behind the house, that's the stuff that you really don't see, but that's really inside of the processes. That's stuff that we're taking advantage of right now. We're taking advantage of a lot of different algorithms. We're incorporating AI into different pieces of it. You won't be able to see it, touch it, feel it, but it's actually making our systems run much more, our technology run much more efficiently. On the back end, that, I think, has been around for a while and we're definitely in that space and moving more advantageously in that space. Behind the house. In front of the house is where I think all the excitement is actually coming with AI. The fact that you can do words with image imagery, natural language, learning, things of that nature I think we're going to start seeing in the next two years is a personalization of ads. Right now, you do a lot of ads. You might come up with 16, 17, 20 different recipes, trying to hit different segments. I think you're going to see a lot more personalization. On the data side, we have a significant amount of personalization of understanding what people like, what they dislike, their behavioral, demographic, psychographics all that information is already there. Now you're going to start seeing the creative reflect that, because creating new recipes of ads is going to be a lot easier leveraging AI technology than when you don't have AI technology. You have a human who has to replicate 20 different ads of the same idea. I think that's really the next evolution that you're going to see. I think that's going to be the exciting part coming to our space in probably the next two years. Chris: Wow, that'll be before you know it. Mark: Yeah, it'll probably be here sooner than later. Chris: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about leadership. How would you describe your leadership style? Mark: I think it's more of a. As I said before, I try to serve all of my team members. On the personal, we all think of more of it as a collaborative approach. We think of each other as a work family. We try to foster that type of environment of a work family. If you go to our office space, there are offices, but the main area, about 3,000 square feet, looks like a house. It looks like a kitchen, has a TV, has couches. We try to foster a work family environment. We want kids up there. We ask employees bring your kids. We have X-pots for them to play. It needs to be a collaborative approach because we spend probably more time at work than we do at home. Chris: Yeah, no question, right, so you might as well enjoy it while you're there. Mark: The other way that I would say is my leadership style is I try to really believe in trying to be a servant leader, so every problem is my problem. If my team has a problem, it's my problem. I try to own it. I try to help people solve through it and work with them and try to hold them accountable for the result. But no one's held accountable on their own. We're all accountable, so everyone pitches in to try to help out. So that's what we try to do with the environment, that we try to foster Type of leadership style that we have. My team probably would say I get into the weeds a little too much. Sometimes you can't help it right. Chris: Yeah, but I enjoy getting started. I get that. I get that there's some value, as long as you can regulate it to your team, seeing you willing to get in and get dirty get your fingernails dirty from time to time, right, and they're like, okay, you are in this with us, yeah, let's talk about. So. You've got your co-founder, keith Smith. How do the two of you manage the leadership roles in the company to be aligned and kind of maybe not contradict one another or step on each other's toes? Mark: Yeah, so the way we operate Function is we both bring two different experiences and we actually did bring two different personalities to the equation my business partner, keith. He's definitely more on the finance side. So when it comes to the finance, when it comes to the administrator, when it comes to the legal, he owns that, that's, he takes the leadership piece on that and I'm more than happy to step out of the way. All those pieces we got to do refies. We're going through the IPO process. He definitely took the lead on how to get that whole structure and organizing. Yeah, that expertise and experience for that. Chris: When it comes to the operational side. Mark: that's the piece that I bring more of my leadership style to, and so we meet in the middle. So when those two come together we meet in the middle. So it's really kind of clear lines in how we are structured. When it comes to investors, he takes the lead on talking to investors and stuff like that. If they need to hear from the operator, then I step in and have those kind of conversations. Chris: But that's pretty much how we structure the organization and it works well that way, so clearly delineated roles and responsibilities, and then everyone in the organization understands that as well, how it shapes up. Mark: Yeah, and then personality wise we make a good match, because I'm probably more of the passionate one, he's probably more of the sub dude one, so we meet in the middle that way. Chris: Okay, yeah, that sounds like a great team. The results speak for itself. What about mentors? Any mentors you've had along the way? That kind of help get you to where you are, shape your leadership philosophies, your work ethic, etc. Mark: Oh, absolutely, I had a thousand. You know a lot of them Some of them have been independent entrepreneurs. I call them my own personal board of directors. Reach out to a lot of them one-on-one to have conversations with them and get feedback and thought. Some of my mentors and leaders actually have joined the board, okay, and they're on our board of directors, and so definitely get a lot of leadership and good guidance from our board of directors, very happy with what they provide and the expertise that they deliver. And then they definitely help shape the organization and also give me and challenge me to think through different either opportunities or also different risks that are out there. So definitely got the board, got my independent individual board of directors as well. Of friends that I actually call on that I've known for 20 plus years. Some are in the industry, some are outside the industry, but they haven't been shaped by all of them. Chris: Let's talk a little bit about that. You know the board and board composition, etc. When did you and Keith decide to form a board of directors? Was it right out of the start or was it as the company was evolving and growing? Mark: Yeah, so we started our when we were from 2018 to 2022, we were actually privately held, so we're probably I'll do as myself, keith and we had a third business partner who we ended up buying out, so we made up the constitute the board and, trust me, it was 100 times easier as a private company yeah. Because you look at Keith and I look at him and say what do you want to do? Chris: Yeah, Right, which is typically how the small, privately held entrepreneur starts out. Right Exactly. Mark: Yeah, and just kind of kind of keeping moving. When we ended up deciding to go public, we had to actually form a public board, and so then we had to start recruiting people with actually board experience and expertise and you know some level of ground toss and all that. And that's when you know, we had to start tapping into our own connections, our own network. Our lead director we worked at Deloitte. We both worked at Deloitte, didn't know each other at that time but we knew mutual people and mutual friends and so we recruited her to come on the board as our lead director. She's been absolutely phenomenal. But really thought through, what did we need to help us grow to the next level? So we knew we needed technologists. We knew we needed someone with finance background and a strong experience and accounting around audit committee. Then we knew we needed someone with industry expertise, specifically from the agency side. So we're very strategic about who we brought on the board, why we brought them on the board and what value we were really looking to get in expertise. So you know, my advice on performing a board is really to think through. Don't think about where you are today, but really think about where you're trying to go tomorrow and try to bring the people who have that experience and expertise to come on the board. Now I will say for us to recruit one of those members, best place to go is your law firm and your accounting firm. They know good people. They know people they probably worked with on other boards. My first piece of advice go to your attorneys and go to your accountants and see if they know of anyone who might be a good board member. That's how we started our recommendation process, yeah. Chris: And I think you're right in picking those disciplines that you have again as a mentor or resource to bounce ideas off of, get direction from. Yeah, and you don't have to be a public company, a privately held company trying to grow can that entrepreneur can benefit from those resources. Mark: Absolutely Firmly believe that and then build the right culture even inside the board. You want to collaborate on board who can think through problems collectively and come to a solution. Chris: Yeah, what about? You know we all, we all try to continue to learn and grow. What are some of the things you do to kind of keep yourself sharp, to keep learning, to be that servant leader? You know the type of person that you want to emulate in the company. Mark: Yeah, a couple things. One definitely mentorship. So you know, one of the pieces of advice I give is get into a CEO group, because everybody has problems. Chris: Right, then you can learn from other people's problems before they become yours. Mark: Before they become yours. You're like, let me take note of that problem. That's number one. But I would also say you know I read a lot. Yeah, every morning I'm reading, every afternoon I'm reading, I subscribe to God knows how many publications. So you really try to absorb information and I have to say you have to get out of the ivory tower and get out on the street. Yeah, I'm a firm believer in, you know, hearing kind of the qualitative information. To me, if it's in the news, it's already too late. It's really the qualitative information that you get from networks that really kind of give you insight on where the trends are going. So I always try to keep my ear to the street. By getting out and meeting with people and taking people to watch, I get a lot of good information that way. Chris: These are great pieces of advice as far as how to kind of stay in tune with things, and I think you're right. These days there's some great publications, you know I think Bloomberg does since two meals a day, one in the morning, one in the evening, and all that where news is coming at you fast. Mark: It's coming at you and you gotta be on it every day, For sure You're absolutely right. Chris: Before we change subjects, one or two things that you would say to some of our listeners that are trying to start, or maybe just start, a new company about here. If you're about to embark on this journey to pursue a passion on your own or with a couple partners, here are one or two things that I think you should absolutely do or consider doing, as you kind of embark on that wisdom there. Mark: You know, the one piece of advice I would give is be all in Like entrepreneurship. I will just say two things. One, it's not for the faint of heart, but you gotta be all in. And so I think there is something about failure and success. The risk of failure will drive you to success. But if you kinda have one foot in and I'm still doing my job, but I wanna do this then you're not wanting to be an entrepreneur. You either gotta be all in, ready to risk it all, or you don't. That's probably the one piece of advice I would give Pretty much everyone. And if you're not in the position to get yourself in the position to and then go all in, Don't think you can do it half in, half out. It won't work. Chris: That's great, great advice actually, and very true. It's funny that's a pretty consistent theme of the guest I've had. Is that all in mentality? And the second is it's not for the faint of heart. Mark: Right. Chris: So just know there's gonna be tough times and you just gotta muscle through it. So let's go a little bit on the personal side. What was your first job? Mark: First job in high school was a sacker at Randalls. I used to sack groceries when I turned 16, over off of Jones Road and, yeah, you made good money. If I came home with $40 after a cycle, I was pretty happy. Chris: Yeah, and in the hot Texas heat. Oh absolutely, yeah, okay, so your native Texan. I always ask all my guests you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Mark: Barbecue hands down Gavils barbecue. Chris: Oh, okay, there we go, no hesitation, and applaud for Gatlins. I love it. It's pretty good stuff. They've gotten a lot more competition now, but Gavils gonna win, yeah. So let me ask you this so if you could take a 30 day sabbatical not that you would, if you could where would you go? What would you do? Mark: If I could take a 30 day sabbatical I would probably. You know, I really wouldn't mind going to Asheville, north Carolina, getting out in the mountains and enjoy some of that, especially in the fall I'd be out there all day Just out in the woods and hanging out. Chris: It's a beautiful area. Oh God, it's gorgeous. Yeah, it's got a sketch right out there. Well, mark, I wanna thank you again for coming on. Congratulations to you and Keith on what you've built and are continuing to build. Love hearing your story and the insights you shared. Mark: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Pleasure being here. I appreciate your time and thank you for having us. Special Guest: Mark Walker.

Fuzzy logic is an approach to computing based on "degrees of truth" rather than the usual "true or false" (1 or 0) Boolean logic on which the modern computer is based.  It is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth values of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1 both inclusive.   Govind's Social:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gov218/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/govindmohan218/?originalSubdomain=ca   Deep's Social:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neuronsrcool/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Deepneuron LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepprasad/   Pouya's Social: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pouyalj/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pouyalj LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyalajevardi/   Episode Transcript:----more----   SUMMARY KEYWORDS reality, true, logic, people, thinking, idea, language, point, universe, objective reality, humans, thought, fuzzy, experiment, paradox, nature, question, probability, false, thoughts SPEAKERS Pouya LJ, Govind, Deep   Pouya LJ  00:16 Hey guys, how's it going?   Govind  00:19 Nice, amazing. Toronto. Good weather.   00:23 Yeah, no, it's surprisingly hot. Yeah.   Pouya LJ  00:29 So it's been a while, since we talked. Let's see each of you. What's up with you. Let's start with you guff?   Govind  00:39 Well, for those that don't know, I have a startup called Virtual systems that focuses on network security using information theory, principles, and networking, to have a flat internet that's not built on data centers where data privacy can be controlled by the user, as opposed to any corporate corporation that is controlling your data, which is the case these days. So that's a little bit of my background. I like a lot of things like mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and software development.   Pouya LJ  01:11 Well, that's for philosophy. All right, I bet you the What's up? What's up with you?   Deep  01:18 Um, yes. First of all, I just want to say that just sounds like the life of a polymath, so I can really appreciate that right on COVID. Yeah, so I similar to COVID. I also run my own startup, we do quantum computing. Instead, we are looking to use quantum computers to accelerate the materials discovery timeline. Right. So right now we do a lot of things that are mostly trial and error based plus some compute, for doing materials discovery, let's say you want to discover a new cathode or new electrode material, right? How are you going to do that? We want to automate that process and and speed it up by thousands if not millions. That's our goal. It's pretty ambitious, but that's what we do you everyday, or try to do. Uh huh. Yeah. So that's what I've been up to.   Pouya LJ  02:11 Yeah. Thanks. That's amazing. Are you in Toronto?   Deep  02:14 Yes. Good.   Pouya LJ  02:15 Good. You're enjoying this weather?   Deep  02:17 Totally. Yeah. So nice. weather wise will enjoy it. Well, us.   Pouya LJ  02:21 Yeah. Well, that's true. That's going on soon. Probably next week. Still not that bad? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, so today, we are tackling a subject that I am very inept in? I have no idea. I mean, I know abstractly what it is, but I don't have any readings on it. I think you guys are more educated on this than me. But let's see how it goes. So we're talking about a bunch of different stuff. Actually, it's not one thing, but it's centered at logic propositions. And quantifiers. Do you want it? So this was the pathway was introduced to this conversation was introduced by golf? Do you want to start it off yourself?   Govind  03:06 Sure. Um, so when we think about logic, what comes to mind? Generally, it's things like, debate, you know, things that logic is associated with, or things like debate, and truth and false, maybe people who are in software development or would think of code. You know, there there are so many of these, these these concepts that come to your mind when you think of the word logic. You know, what, maybe maybe you guys can chime in with like, premium fallacy. When I say the word logic, one of the one of the things you think about,   Pouya LJ  03:35 no, I think I mean, I guess it depends on their perspective, as you were saying, but I think what you're saying it makes sense. I think, generally, people think about logic as reasoning, like step by step thinking. Thinking about, like, it depends, if you're asking a philosopher is a little bit different than a mathematician than a software, regular person going about their lives, not thinking about these things. But I think that just remains for most people.   Govind  04:05 Sure, what am I?   Deep  04:07 Yeah, when I think of logic, I think of two things, the more intuitive idea of logic, which is what I think every human has, right? We like to all believe that we're logical beings, right? What does that mean? We all know that mean something when I say it, but what does so I think, the intuitive idea that humans are logical insofar as they have a set of consistent rules that you can codify that have some sort of basis, right, you can derive next set of actions based on a set of let's say, axiom true principles, right. And they're logical in nature. For example, humans get hungry where you're cutting off I don't is that does that me or?   Govind  04:46 Oh, I can I can hear him fine. I think   Pouya LJ  04:48 that's me.   Deep  04:50 Do you want me to restart for you?   Pouya LJ  04:53 Okay, now that's better. Sorry. Okay. Sure. That's fine. Continue. Sorry.   Deep  04:56 Sure. So I was just saying that like from from the preset preset Something that's logical, or I would consider as logical is the idea of hunger, right? Like when a human is hungry? What would be logical next is that they're going to try to get food. Right? To me that's logical. And that and so that's an intuitive logic or system of systems are sets of logics that we just know from by nature. Then I think of the logic, when when when Govan asked me, What do I think when you know about logic, right? Like what comes to mind? Or how would I define it and whatnot. The second one is the formal, abstract idea of logic that we humans have that I think that maybe other creatures don't have. And and that's the mathematical ability or the mathematical perspective of logic, where you can look at, you can create systems like Boolean logic, you can generalize Boolean logic and look at how you can construct quantum computations in Universal computations. And propositional logic is totally different than what I just talked about. And so that's all these things are abstract logics, and it's different than the intuitive logic, sometimes.   Govind  06:07 Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a great way of like, you know, describing the entire breadth of what logic? Thanks. Well, I think it comes down to the concept of truth and false, right, because you have to start with things you know, are true. And then you string these things that are true in certain ways that allows you to create certain implications, right? You, you, you start with a few facts, like, as a classic one, all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal, right? You know, you have these propositions you have you start with these facts, and then you put them together using some inference rules. But what I wanted to discuss in today's topic, as today's topic is this concept of truth and false itself. We really, as humans, we take truth and false kind of for granted as a discrete binary thing, right? You have something that's true, and it's not true, it's false. But is that really the case? And to further grounded discussion, I have a few quotes from this book. It's called fuzzy thinking. And it has it really explores this concept of how truth can be continuous or fuzzy, right? It's it's not it's not truth. It's like an on off switch. But it's actually like, on and goes all the way to off with like, several, maybe infinite steps in the way. So one quote I really like is, there was a mistake, and everyone in science seemed to make it. They said that all things were true or false. They were not always sure which things were true and which were false. But they were sure that all things were either true or false. So I thought that that is a really cool quote, because it points out this fact that this is really taken for granted, we don't really think about, you know, like, What is it? What does it mean for something to be true or false. And another quote, I think, would be interesting not to make this all the quotes I made this last one is a quote from Albert Einstein. So far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they're not certain. And so far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Because, I mean, if you say something is true or false, the universe does not give a shit, you know, universe is going to do whatever it's doing. And we're just we're just creating these models where we say, Okay, these things are true, these things are false. And, and we're going to construct our models of reality based on it. But these models of reality are pretty much mental experiments that we perform across humans right? Now, it just so happens that it happens to be incredibly good at modeling reality, to the point where people can get confused and say that reality works based on the principles that we create, and the facts that we create, the things that we assign as true or false is what is allowing reality to work the way it is. But it's it's always important to know that there's this detachment between what's reality and what's what's, you know, our our collective, our thought experiment, which is, you can call it mathematics, philosophy, whatever any anything that we have, when we come together, we have discussions, even discussions like what we're having right now. They're, they're just, like, there's a separation from this and reality. And this is kind of exemplified by what's known as the law of the excluded middle in, in logic. So where if you have a proposition a, let's say, let's just call it P let's let's work in the realm of the abstracts, if you have a proposition p p could be something like, this is a fruit or a gob is a person, you know, things like that things, something that I can assign a truth value to true or false. So the law of the excluded middle is that for all propositions P, P, or not B, that is something can either be true or not true. Now, this this sounds like stupid, simple, right? It sounds kind of like okay, sure, something can either be true or false. But now, what's crazy is that several mathematicians in over the 20th century, were actually pushing back against including this principle and logic, they were saying, No, I want to construct a mathematics which doesn't have p or not p that is, p or not P is actually not true. According to these people. They were called the intuitionists. And this cause Like a massive, massive debate back in the 20th century. But I'll pause here and I'll get some comments from you guys like what do you think such a mathematics could actually look like?   10:11 So   Deep  10:12 the first thing that comes to mind is the idea of structural realism. Structural realism basically posits that whatever scientific and mathematical understanding that we get of the universe, it does not necessarily reflect on the true structure and nature of the universe, right? So, if you have a quote, of creations that describe gravity at the macroscopic scale, that does not mean that those equations are the true structure and nature of reality. And that's important because when we're, as you sort of alluded to Govan, like when we define something to be true or false, nature doesn't give a shit. Right, so to speak. And that's like, like, interesting enough, there's a philosophical question right there. Because what if it happens that structural realism is false. And ironically, there is some sort of mathematical truism, at least in the physics perspective, that we can define, and that it is actually a true reflection of reality. It is objectively the truth. Right? Like, we may not, it may actually be possible, who knows? So there and because we haven't actually answered that, you know, what I mean, that that philosophical idea yet, whether structural realism, is true or not, is very hard to it. Yeah, extend or resolve the conflicts that have occurred in the 20th century from logic? Because this is just an extension of that. What do you think?   Govind  11:50 Um, well, I think this this, this time in history was very interesting, you know, because, well, maybe, like, some historical context would be that, you know, this is the first time you have like, several extremely smart people from across the world coming together and creating a global, you know, like, hey, let's tackle the biggest questions in, in humanity, like any point in your thinking, right? So like, and I think this kind of resulted in probability, right? probability is something that emerged from the 20th century, I mean, some could argue the roots extend way back, but you know, like the roots for everything, then way back. But the reason I bring up probability in this in this argument is like, as, as humans now in the 21st century, we, our process of science is so fundamentally grounded in probability, right? Like, to the point where our models of reality are the closest models of reality, we have use probability necessarily, right? Think of all the discussions you've had with your friends regarding COVID, or all these other things. Most people tend to make arguments related to probability and case fatality rates, you know, these kind of like, almost baseball statistics, right? Like I say, baseball statistics, just to kind of ground that and make it more like, you know, you see where I'm going with this, right? It's just that probability has created this kind of way that of making seen things our model seems so real, that you can actually see them and you can actually see their measure their impact on them. Right, this in fact, in mathematics, this the, let's call it the backbone of probability is called measure theory. Right. And I think this kind of lends itself to, well, some of the stuff you're working on, right, the quantum models of reality. So I think I think structural realism is something that is extremely effective, because it's, it's, it works on observations of reality, behind the scenes, and it actually kind of gets there. I mean, I'm using structural realism, maybe I'm, I'm conflating it with some mathematical context that are quantitation that it does not come with out of the box. I hope, I hope my point is clear.   Deep  13:51 Yeah, I understand your point completely. Um, quia. What do you think about this idea of an objective truth in nature? Um, do you think that it actually exists? And should we possess it? logic around that idea? Or the, or the rejection of the idea? Yeah. How important should that rule be?   Pouya LJ  14:12 Um, that's a very good question. Actually, I have started this long project, which is in the background for my own sake, I actually came up thought of this question a while back. I mean, everybody thought of thinks about these things, but more seriously started thinking about this insert. Getting onto some avenue to, you know, think about Yes. Is there an objective reality? And then that's literally the question to ask myself that started me on this journey. And you know, I I talk to some people from different walks of life, from psychology to philosophy to physics and what have you, some people who are at the top of their fields. I didn't. I mean, I did ask them this question, which is not the point. But from there our conversation, my conversation with them. What I got is that, no, from, from, from the real essence of the question, like the deepest sense of the question. And what I gather from all of those conversation conversations is that, again, we not the way we understand our world, our universe, maybe there is maybe there is a formalism that will get us there. But at least not with anything we have this, you know, far we've gotten discovery in science and philosophy thought. So. I, I think ultimately there is that's just a guesswork, obviously, like hypothesizing, but not in the sense that. So, let me put it this way. So for example, when GM Govan was saying that there's a spectrum of truth, I think that is, that is, that is true, until you get to the, to the resolution to the, to the, to the pixel of reality, essentially, at some point, it has to be one or the other. But we didn't get there yet. So that's my sense of it. That's my sense is that yes, it will eventually be some sort of objectiveness in reality, but it requires a better understanding of that reality that the fundamental laws of our universe, and that is not just gravity, gravity is, for example, gravity is emergent, from my perspective, and that that sense?   Govind  16:49 Well, I think you're gonna be happy, because initially, you wanted this discussion to be more about the nature of reality. And I think it's creeping into there. So I'll talk a little bit about the nature of reality as examined by Western philosophers. So there's a Descartes, notably, in the in the history of Western philosophy in like, let's say, the early modern period, which is like on 1600s, to like present day, or 1600 to 1800, is about the early modern period, we had these different movements, we started with rationalism, which is that, you know, like, we just, we just say things like, create these elaborate logical models. And then, and then we, we kind of examine, we use this as descriptions of reality. And then this kind of God rejects. And notably, Rene Descartes was kind of like a huge figure in this movement, because he said things like, the mind is its own soft, separate substance. And to tie that back to this discussion, what I was saying earlier about the realm of, of imaginary, thought experiments that we work with, in different fields like mathematics, computer science, and so on. He thought that it was its own separate universe that was completely detached from our, the universe that we live in. And he, I mean, these are the things he's saying, right? Like, I mean, he could be right, he could be wrong, but like, he's like, he's using logic as a means to tie together his his arguments. But at the end of the day, these are just things he's saying. And he's just using logic to create an elaborate story, an elaborate logical model. And this is the criticism that the next movement kind of gave to the rationalists. They were called the empiricist. People like David Hume, and I think mill or Locke, john Locke was in there. But they were like, hey, you're just saying things, you know, you're just you're just creating, you're just like, this is basically a story that I'm reading. And you're just like, Well, God is this and God is that. Savage. Exactly. And they're like David Hume, one of his famous philosophical quotes is like, you know, you can, you can't say for sure that the sun is gonna rise tomorrow, we see it rise every day. And we take it for granted, we have these explanations for it. But at the end of the day, these are just explanations, you know, I mean, at this point, they hadn't invented spacecraft and all that stuff yet, you know, they couldn't just go up there and see the sun.   Deep  19:09 Well, even then, like it did, there's still a philosophical point to that, like, even then we may not, despite everything we know, today, you know, I mean, the sun might not rise like there's   Govind  19:21 exactly that's, that's, that's   Deep  19:22 apparently physical reasons. I'm not even saying like magical reasons. But yeah,   Govind  19:26 So so they completely dismiss these, the rationalist arguments using this, it's like, if I don't see it, you know, it doesn't exist. So, you know, show me the proof, show me the reality of things. Got it. Um, and eventually, this kind of got resolved somewhat by Kant, Emmanuel Kant, who came in the, I believe, late 1700s, early 1800s. And he, he, he's like, Okay, guys, how do we resolve this? Because there's clearly some value in using logic to describe reality. And there's definitely value in talking about things that we can see and perceive and sense right. So his Way of reconciling this was to say that was to bring in the human aspect of things like how we perceive things. And he thought that that played an important role. In fact, what we call space time, were intuitions, he described them as intuitions. So humans have an intuition of space and an intuition of time, which is what allows us to perceive these things in reality. To make that more clear, he's he's telling the Emperor says, Hey, the things that you think you perceive, so clearly, maybe they're not that clear, you know, you are trapped behind your veil of perception at the end of the day. And again, like this is all to talk about the objective nature of reality, right? As humans, we can't help but be stuck behind the fact that everything we're perceiving is just what we're perceiving. There's another quote from Descartes, you know, it's, I think, therefore I am. It's one of like, the most famous quotes from philosophy, I think. But it's, it's basically that, for him thinking was such a rational endeavor, right? He thinks that just because he has this stuff running on in his head, like this voice that goes like, blah, blah, blah, and in his head, that's, that's why he knows for real, that He exists, like, no matter what, I have this thing that allows me to, like, perceive and like, you know, like, I don't know, if you guys are real, I don't know, my computer's I know, there's something going on here. You know, that's kind of his point there. And Kant was saying, you know, there's a human element of things you just can't strip away from, from anything real, right. So that's a little bit of a background in this in, well, let's say Western philosophical thinking about this, this this topic.   Deep  21:27 That's awesome. Um, and, you know, a lot of its circles, it's all circling and tying back in to itself in an interesting way. And here's what I mean by that. So, to your point about how deep you know, probability is in quantum mechanics, right? It plays a huge role, a fundamental role. For literally since the birth of it, you know, physicists both on the quantum computing and sorry, quantum physics side of things, and the classical physics side of things, believed that there should be some sort of a clear description of the wavefunction and information that we can eventually have access to and predict perfectly. So like, just, there's there was this idea that we'll eventually be able to predict the exact nature of the collapse, the wave function will know when it will collapse, and into what outcome it will collapse, rather than just knowing the probability. And you know, fast forward 100 years later, we've made essentially zero progress in making that stochastic process any less stochastic to us. And so it's really like sad react Sony, right? Like for the people who, who believe like, go when you and I've had tons of discussions about determinism and whether the universe is and Buddha unites was actually all three of us. And so quantum mechanics quickly touches on that. And then there's the objective reality question. There's the witness friend paradox. experiments, right that were recently conducted, again, two years ago, where you had two different labs instead, posing as a weakness friend, basically, it's a witness paradox is a paradox that was created in the 60s it was proposed by the famous physicist Wagner, and essentially, what he said was that if there are given the fact that the wavefunction encodes the all the possible measurables and observables, for a given observer, then the wavefunction is going to be different for different observers. And if that's true, then they're going to have eventually conflicting facts about the universe. And so he said, that's a paradox, right? And it turns out that it's true that two years ago, in those days, it is insane, because two years ago, we actually ran these quantum physical experiments where we took a well being split using beamsplitters, we essentially used quantum entangled photons. And we've been into two different labs, and you have people, you have what's called witness friends inside the lab, and then Wagner or like the observers outside the lab. And so all four people in this experiment, none of them can observe each other. We're measuring each other's photons directly, they can perform measurements to see if a measurement hasn't done, but they can't. Yeah, so that so if you want to think about it physically, they're splitting at the end of the experiment, one particle that was turned into four quantum entangled pairs, so through Bell state pairs and beamsplitters you really have these so if you want visualize that, so imagine, like I take a ball of physical ball, and I cut it in four pieces, and I give it right to four different people. Here's a weird thing about the huge We're gonna experiment what ended up happening is that Imagine if I asked those four people to look at, if I to record the color of their ball, right, let's say I cut up a red ball. And and I gave a piece to everybody, everybody has a red ball in theory right? v a piece that's red. What ended up happening is that these people, of course, were quantum mechanics, there's one caveat, right? You can expect the ball to change colors, that's fine, you can, you can expect it to change either red or green. So that's let's say, you can measure spin up, spin down totally fine. What and what what we did was, let's say I did this, I took a red ball, I gave it to four of my friends. And then they did measurements, knowing that it'll change red, green, red, green, sometimes. I, it turns out that when they did those measurements, and they all got back to each other, and they looked at their lists, and the measurements that they did on each individual piece themselves, the colors didn't add up. So So I so imagine this, like, imagine if I looked at my list, and I observed red, green, green, red, green, red, and you observe green, green, green, green, green, red. So you were looking at a different piece of the ball. How's that even possible? When I physically split the same objective ball? It's not it's, well, technically you shouldn't have been, but it is like, in fact, what's happening is that literal conflict and objective facts about reality, where you have people who participated in a physical experiment, use the same physical measurement tools and came up with different conflicting facts   Govind  26:31 that is completely wild. Yeah, no, that's physics anymore. You know, this is like something just so beyond anything.   Deep  26:41 Yeah, I mean, it is very edgy. Yeah. See? What we know, dude.   Govind  26:45 Yeah. Oh, my God. That's, that's insane. Everyone reminds me of the banach tarski paradox, right? Like, I mean, these kind of things happen on mathematics, and we're totally fine with it. Right. So the banach tarski paradox is like, imagine you have a sphere, a sphere that's composed of like, let's, let's call them like, an infinite number of droplets that are holding together this fear, right? It's like this basketball. So the banach tarski paradox says that there is a way to separate out, like, just choose all the points, like a whole bunch of these points that are in here, like these droplets, and then you take them out, and then you move them away. And these are just solely choosing the points, while granted infinite number of points, you're telling them to go somewhere else. And using this, you can actually create a perfect clone of the ball, right? You have two different copies of the ball using the exact same number of particles. So you can do all these weird things with infinity in the world of the abstract, you know, where we're fun things happen, and everyone's everyone's happy and dancing all the time. You know, like, yeah, they're like, we're okay with all kinds of crazy things happening. But man, when this spills over into reality, it's like, we all lose our shit. Because, you know, yeah, literally not believing.   Deep  27:54 That's right. That's right.   Pouya LJ  27:57 Yeah, and so, um, so what, what, what do you do, but especially because you're, you're actually very close to these experience. What does that what does that make you feel? What does that? What? What does that? Do you think it means? What does that say about that objective reality, if you will? What is your thought?   Deep  28:17 Yeah, it will, what it tells me is that there's likely some sort of, clearly a multiverse situation going on, where almost it's like, we're maybe that maybe each agent that can be concerned, considered an observer or anything that can be considered capable of measurement, right? We don't know how far that extends. We just don't know those answers. But I believe that everything that can is on some unique multiverse, and we all just have our own timelines intersecting with each other. That's what that told me. It no longer feels like, we share one objective physical space. It's like, you know, I mean, we just have like, the these rays instead. That intersect. So it, I found, frankly, I found it psychologically disturbing when I read the experiment and the results. And I don't think that there's no way around it. It's just but it's fascinating stuff. So yeah,   Pouya LJ  29:17 yeah, no, I, it does make sense. Yeah, what you're saying like, I mean, obviously, there has to be so that to me, either. There's another explanation such as the multiverse situation, or maybe there is no objective reality. Well, in a sense, at the end of the day, if you're living in a multiverse with different set of facts, and you're building all of your rules based on those axioms that you get from FX x, or whatever, a different set of axioms will say. Then, who's to say which universe is the reference universe, or the main universe or truth? So maybe maybe there isn't any objective reality which, which to me, And then that's my whole thing. That was my whole thing about this objective reality. I asked this question going in thinking, yes, there is, and we can't just find it yet. But let's pose the assumption that Yeah, no, there is no objective reality, then to me, it's a little bit more humanistic again, talk, but it just shows me how arrogant we've become of a thing called, you know, science and discovery. And we're just, we're just going forward thinking that we're supposed to know the answer to, to everything, we have to figure it out. And that and that's fine to try. But also I think it this whole phenomena should should give us some notion of Okay, there is there there should be a little bit a bit a degree of humility, in what in what we do as discoverers of this universe, which is, to me the most beautiful parts. Again, I'm like, this is being poetic as a human thing. But that's at the end of the day. That's who we are. And I think I think we should appreciate that part as well. Sorry, I'm just going to close this loop on this poem that I just composed here. But Okay, back to Golf. How does that make you feel? from someone who's a little bit more distant? Personally,   Govind  31:28 I think it's very interesting to use the word pool there because, well, since since this, this discussion has kind of been underpinned by logic and language and all that kind of stuff. There's this philosopher Martin Heidegger, his his entire take was like, we need to kind of escape from the confines of language and the kind of thinking that is inevitable, just because of language being the way it is, right? Because it's like, realistically, we all have our own personal language. It's like, I have my own language. And when I say that, I don't mean like my own version of English, I mean, my own, let's like, composition of thoughts, experiences, feeling senses, right? Like, if I remember, if I smell a perfume from my past, like, I'm gonna have like, these nostalgic experiences and all that stuff, right? And, and that really, that's part of that's a word or like maybe a phrase in like, personal language. And whenever I'm talking, what I'm doing is I'm converting from my, I'm translating from my personal language to English, right? In this case, and then and then you have to, like convert that back to your personal language. And men composition is really hard, like, how do we do it? Given this this context, but Heidegger, his his attempt to improve language, was by positing that we move to poetry as a way of expressing ourselves purely because he thought poetry had this innate ability to capture our personal language, right? Because when we write poetry, it's such a, like, poetry is a hard thing to understand, right? Like, sometimes you read poetry, and I'm like, What the heck is going on? But it's just because it's, it's the poets like attempt to try to bring out their personal language as much as possible, right. And I would argue that most of art is the same process. So I mean, in, and I want to tie this back to like, the point I made earlier about us trying to escape the confines of our own existence, right, like, the the confines of our of our human infrastructure, the way we do that, I think poetry is a very, very cool way of and it's kind of cool that emerged from this discussion as well. That's kind of a case in point.   Pouya LJ  33:23 Yeah. No, I I think so. Yes, I think I understand. So it's the least amount of filters like art, I suppose, like, closest to you as it gets, I suppose. So, so yes, I, and that's what I've been going back and forth a lot. Like I obviously, as somebody who cares about, you know, methodical thinking, logical thinking, and, you know, rationale, reason, etc. That is very valuable, especially if you if we want resolved in this in this world of ours, because at the end of the day, we can get a lot with the our version of you know, reality that we have in this very pocket that we are living in, in the whole the whole universe and in space and time. But going beyond that, I think there there has and that is where I think they kind of, you know, overlap the the field, let's call it science and art, if you will, I don't, I don't like to make huge distinction, like borderline distinction distinctions, generally personally, but I think in an entirety, society does make it very, like black and white distinction between these two, which I think there is a good amount of overlap, and that is, we're   Govind  34:44 talking fuzziness, right, it's all about being fuzzy and accepting it for what it is as opposed to what we want it to be that maybe seems more perfect to us, right? Like these molds seem more perfect to us. But the reality is, nothing is a mold like everything is fuzzy, right? Like I think the example is like such a mind. looming realization of that.   Pouya LJ  35:02 Yeah, no, that's that's true. And what one way one can raise a question. I suppose that what makes us want the I mean, I have I have one answer. But let's let me just pose the question first. What makes us as who we are humans, again, within this infrastructure, once this clarity of binary of, you know, not being fuzzy, but rather completely distinct or True or false? Well, what are your thoughts on that?   Govind  35:35 Well, I remember we actually think I think we did a podcast on this a little bit ago about like the nature of chaos, right? Some people, most people I think, are very averse to chaos, because they like things being simple and easy to understand. Right? What I mean, the more, let's say, foolhardy among us, for lack of a better word, like kind of naturally as gravitated towards chaos, because I think chaos is just such a good description of reality. But the problem is that chaos, by definition is incredibly, incredibly complex, right? So you don't you don't have the simplicity of like, you know, two plus two equals four, right? You're like, what's two? what's plus? What's four? What's the quality?   Pouya LJ  36:14 That sounds like you checked, you just say, yeah, smoke some weed or something? Like what is to man?   Govind  36:23 I thought this was Joe Rogan.   Pouya LJ  36:27 Oh, it could be anyway. No, I think so. Okay, let me go back to how about you do and don't share my thoughts?   Deep  36:38 Yes. So, first of all, it's super interesting about the nature of fuzziness, especially when we think about Zeno's paradox. Because even that is a great example. You know, I still contend that we have not resolved the paradox of why is it that we can make contact with anything, right? Why is it that I'm even touching the floor right now, despite the poly exclusion principle? And, you know, Zeno's paradox, right?   Govind  37:10 xenos paradox.   Deep  37:11 Sure. So So, so xenos paradox. It's really a family of paradoxes. But it all comes down to the fact that, I'll give you an example. Let's say that you want to reach the end of the hallway. And your rule that you impose on yourself is that you're going to have your distance in order to get to the hallway, and you'll have your distance, every single time until you get to the end of the hallway. And so let's say the, you're 10 feet away from the end of the hallway, then the next time the next move you make you're five feet away, then two and a half, then 1.25, and so on and so forth. And until you go to point 000000125, blah, blah, blah, but it'll never be zero, right? It never touches zero. So at no point, will you ever actually reach the end of the hallway. So Zeno's paradox, what basically asks, Why do you never, why do you touch the end of the hallway? Why is it that in real life, we end up making it to the other side, despite the fact that these infinite distances, you know, taking any slice of an infinite still infinite so so he just had all these questions about it. Yeah, spacetime. Very deep questions to the thousands of years ago on so and we still haven't answered them properly. And yeah,   Govind  38:34 well, I have a point about that. But I know if we are you're you're itching to talk about your, your perspective on it. Go ahead. Oh, you're on mute. Oops, sorry.   Pouya LJ  38:45 First of all, I want to say that I, I sent a photo and chat A while ago, and I think I diverted deeps attention to that kind of concept, which was I don't know if you saw the, the the rabbit or whatever it is. It wants to go get a haircut. I'll put this in the show notes, by the way, but it's a half off haircut. Did you guys see that one?   Deep  39:12 Right now? That is funny. Yeah, I'll put this   Pouya LJ  39:16 in the show notes. So that people who are listening to this, they can just find it out. But I know this is exactly what you're talking about. It'll gonna take forever. So yeah, you're right. But why do we actually get that haircut and the half of haircut eventually? No, I think so. First of all, all of these are exactly to my point that there's there's there is probably a sea of things that we just don't know about the nature of our universe, the one that even forget about objective reality, the one that we even perceive. And maybe one can make an argument that the reason with the fatalities of our of our views are the questions that we cannot answer is because of the fact that our realities are not completely overlapping the objective one, and that's where those those are the the edge cases that are actually creating these problems, perhaps. But true. Beyond that, I think there's a, there's a degree of obsession amongst many, many people, most people probably besides besides the ones who are embracing chaos, I suppose as go and was putting it, that we did a good good amount of like humanity essentially once a clear answer to two things and sometimes takes shortcuts through through, you know, ideologies that might not have, you know, rational rationale behind them. Just to get to those answer, why am I here? Why, like, because I have to be tested here to go to heaven, part of the some of the religious ideologies, or, or what is the nature of our unit? Why is the sun come up? I feel a first of all does is going to come up tomorrow or, and then we come up with these answers, and everybody through their own ways try to answer these definitively. And part of that is I think, now it's a little bit of more philosophical questions, I suppose, or answer rather thoughts, I suppose. But I think part of that is because we understand our own mortality by binary, which is the most did the deepest, probably driver of our existence, and that is either we're dead or alive, there's no, I'm half dead. I was like, well, maybe you're sick a little bit, but you're not half dead. So I and there is there's a degree that we and there's an understanding that when I die, I there's like, there's no coming back from that. I mean, I'm obviously there are exceptions, sometimes. Some people, some people, flatline they come back. But if you're flatlining for a week, you're not coming back from that, right? So so there's, there's a permanency to that experience that and and, and our deepest drive is to avoid that. So to avoid that clear, at least, at least from our mortal, mortal perspective, clear, true or false If true, being your dead and false being your life. That is clear that okay, if I'm, if I'm talking right now, as the card would say that I exist. In a more biological setup, sense, I'm not dead. And, and, and it drives all those questions, I suppose. But again, like, also going back to language as a logical tool, essentially. What do you think there's going to be a funny question, what do you think people before language would think? Would they have similar thoughts to these things? Now? I mean, obviously, in a simpler case, and not thinking like quantum physics, I suppose. But what do you think all of these are fatalities of language that we're carrying with ourselves? Or is it drive by language? Or is it more fundamental? So if we didn't have language for people who didn't invent language yet, back in? I don't know how long ago? Would they have similar thoughts? Do you think?   Govind  43:11 Well, I think we do have animals, right? Like, I mean, when we have these, you have any pets? Do you   Pouya LJ  43:17 mean no? Okay, before, but I know Okay, yeah. No, but I can understand what you're where you're going.   Govind  43:24 But when you have, like interactions with animals, I love animals. It's almost like you have this communication with them. That's that's not like you. I mean, I don't I can see versus and they probably don't understand me, unless all animals know English, and they just choose to ignore us. And they like humans are too stupid. There was a   Pouya LJ  43:43 cabal of animals deciding that this is not a good idea. Yes.   Govind  43:48 Lots of Rick and Morty episodes. But yeah, no, I think I mean, it's just that that awareness that being that's that's just there right? I think that is rooted in language fundamentally. Like I don't I don't know if we can actually get past this. This like our art like the language that we have developed evolved and developed is like it serves a very good purpose which is sharing thoughts with each other sharing these these like awareness experiences with each other right? But at the root of it all like I mean, it's all about that awareness and you brought up such a great point about death right? And how death is that binary which kind of makes us realize like you know, like there is such a thing as a clear like a clear line drawn in the in the northern sand like a line drawn in the concrete You know, this this is it like you know, there's life and then there's not life so so that that is actually such a such a great point about why negations work in this in this sense. I seem to have lost you guys   Pouya LJ  44:47 know, we can hear you. Okay. Oh, yeah, your picture froze, but I can hear you so that's good. Excellent.   Govind  44:53 Yeah. Well, yeah, that's that's the point I wanted to make. You know, it's a it's like these these ideas do exist, but I'm sure Animals have a notion of death as well. Right? And animals. Oh, yeah. Their their experiences and all that.   Pouya LJ  45:05 Yeah, no. And that's true. The notion of death is obviously at least in its more primal sense of obvious. Obviously, they're, they're trying to avoid it. But there are no but my point was, so so the rabbit holes that we go to and get stuck in it, then half of the way to the destination, and then half it, and then half of them and have it is this. My This is what is this? Now? Now this one is not as outside of language, actually, some, I'm kind of negating myself, but is a lot of these problems with language and and how we're communicating with each other. Because honestly, like, there are instances that I think I should have been thinking about this. Do I think with myself, like when there's nobody else, I don't have to communicate with anybody else. I don't need to use language, English, Farsi, whatever, to communicate with other people. But is there any any? Do I communicate with myself with my thoughts, in language or outside of language? And I've been thinking about this for a while and trying to observe it? And part of it is that, yeah, yeah, most of my thoughts are us using language. But yes, there are pockets sometimes that I feel like, there's a thought that I can't even express it to myself, using language. It's that the, maybe that that's the that's for, like, there's a fog. And I'm perceiving it. There's some sort of experience behind it. But I can't even describe that experience for us. Like, I mean, what what is like, so what is it sounds like an impression of a thought, right? Because a thought is a thought when you're able to express it, maybe? Yeah, so i think i think that that becomes super clear. Well, okay, let me let me give you so this is a, this is going to be a little bit of an exaggeration. Like, it's not what I'm thinking about. So the one that I'm thinking about is more of a thought. But think about this, when you're extremely fearful for your life at a very moment notice of, you know, hitting, you know, you have to you have to run there's there's a, there's a specific quality to that fear. And you're thinking, Okay, maybe there's a bear in front of you. And your thought is that we're going to grab this knife, but are you really thinking in terms of wars, I am going to grab this knife, you see a knife, you you want to grab it, you know what I mean? That's a thought that I'm going to grab this knife, but it's not really in any language. And that is really forced when I think I can see myself doing that, at least, when it comes to the precipice of like some sort of when it combines with some sort of very strong emotion such as, okay, I have to grab this knife or gun or whatever, shoot this bear, I'm not thinking to myself, okay, I am going to grab a gun, and I am going to pull the trigger at this. No, that's not it, you just know, right? That's a   Govind  48:01 possibility. It's like you're like, the way I think of it is like, it's almost like a design space of everything that could possibly happen given what's around you. Right? So it's like you're sampling from this design space. Like one of these events, for example, is like you picking up a knife or like, you know, you punching someone in the face. This is around you. Something like it's like these are these are just, I think the mind is really good at generating these kind of things, which is just sampling points from, from this design space of what's around us, right? Yeah. And then and then these are actions or like, these are these are impressions. Yeah. It's like, yeah, we just, we just like, we have all these things around this, like stimulus. And our mind is generating these things. And most of the time, it's like, it's pretty pragmatic. It's like, Oh, you have to put on your shoes to walk. It's like this thing you tell yourself, but you're not really thinking you're doing things. But like, sometimes it's just like random thoughts. Like it's our mind is a pretty interesting random number generator. Deep. What are your thoughts on that?   Deep  49:00 Okay, it really is. I agree with that. I mean, you can always say that, uh, you know, all of our output all of our, I've always wondered, you know, the, what is it the thousand monkey or the infinite monkey experiment or thought experiment where what would happen if you let monkeys play with a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, right? There's the idea that they would eventually create Shakespeare. And it makes me question the idea of creativity and thought, is it a linear combination of what you already know? Or is it truly something that will eventually appear emergent from random fucking monkey? Monkey actions, right? Like, what what is true intelligent creativity? So with that being said, I really had a I was thinking, though, you know, on that note about us looking at death and life is binary. That's true. We are classical creatures, like we observe the universe in classical sense, right? Everything is and so because it's macroscopic to us, I wonder, what if? What does life look like for, let's say, micro organism that doesn't experience the world classically like we do, right? What if there are, there are quantum organisms that are only experiencing the world and quantum mechanics? To them, there would be literally no such thing as a classical I am dead or classical life. What does that mean? What What does death for that organism look like? So yeah, I was just thinking about that. But you guys think,   Pouya LJ  50:34 yeah, no, you're you're dragging us into the pan psychism   Govind  50:41 the movie arrival, right? With the whole concept of like, circular time and all these things, right? Like, this is some I think, innovations of the 21st century like, exploring this, these kind of ideas. I see so many outlets for this in different TV shows and movies and all that stuff. Like this, this like convergence of everything, how everything is one and many at the same time. Right? Well, I guess the fuzziness of everything, right. Like everything is just really fuzzy. And we're, as humanity starting to accept it, which is, you know, really freakin cool.   Pouya LJ  51:12 No, no, it is. And you mentioned an arrival It reminds me of, so I think if I'm not mistaken. Okay, maybe I'm mistaken. But let me let me just make it maybe, you know, I think Stephen Wolfram was an advisor in that movie. I don't know if he really I don't know. That's that I I'm doubting myself now. So anybody out there listening. Please double check for yourselves. Don't quote me on it. But which reminds me he actually I don't know if we're familiar. Actually. I   51:40 don't know why I did a quick Google and   Pouya LJ  51:43 it is like it's okay. Yeah. And he came up with this new What is it? What do you call it? Geez. new stuff. Yeah, he is hypergraph.   Deep  51:56 Physics.   Pouya LJ  51:57 Yes. Yeah. Have you heard about that? Did you look into it?   Deep  52:01 Yeah, I   52:04 I liked it.   Pouya LJ  52:06 So what are your thoughts on that? But super quickly, I don't want to go to a different deep rabbit hole right now. But it reminded me of him when you mentioned arrival.   Deep  52:14 Sure. I mean, various.   Pouya LJ  52:16 I don't know, Dad Galvin. Are you familiar with what it is? Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Good.   Deep  52:22 Yeah, just very briefly, I mean, the idea of like, Come complex, physical phenomena from simple rules is nothing new, right. Like that's been talked about for 100 years. What was really interesting was the idea of using causal graphs or attempting to use just like these hyper graphs to encode physical rules. Yeah, I think it's promising. I'd love to see experiments and math and more rigor. But the ideas are cool. Like Stephen Wolfram is really, like he has some fundamental thoughts there that are interesting, unique worth pursuing.   Govind  52:56 These are usually a pioneer of this kind of this kind of funky fuzzy stuff. Right, right. Yeah. Yes, geez theory so much with his work on automata and all that stuff. Well, this release. I mean, I wanted to bring back this point from about 15 minutes ago. We were talking about Zeno's paradoxes. Yeah, a conversation topic for a future podcasts definitely should be the nature of calculus, right? Because, yeah, the way we as humans, resolve Zeno's paradoxes was to create this notion of a limit, we just throw a limit on it. And we say, at some point, it does, it does converge on to this value, right? Like, and I'm like, okay, so you keep cutting the half of your hair. And at some point, you're, you're going to get a full haircut, right? Like, even if you get the convergence now that that notion of convergence, it turns out is not strongly understood by by humans. But I think that's something we need to discuss. And I it stands out for me, because this is one of the first discussions we ever had. Right? Exactly. Yeah.   Deep  53:57 Yeah, absolutely. Talking   Govind  53:58 about limits and how like, that's what I think I first realized I'm like, this doesn't make any sense, does it? It's just, we just put   Deep  54:04 it is it is a great because some that is it all stemmed from some Berkeley kid asking us like, like, about it, right? Like he's like, yeah, this like this. And then yeah,   Govind  54:15 yeah. Yeah. Cool stuff. No, but I think we should explore that in in the next podcast or though sounds good. Sounds good?   Pouya LJ  54:24 No, I think I think okay, well, we made the plan. I don't know about the dates. We'll talk about that later. But next sub subject of the next conversation will be calculus, and its origins, its fundamentals. axioms, I suppose. Okay, I think that's a good. Here's a good stopping point. We almost went full hour here. Is there anything else you want to, you know, close the loop on before we leave this conversation?   Govind  54:54 Well, for me, I think I learned so I mean, I had these thoughts about fuzzy fuzzy thinking and all that stuff. And it was Kind of like in the let's let's see the disk of my, the my external hard disk of my brain is just forgotten there. So it's great to brush the dust off. And I feel like I really kind of added to these models based on this conversation. So yeah, it was very cool. I think we achieved fuzziness today. Yes.   Pouya LJ  55:18 That's great. How about you?   Deep  55:20 Yeah, I would just say that I really appreciated the perspective of the history of history philosophy, with respect to logic, a super neat perspective that you brought to the table or Govind and yeah, just different perspectives that were shared today. Um, it's awesome. It does make things more fuzzy. And yeah, let's keep it going. Guys, I, I think that there's a lot of interesting questions. We post here today. So   Pouya LJ  55:47 okay, and if anybody wants to share their thoughts, feel free you can reach go in and deepen their respective social media, which I'm going to put in the show notes. Don't need to repeat them here. You can you can find them there.   56:01 And comment guys.   Pouya LJ  56:04 Make it make it dirty. No, keep it clean. And all right, stay fuzzy until later episode.   Deep  56:11 Cheers, guys.  

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Welcome to Harmonic Evolution podcast. I'm Joe Heller, your host, your guide, and I am honored to have Reverend Michael Shane. Reverend Shane is a physical medium and a spiritual teacher Reverend Shane has spent his life connecting with the Ascended Masters of Shambala to bring forth their teachings and principles into the world this three-dimensional world we live in. Reverend chain offers healing instruction, direction direct application, so individuals can strengthen and fully realize their connection to the spiritual world, their guides and their masters as well as work directly with the Ascended Masters. In the lady masters of Shambala, if a student seeks the calling, so welcome, Michael, this is a real thrill to have you here because there's just so much I want to get into. And it's just like, Wow. I mean, they're obviously there's so few physical mediums on the planet. So why don't we start there? Because I'm sure people and I've met James Vaughn, Prague and a few others. So can you talk about the difference between a physical medium, and then a just a traditional, I guess, medium, and how you kind of came down this path?Well, the differences between mediums. And the first thing I want to say one isn't any better, or any less than the other. All gifts given to us by God and everybody has one it's just a question or an issue of finding what it is. But there are differences I mean, with everything, you know, you Like in a football team, you have your quarterback and you got your offense Do you know? But there's mental mediums like you mentioned James Vaughn, Prague and John Edwards who are very, very talented individuals that speak to meet people's loved ones to give closure and information to those that are grieving. And they do that through hearing him seen spirit. Hmm, that's what a mental mediumship is. In reality, it has nothing to do with the mind. See, but they call it mental mediumship in more you probably be better to call it spirit connection mediumshipor psychic mediumship. Then you have the trance mediums which are those that go into trance and as Spirit will come into their body and utilize the physical body to communicate to people or like a seance mic. Or that one's a seance. Yes. Okay, but it's usually done in red light. Where the idea of a transfiguration medium came from, because in a red light setting in a dark room, when the medium is inside the seance cabinet, not using a seance trumpet, the spirit comes into the body, their body tends to, to kind of shift and change into a very close, familiar appearance of the spirit that's taking over the body. Wow. And then you end up seeing all these different orbs and things floating around. And it's a pretty exciting thing. The other one is handwriting medium I'm sure your listeners and yourself have heard of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yes, his wife was a hand handwriting medium. And what would happen is an automatic handwriting medium would use the opposite hand to write from what they normally write with. So if you're right-handed, the spirit world would use the left hand if you were left-handed, they would use the right because then your control factor isn't as connected to the opposite side as it is the one that you normally use. So it's easier for spirit to use. Now if you use both, then I guess they just flip a coin go and I'd actually heard that before in reading some of Dolores cannons stuff is that when let's say she You're gonna connect for the past life through her client. And that past life was left-handed, they would write in the left hand and it would be anything from a completely different language, such as even ancient languages like Sanskrit or cuneiform or Sumerian cuneiform. So it's fascinating the way that this can kind of come through the body.Oh, we are truly all of us are connected. You see, especially the mother to their child, some mothers through what they call a symbiosis of their record. Uh-huh. their child could be on the other side of the world. And they're going through some sort of trauma, and the mother on the opposite side of the world can feel it. Yeah. To give you an example, everyone knows who Gladys Presley was. Elvis Presley's mother, yes. She always knew when he was on the road when something was wrong. And she would describe what she was feeling to him when he would call and in one specific incident, their car caught on fire and they had you know, in his mom saw the fire and all of that. And so she was really connected, the more connected that one person is depending on how sensitive you are and how emotional one it can be. To net would that also apply to obviously twins, correct? Same thing. And then what if a twin because you might have one twin that's a star seed and then one twin that may just be incarnate as in this world for the multiple times and maybe not a star seed. So I understand those maybe have a less of a connection or it does it really matter do you think?I don't think it matters because they're hanging out in the same space for No see mom? Yeah, you know and they're together pretty much their whole life at least when they're at home anyway.But, the connection, because we're all connected, is still there. So I would think that it wouldn't matter. I don't know for sure, but I would think that it would matter I I have known some twins in my life and I even know a set of twins that still wear the same clothes. Wow. And they're my age now.Wow. So they're 31 ish.Yeah, thank you.So yeah, I interrupted you, you were talking about the red light and apportioning and so I know you weren't going to finish that story. Because then I really want to ask you your origin story like all superheroes because your talent, your ability, and I know all gifts are equal, but it's pretty amazing. What you can do in this gift from the Ascended Masters that has, I guess, open some gates for people to see a greater understanding of the otherworldly realms through you?Um, well, in regards to the Transfiguration, red light sans, I pretty much told you about as much as I can there. I could probably talk about it for over an hour, but just that one, that one element alone.But in my case, how I got involved was I really didn't have a choice.You're volunteered.In my grandmother. She knew Marjorie Crandon. I don't know who that is. She was one of the old mediums the one that passed the Houdini test.Wow.And Houdini tried to get upset because she keeps passing in His tests and so he tried to set her up as a fraud on his own and got caught by the Spirit that was coming through her. And so he, and he still hasn't paid her to $10,000 reward to pass his test. So well, I would imagine the interest on that now she'd be it's probably a pretty good paycheck.Yeah, I would think so. That was what 1920s Yeah, I think so. I would say $10,000 now, could be worth close to 2 million, maybe nice. I don't know. My math isn't very good. So anyway, um, that led her to meet an individual in Seattle, Washington, who was studying this book called The Eurancher book and had these teachings of these masters from Shambala. And this comes from the Theosophical Society. Helena Blavatsky. Yeah, the optical society. She was the first medium physical phenomena medium to introduce the Ascended Masters to the physical world. The three there's a picture of her sitting in a chair with three of those masters standing behind her. That was St. Germain comes to me and l Moria.And if I'm correct, Michael, is she the first woman that was ever trained by Tibetan masters?That's correct. That is correct.You know, as James Brown says, in one of his songs, it's a man's world. In those days, it kind of was right, though today. It's not. You know, I'm not sure whose world this is right now.Well, like going back to the future. I think the professor would tell Marty whenever you Do Marty don't go to 2020?Yeah.Yeah. And look at what happened. Um, well, the point, though, I mean, Michael, I mean, you're up. But yeah, back in those days you had What? Helena Blavatsky. And then Alice Bailey. I mean, two women that really kind of shaped spirituality the world we live in today.Yes. And in fact, Marjorie Crandon, who I mentioned earlier, she was instrumental in how women got the right to vote. Wow. She was married to an upper-class surgeon, Dr. I believe it was in Philadelphia. Somewhere in that arena, and she had these gifts that her husband thought it was kind of neat. So he would have so his elite, rich, upper-class people will come over to his house and she would do events and stuff and every once in a while, she Go out and do stuff publicly you know and when he was working because you know if you're a surgeon you're not home that often, right? And that was even the case in those days. And she is in a seance, a spirit by the name of I believe his name was Dr. Black Hmm. Or no, that was Edgar Casey's sleeping prophet. He got his information from a spirit called Dr. Black. You don't read much about that anymore.For some reason, but that was the case but she had a spirit that came through and told all of these upper-class women in society, you know, in society to go down to the White House under designer outfits and pick it for the right to vote. Well, they took it one step further than that. They did get into their designer outfits. They went down to the White House with their signs and everything. But they chained themselves to the White House fence.Wow, wow, that's crazy.I actually read about that happening. Not the part about the seance. You have to go into another area to find that information. But that was one of the instrumental reasons why women got the right to vote. Awesome, which they should have been given the right to vote, you know, after the scenario with Jesus because He was teaching equality, that women were just as important as equal as men were.That's correct. And a lot of people don't realize how many women followers Jesus had. Mary Magdalene was actually my understanding, a high priestess from Egypt, which is one of the That they communicate well together is because they were very aligned with their teachings and eventually became his wife.Yes, I wasn't gonna go down that path. But yes, tantric sex in a whole type of which could be a whole different podcast for us, Michael, just to kind of give a little thing.I've been writing a book about his life including the missing years His Spirit has come to me and told me all these different stories that's also about his life in I'm not sure if everything is good that he has told me I'm going to write it in there because I'm worried about the controversy that may arise because of some of the information but yes, it was Mary Madeline's parents are from Egypt. She was actually born in Israel.I did not know that. But that's interesting. And But to your point, I would think that with everything breaking loose in 2020, this is the Great Awakening, I would say included because, I mean, there's been so much controversy around Jesus's as you were just talking about missing years and obviously those of us that are kind of following that path know that he was in India and receive certain teachings and, and other places that he had traveled to, which are not in the doctrine, probably in the archives in the Vatican.Like his master teacher, Maitreya, who, yes, in India, you know, wonderful master teacher, he is so anyway, to my story is a long story. So I'm going to make it I'm going to give you the short of it, please, if I know how to do that. When my mother was 15 years old, she was she went to this church called me The Aquarian foundation in Seattle Washington not too far from where they just recently had all the riots and stuff.Interesting and she was 15 years old and she was told by a spirit in a seance through a medium by the name of Reverend Keith Milton Reinhart that she was going to have a baby boy that was going to be born July 4 1963 11:59 am and that I would have these gifts this boy would have the similar gifts as the medium wow trained by the by this medium and that she wasn't to raise me that the church would raise me as an avatar nice now my I do have a little bit of an ego but not to the point where I think I'm some sort of avatar or God child like they treated me in those days they put like a big blue stripe on your right here, Michael I think that's yeahI'm no I'm not going there.But we know we know what your next Halloween costume is gonna be.I think it was gang stuff.Every once in a while I come out wearing robes and stuff. But that's for another purpose not to be egotistically inclined there. So I ended up being born on July 2 1963 1159. Wow, everything was correct. Except for the day. They missed the day by two days. But I've always been told that was because I was in a hurry over here. So I was born on a Tuesday. And I was in my very first seance that following Sunday. And I didn't make a sound through the whole seance.Wow, that's an interesting baptism.Yeah. And, you know, because there's a higher consciousness that's getting training this you know, that I mean, I might have been in that, you know, little body Google, you know and stuff but there's another part of us that's that exists called the heart consciousness mind. Yeah. Know, the heart-mind consciousness,especially that age because you're wide open you just came in, right? I mean, you are wide open and most of us aren't like six years old.Right? And it was I remember my birth and I remember those days even to details of people were wearing and I told my grandparents, what my grandfather was wearing. When he came to see me through the glass at the hospital. You know, remember, remember those days used to go stand behind the glass. There's my son, you know, that kind of thing?Yeah, with a cigarette, right? This is my son in the hospital. Right?And, and... Oh, I lost my thought.So you would just be in your seance you were able to tell everybody what they were wearing what they were doing kind of like an out of body experience. When you do like a transition from this world and you're in you get pulled back, you could see everybody in the hospital room in the circle.It was a chaotic day because I died three times. And my mom died twice. Wow. While I was trying to be born. And I believe I was saying you know what, I don't want to deal with this. I'm out of here.After seeing your soul is like God no, no, thank you.But so because of in those days religion was a big stickler in the hospitals. So the doctor went out and told my grandparents you know, which one do you want us to save? Because some religions save the mother other religions even child right like crazy. My grandfather, I was told this because I wasn't out there to see it. But he grabs the doctor by his white coat. tells him you say both of them were you better not show your face out here again. And he ended up saving both of myself and my mom. I love that story. You know. And then I, my grandmother was the lady that helped Reinhardt do the books, she set up the event, she ran the church for him. And all he had to do was come in and do his thing. And I ended up living with her and a few other people in the church as kind of passed around like a hot potato there for a while. And those were what I call my happy years.So do you think you're just kind of indoctrinated in this higher energy and you're playing kind of like the old Frank Sinatra song playing in the stars are among the star so it just kind of like permitted within your physical avatar your body?Well, to be honest, I milked it for everything I could up to me on a Sunday and say they would call me a little queasy because I was named after my biological birth name is Keith Milton, Lester. Okay. And I was named after him. And they would ask me if I if I had breakfast, I'm hungry. You know, they would take me over to the Safeway where they had this deli to buy me some breakfast. But really, all I wanted was a milkshake.And I'll get one, right.Yeah. And my grandma would say, don't do that. You know. I got a lot of good memories from those days. And I was, you know, was treated very special spoilt. People would give me money, candy, birthdays and Christmases were just undescribableWow, payment in advance. I like that.Yeah. And people would, I mean, I'm four or five years old people want me to come up and do healings on them? Uh,well, I was gonna ask you about that. So, obviously, we talked briefly about the A portion. I want to jump back into that in a second. But I also believe through some of the material I read, that you do hands-on healing and remote distance healing, is that correct?Correct. Now, when I was about six years old, Saint Germain whispered in my ear, now you do know you're not healing these people. And I thought about that. I said, What do you mean? You are aa avenue a vehicle, a tool. Think of yourself as a hammer. The Hammer does not build the house until someone comes along and picks it up. And I think he what he was doing was trying to help me not to lose my egotistical, negative side, right. Don't get into that I heal you. And truthfully, you're being used as a vehicle to help people believe in themselves enough to heal themselves.Right But that's also something you were chosen for. I mean, not all of us are chosen for something like that, especially, it's six years old. That's, that's pretty amazing.It was and, and it's just I think it's wonderful and amazing, but I also feel that Everybody, you know, has the ability to heal themself. I agree. Because, you know, they're the ones that created the issue in the first place. Yep. No, if you're the one that writes the map to the treasure, right, then you should probably be able to find the treasure.Exactly, yeah, we just become disharmony, disharmonious. We don't really know how to get back in sync. And so, I kind of see us as a, if you will cymatic wave pattern that, like Dr. Emoto. His work, when you have this corrupt is just negative or disharmonious thinking the whole wave becomes disharmonious, which causes corruption. Aging does disease within the avatar of the body.Right. And disease will eventually come into disease.Right, exactly. So let's jump back to reporting because I find that fascinating And I want my listeners to really kind of get their head wrapped around it. And I through the videos, I was like, wow, this is like so crazy cool. Because I'm watching you a port in reporting really is kind of, I guess opening a spiritual gate through different parts of your body. And what's the physical mediumship is, is you're actually bringing through gold jewels, I mean a number of different things, including, I think one we were talking before the show, a 1300 karat with Sapphire, Blue Sapphire. And then one of the other really fun ones for me was when you were talking about holding a class and there was a puppy in a car and the puppy was like going crazy and you imported the brought the puppy in or Saint Germain brought the puppy in, and he jumped out of your belly and onto the lap of the owner and it was in your class. I mean, I was like, had to wrap my head around porting living like puppies. I was like, Oh my god, that's so cool. Ever needs to go shopping again?Well, I remember that day that was in Renton, Washington. And we were doing a seance and there was my helper. Her name was Pat. She had this dog named chipper and we left with my car was parked just outside of the window next to the dance room. Uh huh. This little dogs out there, get get get get, you know, and people were getting cranky because they couldn't hear what spirit was saying. And one guy says, you know, he makes a comment about getting a refund because you know, and the next thing you know, and I'm in trance, so I didn't know this, it happened. And so the dog comes through and jumps out into the audience in pitch dark conditions and is able to find The, you know, hit her, her owner. And so jumped up in her lap and sat quietly for the rest of the seance. Now that gentleman afterward wanted my car keys and I go, what do you want my car keys for? And he says, I want to go look in your car and see if there's a recording device with a dog barking. And so he goes out and he looks he doesn't find anything.Are you serious? Okay, I thought he was like joshingNo, and he was in a suit, you know, with a tie and a suit coat and everything. So he asked, he says, Can I go under the house because there was this the section where you can crawl under and right in the old houses right on the pier beam. Yeah, this house was built in the 1920s. Right. And he goes under there. He takes his coat, jacket coat off, but he goes under there. With his tie his shoes, his slacks, and nice shirt and all that, you know, and as soon as he sees under there for 45 minutes now what he's looking for is a trap door. Right? Right. And he doesn't find anything and he notices no one's been under there because of where the cobwebs were and they were undisturbed when he ruined his outfit. I mean, when he came because it rained the day before. And, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around and says I just don't believe it. And so he never went public or anything to say anything negative and never seen and heard from him again. But, um, you know, it's just hard for people to imagine now.Well, Michael, to that point real quick. I mean, even for me because I was like, Okay, I can see a porting or bringing through the spiritual realm non Living materials like joules and go, but when I watched that video, I was like, really living materials can be imported through a body that's like crazy and it's like, could give a whole new meaning to the virgin birth if you will, because it's just something that was kind of beyond my comprehension I've got I got my head wrapped around it now, but it was like, wow, that's and I would imagine, even as a physical medium, there's probably very few physical mediums that can aport living material through their body.Um, I have not heard of any I'm not even Keith Reinhardt. But that doesn't really mean it doesn't take anything away from anything that any of them I'm sure, you know, but you got to think in terms of quantum physics. In reality, there is no distance between point A and point B. Okay, the closest distance between two points is not a straight line. It's where you take the two points and put them in the same space and time. So you're folding space and time, which is where the reality of, of existence really is. Because the past, present, and future exists simultaneously, like for instance, right now, you're still going through your childhood. And you're also going through your future, and you're going through the now. It's just this element of your consciousness is here. There's another element of your consciousness. That's is in the tomorrow, and another one that's in the past. You see yesterday, well, that's brilliant. As a matter of fact, right before we jumped on this call, I did a video for my YouTube channel, and I talked about past lives and future lives. And then I threw some monkey wrenches in there around. They don't need to be linear so you can actually go back and have a past life that wasn't there from a current life because you've developed something in this life. That needs to be developed in the past life, he actually has it in this lifetime. So looking at the observer being the observer observed who's being the observer. So it's really kind of a house of mirrors, if you will, which is interesting because I understand exactly what you're saying in that perspective. It's fascinating. That you're right, it's the points are together, there is no separation. It's almost like being on a computer, hard drive people, like run and play these games and climb mountains and swim through rivers and rowboats, but that one piece of code never moves from that one spot on that hard drive. And yet, they're all over the world, but that one piece of code are in the game, and that one piece of code never moves.Right? And it's kind of like an illusion. Right? And we are sitting in the illusion everything that you see around us. Is it the way that it truly is? And I have come to realize that the physical world in the spirit world are one in the same?That's why we loved ones and spirits and stuff are still there with us that we sometimes see them. Because we're, we're in the same space as they are, because of the conscious mind and the experience that we're going through relative to this side of the veil. We see this right. See. I was working with a scientist. His name was Edward Wilson. lived in Boulder, Colorado up in the mountains. He was the very first scientist to test me at the heartmath Institute in California.Oh, yeah. Great. Great place. Yes, yes.I met Dr. Childers. He was a he was a riot.Raleigh is his first name I think. Well, Raleigh, I think is his first name. Yeah, Holly. Yes.A wonderful man. I don't know if he's still alive or not. This was back in the 90s. But who knows he could still be around but anyway, he was studying the healing effects of sound. Yeah, as a time heartmath you know, so in one of the scenariosI was in trance describing the crucifixion of Jesus. Wow. Because I, I was astral projecting my consciousness back to those to that time. And the machine that they had me hooked up to stated that I believed what I was seeing wasn't saying that I was really seeing what I was describing. But it was basically saying that I believed it. Meaning I wasn't making it up. I was seeing it in my mind and It was there even down to the emotional level of the experience. And I gotta say, the Mel Gibson movie has nothing on what really happened to the poor guy. Wow. Do you know? I did a seance I believe it was in Lilydale New York and his finger we were doing a paraffin wax fingerprint where he materialized his hand and he put his hand down in the wax and the finger was broken.And, and I was told that that was because when he was being tortured one of his fingers, you know, was was was, was broke, right when he was on the cross. He was tortured. Are you talking about when he was actually carrying across the city when he was trying to when they were trying to nail him on his wrists, the hammer, went hit the finger and it broke his finger and twisted it back. Wow. And so it showed that on the handprint but with Ed Wilson I then did what a thing of the past life regression. This gentleman that I was that was working with me at the time. His name was Reverend Weston Bailey, who recently passed away a couple of years ago. He basically is the guy that brought me out of lethargy. You know, I was going down the deeper rabbit hole in those days.I understand life. but anywayI would astral project myself out of my body into the throat chakra of the individual. I'd be able to go in and see past lives, medical issues, childhood stuff, present-day stuff. I'd see all this stuff by etherial. And I described I'm looking at his blood.And I'm describing something that I thought was kind of peculiar. I said, I see these Jelly Bean, looking things being devoured by these round plate looking things. And Mr. Wilson stood up in the chair. He turned absolutely white and said, I don't believe this. I just don't believe this. But it happened was I had described as leukemia. Now, nobody that was there in the room other than Him, knew he had leukemia.Wow.And if you looked at it under The microscope that's what it looks like. And, and only people that knew that he had leukemia was him, his doctor, his wife, his wife wasn't there and I didn't know his doctor and, and so there was no way that I could have known that he had leukemia. So he, so that led me to a place called the heartmath Institute. I'm sorry, the subtle energy and in energy medicine organization, which used to be out of Boulder, Colorado, and another group, a gentleman by the name of Jerry Pittman, PhD.He also passed away a number of years ago, and he did some studies on me too. And then recently, another gentleman out of Heidelberg, Germany, a car cruise, huh. He did. Some thermal imaging infrared he was actually there present with his equipment when I did the 1300 carat Sapphire. Wow, that's that was under scientific conditions. Wow. And then he did a voice analysis where he was testing my voice along with the other voices that were coming through the seance. And all five of them came from different voice signatures which is not even rich little could have created that.I would say that most of my listeners probably don't know who this little is. But if you get a chance Google Rick's a little look up some of his YouTube videos because he's a classic comedian that had all these crazy voices. It was just a brilliant guy.So he did a really good Nixon.He did Exactly, yes. And of course, some of our listeners probably don't know who Richard Nixon is. I am not a crook.Well, Mike, we have something in common because I was actually born in 63 as well. So we are kin kindred spirits from back in the day of. Yeah, unfortunately, the JFK assassination. So a couple of questions is so the 1300 carat and I know that you go through incredible prep relative to making sure that in the scientific conditions, you're put in a box, your mouth is taped, you're kind of handcuffed to a chair. So there's really no way you can fake these jewels and gold and jewelry coming through. I mean, you're just there's just no way I mean, you're searched and all this sort of stuff. You're never left alone. So when you aport these, these items, let's say you've mentioned a trance Is there like a gate that opens Can you see the port, the apportioned, let's say the jewel or the ring or whatever it might be? Can you see it in your mind's eye before it comes out? Or does it just come out? And it's just it's, I guess everything selected by the Ascended Masters, mostly Saint Germain. I'm just as surprised as everybody else. It's a really, I don't, I don't. I don't, I'm not completely 100% in my body in the first place. Okay, and I don't know what's coming through and even when they're coming out because there's a process. Let me briefly give you a, please. I was gonna ask you about how to get into a trance state and what the real processes will sit once I'm in the cabinet.And yes, I do this spontaneous, where I'm not in the cabinet like I did with Wayne Dyer. I did it just right in front of them before he went into the cabinet. The first part of it anyway. And so, St. Germain will have located objects that he's going to Through that they have been programmed and energized for specific people from their guides and master teachers. And he then puts it on this makeshift table and Shambala. It has kind of a bowl and it's a table concave, okay? concave so it does, you know, step don't roll out or whatever. Then his heart opens up his heart chakra. And from that heart chakra, this silver energy will come out of his heart chakra into the Conclave of the table where the objects are. And then the objects including the table, really lose their physical appearance and in turn into their natural appearance, or, which is energy in motion.Okay, so so this is the table concave table on St. Germain in Shambala, in the theoretic realm is there he's doing that there and it just turns into energy and then just reports where you are in the physical.Well, then he lists the energy up with the will of the silver energy. And then this vortex opens up which looks like mercury that's moving in a counterclockwise motion.Mercury, the planet or Mercury, the element, the element the liquid or Well, it's not really a liquid but it looks like a liquid, you know, which is interesting because a lot of free energy in ancient times has been tied to mercury. And Sir Isaac Newton. Most people obviously know him for the law, gravity, that's an ad, but he was actually more of a proponent instead you're of alchemy, and he actually died of mercury poisoning.Yep. Yep.alchemy is a lost art and that's what St. Germain is doing in the process of the application. So once the energy of these objects goes into the vortex Immediately appears through my body somewhere because space and time is has been folded into the same space and time which in reality is never separated. It's always been that way, right? Okay. And so then when it hits this what we call the third dimension, the air, you know the oxygen the light, it will turn into a gas from the energy into a gas and then into a fluid which people will see that part is that the ectoplasm Michael, is that the ectoplasm?Well, it's a fluid, it goes through a fluid state it goes from a gas, the objects Okay, was from a from the energy to a gas to a fluid, and then it solidifies once it hits the light into the object and it was interesting and if you touch them too soon, they can do dissipate right away, you have to be careful. And, and so that's the process. And then I go back into the cabinet to kind of get myself together and again, people are organizing them. And then I come out and I call people up. And they receive an object with a message from there, from whoever gave it to them. And for healing for knowledge for the message, and also to get them to start thinking about what really is this world has to offer, you know, so and the first time I ever recorded myself as I was seven years old.We can't afford it yourself. You mean you transitioned into a different dimension or time station? The first time I ported an object?Okay, okay. Okay. Okay.Yeah. Um,I was playing in a dirt pile out behind my house.And I was playing. I don't know kids don't do this anymore. But I was playing with army men. I did that. Yeah, we're good. Well you did, but I mean, the kids today they're playing with their little and hide stuff, you know, right? Um, even bicycles are becoming obsolete, right? So I started feeling this nauseousness in my stomach.And then this cloud of ectoplasm came out of my stomach, about three feet in front of me three feet above the ground and this object drops into the dirt. And I pick it up and I look at it. I didn't know what it was. You know what kind of gemstone it was Iris. I'm all excited. I knew what it happened. I ran up to my mom. And she looks at it and immediately she thinks I stole it from someone she knew. She calls this person up because we had spent the weekend at this person's house to calls her up and says can you go look in your you know your jewelry box? And she looks she says no, no that my appetites still there from the medium Reinhardt. And so then my mom knew Oh, well, this, this happened. Well To this day, you know, I was when I was seven I'm 57 now 50 years ago. She sheets, I haven't seen it. She keeps it. It's awesome. What a great story, an 88 carat white Sapphire.So two quick things, um, the ectoplasm So can you talk a little bit about what Ectoplasm is because I think that's something that many of my listeners may not have a concept of. I mean, we remember the movie Ghostbusters, where they talk about the ectoplasm. So what is it from a from the Ascended Masters perspective what would be best for people to go read Charles Roget's work because he's the one that actually coined the word ectoplasm. Hmm. Okay, but relative to what I know ectoplasm is really a lifeforce energy that comes from your soul through your seven bodies, past your silver cord into the physical body down into your nervous system, which gives us energy to keep things moving, like your heart beating, being able to breathe, having the nerve fluid to move through the nervous system, and everybody has that only one out of every millions child is born produces enough ectoplasm to produce phenomena on its own, right. And that's usually kids that have overactive adrenal glands. You Know the kid that that won't sit still right? No matter what you do plasm would be in a sense, like, key or ci or real. So an energy, lifeforce that's, that's used to create this or the chemical by-product of the soul. Okay. Interesting. I called that before. That's my analogy.Okay. And the second thing I just wanted to point out to my listeners is that all these incredible it's not just jewels, its rings, it's all kinds of things that have like symbology. You give these to the people that are in the workshop. I mean, St. Germain is you mentioned brings these through with a message, and it's, I don't know, hundred thousand dollars or whatever it might be of jewels that you report in a workshop. And then one of your attendees gets one of these because it's specifically been gifted to you to bring into this realm for them is that correct?Yes um, there's gemstones are mostly the what the objects that come through me because most of the people that come to my events are women. Ah, you know and women like those little sparkly gemstones every once in a while. silver dollars will come through, some of them still encased in plastic that never been touched. Wow. I'm different origins of the world I've had gold coins come through from a 10th of an ounce to a one-ounce gold coin. There's a couple of times that I have hoarded gold nuggets. And there are people can actually tell you where the nugget came from. So these nuggets actually came out of Alaska.  Right, because I know that gold has a specific radiation signature that you can track to whichever mine in the world it came from.Now the funny part of this is some people think I'm regurgitating this stuff right now. Especially when that Stephen star guy on British got talent and talent came out and started swallowing, pool balls and things like that. But any guests or biologists would tell you regurgitator is don't swallow the objects. For one thing that Sapphire I brought through was two and a half pounds. Not only was it bigger, a lot bigger than my esophagus. my esophagus would not have been able to push that up from my stomach.You know, right, well into your point before we jumped on, it's a recording. You actually said it broke a tooth I believe because it was so shattered this tooth here and dislocated this job.Wow, you think St. Germain would be like a game like or not? Like?People have asked, Well, why would Ascended Master put you through that kind of pain? Well, they don't. It's by my choice for one thing, and I don't feel pain anymore during this process, because now, through the years of doing this my specific master teacher is Jesus, which is why I'm writing about it. It feels like he's holding my heart. You see? Hmm. And I don't feel the pain. Now. I do feel pressure. And sometimes it's uncomfortable. Now. I do feel the pain after like, like, for instance, when I was on the plane, my tooth was killing me. Right. My father wasn't really all that happy for a while, you know? And so, but every single person that comesEvery once in awhile, it's not the case, but most of the time everyone that comes will receive an object. St. Germain will make sure to the best of his abilities that everyone received something because there are 100 people in the room and one person doesn't get an object. That person's not going to be happy.Yes, I can.And it's also one point I wanted to finish.I honestly can't afford to give away all this stuff. So you know, me Bert purchasing this stuff. I mean, people that are really close in my life right now are aware, you know that. I'm not buying this stuff. Right. You know, to give away. con men never give away their props in the first place. Right, but I'm no longer In the mode to try to prove myself or convince people are going to believe or not going to believe it's, it's what St. Germain says. We're proof is needed. no proof will suffice. We're proof is not needed. no proof is necessary.So what is the craziest thing you've recorded Michael?Besides a puppy, we already talked about the puppy.Well, it's two things are actually three things.About three and a half years ago. I have a video of this and I was going to post it, but I was warned and then I thought better of it. So I only give I've only given this video to a certain couple of people.But in an event with the help of Saint Germain, ad ported a hamster out of my chest and a corn snake out of my mouth. The corn snake came first. Then the teddy bear hamster came out and he tried to escape now can you imagine these women were in the fifth row? What was happening with them when this little hamster was running across the carpet. And this wasn't excited conditions everybody saw it happen. And you can see it happen in the video. And, and we were told though, prior to the snake, we weren't told about the hamster.And so we had that it happened. So that's the one of the things that I would say. And then the other was a set of It was a wooden box probably. Well, it was a pretty good-sized box up about maybe eight inches tall. Maybe 12 inches wide in both directions.It was handmade and hand-carved.Inside the box was some red velvet and you can tell that the material was old and laying in the red velvet was to handmade solid Silver Goblets and underneath where the stick underneath the stem where the thing that holds the goblets up was st remains Hallmark.Wow, his is hearts.Yeah, his Hallmark. Wow. And hebrought that through The bummer is that night someone broke into my temple install it.Unbelievable.And I knew I was I kept telling myself I should, I should turn around and go get it and take it home. But I wanted it to be in display so people can see it. Right?Well, obviously St. Germain knew that. I mean, these people will probably needed it more than you did. There are no coincidences, right hand the way everything unfolds.Now in regards to the message that comes through, if there's any more than 40 or 50 people, obviously, not everybody gets an individual message, right? It's more than that. Because I've had up to 503 people during an app that seance and everybody got an airport. But everybody got the same message.Oh, right. So would you say that would be like maybe a soul group that for some reason got entangled and came together?Well, keep in mind, past, present, and future so the Masters already know Who's coming? Right?If you really sit down to think about all of this stuff, two things are going to happen. One is if you're having a glass of wine, you'll probably stop drinking. If you're not having a glass of wine, you might start drinking. If you really sit down to think about it, you know, because I mean, even Einstein knew something about all of this. That's where he left that unfinished formula. MC square equals two, right? That's an unfinished formula, and we still haven't been able to figure it out. But the answer to his formula, I believe, has a lot to do with a lot of what we're doing, but it's not just me. There are other people doing it. You know, there's other mediums that I've met from physical mediums to mental mediums. I even met a medium that did mediumship with her toes.How do you do mediumship with your toes? That'sI have no idea how she was doing it, but it was working.And yeah, and then you have the one that's kind of playful. And that's the table tipping.You know, right. Right. Right. Right. For sure. Yes. Yes. So jumping back to what I got one quick question and then kind of a wrap-up question because I've had you on for about an hour and I could talk to you for two or three hours and hopefully we get a chance to do this again and didn't dive deeper. I do want to mention before I ask this next question is you can find Michael at Michael Shane calm and it's -- m y ch e l s h n e So Michael with a Y. And he's got his training courses up there. He's got a YouTube channel. Yeah, so just really cool stuff. So if you want to go down this rabbit hole, I highly recommend you check Michael out because, well I'm fairly well versed in quantum physics. Michael has actually blown my mind a little bit as well as I saw in the puppy thing that just and now I think but the God was in St. Germain and the snake I'm just like, wow, the snake, just kind of wondering what kind of reaction the women in the room and with the snake.They had more of a reaction with the hamster than they did the snake. That's right. Now I have asked the Masters not to do any more live objects through my physical body anymore. Because I actually ended up taking on the fear that the snake was having.Oh, wow, I can see that sick for two weeks. So I that The Masters, you know, no more of that. But I do want to say in October coming up the end of September through the second week of November, I'm going to be in Detroit, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Erie, Pennsylvania, Rochester, New York, and the lily Dale area, which is called Cassadaga, New York to go on a road trip, and because, you know, as we all know, US citizens are not allowed to go to any other countries, right.So I'm doing this road trip, where we will be following the COVID guidelines and all that for those out there that are wondering about that. So that's coming up, if anyone's in those areas that might want to check it out. out. They can get ahold of me like you said, either at info at Michael Shane calm or Michael at Michael Shane calm and just go to my website which is Michael chain calm.Okay, fantastic. Yeah, it's exciting and you do so much more than what we just had a chance to talk about getting into psychometry and other things and I guess it depends on where and what people want to learn from you from healing techniques to the mediumship to it, I'm just fascinated that you just have this collection of gifts. So let me kind of jump back and ask a question because one of the things that struck me because we talked about heart math, and the heart chakra and the high heart, but you talked about going into the gentleman's throat chakra, why the throat chakra, were you that something divine guidance? Were you able to see the Leukemia I mean, I would think that you would?chakra is where the silver cord connects to the physical body which is at the base of the skull, okay. And the silver cord is what gives us physical life. Once that is severed physical death occurs, but it takes up to in earth language three days, which goes to the issue of, you know, Jesus rising in three days or no, there's a lot of things that happens in threes. Number three itself, but there are people that have been pronounced dead and then two or three days later they're waking up in the freezer, you know, you've heard stories,right? It actually back in Europe, but in the I know my mom's from a very old town for the 1700s in North Carolina, Beaufort, and they actually had bells that you where you're buried, and you could pull a string and a bell would ring above ground in case they buried you while you're still alive to your point which is People were really feared of that, which is where the outcome of embalming comes in place. So you don't wait no, come back. Right. And, you know, plus there were all kinds of stuff that people are afraid of death, but death is no different than being born. It's just being born into a different reality leaving, you know, one room to go into the next room. Right? But the only thing about death that I worry about is I don't want it to hurt.Exactly. Well, there's that glass of wine again. I do have one final question because it just dawned on me which because you're talking about the silver cord attaching to the back above the neck, which is really the ninth chakra and that's what I've been taught the mouth of God. I'm just wondering about your thoughts of the importance and we may go down a rabbit And we may just you might want to say, well, Joe, we'll just table that. But I'm just curious about the importance of the pineal gland because I personally, my guides have shown me the pineal gland is not all that important. It's really just kind of a whole concept, but I'm just curious how you look at the pineal gland because there's such a heavyweight and burden that's put on you've got to decalcify you got to do this getting that and one of the things my guides had showed me was no just go up in the etheric, you have your third body there's no calcification there as an example, well the first thing I want to say is if you go down that rabbit hole, my rabbits will talk to you. Nice.  Okay, so the petite the deal and pituitary glands are not actually for the physical body. It is a tool that is brought in from the ethereal realm to be used. As we start to develop, for instance, if you were to take a four-dimensional or three-dimensional picture of the inside of the brain, beyond the physical mass part, all the little synopsises and stuff. In the middle, there is an empty dark space which holds room for us to evolve. And the pineal, the pituitary gland is there for that very reason. Plus, it also helps you connect to the gifts which come from the ethereal realm by nature, to help you produce the site to see certain things that are in the future, but you're not actually traveling into the future. The future is already right there. Right. Okay. So the argument is whether they were important or not, relative to the physical part of it, probably not so much. But when it comes to the bigger picture, they're very important. It's like, it's kind of like the appendix. You know, medicine doesn't really know its true purpose. But one of the things that I've been told is it is a cleansing area for ectoplasm as it goes to the Kundalini, which helps us develop our creativity, and the seances and the mediumship part of the ectoplasm as well. But if you end up losing that, it bypasses that organ and goes directly to the Kundalini. And that could be a tough scenario because now you're getting the whole whack on your, on your Kundalini, instead of it just being gradually and cleaned.Right? Exactly like it'll gain whack a mole. Right, just for you.Yeah. You know. So there's a lot to understand about the physical body and I, personally, I'm not well versed in what that is. I'm a medium, not a doctor, you know, or a scientist. I get certain information from my guides and master teachers. But if they gave me too much information, especially stuff that I couldn't possibly understand, that would change the whole direction of where I'm supposed to go karmically. So, um, you know, I'm not, I'm not a brain person. I'm really good at history. But when it comes to math and things of that nature, I just best stay out of those conversations.I agree. I'm playing with the abacus myself. So with that, thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure. So again, Michael Michael m y ch a e l s h a n e.com  He's got these courses. Gosh, if you're in the upper part of the US I think he mentioned area Indiana, Rochester, New York, which is kind of like a foreign country with that...Erie, Pennsylvania...Oh, Erie, Pennsylvania.  Okay. Okay, so and I guess all of this is on your website. I don't have that pulled up in front of me right now.Not yetBut I haven't actually added anything to my website for a long time. Because I've been having problems with it with the emails and stuff and but I am planning on attempting to put these dates now that I've received them today. on there so people can go to that or if they don't see it on my website, they can get a hold of me through the website. Well, and then ask or befriend me on, on messenger. And I would just you know, you gotta say who they are. Don't just leave right there. You know? And make sure they have a profile because they don't have a profile. I don't approve it.Perfect. Yeah, that's exactly how I connected with you originally was on Facebook. So thank you. It's been a mind-expanding, conscious expanding experience just visiting with you just wow. I mean, what can I say is, and I would say that anybody that probably sits in your presence is going to have just this vibe of fluid energy that just kind of ignites their whole structure as you're reporting so what an experience I look forward to meeting you in person and hopefully get a chance to join one of these workshops in the near future.I look forward to thanks for tuning in evolutionary trees. Enjoying the show? Please rate and recommend Joe and the harmonic evolution podcast on iTunes, overcast, or wherever you tune in. Be sure to tell a friend and share these evolutionary insights you learned today with your tribe. Become an emissary for evolution. You can get more great evolutionary insights to expand your consciousness at www dot Joe heller.com. Be sure to tune in to our next episode. Until then, May there heavens been shine brightly upon you. As always, this show is offered to you in love

Welcome to Mother's Backyard Buzz and #empathyforgriefandloss episode #16 - Part 1 where I want to focus on a "Portal to Another World". Each episode is all about "breaking the silent struggle" around grief and loss. My podcasts are based on my personal grief and loss journey and reflections from my book: My Backyard Garden - A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief. I'm reflecting on Chapter 1 of my book entitled "A Change of Planes". From my book, I share current insights into this life-changing journey called grief and loss. Thanks for joining me, Debra Hester, as the author and your host of #empathyforgriefandloss podcast. A Couple of Firsts This is an exceptional podcast for me. As always, there are no chance meetings. In Episode #16, you will be hearing a new format. This topic will also have two episodes dedicated to it. This format is transitioning #empathyforgrief podcast to a video series on the Mother's Backyard Enterprises Channel on YouTube. You will be listening to a pre-recorded conversation with my very first guest. His name is Ruben Medina. We met virtually, and I recorded his interview via Zoom as he shared it "live" on Facebook. The discussion includes fun and earnest insights on how to create a Portal to Another World when you're suffering from grief and loss. Ruben not only shares some of his wisdom, but also some of his inspirational music. My favorite song by MC Medina is "Wake Up." As always, loved ones, I hope you find this episode helpful and inspirational.  [Recorded Conversation] Medina: So ladies and gentlemen, we are good to go…celebration!  Oh man, I wish I had some more noise making material over here!  Debra: All right, well for me, it's welcome, especially all your guests! You know this is my first time and I really look at you as a God-sent because I don't think I would have done this alone. So I really needed a partner to get me to this Facebook live experience. And here he is Mr. Ruben Medina M.C Medina and you know, as I said, no chance meetings, right? This was just amazing how we met online and just sort of have a very similar vision. and when I talked to him and understood sort of where his head was I knew that he needed to be a guest on #empathyforgrief Break the Silent Struggle with Grief and Loss. And I can only say that I hope this isn't the last time. Medina: Good afternoon, thank y'all for checking in I got a homie with me. We haven't even met, but I'm calling her my homie because we did on such a deep spiritual level. Her name is Miss Debra Hester and she's got books and she's got all types of stuff. Y'all can't see her right now but we're doing this on Zoom video for the first, I mean this is my first timeYeah this is both of our first time doing the podcast video style, big quarantine style. No masks today I thought about wearing one just for aesthetic purposes but then I thought I should probably have gloves too.  And I don't have gloves so we just threw out the whole idea. But we're definitely more than six feet apart right now, so we're good. Debra: I’ll go through the front end about the podcast a little bit. It's all about breaking the silence struggle with grief. This is my 16th podcast of #empathyforgrief. You can get podcasts anywhere you download podcasts.  It is available through most podcast providers. What I do is, every podcast I talk about a subject from my book.  I wrote this book, "My Backyard Garden, A Memoir of How Love Conquers Grief." And it chronicles the last days of my mother's life.  and she was like my everything and I lost her.  I had a long time, don't get me wrong and she was ready to leave this world. She had lived a long, healthy life and she was only ill near the end. So that's a blessing in itself.  But she told us all these different things. She had a chance to tell all the grandkids, the kids, and her great-grandchildren. What she told me is this is your book. So I actually wrote this book, “My Backyard Gardening, A Memoir of How Love Conquerors Grief.   I named it "My Backyard Garden" because my mother said that you know God had prepared her and that she wasn't afraid to die. And that he had told her to help the children because the children go out into the world for the things that they should get in their own backyard, so "My Backyard Garden, is the name of the book. "My Backyard” because she left us with a lot of love.   And I struggled so until I realized other people were struggling and I just started creating a podcast because it's a journey. You know grief isa journey we all will take. And this particular episode is about "Portal to Another World."  Yes, right?  Medina: Yes, and you heard that here first, okay! I said they heard it here first, the MC Medina experience is "Portal To Another World" and that’s where we're gonna take you guys right now.  Thank y'all for tuning in! Debra: Exactly! Exactly, and you know as you can tell Ruben is so charismatic, right!  He has all these different talents, music!  I love his music! If you see the video of this we're going to make sure that his music is in here!  Right? Because he has one song, we wanted to play right here that's called "Wake Up" because that’s what we're talking about, you know, wake up. We gotta, sometimes.  You need a portal to another world. You need to get away from where you are. And that's where I found myself,I found myself on my way to my mother’s bedside before she passed. On the plane, in the public, you know, breaking down wanting to cry, wanting to throw up, wanting to faint. Everything, but I couldn't right?  And that's sort of like how we are today. You know, every time you go out in public, you got to be wrapped up and wrapped your head and hands covered So if there are times when you just have had enough, you know what I mean, out in public and you just need this time to get away.  Our minds are wonderful! That's one of the things I want to talk about. You know, if you have been stuck in a public place and grief or loss strikes you. What do you do?  You create that "portal to another world.” The way I do it is just imagining that I'm somewhere else.I will close my eyes or keep my eyes open so I won't be really strange looking to folks. But in my mind, I am somewhere else. In that portal.It is under construction and in a few minutes I'm gonna be through that portal and with the people in the place that brings peace and stability to me.  So I know you know so much, Ruben, about how to bring peace and how to find yourself and things like that.  Tell us how you would do that.  Tell us your perspective on that "Portal to Another World" and how to manifest that in the real world. Medina: Oh man, I know I'm gonna get deep with you now. I like how we're starting off in the deep end already.  Debra: I mean #empathyforgrief gets deep now.  You know we don't make any excuses for taking people where they are or meeting them where they are, how high, low, medium or deep they want to go. Medina: Yeah I like it and you know Hispanic and Black folks, we're not used to the deep end either. We stay in shallow water so this is kind of out of the ordinary for us in that regard, metaphorically speaking.  But thank you so much, first of all, everybody being here. Thank you, Debra, for having me on. I'm so excited about this! Hope y’all can see it in my face it should be glowing! It's glowing. It's glowing hard because you mentioned the "Wake Up."I gotta do this if we can. We could even do this a cappella. So check it out,  "It's Wake up, wake up, wake up for you forgotten who you are. Travel far from home we come from the stars. Not just above you the one in your third eye. Your golden self, the you who sees through the lies came here to learn to see beyond the illusion, truth about this hyper-dimensional transfusion. Each day a new experience unlocks an old memory. This body is extension of source, accessory, we're all light vibrating to create this form. So do your spark I mean do your part to be a spark in the storm. I'm looking, I'm looking for a lighter.  That's all right, do your part to be a spark in the storm Ripples create waves so be the change you wish to see. Act from the heart, love is the only key. Don't stop there because it's just so much you can learn. This world and those beyond keys waiting to be turned. Take a look around what's hidden in plain sight. Sacred "G" and Fibonacci all the way into infinity."  Medina: That’s it we got a lot going on there.  Debra: That’s word.  Medina: Best word right, bars, bars!  Debra: Right, right, right, right and you're so right.  You know as brown and black people I mean we just know how to have a good time. But we've endured so much, until we just know how to cover up stuff. Don't we? But you know then on the other side is that I think we are connected to source.  Medina: Right, we are connected to source. Yeah we're one race on the planet according to all the greats and uh what they call ascended masters or even people like Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle. People who have claimed a certain level of self mastery.  Debra: Right, right, we're all connected  to source. And sometimes our brothers and sisters  who are farther from source we need to help them. I was listening to a lady the other day and she said "I don't want to call people out.” "I want to call people in."  I thought that was wonderful, right!  We want to call people in; so they can be closer to the source.  Medina: Yes! what I say,  "we're calling you, from the north to the south side, calling you, y'all gotta come on and take a ride! Calling you!  Debra: Exactly, we calling you in!And that's what #empathyforgrief is, you know because I found out  that so many people are suffering from some traumatic event in their life. It can be a loss of a loved one. And all of a sudden grief and loss came up after  COVID-19. But there have been people who are grieving from loss way before Covid-19.  You know with all of the deaths and all of the wars and you know just not having what they feel like they need. All of that's a loss. And now the whole  world knows that what it's like to lose your lifestyle, right?  People are struggling over losing that lifestyle; but, some of us been losing our lives, and our families and having to deal with it.  So, that's what this is all about #empathyforgrief for yourself. Show yourself some empathy! Yeah, show yourself some love, some understanding. That's what empathy is, treat yourself with care and treat others with care and love. Right? And we gotta break the silence. Don't keep this quiet. I mean look at those beautiful verses. Oh, say it again, it's just wonderful! We all need emotional lifesavers.  Song: "Wake Up" playing...not just above you the one in your third eye. Your golden self the you who sees through the lies. Came here to learn to see beyond the illusion. Truth about this hyperdimensional transfusion. Each day a new experience unlocking old memory this body is extension of source accessory. We're all right vibrating to create this form.So do your part to be a spark in the storm. Ripples create waves to be the change you wish to be. Act from the heart, love is the only key. Don't stop there cause there's just so much you can learn. This world and those beyond keys waiting to be turned. Open up what's around hidden in plain sight. Take a "G" and Fibonacci all the way into infinity.  Wakeup love, for you've forgotten who you are! Wake up wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up for you’ve forgotten who you are. Travel far from home we come from the stars.Manifest your intention with the power of your mind. Meditative freedom and freedom you will find. This isn’t new age jargon this is something that is real. It's something that is lived something you can feel.It's just my art don't believe it for me. Go and journey on your own and share what you see. As collective consciousness together we will grow. Create your own reality as above so below. Source is the course that we're all headed on. Don't be spiritually broke cause there’s nothing to pawn. Dive into yourself and hear the beautiful song of the universe singing like it has all along. Get your strengths from the foods that you're eating. Must have strengths for the words that you're speakin To reach and teach the weary and the weak in, the energy to practice the words you're preaching. Put their words into action like a digital priest. I'm peace it's peace. I'm like a digital priest. Put them words into action like the digital priest. M.C. Medina never gonna stop, never gonna cease. Put them words into action like a digital priest. This peace is peace, I'm like a digital priest. Never gone stop never gonna cease. M.C Medina putting it down like a digital priest. Peace. Wake up, wake up, for you've forgotten who you are. Travel far from home, we come from the stars. Wake up, Love. You've forgotten who you are. Travel far from home, we come from the stars. Debra: So what are some other ways that we can create these emotional lifesavers, through this portal to another world? You know we were talking a little bit about creating at least, that's how I do it. Create it. And I know that you probably do it by creating songs and verses. Right? Is that your way?  Medina: I do, I enjoy like you, I enjoy writing. Recently, more of the writing has been going on in my head and I haven't been, like there would be times where I would wake up in the middle of the night and I'm fully prepared. Things start just coming, downloads from source or the great creator spirit as we call it in the Native American organization that I'm a part of. The great creator spirit will inspire us and I'd be popping up in the middle of the night and just start writing stuff down.  I want to go ahead and dive straight into it because you've been able to really hack life.  I want to do a video series called MC Medina’s 50 Life Hacks. Little tidbits. And you've been able just after having several conversations with you I have seen you have been able to utilize a lot of these life hacks.  Now a lot of these life hacks, I'm gonna just bestow the knowledge on to everybody right now. If you want to have a head start in being the best you, you can be or being a "G."  And when I say being a "G," I don't mean a gangster or gangsters I mean a god or a goddess. Yes. And for the gender non-specific gender folks, it can be a combination of whatever you want.Okay, so there's no right and wrong here. And be very prideful of whatever it is that you are, please, everybody.   So the 12 Universal Laws is ancient knowledge from ancient civilizations starting with the Sumerians, the Native Americans going into Africa, the Ancient Egyptians and then all of that culture infiltrated into what we know as the Ancient Mayans, Incas and the different indigenous all over the world. This is something that I’ve studied.  And after speaking with people at the School of Metaphysics in Dallas, I got a chance to speak with faculty and students there.The 12 Universal Laws aka God's Law.   Debra: Can you tell everybody metaphysics.. you know a lot of people you know don't understand metaphysics. I mean they may have tried to avoid taking physics in school. LOL! So the metaphysics is a little different than physics so you know we might want to clarify that for people. Medina: Okay, so good that's a good point. We have our physical world which is this vessel that we’re currently utilizing to engage in the five senses and it can do fun spiral things like that. I was in ceremony one time doing Ayahuasca and I did that and it was just one of the most mind-blowing experiences that I had and I was just looking and moving my hands. It was like remembering how important just our breath is. Yes. Type of moment where you're just enchanted by the simplest thing of the mechanics of your hands. Anyways, the 12 Universal Laws, Is that where we were?   Debra: Yes, you were about to tell us, I wanted you to tell them about metaphysics and you did that.   Medina: So the physical world this is this. and then metaphysics is another way of saying spiritual, esoteric there's more words for this.   Debra: Like energy? Okay. I hear energy, waves, things that you can't see. But you can feel.  Medina: Yes, there's that. Yeah, for all my empaths out there. Thank you for being empathic. Trust in that characteristic and that gift that you have because being an empath definitely helps us move love into the world. And so yeah so what we're using then is whenever people say catch the vibe or you know can you catch my vibe it's sort of saying  are you able to see me with your with your mind's eye with your third eye. And your mind's eye is what we use when we want to visualize a desired outcome. And in visualizing a desired outcome that's essentially like prayer. Because when we’re praying we find ourselves being in gratitude like we're saying thank you God. So we're being in gratitude and then once we express our gratitude now we feel comfortable asking for things, right?  So normally we're like thank you God uh for everything that I got now check this out Man, I need help paying the rent this month. Exactly. Right?  And so what we're essentially doing is we're visualizing in our mind’s eye different either money being deposited into your bank account. Or if you're a freelance worker it's a check that's given to you somehow. Maybe even electronically, but we're able to visualize with our mind’s eye our desired outcome.  Debra: Or health, let me put that out there. Some you know because all of it doesn't have to be...we can heal ourselves to some degree.You know what I mean?  You can bring healing to yourself, to your mind and your spirit because a lot of people, especially with my podcast. Ruben, I know you're my first guest. People feel stuck.  They feel like they can’t get over the loss of a loved one or something that they've lost. And that’s what you're talking about, right? That's a way  to envision how you want to feel.  Medina: Yeah. Right? Exactly, exactly envisioning how you want to feel or whatever desired outcome. It doesn't need to be material. It could definitely be even health-related. Mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and emotional health and financial health. So those are the five things that I normally like to cover because I'm into holistic healing and being a holistic advisor and an Ambassador of holistic alternative methods to finding peace.  Debra: Love it, love it!   Medina: Yeah so and I want to go back to the 12 Universal Laws because whenever we're visualizing things with what we call our mind's eye or our third eye or it's technically in scientific terms known to be the pineal gland. And the pineal gland according to not only ancient civilizations, mystics, doctors and science, it is also doctors and scientists is known to be the seat of the soul. So the pineal gland or your mind's eye or your third eye is like the cockpit of a spacecraft. It's like it's the pilot seat of our space suit that we know to be our physical human bodies, our vessels.  And these 12 Universal Laws when we're using our minds eye, pineal gland, third eye, we're  utilizing these 12 Universal Laws. And if anybody has seen, there's a documentary that really put things in perspective for me at the time there's a it's a book and it's also a video documentary. It’s called "The Secret” the secret law of attraction. And the secret law of attraction explains it. It’s pretty much like an hour and a half to two hours.  I highly recommend the audio book too ladies and gentlemen. It dives deep into the 7th Universal Law which is the Law of Attraction. And the Law of Attraction, now all twelve universal laws are laws that are constantly at play. They're always at work. They're immutable, there's no way to stop these laws. They're like the laws of our whole universe and multiverse and all of creation so that's why they’re called the 12 Universal Laws.  Debra: And we're going to have you back to talk about all of them. I know we were focusing on two that you always mentioned to me. The Law of Attraction and then the one?  Medina: Yeah and then the very first one is one that i like to touch on and that's the Law of Oneness. Now when we watch and when we listen to "The Secret Law of Attraction, it's like I said an hour and a half to two hours of simply focusing on number seven. They don't even  really mention anything about the other 11 Universal Laws. And that's why I want to take a moment to heavily stress to our listeners right now. Not right now, after we get done because we're still dropping a lot of jewels. After we get done, lookup the 12 Universal Laws. Please make yourself familiar. This is ancient knowledge that secret societies and the elite have purposely kept away from the masses. And with great knowledge comes great responsibility. If you find yourself here in this now moment hanging out and chilling with Debra and I, you've called this into your experience. You've asked for this. That's why we are here in the now moment. Specifically telling you to take a note lookup the 12 Universal Laws.   The Law of Divine Oneness.  The Law of Vibration.  The Law of Action.  The Law of Correspondence.  The Law of Cause and Effect.  The Law of Compensation.  The Law of Attraction.  The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy.  The Law of Relativity. The Law of Polarity. The Law of Energy The Law of Gender Medina: The first one I'm going to tell you about is the Law of Oneness and the Law of Oneness specifically reminds us, now don't, I want to express I want to clearly express myself to our brothers and sisters that these 12 Universal Laws are not new to you. It might seem new to you right now. And it may be a little bit foreign, but once you read these 12 Universal Laws you will resonate with them to such a high level in such a heavy degree and high frequency that you will have a sense that you are being reminded of something that you’ve you already knew.  Debra: Yeah, exactly, exactly and that's what's beautiful about it too.  Medina: It is,now my experiences have been brought upon through traditional Native American ceremonial settings with Ayahuasca and different plants that have led me into these places in our mind of great peace of great harmony and understanding and compassion and acceptance and bonding and bliss and the list goes on. You, Debra, have you had a very life-altering experience with the death of your mother.  Debra: Yes, my mother was an empath too.   Medina: So what I feel like happened there is because in the Ayahuasca ceremonies it's a rebirth experience.  In a rebirth experience there is a certain degree of quote-unquote death that one would experience and what I experienced is something known as ego death. And so how our stories are so awesome and unique and compatible is that you experienced your mother which was a piece of you that you self-identified with and she passed away. That's like a piece of you dying.  Debra: Absolutely.  Medina: And that's exactly what happened to me in the Ayahuasca ceremony. So this led us to a place in our mind where we had to put our emotions to the side. We had to recognize that we are way more powerful than this self-identification that we have created. And a lot of people say the ego mind creates this illusion of separation and that's going back to the law of oneness. Which is the number one out of the 12 Universal Laws.  The Law of Oneness explains that everything is connected in the organic living world. What does that mean to us here on earth? What that means to us is the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom and I like to say the insect and fungus kingdom because those play very intricate roles in our human experience today. Our ability to breathe clean carbon dioxide, oh wait, we breathe in oxygen we exhale carbon dioxide. LOL!  Debra: Breathe.  Medina: See that is what happens when you get sucked into the oneness you forget about all the details, now.  Debra: Right, right, all the terms that have been attached to things. So they're terms that someone has identified as what already existed.  Medina: Exactly.  Debra: Yeah, it was already here. Air didn't get a name it was, you know, somebody gave it that. Medina: Yeah.  Debra: But I want to go back to the Oneness because  a lot of my listeners have lost someone. When I first lost my mother I did feel like I had lost part of myself and I did go through a lot of emotions.I think emotions are healthy.  I think they are human. Do they help us get to where we need to go if we just keep with them? Or did I have to go through emotions to come to the realization that my mother is still with me?  Medina: Well, that's different for everybody because people like you you had a very blessed shout out to your pops because from what I've heard he has a phenomenal, astronomically good job thorough job with raising his children and that's what we we like to hear that about fathers today that’s very important.  Debra: And I want to bring him on, too because he's a student of Ancient Civilizations. That's his whole perspective is that we all need to go back to our ancient African ancestry because it's there they formulated everything and it just it's based on a lot of goodness but they, it got used for bad. It got secluded you know exclusive and then exclusive sort of let evil into it and then it manifested itself in a not so positive way. But that's another thing, I know we jumping all over the place. But that’s another thing I wanted to talk about is that. Because my Dad explained that we're moving from the Age of Pisces which is suffering. Two thousand five hundred years. We're not talking about the zodiac signs now we talk about the planetary movement. Not the stuff you say what do you do as a Pisces or whatever you do as an  Aquarius, but this is an Age. You know, like the Dinosaur Age.  [End of “Portal to Another World - Part 1” Interview with Host Debra Hester and Ruben MC Medina..To Be Continued in Part 2] I want to thank you loved ones for listening to #empathyforgrief podcast episode #16, "A Portal to Another World Grief." I also want to thank my guest, Ruben Medina, and our sponsor, BetterHelp, that's Betterh-e-l-p. Betterhelp offers online, private, professional counseling at a very affordable rate. All you have to do is go to www.betterh-e-l-p.com/move to get our discount and get matched with a professional who can talk with you by phone, text, or video chat at a time that is convenient for you. You don't have to travel to an appointment. You can also enroll in live emotional and mental health webinars that can help the entire family. This is Debra Hester, your host, where I pledge to continue to break the silent struggle with grief and loss. Remember: move forward with more empathy, less sympathy. If you found the podcast helpful, it's available FREE on Mother's Backyard Buzz blog at www.mothersbackyard.org. Podcasts are available on most podcast providers. And remember our new, engaging video versions of #empathyforgrief are available on YouTube at Mother's Backyard Enterprise Channel. #empathyforgrief podcasts are on Force 3 Radio Network. Force 3 Radio streams online at www.force3radio.com airing the podcast now at 3pm CST during their all inspirational music Sundays.  Peace & Blessings

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty - Lisa Woodruff - Organizing and ADHD Part One    In this episode, I interview Lisa Woodruff of Organize365. On the podcast, Lisa talks about her early years with dyslexia and her incredible career helping people get organized. We discuss her books on organizing and ADHD   https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Affects-Home-Organization-Understanding/dp/B07212S4Z9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2 and her new book on mastery paper organization https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Solution-What-Shred-Taking-ebook/dp/B081M7P9C5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1 We also talk about the impact that her home organization program had made on my home and life! To connect with Lisa and to find out all about her incredible home organization program and products go to https://organize365.com.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they’ll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: @forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai   Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi everybody, this is Betsy Furler. Your host for all abilities podcast. Welcome back. And I have a seat I know I always say I have a special guest but today I have a super super super special guest. A really good friend of mine, Lisa Woodruff from organized 365 and I'm super excited that she is here to talk about ADHD and and what she does professionally which is Amazing. And I'm just thrilled that she's on my podcast. And she has a podcast of our own that I'm going to say a little bit about too after she introduces herself. So, Lisa, welcome to the for all abilities, the podcast.   Lisa Woodruff  1:15   Se thank you so much You and I started working together years ago when you were in my organized 365 community audience and I was writing the book how ADHD affects home organization. And I asked you to write the agenda in the back, which ended up being like a third of the book about how different apps and accessibility can really help people with ADHD. So I love that you were part of that first book that I had coming out and then you are helping me with ideas for promoting my next book that is coming out August 4, called the paper solution that will be published by Putnam Random House.   Betsy Furler  1:50   Yes, and I'm so excited about that book coming out and tell my listeners about your podcast really fast are your podcasts   Lisa Woodruff  1:58   so organized recently 65 has been around for almost six years has almost 8 million downloads. And in that podcast, we really unpack the difference between decluttering your home getting your home organized, and how that leads to increased productivity and how the majority of the work that actually gets done and getting your home and your life organized starts with your mindset and your thoughts first.   Betsy Furler  2:20   Yes, we both you and I definitely agree on mindset. Yeah, the things I've worked on mindset. And I have to tell my listeners, how we met because it's an unusual story. So well, kind of unusual, I guess. Um, I think it's unusual. So I had decided I was going to organize my house and I've always been fairly organized. But you know, as we all have things, you know, life happens and things get disorganized. So I've loved podcasts for years, and I decided to start listening to podcasts on organization on home organization. So I listened to a bunch of podcasts and I found yours and I loved it and after I've listened to To like 10 episodes in a row, I thought, I have to be friends with this woman, she, I got to meet her, I've got to meet her in person, she's got to be my friend. And so I continued listening and, you know, following your system and getting my house totally organized, which by the way, it's still organized because I still follow your system. And so if I need to touch up a little thing, it's like a 15 or 20 minute thing. It's not a days and days and weeks and weeks. So then fast forward, I don't know, maybe a year after that, or so. And you were writing your ADHD book and found out that I do, I'm an expert in the use of apps and people with all sorts of different disabilities. And so you called me and we started working on that together and then we ended up going to a conference and actually being roommates and within Think about six hours of snowing each other in part in person. I was at the time thinking about launching my other podcast, your app lady that I don't record anymore, but it's still available. And a lot of other people have told me I shouldn't record a pot do a podcast and you're like, Betsy, do the podcast, you can talk. You'll be fine. And you're totally right. podcasts are a piece of cake for me. So anyway, that's how we met and I'm so glad that I manifested our friendship.   Lisa Woodruff  4:29   Yeah, you totally did. You totally did. And I love it. You're just such a creative person. You have so many ideas. You're always going a million miles an hour, as am I. And our conversations are so diverse and so eclectic. And we just get each other going off in so many different directions. It's so much fun.   Betsy Furler  4:47   Wait, dad, and so I, I am so to my listeners. This is going to be a two part episode maybe three. And depending how long Lisa and I talk, we're talking. We're gonna talk way more than three 30 minutes for the podcast. So, um, okay, so back to the back to the purpose of the podcast and tell my listeners about what you were like as a little girl what your childhood was like.   Lisa Woodruff  5:14   So I'm an extrovert, but I grew up kind of out in the country and there were 72 houses on the street and only two other families had children and they were boys, which was boring as a girl. And I had one younger sister and the reason I knew there were 72 houses was because I counted them. And I made a newsletter that I sent out to everyone in our neighborhood, and I also coordinated our neighborhood block party. So I was always very industrious. I'm a fourth generation female college graduate, all of my, the women on my mother's side of the family have all owned their own businesses. My great grandmother actually had four businesses in the 30s, which is amazing, like a floral shop and restaurant like, like big businesses, not just, you know, little businesses. And so I grew up with entrepreneurs. And as an extrovert without a lot of people to talk to I just basically talked to myself in my head and I created up all kinds of fantastic fun things to do. I created an invisible games for my sister and I were I named all of the different paths through our yard as if they were different streets in our city. And we would ride our bikes as if they were cars, and we used our baby dolls as if they were our children. And I called our bedrooms or mini apartments, and then we would meet at the cafe, which was that the kitchen and I was just coming up with all these unique ways for us to entertain ourselves. I think now as we're in the global pandemic, I often drawn those ideas to share with the kids that listen to the organized 365 podcast of ways to let your imagination you know, keep you company here in this safe at home environment during the pandemic were so much more creative than we realize we can be so that's the kind of child I was I was always creating new adventures and new things and I was able to play question At least even though as an extrovert, I was able to play quietly by rearranging my bedroom or reorganizing something somewhere else in the house or getting my sister to create an imaginary store with me. I did a lot of babysitting, and I would create imagination games with the kids that I babysat for. So, I was always busy doing something, but I would often clean up my mess is behind me. So it didn't seem that I was as scattered as maybe I was.   Unknown Speaker  7:26   And how did you do in school?   Lisa Woodruff  7:30   I did. Okay, I love learning. I still love learning. I was the one that always asked a question. If you're like, oh, if she would stop asking questions in class, that was me. I was always asking questions. I always wanted more knowledge. But I always had this floating. See, so my mom was a straight A student. She's a perfectionist, and I was not I always had a floating see and what that meant was, it was never in math, but it might be in English or history or science. And I would get a C on my report card and science and then I would try w hardest sciences and all sudden next semester, I would have seen history and then I tried doubly hard and history and then all of a sudden I'd have a C in some other class like I could never get all A's and B's, I always had this floating C. And it didn't really bother me because I'm not a perfectionist. And I knew I knew the information. But it really bothered my parents that my grade card did not reflect the intellect they thought that I had. And by my junior year in high school, I was taking a class. And I was raised Catholic. So I was in a Catholic High School. And I was taking a class and I read this whole thing about the conversation of bead and I read the whole entire thing, and I have a photographic memory. So I was taking the test. And I went up to the teacher, I said, I don't know what the answer to this question is, but it's on page four, line three, does that count? She goes, No, you have to actually know it. I was like, darn it. So then another class I about this conversation, a beat I go up and I said to the teacher, I said, You know, I understand they're having conversation in all but really, he's been converted to Catholicism. I don't know why they're not saying that she's like, read this word. And I'm like conversation. She said, read it again. I'm like, oh, converted. And that's when they took me to Sylvan learning centers. And they said, We think that Lisa has a learning disability. And they asked me a bunch of questions. I was a junior in high school. And they said, Well, I'll tell you what, if we run her through our battery of tests, she's going to come out just fine. But I'm going to give her this test that we would give her like on, you know, if you got through all these 10 levels, and we were trying to figure out what it is. So they gave me the test, and I failed it. And they said, she has dyslexia. They're like, 600 different kinds of dyslexia. They said, she has dyslexia, she has accommodated for it in multiple ways. It's not really worth doing anything about it right now. But that's why I could never get you know, all A's on my report card was because I understood the concepts. I understood what I was doing, but my spelling wasn't great. And so my reading comprehension was not always where it needed to be to get all A's and B's.   Betsy Furler  9:58   Yeah, I kind of have a similar path. I've never been diagnosed with anything but my mom, even to this day will say hi, I think you just had to leave just have a touch of dyslexia. And I know that spell tech is now my friend or spell production and editors. My editors, yes, it was so helpful. And I was kind of the same way. I mean, I know my mentor in college said, you know, you're not really your grades aren't really reflecting your potential and then he did it but you're having a lot of fun. So there's a lot to be said. Like, Yes, there is. So how did it so you went off to college? Did you go right off to college after high school?   Lisa Woodruff  10:42   Oh, yes. I mean, I you know, I came out of the womb with plans with five year 10 year 15 year goals like I had a planner before planners were cool, that's for sure. So I when I was in high school, I wanted to own my own business and be President of the United States and have four children and homeschool them all. I have done all those things, and I don't want to be president anymore. So three out of four isn't that only a two children, but they're the equivalent of four is often what I say. And I did end up homeschooling my daughter the last two years for last two years of high school. But I always knew I wanted to be a business owner. And my parents had enough money to send me to college. I went to Miami University in Ohio. And my dad had figured out it was going to cost about $80,000 to send me to college and 1990 to 1994. He was a salesman, he was a businessman. And he said, If you graduate in four years, I'll buy you a car because he knew a car was going to be $20,000. So same thing either go five years, or you get a car. So I got done in four years with two degrees. But he also sat me down at the age of 18. That summer, and he said I wanted to have a corporate daycare at that time. It was a new concept. And there were some corporate daycares in Akron, Ohio, and I knew one of the business owners that had started one and so I was intrigued with that. And my father said to me, you can go to college if you want or I will give you $80,000 And you can start, you know, your corporate daycare center, you could start your career and I was like, who jump right into entrepreneurship. To which my mother who had a four year college degree said absolutely not. She's going to college. So I went to Miami University and I really enjoyed it. I got a teacher degree and I was a teacher for a few years, but I think it was always evident from when I was a young child that I would eventually own my own business one day, it just took me a little bit longer to get there.   Betsy Furler  12:26   But I think you're still a teacher even though you're not working in a school but you're everything you do professionally as all about teaching other people systems and and ways to go through them. And one of the reasons that I love your program so much, and your podcast is that you do so much and you move fast, but you have a really structured system behind it too. And I know that the way my mind works, because I can get Really distracted by all of my ideas that I have. And so a structured system while it's not kind of it's not my, it's not my go to, it's the thing that keeps me going, if that makes sense. So you like I'm running now, by the way, which I don't know if I've told you, but I'm a runner now, which is shocking. And, and I run every other day, and I run at the same time every day. And I, you know, I have this plan and structure of how I'm moving forward with my running. And if I didn't have that, if I just was like, I'm just gonna run when I feel like it. I would probably run like five times a day for the first two weeks, and then I would never run again. So yeah, the way you teach organization is so helpful. And I think for anybody with any kind of neuro diversity, it is really helpful to have a plan and a structure.   Lisa Woodruff  13:55   Yeah, I 100% agree. My last year's actual teaching right before I start Organized 365 I went back to teaching for 18 months, and I taught Montessori middle school math and science. And I loved it. loved, loved, loved it. And what I loved about Montessori education was all of the focus was on learning. And there was structure in place, you know, we had the structure of the day, and we had the structure about how many minutes you had to do in each assignment. But there was so much freedom and how and how you got to learn the different subjects. And so my goal was to teach everyone algebra, and if you know anything about school, like when you ask kids, what's your least favorite subject more often than not, it's usually math, science, you know, that's not usually the favorite subject. So there were quite a few students in my class that were not really thrilled to be having their minutes with me. And I just took it as challenge great. I'm gonna make you love math as much as I love math. And I am going to teach you math in a way that you will understand it forever like I'm not as into the grade as I am to understanding the concept. So I could literally teach any algebra concept in eight or 10 different ways I would teach it with. In Montessori, we actually have three dimensional materials that will show you why a squared plus b squared equals c squared. It's fantastic for those that are visual learners, but other people are really just really good about learning formula. So we just learned the formulas. And being able to take the same concept and teach it in so many different modalities expands your thinking as a teacher, and that's what I do in organized 365. Like, I have this product called the sundae basket, which thousands of people are using and a psychologist went through and she analyzed the sundae basket and she said, the reason why it works for almost everyone is because you have all the different learning styles in there, you have all the different modalities you have, like any way that people would approach learning is inside of this one simple system because I kept refining and iterating the system so that it would work for all So that your learning style is baked into the system. And that's the fun challenge for me. How do I get you to love organizing as much as I do, so that you want to listen to the podcast and you want to organize more when before you thought, Oh, I'm not an organized person. I'm never going to learn to be organized. It's just a chore. It's a task that I want to check off and never have to do again. I had kids by the end of the year love math. They didn't love math before. And now I just do that with organizing.   Betsy Furler  16:25   And back to school, and when you started working after school, how do you think your dyslexia affected you both in positive and negative ways? I think   Lisa Woodruff  16:41   I tell you exactly when it was was my third year teaching, I had finally gotten a classroom of my own. And the only reason I got in that first year classroom class was because I had taught the extra half an hour or half day for kindergarteners the year before. And these are all children that were at risk for being on an IEP having some kind of Learning Disability behavioral disability in the future. And so they got an extra half day of kindergarten because our district did not have full day kindergarten. And so the administration said, we will give you a first year job, we'll give you a classroom, if you will take all of the disadvantaged children in your class together, instead of spreading them out amongst the other first grade classrooms so that you will loop with them so that the children when they come in fall, will at least have a relationship with you and your classroom style. And then you could pick up where you left off. And we want to see if this would work for these children. I thought, Yeah, great. I'm all in. So the school district I was in had a lot of free and reduced lunch and some of the children's parents were in jail or you know, there were a lot of, you know, not ideal circumstances of these children. And this was back in the time 1993 94 where you did fail children in first grade, like kids could legitimately fail and be held back in first grade. And I stood up as like a 24 year old kid in front of this Class of, you know, maybe 30% of the parents actually even showed up on teacher parent night where I supposed to explain about my classroom. And I stood there I remember to this day standing there and saying this, I said your child cannot it's physically impossible for them to fail first grade, the only thing that can happen is I failed to teach them. I said, so if you partner with me, your child will go to second grade and we will have this be the most, you know, productive year and have them learn as much as humanly possible and I will not stop in how I iterate and and teach them the skills that they need to go to second grade as long as you will support me because children cannot fail to learn only teachers can fail to teach and I just think that's in everything. If If you are teaching something, and the people that are coming to you, whatever age they are not understanding what you are teaching, then you just have not clarified your message enough you are not providing it in a way that they can absorb it because if they want to learn that information, it is on the teacher to learn how to teach it not the learner To figure out how to learn from that teacher.   Betsy Furler  19:02   Yeah, good point. And you know, when we think about business and how we run businesses and how we just judge success of our business, it's always not judged on how well I know how to provide accommodations for someone or how well you know how to organize. Right. It's judged on how we then share that information with other with our customers. And so, and it's, it's interesting, you know, when you think about it that way that frequently in education, it's considered the child's problem if they're not learning.   Lisa Woodruff  19:39   Right. And, I mean, doesn't I mean, now that you're hearing it doesn't that sound so backwards? How can it be a six year olds problem that they can't learn that just doesn't even make sense?   Betsy Furler  19:48   It doesn't make sense at all, but it happens all the time, as we all know, and then, you know, the other thing that happens is and they're just taught the same way again, and they don't learn it. Time   Lisa Woodruff  20:00   let me teach it slower the same way. Exact now they're just bored and frustrated.   Betsy Furler  20:07   Right? Exactly. And I'm sure as a teacher and what you do now you are because you learn differently. You think about that a lot more. And then also I think you're so forgiving. I know I'm sure you were I'm sure you were like this 100 times more in the classroom even then you are in your organization business. But I knew even your organization business, you give people so much grace and you really, and you really teach people to have grace for themselves as well. So if you don't get it perfect this time, like just you know, we're all just doing the best we can and going forward and in your system. The first room is the kitchen and my kitchen is so organized. On Good job, Betsy, I always do the kitchen. I'm always 100% on the kitchen. And, but then when you think about our houses and where a lot of clutter comes up, it's in the kitchen. And so if you can keep your kitchen organized, kind of the rest of your house can, can fall into place so much easier. But I also, I've never felt while doing your organization program, and I've been doing it for a long time now, like I was trying to think before this call when I did find your podcast and it's been a long time. It has   Lisa Woodruff  21:34   to be at least four years, at least for years.   Betsy Furler  21:37   Henry was going off to college. So that was four or five summers ago. It was a long time. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, um, and and my kitchen is still like, totally organized and the other I want you to tell So, so I think sometimes our when we're in crisis All of our weaknesses, you know, come blaring out. And I know for me that is, um, you know, I do have more difficulties spelling. When I'm stressed out or in crisis, my organization can can like, take a really organized and in life typically, but if I'm under crisis I go one of two ways I get either way, way way more organized. Yeah or it was like totally falls apart. So I would love for you to tell my listeners about the your countertop kitchen countertop story because I think about that all the time and it really keeps me motivated to keep my kitchen counters clean and it also gives me a lot of grace of if I feel like my kitchen counters are getting messy. I'm like, I least have a place for my groceries. So tell my listener kitchen countertops story. Oh, hell yeah. Your life.   Lisa Woodruff  23:05   So this is how I started organized 365 in 2012 a couple of things first, you mentioned something about, you know, working at getting towards perfect or this isn't perfect. I don't even try to get to perfect anymore. And I think when you start to realize that perfect isn't a place it doesn't even exist even if you see it on Pinterest or in a magazine. I know bloggers whose houses are literally perfect. And when they go into magazines and the magazine team shows up, they rearrange their house to be even more perfectly it does not exist. We are we are trying to get to something that does not exist. So to tell you the 2012 story, I have to start back in 2011. Now, you've heard a little bit about the kind of teacher I am. I was teaching in a Montessori school that I loved. And it was the Thursday before winter break and I had been held back for a meeting with a parent that was not necessarily So we had this meeting with the parent. But the problem was not that I had to have this meeting with the parent after school. The problem was Greg and I were out of vacation days, we were out of sick days, we were taking days off of work without pay. And one of our kids needed medical attention that night, and neither of us could get to that child and it was pretty severe. And my administrator not only held me back for that unnecessary teacher meeting did not have to happen at that time. But when that parent left, the teacher said, I need you to stay back for to talk with me. And I was like, Alright, fine, you know, knowing that I had a child at home that needed me. And she proceeded for 30 minutes to tell me what a bad teacher I was, and how I was not measuring up and I wasn't doing good. If I'm teaching 21 middle schoolers, individual math assignments, and I'm not doing good enough. And I'm driving home Of course, it's raining, you know, it's raining, it's dark. I'm driving home. It's like a country song. And I'm thinking to myself, and I'm like, I am failing as a wife, as a mother as a homeowner as everything in my life except for teaching. Now my administrator just told me I'm failing at that to like, well, this must be rock bottom. Like, clearly, I am no longer meeting my own expectations for anything in my life. And I thought, well, I'll be darned if I am good to go down meeting the expectations of an unrealistic administrator, and yet failing the children that God has given me to be their mother and look back 20 years from now go, well, shoot, I wish I would have put the time into my kids. Because they're the only I mean, no one else can be their mom. No one else went out.   Betsy Furler  25:32   So that's so true. That's so important to remember too.   Lisa Woodruff  25:36   And we were I mean, we were spiraling into debt more and more and more debt. And so I walked in the door, Greg is such a laid back type B person, I was like, I think I'm gonna quit my job, you know, like, all up in arms and he's like, All right. So I go upstairs, I write the resignation letter. I come back. I was like, great if you guys whatever. So I quit my job. So here we are in the beginning of January. I did start the blog, organize 365 I knew Little bit about the internet and blogging and watch some people be successful and there was a way to do this blogging thing. So I registered organize 365 and got started knowing that organizing was going to be my thing. And I could do it 365 days a year, I had no idea what I was gonna do after other registering the domain. So I went to the grocery store. First day, I'd been in the house by myself for at least 18 months, came home with groceries, walked in the door and I went to put them on the counters and all the counters were full. I mean, I can't even tell you what's on the full on what was on them. I don't even know. And if you see Instagram and you see my house and you see my kitchen, it's ridiculous. I have two nine foot long countertops plus more. I have more counters than anybody has, especially in the size house that I have because we redid our kitchen. No, no countertop space. All right, I'll put all this the stuff on the floor and then I'll start putting it away in the refrigerator in the cabinets and I started opening the cabinets and it was like I was in somebody else's house. I didn't recognize anything in the cabinets. So I start Walking around the house and looking in the linen closet and other closets and   Unknown Speaker  27:03   I had been on   Lisa Woodruff  27:06   the hamster wheel of just reactively living my life for so long that I did not recognize my own home and I'm a born organized person. Like I've been organized as a child. I was organized when the kids were young and in grade school, but I was about to turn 40 and I didn't recognize my house, I didn't recognize myself, I didn't recognize my life. And I sat down and I made a list of all the spaces in my house that needed to be organized. And I said to my husband, I know we need me to earn money, but we're Gen X are so we have really good credit. So we're just gonna keep using this credit because I got to take back this house, I've got to take back my house, I have got to start living a productive life again.   Betsy Furler  27:44   I love the story. And I you know, the other thing that I think that my listeners can really take away from that is you kind of took the, you know, one of the worst times in your life and where It pointed out kind of your, you know, where you were falling apart. And then you turned it into this like, amazingly positive thing.   Lisa Woodruff  28:08   And it really didn't happen overnight. You know, everybody knows that took eight years to get where we are and organized 365. Right, like, everybody recognizes that   Betsy Furler  28:16   it only took eight years. Like, you know, but you got to start somewhere. And when you know you then you also kind of jumped in with like, Okay, what is basically you use your own accommodations, like your accommodations, our organization, you know, all of that writing things down getting things structured, and you used your own accommodations, in order to both turn your house around, which I'm sure at that point time was not really you didn't think you're going to build this big business around that you just wanted a house together, and then figure out what you're doing next. But you've ended up into making this amazing this this incredible business and So I'm gonna, I think we're gonna slide into part one now, Lisa, okay. Because I think this is a good point to end but just in case people don't hear the end of Part Two, I want you to tell my audience again, about your, the book that's coming out in August. And you also have the book, the ADHD book that I want you to tell them about and also where they can, how they can get in touch with you after if they want to follow you on all the social media and find out more about your program.   Lisa Woodruff  29:34   Oh, thanks, Betsy. Yeah, if you've liked this conversation at all, and you like podcasts, you might like the organize 365 podcast so just search organized 365 in whatever podcast player you have, I'm on them all. That's the best way to get started with me. And then the paper solution is coming out August 4, the paper solution is, you know, paper is something that you can hide that you can shove in closets and filing cabinets and deal with later but there is you Usually some kind of life event that happens that where you need your paper, whether someone gets ill and you need to be there power of healthcare, you have a family member pass away and you need to be the executor of their estate, you have a child and you need to coordinate all their papers in order to go to an IEP meeting, or you just feel like he would like your kitchen counter for food. Thank you. And could we get these piles of paper off of there and start a weekly habit of the Sunday basket. The paper solution solves all those problems. It's written so you can read it like a novel all the way through or you can if you just became the executor of your parents estate, you can grab the book and flip right to the financial binder page and start reading and Betsy is featured in that book. When we talk about medical the medical binder. The conversation that Betsy and I had one night when we were posted in hotel lobbies.   Betsy Furler  30:50   We were just chit chatting   Lisa Woodruff  30:51   back and forth while she was working on Henry's medical binder. So I tell that story in there as well. paper is powerful like in America. We're never going to be paperless. We can have less paper, but we're never going to be paperless. So if you're like, Okay, well fine if I can get down to 15% of the paper I have today, how would I do that and this book walks you step by step through how to do that. And then the book that Betsy helped me with is how ADHD affects home organization. Both of my children were diagnosed with ADHD when they were children. One has had that diagnosis since removed, but they both went to a learning disability school here in Cincinnati, called Springer school and center. I was a parent there for eight years, I said I should have been able to walk graduation. And we were done with those bills. I was definitely college tuition pricing. And they brought in so many experts in the field of ADHD in conjunction with Cincinnati Children's Hospital and I got to learn about ADHD from the best of the best as a parent. And Springer also collaborates with teachers in Cincinnati and teaches them about ADHD. And so I learned about all of the eight executive functions and over time in professionally organizing people's homes most Of whom either had or self professed to have had ADHD, I realized that there were six executive functions that relate to how you organize your home. That are that if you can understand what your brain is trying to do, and then see what's happening in the home, just knowing what the process is, you're better able to put accommodations in. And it is my heart's desire, maybe someone listening this podcast will be able to help me with this in the future. It's my heart's desire to be able to run studies specifically about women who have ADHD, and how they function in the home. I feel like we have a lot of accommodations for people with ADHD in work environments, in home environments, inside of volunteer organizations, but when you're at home, you're isolated and there aren't the supports there that you have in other places. So I really would love to run some studies on that.   Betsy Furler  32:50   Awesome Well, thank you so much for joining me today and listeners. Please also follows subscribe review rate All of those things fall on the for all abilities, the podcast on whatever podcast player you use. And Lisa is going to be back with us next week. So thank you so much for listening in today. Thanks, Betsy. Thanks so much for listening to the for all abilities podcast. This is Betsy Furler, your host and I really appreciate your time listening to the podcast. And please subscribe on any podcast app that you're listening to us on. If you'd like to know more about what we do in our software that helps employer support their employees with ADHD dyslexia, learning differences in autism, please go to www dot for all abilities.com You can also follow us on Instagram. And you can follow me on LinkedIn at Betsy Furler f as in Frank, you are elhuyar Have a great day and we will see you soon

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

This is Part 2 of a 2 part series recorded in a live radio show called El Sassa, about How Businesses Will Change after Covid 19 Coronavirus.  Radio and podcast host Sassa and I discuss the current impacts of Coronavirus in our business communities, the government loans and what business owners are facing waiting for that….how services like Uber and Lyft or hair and nail salons might transform.  Very importantly, how to decide what to do next in your business – such as how to decide – what businesses are thriving right now, how to deal with fear and the fear of failure and finding strength from trying and finding successes when you don’t quit.  I talk about digital solutions that you can try if you want to succeed in a new area of competency. Sassa: Let's talk about this loan, this government funds there, the loans that people are supposed to be receiving. Can you just tell me what do you think about these big change like route Roots Steakhouse, Del Frisco, Popbelly, I could keep going for a couple of... Getting 40,000,000 20,000,000 10,000,000. How do you feel about that? You got small businesses like yours and mine's and many other small little businesses that we actually went out of business waiting on this. I mean, what do you think about that? I mean, do you think that things are going to be different on this new second role that they're doing? Well, I think absolutely that... My full understanding, I found out first about it for my CPA, she sent an email out to me, my business and several other of her clients that are small businesses and said, "Hey, just so you know, you can apply for this loan. Which actually isn't a loan because, it doesn't have to be paid back. But it's being called... Everyone knows what it means. It is money that's given to you to help your business survive and pay your employees." So it was intended for the small businesses and the mid-sized businesses, not the huge revenue making businesses. So if that was the intention, then there should have been check boxes. I can't remember every question- They should have separated. Right? I think they should have allocated them differently. Because I mean, they get public help already probably, because of the... They trade in the public. But again, one of them gave the money back, so that was this hamburgers chain, I think fast food restaurant. Shark, I think it's called. Oh, Shake Shack. Okay. Yeah. They gave the $10,000,000 back. So that's good because they say, "You know what, I'm giving it back." Yeah. But you gave it back because you got another loan from the equity partners here. If they were not giving it, you probably would have kept it. And you know what, you have enough money. You have 100 stores in the whole United States to be able to survive. Small businesses who've saved all their lives' savings, they pretty much lost everything. They have to restart. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get back in business and running 100% the first day it opens. Correct? Well, another thing about a large business with a lot of revenue and capital is preparation for emergency or I forget what the word is for this that we're in, but there were data models that showed that Bill Gates predicted this in a TED Talk a few years ago that this was the number one thing that we had to worry about. Instead, our global economy and business world was focused on cyber terror and cyber construction, obstruction rather of privacy and privacy now is taking off. I'm not saying that it's massively important, but unfortunately we overlooked that this was coming. I do believe that the larger businesses, because they have more revenue, they should be able to allocate and prepare better. Just like a lot of them haven't done a great job at customer experience satisfaction because they're not transforming in the digital world fast enough to meet consumers needs. I talk like that because I come from Forrester Research of six years and I know this is true because I sat in the meetings and heard the executives of these gigantic companies talk about it. I'm not saying it's easy, but I do believe that the larger businesses with more revenue should be able to prepare better for if something goes wrong and there is a disaster of some sort, whether it's environmental, economic, technical, war, whatever it is to have some runway with being able to stay afloat. Whereas the small businesses don't have that cashflow or they would be a large business, right? So, the small and mid-sized businesses are trying to get to levels where they can save more and invest more in things that can keep them going when there is a disaster. That's try. I'm going to tell you maybe, if there's 15 businesses that are striving during COVID-19, Coronavirus. So I'm going to share some of them for you, so you know this and you can share this with your audience as well. Cleaning services, one. Delivery services, grocery stores, liquor and wine stores. I don't know how, but liquor... I guess people are still drinking. Go open a liquor store and get happy, right? Meal prep, delivery services, [inaudible 00:36:05], good companies, things like that. Game makers and sellers like gaming, I guess kids are at home, they want to play video games more now. Fitness equipment companies. I don't know how fitness companies, maybe they're not selling to gyms anymore, maybe selling them to the home. Landscaping and Carey, you're right about that. Landscaping because I need to still cut my grass. Because even though COVID-19 is here, I can't let my house look all busted. That one is good. Bread baking company. So if you like to bake and you like to do cookies and baking and all that stuff, might be a good one to get into. Helping Americans relieve the stress by eating some cookies, it always helps. All right? Coffee subscription companies, go drink... I've been drinking more coffee this COVID-19, so that might be going. Gardening, I've been home a lot so I've been doing a lot of my garden stuff. Mask makers, there's a lot of people who are doing masks out there, maybe get into that. Tele-health. So those are some of the businesses that are striving in this industry. Yeah. So, we talk about how many businesses are going to be affected, how much my business got hit and how I'm restructuring. How I'm doing everything different. How I'm going to move my office now from a home base office until I get back in my feet, maybe by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. Hopefully by then I should be back to normal and I can probably look back into a different location and continue. But if I like that the way we said it, maybe I'll stay there. I mean, I'll save me rent and maybe I could use that money for a good vacation once airlines start traveling and start doing things back again. But this is the time for restructuring. This is the time for you to save a lot of money and cutting things that you don't need. This is the time for you to start thinking, brainstorming, how to get back, how to restart, how to just... Think about how when you started, when you first opened your business. Like man, you were a one man shop, think about it that way, man. "I'm a one man shop. I got to go fight this battle and I got to go out there and do a lot." Yes, you probably weren't used to doing it because you had help so many years. But go out there and think with that mentality because you know what? It's kind of like you knew how to do the business before, you knew how to do the product, you knew how to sell the product and you were teaching all these other people. So that way that could be your team, pretty much rebuilt your team. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know what you think about that girl. Yeah. I think it's partly personality. Because with personality, you have your interests, things that you're just plain not interested in. I'm interested in so many things, but I am not interested in learning how electronics, how to connect wires to make my lights work. Once my husband tried to explain that to me and he's like, "You love to learn. Why don't you want to learn this?" And I said, "I don't know, but I don't care. I don't like electric." Yeah. So I think people need to be honest with themselves because yeah, you got to do what you gotta do to get through this, but don't pivot into something that you cannot stand or that doesn't really interest you because few months down the road you're going to be miserable. The other thing is, I've noticed like with people with COVID and with quarantine is that some people are like, "Gosh, I feel more relaxed than ever. I feel stressed in a different way." And then other people, like my mom, she texts me the day that they came out and said that Georgia is opening up this Friday and Monday and she was ecstatic and I was like, "I'm not really going to be ecstatic yet because I kind of got to see what this is going to mean and everything." I had to see more information and she's just chomping at the bit to get out. So I think that's part of it. I don't know if I answered your question. No, no. You did. You know what? I know that the mayor over there in Atlanta doesn't want to open. Right? Because, she's still concerned about that. She's still thinking that- That's right. There's a possibility that you guys can get a big wave and coming back and getting more infections and things like that, which I am under the impression that we're doing it too fast. But I understand people are complaining that, "We need the economy, we need our jobs, we need our work, we need this, we need that." But I think we can always make money in life, but we can never make our life again. We only live once. That's right. It's a balance. Exactly. And you know what? Any government can probably redo an economy, can restructure, can do this. You can go out there and you can start a new business. You can actually start a new job. You can actually rebuild somewhere or the other. But your life is once, once you're gone, you're gone. There's no way coming back. Now, if you know a place where you can go and come back or something that makes you go and come back, let me know, because I'd love to know that. Right? But we have to take it seriously. And that's what people are not doing. Oh, yeah. What do you think about that? I think we need to be really smart and listen to the experts. Listen to the scientists and form our own decision around how our lives are. People have different situations and it's not easy. It's a lot to decide on and things are changing so fast. It's like, "Okay, what's going to happen today?" And there's a lot of uncertainty. But this is still new. But I think too, the other huge thing is mindset and attitude. I think I touched on this before about some business owners kind of freezing or not knowing what to do or people that have lost their jobs and they're like, "I'm not going to apply for anything because I just don't know what to do and I don't know where to go and I don't know when this is going to be over." But I believe in doing it scared. Someone asked me the other day, "What if I start a YouTube channel and I fail?" And I said, "Well then you..."- They're failing already because they're thinking about failure already. Right? Exactly. And I liked how he was being transparent with me and the real reason why he was hesitating. But this is really what he wanted to do. But then this fear of failure was perking up and preventing him from taking action. I said, "You know what? When you have small failures." You hear all the people that become self-made millionaires and billionaires say, "I failed too. But what I did was I kept going and I learned from my failures and I kept going." I feel like I finally am... I'm a young agency, just two years old in June. I look back just two years ago or even a year ago and I say, "Gosh, if I wouldn't have tried this and I wouldn't have put deadlines on myself." While I was doing it scared because I didn't always know everything that I was doing. I was figuring it out as I went that I wouldn't be where I am today and I have so much further to go in my goals. Unbelievably, I put so much pressure on myself but I do feel like I've finally kind of come full circle with knowing what that feels like and I can just... Any listeners out there that are hesitating because of fear with the unknown in your business, hone in on something that interests you and something that you would... If you look and you say, "If I were successful I would be so happy." And just do it scared. Lean on people that you can ask questions of and consume as much information and just start, keep going. That's my take. I'm gonna follow up with yours as well. People who say, "Man, I don't want to apply because this and that." You pay so many years of this, it's probably time now they give you something back. This is the time when you need it the most is a great opportunity for you to say, "You know what, I pay this as an American." You pay this, you get it back. Go out there and you need it. Don't come out there and try to feel like, "Oh, I'm scared or I'm embarrassed." Girl, you need it. You need to feed your kids, your family, your husband or your wife. You need to survive in this time. Two, failure... And we pay this. I mean, I paid it. You paid it. Everybody's paid this. I mean, they've taken it out of us. It's time for us to get back from the system what you put into the system. That's the way it should be in some way when this situations happen. This is a time for you to be able to... That's what it's there for. Whenever you need help, be there for me, lean on me. The other thing about failure, when you start to think failure already, like you say girl, you're already coming with that negativity. That's what you're going to attract and that's what you're going to start thinking. That's what you're going to start believing and that's what you're going to start bringing. So what you need to start thinking is a way with negativity, whether you go ahead, either be successful or not, you're going to give it your best because you're going to be the best at it as you can. You're probably not going to be an expert at the beginning because you don't know as much, but that's why God gave us something and that's why He gave us a mouth. Ask questions. That's why you have friends like you and I, you can text messages and I'm here to help anybody on podcasting or helping them how to get started on a podcast and things like that. Because remember, I am a firm believer that all the good deeds you do in this life continue and carry on with you to the afterlife. Okay. I agree. So if you do bad deed, you're going to continue and pay them over there. So let me tell you something. My life, I see this, I'm a firm believer, as a good... I'm Catholic, by the way, for a lot of folks that don't know this, as a good Catholic, a Christian believer as well, I feel I'm here to help. That's what God has sent me into this world, to help others and love others for who they are and help them in the time of need. So if you need me, I'm here. I'm a brother, I'm a friend, I'm here to help. So if we will all think this way, we can all help each other and not have envy and not have jealousy and not try to be better than you in this and that. If we all work together as a team, we will be not only a better country, but we will also be a better world a better humanity, for the whole world. So, listened to you to because I like what you say, they have to go ahead and give it their best and work at it. I think that's good. The YouTube channel, podcasting and all this stuff. A lot of people, sometimes they don't even get the support from their husband or their wife. This might be a time for you to say, "You know what, I'm going to do it and I'm going to show the world I could do it." Am I right on that? Oh yeah. Amen. I feel so bad for people that don't have support from their family. Because I'm fortunate and so thankful that I do. But I think about that. I try to be full of gratitude for that, wake up in the morning and write down the things that I have gratitude for. Everyone can have gratitude for something. I think too thinking, being conscious of your self-talk. If you find yourself saying these things in your head to yourself, being able to catch yourself and then turning it into a positive even if you don't yet believe it. I learned this because I learned how to sell. I've been a salesman most of my career and in technology and I learned from Mary Kay that old fashion company where you put- Hey, Mary Kay has made a lot of money for a lot of people. My mom started with Mary Kay and she used to make a little bit of money, believe me. But it was a lot of time consuming. I learned so much about sales. I didn't care anything about makeup. Isn't that funny? But I learned about sales and then I moved on to technology and that's what I love. Every time I think about Mary Kay girl, I think about the cream Royal jelly, I think, oh, what was it called? That one day my mom will always sell, her friends would come over and she would always sell it to them. The cleanser. Yeah. They're a great company. Really great company. Great company, yes. But they taught me to write down positive affirmations on sticky notes. Some people are opposed to sticky notes because they get lost and whatnot. But write on something, put it on your bathroom mirror, put it on your refrigerator. Just a few positive affirmation. So when you catch yourself saying these negative thoughts, that you revert right back and you say it to yourself, if you can out loud, that's even better. But speaking of giving and being Christian and everything, I am too. It reminded me of this company of... I'm very close to their family. It's called Perillo Motors out of Chicago and it's Perillo... They sell BMWs, luxury vehicles all kinds of... Six different lines of automobiles that they sell. Well, of course sales of automobiles have gone down and manufacturers have decreased production and whatnot. Well, what they decided to do was to give back to their community by... There's a suffering pizza store there that has two locations. And the pizza owner, store owner, restaurant owner was suffering saying, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I might close." So they decided to offer through their service center, the dealership, sterilizing the cars. So people come in, they pay $25 to have their car sterilized, which people need right now because they can get back in their car from wherever they are and they're worried about how long the virus might live in their car. And then they're taking that $25, buying pizzas from the pizza shop owner and then taking the pizza, actually delivering it to the frontline medical personnel at the hospitals. Awesome man. Awesome. Great. And who doesn't love pizza? Everybody loves pizza. So it's a great cause. It's just like a win-win-win, and I think people will even go in and get their car sterilized if they probably think, "Well, my car's fine, but they'll probably do it anyway if they have 25 extra dollars." Right? That's right. And Carey, the reason why I share, I'm here to help anyone in my life because that's my path. I think that's what the Lord wants me to do is help people and that's what I'm going to finish my life doing, continue. Because a lot of people who don't know how I got into radio station, how I got into podcasting. How did I get into this? When I went to school at the University of Houston for business, I own an insurance company, very successful one here in Texas. How did I change everything and went into this? Well, in the insurance industry I needed to sell more and more and more. So, I needed to promote myself. I had to go do advertisement at radio stations and this and that. It would cost me money. Univision was killing me, $800 a week. You can imagine the numbers a month, a year and every day. That was only for 30 minutes once a week, not even every day. So I started thinking saying, "Hey, you know what, I might need to go ahead and do this on my own." So finally, I met someone who would say, "Hey, I could put a studio for you. I could put a radio for you, this and that." I said, "You know what, I'm investing my money into this because it's pretty much my marketing money that I'm doing." Well, to make a long story shorter, he left me two years later by myself. Just want you guys to know this. I would come in here to the studio, sit and I would just look at the video camera and I would just talk because he would work everything. I would just pretty much sit and just talk and never learned nothing, never knew anything. I saw so many cables. I saw so many things and I never paid attention. I don't need to know this because he's here. Well, one day someone came, offered him more money, this and this and that, took him from me and then he never taught me nothing in my life. I asked him, "Can you teach me?" He said, "No, I'm gone." He left. People have bad heart. So how did I get into this? Well, I learned it on my own, everybody. I learned it on my own. I came, I was stressed. There were days I would come and say, "Man, how am I going to turn this thing on? What am I going to press? Nothing. What about if I mess up this and people are not listening to me? What about this?" And I would press the stuff and the radio will go down. So one day I went into Guitar Center and the gentleman that was selling products saw me all stressed out and I said, "I need to buy maybe this. I've been reading on and this and that." He goes, "Man, you know what Sassa? You're a good guy, man? I like you. Ever since you've been coming here, you've been showing me how to love." I said, "Man, I appreciate that. Johnny." He says, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Man, this happened to me, this and that." He goes, "Man, you know what Sassa, if you give me till Thursday man, I'm off and I can come in and look at your studio, look at your station and I can help you and see what you... And I could teach you." Wow. I said, "You would?" He goes, "Yes man, I'm here to help man and I want to help you. I know you're stressed." He came, he put things together, he spent time, he showed me, he did everything and he taught me everything. He left this studio running like a multimillion dollar radio station. Okay? Really good. And guess what? That's how I learned everybody. So when you start thinking about fear already, fear brings to you, fear comes to you. You will have hurdles in your new venture you're going do from now on after COVID-19. You will have a street with many rocks and you have to maybe jump on more, you know this and that and curve and this, but never give up and there will always be... I mean, I get chills because the Lord is telling me to share this with you and I'm telling you, you will always have some angel that will come into your life because remember, continue practicing your good deeds. He will help you. The angel will come and help you. They will always be angels out there. They will leave you and give you a hand and say, "Man, I'm here to help." That's why you don't give up. You continue fighting. Today our radio station is listened to all over the world, Elsassa Radio. You could download the app. It's a radio E-L-S-A-S-S-A Radio. Elsassa Radio and you can also check our website. It's elsassaradio.com and I learned in that way. That's how I got into this. Never in my life, I imagined I would be doing this. Never went to school for this and now we have what? An app. We have a new website coming in, entertainment and we just continue sharing this. And just to show you the powerful... How this does. How do you and I meet? On Instagram. Correct? Yeah. And here we're doing this podcast. That's an amen. God bless that conversation. That's how I started testing. I wanted to share this and I wanted to tell you, you have a friend in me, just like your audience has a friend of me and my audience have a friend as well. So my positive feedback from me to them and to you is, you are a warrior, you are a fighter and you are the most valuable thing to you. Never give up. Remember, you can do this. You can. That's right. I love that. That's beautiful. And likewise, Sassa you have a lifetime friend in me and I do believe that we were, God made us born perfect and it's just we're the ones that don't see ourselves as perfect in God's eyes. But we are. If you really listen to what you're here for and what you are good at and what you're great at and how you're special, that can just really evolve into things in your life that open up as major blessings. Thank you girl. You know what? I know we're getting to the end of this hour. I really had a great, great time doing this podcast. We need to do this more often. Me too. Maybe have an idea of might pop out of this and we might be starting to do this, consistently and I like that because you know what, I need ATL coming out of the way H-town together, making this for people that need us right now. I love it. I want to tell you, stay safe. Uh, take care of your family. Hope one day I get a chance to see you and meet you and hug you, once everything is gone, Coronavirus is gone for good. That's right. I tell you what's going to happen to me, as soon as this COVID-19 is done, I'm actually going to take a little vacation back to my place where I'm from originally. Go to the beach and I'm going to just drink me a margarita and say, "Thank God this is over." Because it's so stressful for everybody, that everybody just needs a relief in some way or the other. But again, keep being a fighter. Keep doing what you're doing. I love your podcast. You do an amazing job. Not only are you a beautiful woman from the outside, but you are a beautiful angel, beautiful person in your heart inside. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to do this with you today. I loved it. I had a good time and we will continue working together. I think I just want to go ahead and say hello to everybody that was listening to us. We lost her for a minute, but you know what? We want to go ahead and say goodbye and see you, till the next one. El Sassa Radio, with you. Don't forget, follow me on Instagram Elsassa37. Chao chao Be good.

Choosing your diabetes technology can be complicated. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was sort of a Consumer Reports for pumps and CGMs? We found out about Diabetes Wise from people who know it’s about more than the hardware. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Stacey talks with Dr. Korey Hood who lives with type 1 and is with Stanford University as well as Laurel Koester, with the Helmsley Charitable Trust. Together, these two groups created Diabetes Wise. Stacey, Korey & Laurel talk about how it works and  why it’s needed. Stacey spoke to Korey on a previous episode about diabetes gear and mental health. Find that episode homepage here.  Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! In Tell Me Something Good – the greatest game of Marco Polo every played.. and Stacey finds her diabetes doppleganger. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.   Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android   Episode transcription (it's a rough transcript, please excuse grammar, spelling & punctuation)    Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by one drop treated for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes, and by dexcom, take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with dexcom.   Announcer  0:17 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Sims.   Stacey Simms  0:23 This week, choosing your diabetes technology can be complicated. Wouldn't it be nice if there was sort of a Consumer Reports for pump and CGMs? Enter DiabetesWise from people who know it's about more than the hardware,   Korey Hood  0:38 there's the physical side to wearing it, then there's this mental burden that is related to having to pay attention to it and to think about what's going on. And then there's also the social side that is the distractions and the potential workaround. So you have to come up with in these various settings, whether it's school work, family relationships,   Stacey Simms  0:56 that's Korey Hood, who lives with type one. He's part of the Team at Stanford who along with the healthy trust created DiabetesWise, we'll talk about what it is how it works and why it is needed. In Tell me something good, the greatest game of Marco Polo ever played, and I find my diabetes doppelganger. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of Diabetes Connections. I'm your host Stacey Simms. So glad to have you along. And I'm really excited about what we're talking about today. Because I don't know about you. But when we went to pick out our pump for Benny, and I'll tell the story during the interview, it was just overwhelming. And while our educator was fantastic, I really wish we'd had just something to kind of compare and contrast the different types of tech like now exists with DiabetesWise. So we'll get to that and the interview in just a couple of minutes. But you know, I get so many great things emails and messages and I'm so terrible at reading reviews and sharing this stuff with you. You know, there's all sorts of techniques and strategies for getting people to share more reviews and email you more in blah blah blah. I'm just terrible at that. But I have to share this one with you. Because it was like getting a message, like a message in a bottle from a time machine. So here's what happened. Casey messaged me. “Hi, Stacey. I'm sure you get messages like this one all day every day, but I couldn't resist reaching out. I wanted to reach out and tell you how you impacted my world for the better. My son was diagnosed with type one on the 21st of November of 2019. We are soaking in all the new information, trying to get sleep keep up with our jobs, all while trying to keep our regular life intact. I came across your podcast and more specifically, the episode titled all about babies and toddlers with Type One Diabetes. I immediately thought finally a podcast discussing everything we have been dealing with lately. Plus, it's run by a type one mom – score! and Anyway, long story short, she writes, I listened to it and learned a lot.” “But that's not why I'm messaging you. I am messaging you because my son's name is Benny. And he was diagnosed just six weeks before his second birthday. His sister is four. If that wasn't enough similarities for you, we are also from Charlotte. They live in Charleston. Now, I know this might not mean that much to you. But for me listening to your podcast, shifted my world, listening to your story somehow made me feel not so alone. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for telling your story and putting your life out there for the world to see.” It took me a minute, I had to reread it to be honest with you. Because if you're not familiar with our story, my son, Benny, was diagnosed right before he turned two his older sister had just turned five. So it's a very similar story. I mean, they have used to live in Charlotte. It was just this feeling of kinship. Yep, I'm not sure I we're still talking. I'm kind of working out the emotions, because it is kind of like looking at a time machine. And I'm so grateful for the people that were there for us when Benny was diagnosed, and the blogs I read and the people that I talked to. So to be that for somebody else now is really remarkable. So Casey, thank you so much for reaching out. Definitely. Let's keep in touch, our Benny's. Maybe we'll meet at some point, how much fun would that be? I mean, we go to Charleston every summer. That's where we go to the beach. So I'm really hoping to follow up on this because man, those connections are really what it's all about. For me, it sounds really hokey, but if you've listened to the show for any length of time or met me, I think you'll say that that's the truth. Alright, so DiabetesWise coming up in just a moment. But first, Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop and it is so nice to find a diabetes product that not only does what you need, but also fits in perfectly with your life. One Drop is that it's the slickest looking at most modern meter My family has ever used. It's not just about the modern meter setup. You can also send your readings to the mobile app automatically and review your data anytime, instantly share blood glucose reports with your healthcare team. It also works with your Dexcom Fitbit or your Apple Watch. Not to mention they're awesome test strips subscription plans, pick as many test strips as you need and they'll deliver them to your door. One Drop diabetes care delivered, learn more, go to diabetes, connections dot com and click on the One Drop logo.   My guests this week are Korey hood PhD professor of pediatrics and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford School of Medicine. We did a great episode a while back about the mental burden of wearing devices. With Korey It was really eye opening for me and I will link that up on the episode homepage. And we're also talking to Laura Kester T1D program officer at the Helmsley trust. I should note, we taped this interview a few weeks ago. So when they Talk about things added to the website. Some are already there. And starting this year, all of our episodes are transcribed on the homepage. Have you checked that out, you can go right to the episode homepage on diabetes, connections. com, scroll down just a little bit. And the whole episode transcript is there so you can read the episode, if you prefer. love to know if you're doing that. So let me know what you think. Here is my interview with Korey and Laurel. And I start out by asking Korey, what is DiabetesWise?   Korey Hood  6:30 Well, thanks again, Stacey for having us on. And we're always happy to talk about diabetes life. So this is a website that we collaboratively worked on. So I'm a psychologist and clinical researcher and one of the things that we've noticed in practice and and also in research is that people are not always aware of the different device options they have and I'm not always aware of the different technologies available to them for managing Diabetes. And so we wanted to create a resource that was unattached to device manufacturers to companies that hopefully is unbiased and and can be free and people can go there and compare different devices and understand a little bit about what other people who are using those devices have, you know, thoughts on it. And so, we've been doing some collaborative work with the Helmsley Charitable Trust for four or five years on understanding some of these device and psychological factors related to device use. And so we have support from them and have been working on this for much of the past year and a half.   Stacey Simms  7:45 Laurel, let me ask you, I remember years ago now, looking for the insulin pump for my son who was two at the time and it just seemed overwhelming what was out there. I had no idea how to make a decision. What would I find at DiabetesWise how would this have helped me?   Laurel Koester  8:03 Sure. So one thing I think is really critical about DiabetesWise and makes what makes it so different from what's out there is the use of personal stories from real people living with diabetes. So, you know, our ultimate goal at the trust is to help people be aware of all their technology options that are out there, and kind of get the inside story and real talk from other living with type one about their experiences, trying, maybe stopping, maybe trying, again, different types of technology. And we found through some market research that we've done is people really you know, they're kind of two groups of people. There's a group of people that you really trust their doctor above everyone else. Then there's other folks that really look to online information sources. Know, like a DiabetesWise, like beyond type one. But there was nothing really focused specifically on technology. And what is really great about DiabetesWise is that it has a short questionnaire at the beginning that basically serves as an algorithm to help see where people are when they come into the site, and then provide suggestions on what device is right for them through the use of the personal story.   Stacey Simms  9:40 And we're like, I definitely want to talk more about the homestay trust and why it got involved here. I mean, so much for people with diabetes, but Korey, okay, so you've and I've talked before about the mental load people with diabetes carry when we carry when one of these devices is attached. Right and how we kind of don't think about that. I mean, it never occurred. occurred to me when he was two and a half we put the Animas 2020 on him, it never occurred to me to think well, What's this doing mentally to my child? You know, as a teen, it's kind of easier to see. But can you talk about that a little bit about how it's beyond? I mean, they all work really well. There's not a bad insulin pump out there.   Korey Hood  10:19 Yeah, absolutely. I think that, and what you just mentioned, I think is a great a great example of why we have to think about this at different stages. And, you know, for somebody who's, like your son diagnosed the two, and then the family is adjusting and I mean, the burden around the mental burden around diabetes management at that point, even devices are not as really on the parent and so the it's really just a physical side that's on the child, but as they develop and then you know, as you know, many of the people with diabetes using these devices are adults that there's a I think there's a couple different parts of Did that sit in the psychological impact and one of them that we noticed a lot, especially in the teen years, there is the social side. And so what kind of attention is drawn to the person based on wearing these devices and having alerts, alarms, having, you know, disruptions and various things that they're doing. And so I think that the there's the physical side to wearing it, then there's this mental burden that is, is related to having to pay attention to it and to think about what's going on. And then there's also the social side that is, you know, the distractions and the potential workaround, so you have to come up with in in these various settings, whether it's school work, family relationships. And so I think that there's a, there's a lot to think about, that we often I think, especially in the clinical care side, we forget that as soon as people leave the clinic, this is what they deal with.   Stacey Simms  11:56 Just this quiz, well this take me through which pumps beeps Am I going to actually listen to which CGM sensor alarm? Well I respond to I mean, I'm kind of joking. But you know, alarm fatigue and things like that. Are things that really happen. Are those kinds of things taken into account when you're trying to figure out what to choose?   Korey Hood  12:17 Oh, absolutely. I think that you know, one of the things that we wanted to do, and I think that this is best illustrated with our CGM comparison tool, which we did a lot of collaborative work with Laurel and her team to make sure that we got it right. And one of the things that we have there, you know, people can compare the sensors compare the different devices on whether or not it provides, you know, you have to do calibrations, you have to do finger six, but you also know the kind of alerts whether they're customizable or not. Because, I mean, as you know, as you just stated in all the user testing that we did, that is a big concern for People are these alarms and alerts and and what are the ways that we can at least notify people of them and what it's going to be like that also, in our, in our stories, people talk about that. And they talk about it being disruptive at different times and some of the little tricks that they found to actually help those situations. And so we try to, you know, it's just, you know, essentially just real talk about what it's like to use these different devices.   Stacey Simms  13:27 Also, Korey mentioned your team and some of the research that you did you had done. Can you talk about that a little bit?   Laurel Koester  13:33 Yes, absolutely. So I think just want to take a step back is, you know, we know the technology works, but how do we get more people to be aware of them, and not only aware, but to then use them and found them. And so we know that there are a lot of different factors that kind of play into the space around technology adoption, you know, there's a lot of barriers, but also facilitators out there. And so we really wanted to hone in on, you know, we know their system level barriers, like insurance coverage. So our idea was, let's go directly to people living with diabetes and, you know, just understand their awareness around different technologies. And some of the market research we did was specific to CGM, but we thought, hey, if there are the system level barriers, and we also know that, you know, maybe not all providers actually know about these diabetes technology, you know, especially if you're talking about primary care providers. And, you know, given the number of people living with Type One Diabetes, but also type two in the number of endocrinologist in the US there’s just not enough to meet demand. There are a lot of people that are seeing in the primary care sphere. primary care providers just, you know, don't have the bandwidth. So some of the market research we did was to, you know, we wanted to learn about information sources that people trusted. And the the two main points that I alluded to earlier was, there was a group of people that really trust a variety of information sources, ranging from their doctor to diabetes bloggers, to online community groups, and then there's another group that overwhelmingly trust their doctor. So for us, this told us that we need different approaches to raising awareness about diabetes technologies, one being through patient facing resources, like diabetes lives, but I think part of our larger vision is to also we understand now from this research that we also need to involve healthcare provider. Ultimately, the truck vision is to increase the use of diabetes technologies for people living with diabetes and others who are on intensive insulin therapy because it really is a an effective tool to help improve management.   Stacey Simms  16:22 Cory I'm curious as somebody who lives with type one, and I assume I shouldn't assume, but I was gonna say I assume who wears devices? Do you use a CGM or a pump?   Korey Hood  16:33 I do. Okay, yeah. So you probably too many of them.   Stacey Simms  16:36 Wait a minute. So tell us how many are you wearing at the moment?   Korey Hood  16:40 Oh, no, I'm just, I'm just exaggerating. I've tried I think everything that's on there.   Stacey Simms  16:45 That leads to my question, which is, do you mind sharing separate from DiabetesWise? How did you choose? And you can mention brand names if you want to, but I'm curious how you go about before there was a resources like resource like this. How you You went about choosing what devices you would at least try and then wound up with?   Korey Hood  17:05 Yeah, I think it's a great question. And I think it's something that   there's there's probably a few themes about how everybody arrives at this place about devices. And I'll tell you mine, but I think that it's there are not that many different routes to people getting on devices. And so for me, I mean, I it was fairly straightforward. This is when you know, back in, this was 10 years plus now when the first CGM came out on the market, and my insurance would pay for it, that was what made me kind of intrigued about it. You know, I heard a I was I've been working in the diabetes space, so I knew that it was coming and and so I wanted to try it because I could, but if I had to pay for that out of pocket, I probably wouldn't have paid for it. I probably wouldn't have done it at that time. So it was it was accessible to me, which was, you know, an important part. And then also, you know, I was   I liked the idea of something that gave me a continuous, you know, feed of what was going on with my glucose because I knew from finger sticks and we still know most people are still using finger sticks that there's you miss a lot of the peaks and valleys with those kind of intermittent glucose readings and so for me that was appealing because then I could maybe catch a low I could. And so I just for the management purpose, I think that I was really drawn to it from the pump side. You know, I've been, you know, you've mentioned the Animas earlier and, and I that was my first pump and I use it for a long time and I still have it in my you know, diabetes Museum of devices at home. But I I, for that it was it was just because of provider said you should try this. I didn't know really a lot about it. You know, I was 1819 years ago and I thought you know, I'll try this and and so I think what I can tell you though now I currently use the Omnipod with the Dexcom g six within the loop system. And so my movement to the occupied was was just because it was working with that system and I was I wanted to give it a try to have to blitz and, and for me and my lifestyle and my you know, when I do physical activity, it's just so much better and so so they do have too long of an answer to your question, but I think it's evolved over time about why I've used devices and I've been drawn to ones more recently that are smaller that don't have to be in and that that make it a little bit easier to do the things I like to do you know, outside of work and family.   Stacey Simms  19:59 Our experience was, was not exactly similar and choosing an insulin pump in that we were given a lot of choices. And at the time, back in 2006, there were actually more pumps on the market, which is kind of sad to think about. And we chose the Animas 2020. Because I felt like of all of the devices that I was shown, it kind of seemed the easiest. I said to my educator, I really said, I need devices, including pump insets. And everything else. I need the the Venn diagram of idiot proof, and does really good does what it's supposed to do with diabetes, because I really was so overwhelmed. And that's what we wound up with. And as Benny got older, and you know, every four years you're changing and making decisions. We stayed with a two pump. We now use the tandem. One of the reasons we stayed with it is because my son is very responsible, great kid does well loses everything. And we felt the Omnipod PDM would be gone in about 30 seconds, but I'm curious. So when you go through the quiz Your pump and sensor and that kind of thing. What kind of questions are you asking? I mean, I should have taken the quiz before I talked to you, sorry. But I'm wondering like, do you want everything attached to your body? So you don't lose it? If that's one of your questions, or if that's, and I'm laughing, but you know, you understand I'm saying that's one of the No, absolutely, yeah, form factor or your lifestyle factor?   Korey Hood  21:22 Absolutely. And I think you raised a really good point about that. The systems that that work well, and are easy to use, have been designed with the person in mind. They've been designed to be, you know, to have the form factor, like you mentioned, but the user experience is something that is positive. And I don't think that all of them are designed and created equally, in that in that sphere. And so I think that, this really great examples of that, and I would say that the tandem is one of those that has You know, and using use an interface that especially for anybody who's been diagnosed in the last few years, you know, that's that's what they're used to in terms of touchscreen. And so with that said, it's a good question about the quiz and one of the things that we did just quickly give you a little bit of history of it. So, in our we did a lot of work serving over 1500 adults with type one 700 adolescents, 700 parents of kids with with type one, to really understand what are the main questions that we need to ask people so that we can put them on the right path toward, you know, an experience where they become more aware about devices and then also maybe matches better to what their lifestyle is. And so we were able to take hundreds of questions and and derive a quiz that have five questions in it. And a part of those questions is about the level of distress and burden that they perceive about that. BTS because we found that that's a really critical factor in making sure that people get the right kind of information about using devices. But we also ask them what their priorities are, what are their concerns? And what are their main ones. And although we don't specifically phrase it, the way that you mentioned, it is that we, we get it, we get at a number of different priorities that people have. And then that starts them on this path. And then because of the way that it's framed, and as Laurel said, around the algorithm, that it will then take people to, based on their responses that will take them to individual stories of others who have those same concerns or same priorities. But then when it one of the parts that's not live on the website, yet, is a device readiness tour device Finder. And so in there, you can drill down a lot more deeply about what your priorities are, and so For example, if someone really wants it to be discreet, if someone wants it really ease of use ease of use as one of the ones that we have in there as a priority, if someone really wants to avoid fingerstick there's all of this that you can tailor the advice or the recommendations that you're going to get based on what your priorities are. So that's great for people who have some idea of what it is, but it's also great for people who are just trying to get a sense of I'm not even sure what my priority is. I'm not even sure what I want out of this so you can learn about it as well in the process.   Stacey Simms  24:34 Alright, so I'm looking at the website, and I know that as you said, more is coming. But it does say there's stuff about pump and smart pump. There were only three pumps in the US as far as I know right now. Which ones are the smart pumps? to dump I'm sorry.   Korey Hood  24:50 Right? Exactly. I there was something funny there that I couldn't quite come up with but I do agree with you that it what we found and said this is Why is it so important to ask people and involve them in in user testing and development? One of the things we found were that people really wanted to distinguish between something you just put on your body that administers insulin that doesn't make doesn't have any kind of alteration or it doesn't change what it's doing based on anything else. And so, you program a pump and they're, they're, you know, they're sophisticated for, say, 1995. They haven't evolved a lot. But they, they still do a great job and are reliable and precise. With what's what we wanted to distinguish is this idea that a pumpkin do something like low low glucose suspend or can be part of a larger closed loop system. And so the smart pump idea really came from what we heard from people and although it's not a, you know, an FDA category of devices, we really heard from people that they wanted to that distinguish between kind of the traditional way that you would pump versus something that has the capability to be within a closed system or to have low glucose suspend. So that was really the distinction there.   Stacey Simms  26:11 Got it. So in other words, if you use an Omnipod on its own, that's a pump. But if you use an Omnipod as part of the non FDA approved loop with a Riley link, now you have a smart pump.   Unknown Speaker  26:26 Exactly. Okay.   Unknown Speaker  26:27 Let me ask you. We talked   Stacey Simms  26:29 about this at the very beginning that one of the things that makes DiabetesWise unique and very, very helpful is that it is not put out by a company with a stake in what device people   Unknown Speaker  26:41 choose. The   Stacey Simms  26:44 Helmsley charitable trust I think many people are familiar with is so much of what it has done for diabetes research and funding and grants. And we've talked to some folks from the homestay family on the show in the past. What was the purpose here? You know why did Helmsley want to get into involved, it seems really obvious, because you're helping people. But I just wanted to ask you about the involvement here.   Laurel Koester  27:08 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think they see the point that you raised about the the fact that we are an independent entity really speaks to kind of the trust factor not only in you know, what Helmsley because we don't have a financial stake in this. But we're also partnering with some of the leading diabetes researchers in the field at Stanford University. So we really want to ensure that that we're supporting information that is unbranded and unbiased and that people can trust. And I think, again, to underscore that this website is really informed by People living with diabetes is their voices. And, you know, for example, one of the tools that Korey mentioned of this device readiness tool, some of the research that's going into that is, you know, from a sample of people with diabetes, so when people see, you know, different priorities and, you know, writing, as you know, kind of just a sneak peek into some of the features that are going to be coming out, those are actually based on input from people living with diabetes, who are using diabetes was for the first time so it's a really unfiltered real deal.   Stacey Simms  28:44 Cory, what's your hope for this? Do you do you hope that like a CDE would say, hey, let's sit down together go through the quiz on DiabetesWise, or is it a question of people just kind of seeking a little bit more, or even people. What I find fantastic about this is that you have empty I'm on here as well, you're not assuming everybody wants an insulin pump, some curious what your hope is going forward?   Korey Hood  29:07 It's a great question. And I think that the ultimately what we want to do is we want to be able to match the device with the person and their lifestyle and their interests and their priorities. And, and I think one way to do that is that we traditionally don't do a lot of in clinical care is to spend more time objectively figuring out what's what's going to be the best fit, because clinics are busy, providers are busy, it's hard to get that dialed down really closely. And so my goal really is to get the right one for the person and so it's not a one size fits all approach. And if people are using multiple daily injections, and using a meter, you know, I could argue most of the time that you know, add a CGM add dilib re add something that will give you a little bit more glucose information to dial it in. So there's Maybe a little bit of room, but if you don't want to move, and you are really happy with it, then maybe there's some other some areas of distress related to diabetes that we've learned about in this process that we can help you with. And so, you know, I, it's, it's really intended to be a resource that can match and fit with anybody's interested in what they want to do around devices. But also, you know, at a minimum, you know, it educates the person about it, it also can be a resource that like you said, CDs could use one of the things that we found really helpful is we went to a D over the summer and in August and Houston and one of the things that we learned and, and talk a lot about with CDs was, you know, how this could be a helpful tool for them. And so that's another thing that's in process is making sure that we have something that is that can be used by them in a in a helpful way so that they can also get people on the right devices. I mean, I think that everybody If you get the right device on somebody, and they use it effectively, everybody, when there's less time and involved in on the clinical side, they're better outcomes. The person's happier. I think that there's just so many reasons that we want to do this. And then the other vision for this is that we keep it completely free, that we keep it disconnected from are not connected, not tethered to any kind of device manufacturers, we need them, they have to be part of this. And they're doing great work. But we don't want to be as Laurel said, we're not you know, we don't want to be biased or branded in any way we want it to be free and an objective tool for people to use.   Stacey Simms  31:43 I'm curious, what do you mean by you need them for this?   Korey Hood  31:48 Well, I mean, I think that we don't necessarily, we don't necessarily need them for DiabetesWise, although, I mean, you could argue that, you know, we wouldn't have DiabetesWise if we didn't have devices, but that's Maybe getting a little   Stacey Simms  32:02 device.   Korey Hood  32:04 Right, exactly. But But I think what I think I'm just noting that we need for I think the person with diabetes, to have the best chance of the best outcomes we need device companies who are pushing the edge and who, who are, you know, are the competition is a healthy competition. And so I think it's good that they all exist and that they do the work. We just don't want them. We don't want people with diabetes to feel like they have to go to a certain device. And so that's why we we created this so that they could have a more   you know, unbiased view of what's available.   Stacey Simms  32:47 I just didn't want to make sure I just wanted to make sure I didn't misunderstand there that you didn't need them. In other words to give permission to recommend or that they had to somehow sign off on DiabetesWise.   Korey Hood  32:58 Right, right. Okay. There we go. We, you know, if if we want to, we want to work with them on this and make sure that we have accurate information. But ultimately, this is driven by us and our team and our collaborations. And so if there's something on there, that isn't that they don't like then or a story that someone bashes their device, and it's still going to be on the website. But it's also that we we appreciate that they've done a lot of work to bring us to this place where we can actually have these discussions and we can actually have options.   Stacey Simms  33:35 Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I mentioned when Benny was diagnosed, there were more pumps on the market. And while there are fewer now at least the technology is improving. Before I let you go, Cory, could you speak just for a moment about where it's been for you? And you know, where you are looking for to go in the next couple of years?   Korey Hood  33:54 Yeah, you know, I think that I mean, I've been it's a little bit of background I've been using For over, I think two and a half years now and, and I've found a great deal of benefit from it mainly on glucose control, but also in on the mental side and having longer chunks of time throughout the day where I don't think about diabetes, which is really nice. So I, for me, I've been really happy with the progression, it's not perfect, and there are still pieces, you know, multiple pieces you have to wear, we still have to, you know, stab ourselves with sharp pieces of metal. So there are a lot of these things that aren't going to go away and I don't think are going to go away anytime soon. But I do think that the ability to put something on and to not pay much attention to it for a few days is we're close to that. And I think that that's what is really appealing. For me and I think for others that we talked to is that if we do Just continue to decrease the amount of time that people have to think about it, and they feel safe, and feel like it's reliable. And that's really what we're aiming for. And I really do think that that's where we're moving in the next few years.   Stacey Simms  35:12 Laura, let me give you kind of the last word here, you know, what are your hopes for DiabetesWise and how it helps people   Laurel Koester  35:19 just positing said, That's quite a big question. You know, I hope. I think from the homepage standpoint, we want to make the information about diabetes devices and technology is available to everyone living with diabetes, you know, no matter where they live in the US, you know, um, you know, a lot of times just information isn't accessible for people and we want to make sure it's a trusted source of information. And you know, if someone lives in rural America, for example, and they don't have access to support CT groups or an endocrinologist that they can still connect with people like them to learn about the different technologies and devices and experiences of people that are navigating there. They're the same disease.   Stacey Simms  36:18 I'm thrilled that this is available. I really wish it was around when we were choosing our devices, because it was a little bit like throwing darts at a dartboard. Luckily it worked out. Okay. But Korey and Laurel, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time.   Unknown Speaker  36:38 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Sims.   Stacey Simms  36:44 More info about DiabetesWise on the episode homepage and of course, the link is there to go ahead and take the quiz and tool around on their site and see what you think. Up next. What Marco Polo has to do with type one that's in our Tell me something good, but first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. It's hard to think of something that's changed our diabetes management as much as the Dexcom, share and follow apps. The amazing thing to me is how it's helped us talk less about diabetes. That is the wonderful thing about share and follow. As a caregiver, a parent a spouse, you can help the person with diabetes manage in the way that works for your individual situation. Internet connectivity is required to access Dexcom follow separate follow up is required. You can learn more just go to diabetes, connections dot com and click on the Dexcom logo.   It is time for Tell me something good. And this one made me smile when I read it. Oh my goodness. So Rachel shared a story: “We were at Target today and my son's low alert on Dexcom went off and we heard in the distance, ‘T1 I hear you – Marco’ my boy lit up. ‘Yes, you do T1 – Polo!’ and another kid pops up out of breath. And the two of them just chat for a few minutes about Legos or with with everything in common. I melted.” So how about that? I mean, we've heard some Dexcom alerts or seen somebody checking their blood sugar. And of course, I want to run over. And how are you and what are you doing here? But I don't I try to contain myself. But every once in a while, I'll say something. But I can honestly say it has never occurred to me to yell Marco, and hope to hear back a Polo. Dexcom alert. So kudos to these kids. And Rachel, thanks for letting us know about it. any follow up? You have we would love to find out. I mean, I can see her son doing this again, and maybe they became friends. I don't know. But I thought it was a really cute story. And if you try it, and it works, let me know. I think the closest we ever came was interestingly enough at a hotel pool speaking of Marco Polo, this years ago, we took a road trip to Chicago. That's a story in and of itself. We took an RV from Charlotte to Chicago. And we did six states and five days to go see Syracuse play in the NCAA Tournament. Anyway, long story short, we did not bring the RV actually into Chicago, it would have been very expensive to do that. So rather than you know, pay a lot and find a place to park it, we parked our RV at my husband's friend's funeral home in Skokie, outside of the city, but that's not what I wanted to tell you about. Um, so we're at the hotel pool. And we look over and there's a little girl with the Dexcom and Omnipod on the backs of her arms. And of course, Benny at that age, was willing to go say hi, be social. So he did and we struck up a whole conversation and they were so nice. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes those diabetes spottings in the wild, really give you more than you'd expect. There. Just something so rewarding and so affirming about knowing you're not the only one, I think as much for parents as for the kids, and someday I'll tell you more about our crazy road trips, we're on a quest as a family to try to hit all 50 states and the kids were so excited about this when they were younger, I think we're on 27 or 28, I'd have to check. And I think I'm the only one who's still excited about trying to do it has to be all four of us together, you have to have feet on the ground, airports do not count. And so feet on the ground, you can't drive through either you have to actually get out and stop and take a picture. You need picture evidence. You don't have to have all four faces in the photo because sometimes people are grumpy and don't want to take pictures. But we need all four of us. So we have one or two pictures where everybody's holding up a cup of coffee or hot chocolate. That one was like at 6am in Ohio on that road trip. I have another one in Las Vegas where we're all holding up gelato, and you can't see our faces. So I'm hoping this summer not to get completely off track to go to New England with the kids because we've got a lot estates a hit up there. Anyway, if you have a Tell me something good story can be a road trip or anything of the kind, whatever works for you. You can send it to me Stacy at Diabetes Connections. com or post it in the Facebook group Diabetes Connections to the group or send it to me on social media, it'll find its way to me, just tell me something good.   Keeping that busy schedule, which I'm actually having so much fun with. I'm going to Raleigh, North Carolina for the JDRF type one nation summit this weekend, doing not only the world's worst diabetes mom presentation, but also my favorite one about making connections in real life Diabetes Connections. I have been doing this talk since before the podcast came about. That's where the podcast got its name. And I'm also talking about social media. So I'm really excited to meet some new people right here in my state. And then in two weeks, I'll be in Maine, for an event in South Portland, Maine dizzy calendar as I head out on the world's worst diabetes. Mom book tour. And if you've got an event later in the year, things are still pretty busy. Definitely through April. But after that, it slows down to about one event a month right now. So if you've got a jdrf summit, if you've got another event, especially in the fall, please let me know. So we can plan for it. I would love to come and meet you. I can do those presentations. We can do a live podcast, we can just hang out and talk. It's always fun to meet new people. And I do love making those in real life connections. All right, coming up later this week, another mini episode, where I'm taking on what I think is a pretty controversial topic. In fact, when I posted about this on my personal page recently, I was shocked at the response I got. I'm going to be talking about why I think it really is a bad idea to post pictures of your child in the hospital. Yeah, I know a lot of people do this, but it's just not good. So I'll be talking about that coming up on Thursday. In the meantime, thank you as always to my editor john ducatis. audio editing solutions. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms and I'll see you back here on Thursday.   Unknown Speaker  43:12 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Sims media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Welcome! Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and he'd been talking a lot about recycling and recycled bags and stuff because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is right now considering legislation that would black ban all plastic bags throughout the state. And of course, they're not really considering implications. But we got into Google and they are now using a vacuum truck to grab all of our medical records and our personal information along with it. So, here we go with Mr. Polito. For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Related articles: Big Tech Has Your Private Medical Records -- Through Hospital Partnerships    ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Peterson 0:00 Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I don't know if you've seen them yet. But I've got a couple of Facebook Lives up on my page. You can go there just from my website, Craig Peterson dot com slash Facebook. But you can find me if you poke around a little bit. And I have been kind of explaining some of the technology that business people small business people need to know and be aware of and understand. So check those out if you haven't already. And shout out to everybody. I had a few people comment. Basically, they listened to all of my podcasts from last week, which amounted to more than two hours uninterrupted. And that was a lot of Craig. Hey, I appreciate you guys listening and subscribing. It does get the word out which is really good. We are building momentum again on the podcast over 100,000 here recently sold that's all downloads. That's all really really good and I appreciate you guys, buddy. up with me and asking questions too. That's how I get a lot of the source materials as I kind of explain the latest in technology, and more particularly some of the latest in the security realm as well. This morning I was on with Mr. Polito. He'd been talking a lot about recycling and recycled bags and stuff because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is right now considering legislation that would black ban all plastic bags throughout the state. And of course, they're not really considering implications. But we got into Google and they are now using a vacuum truck to grab all of our medical records and our personal information along with it. So that's what we chatted about this morning. Jim Polito 1:52 Here we go. This man is incredible. Incredible. Hey, who was A guy who said the next frontier of cyber hacking and everything else you have to worry about is your record your healthcare record, Craig Peterson said in our tech talk crew, and he joins us now. Good morning, Craig. Craig Peterson 2:16 Hey, good morning, Jim. You know, if people are worried about recycling plastic bags, when you walk into any Target, WalMart, almost any of these big-box retailers right inside, there is a recycle box that you can put your plastic bags into. Yeah, problem solved.  Jim Polito 2:37 Yeah. It's everybody being responsible. And it's not our fault that the oceans are filled with that stuff. But anyway, let's get on to the Google monster and something that you are the first really to sound the alarm on quite a while ago. It was Hey, the new frontier is not going to be your financial record. It's going to be your healthcare record. We find out that the folks, the good folks at Google are swallowing up our, our information. Should I be worried, Craig Peterson? Craig Peterson 3:16 Yeah, here's the thing that you know, we talked about it in January 2018. I remember it well, years ago for the Wayback Machine. It is it is. And it was because our medical records are so valuable. And I was saying back then actually kind of late 2017 that really our medical records are going to be the next frontier of the bad guy stealing them you remember, of course, these HIPAA regulations went in place 30 years ago now. And the main idea behind them was that hey, your records gonna be portable gym when you do your Snowbird emulation and end up in Florida for two weeks. middle of winter and you have to see a doctor, the doctor down there would be able to look at your electronic medical records from up here in Worcester, right. That's the whole idea. Listen, Jim Polito 4:12 I think that's great portability of a medical record, controls, costs, improves quality of healthcare, all of that. I'm on board for that. Craig Peterson 4:23 But, the other side of this was before HIPAA regulations went into place if someone was to share your medical records with someone else, did not have a direct interest, like another doctor. It was illegal, they could get into trouble you could sue them for privacy violations. But HIPAA made it possible for medical companies, doctors, everybody else, to share your records in an unfettered way. While it's all For instance, if I wanted to look at every record that UMass has every medical record or you know, you name a hospital, and I'm in collusion with that hospital, I could just easily say, Hey, listen, I'm thinking about buying you guys. I want to see the medical records of every patient you've had. And they could give them to me. Yeah. Now, here's what's happening. With our friends at Google. We've got something called Project Nightingale. You might remember that woman from a little while back, I think was her first name was Florence. Jim Polito5:34 A wonderful lady. Unknown Speaker 5:37 Exactly. She helped so many men and women and just saved lives. So, Google has Project Nightingale underway now. And Google has partnered with and this is the part I'm having a little bit of a hard time swallowing. They're partnering with a group called Ascension which is a big health care conglomerate really but company here in the United States. And this is the part that I just don't understand here, Ascension is a Catholic nonprofit health system includes  34,000 providers 2600 hospitals, doctors' offices, other facilities. 21 states plus the District of Columbia. Google and Ascension have partnered and Ascension has apparently without even notification to the patient, has apparently shared these medical records that they have with our friends at Google. The Wall Street Journal has a report out there saying that this information contains patient names birth dates, a complete medical records, as well and according to the Wall Street Journal, what's been happening here is that Ascension has not only fed them data that they already had about all of these patients. But when you go in and you're checking in all of that information, when you are sitting there upfront is being fed directly into Google. When the doctors are evaluating their case, it's being sent directly to Google, as well. It's all under the HIPAA regulations, which many people think somehow provides them with more privacy. But certainly, in this case, and in many others, has taken away not only your privacy, but you're rights, and the need to even notify you. So, this is very concerning. And Google is saying, Hey, listen, it's only 150 of our employees that get to see this. Show me your diagnosis, laboratory test results and hospitalization records. You know, don't worry about it. What could go wrong here? Jim Polito 8:02 I'd love that. That's always the line. I think they said that on the Hindenburg. What could go wrong here? It's just hydrogen. Craig Peterson 8:09 What could go wrong? It's just a small, small coal fire in the hold of our Titanic ship. Jim Polito 8:18 Big deal, knock it off. Don't be such a worrier. Craig Peterson 8:22 Right? Exactly. So this is 10s of millions of Americans that are affected by this. And what they're trying to do. What this project is trying to do is to make it so that they get better diagnoses, better outcomes, ultimately, because all those information is being sucked up by Google's been analyzed and apparently. The doctors are unaware of this happening in these Catholic and other hospitals. But Google is providing them these doctors with some recommendations about treatments and diagnoses as well. Jim Polito 9:00 Okay, well wait a minute. We're talking with our good friend Craig Peterson. And you probably heard in the news about Google and this foray into medical records. All right. Look, I know someone whose son is working on a research project, and it's in relation to breast cancer. And it involves a giant cloud calculation of putting in data of all of these different people who had breast cancer diagnosed with breast cancer. And, and the mission is to find out something that was common at the time of diagnosis and what was different prior to diagnosis. Basically, what they're looking for is what was the switch that was thrown that started this cancer, okay, so then massive amounts of data, and I get that. But that data is all protected from matching it up with an individual. I mean, many of these individuals could be dead. This is a massive amount of data. I get that, Craig, but I'm worried about. And I don't have a problem with Google and other big, big firms working on this. What I do have a problem with is, how do I know this is protected? How do I know this isn't going to be used against me? Craig Peterson 10:35 Well, one only needs to look at the NIH to get an answer to that question. Of course, you know what that is? Jim Polito 10:43 Yeah, is that in Canada. Craig Peterson 10:44  No. That's The National Health Service over in the United Kingdom, okay. Yeah, and this is socialized medicine. And in all of these countries, they have death panels, and they're trying to Figure out, is it worth spending any money on this patient? Basically, if you're under 10 years old or over 50 years old, the answer to that question is no. But here's what they've done over in the UK. They have taken this type of data now. And they're using computers to determine whether or not they should just let you die. Literally, let you die. Yeah, if they should treat you at all. That's where this ultimately leads. I love the idea of, you know, having this robust data set, improving outcomes, reducing costs, saving lives, that's what they really want to do. That's why the Catholic Church and ascension got into this. Ultimately, this is for the good. But Jim, this is another example of the government telling us that HIPAA is going to make our information more private, safer, and is done the exact opposite. None of these things People had to opt-in. None of these people were even notified that it was happening, let alone a chance to opt-out of it. Okay. And that's where some of the problems come in. And when you're talking about this massive amount of data, you talked about the anonymizing that happened, yeah. So you can identify an individual in this case, obviously they could, because thinking the names and addresses, but even with anonymized data, where all they have is a number associated with the record and no other information like your name or address, it's been proven again and again, that it can be D anonymize very, very easily in most cases. So we'll see what happens. But the President of Google Cloud came out with a statement and, and you know, bless these guys, they're trying to do the right thing. But Google just you know, this whole deal to buy bit fit. We're now giving our instant cardiac readings on Exercise readings are sleep readings, everything else to Google Now. And it is starting to show up in our employment records and in and in the socialized medicine component countries. It's helping to decide whether or not they're going to treat you. Not just how to treat you. Jim Polito 13:19 All right, Craig, this is great information. I know you have a lot of other stuff, but I wanted to focus on this. I know that if folks text My name to this number, they can get that information. Craig Peterson 13:34 855-385-5553 I'll send a link out to this article today. But txt to 855-385-5553 Jim Polito 13:19 Standard data and text rates apply. And Craig Peterson will not annoy you. He'll get you this information. And other great stuff. Craig, thank you so much. It was very helpful and we will talk to you next week. Craig Peterson 13:58 Thanks again, Jim. Jim Polito 13:19 Right. When we return something incredible. Transcribed by https://otter.ai ---  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  

There's an old joke (and a famous website) comparing programming languages to religions, but the analogy is truer than it might seem at first blush. Logic structures are everywhere in scripture. Pair programming strongly resembles the intensive 2-person style learning found in all orthodox Jewish Yeshivot. And you can say that your religion - the one you grow up with or grow into - is very much like a module you've inherited as a code owner. As Patrick Hubbard, our guest on this episode, says, "It's a balance of acceptance, idealism, reverence and challenging architectural decisions made long ago." Listen or read the transcript below. Doug: 00:00 Welcome 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: 00:24 There's an old joke and a famous website comparing programming languages to religions, but the analogy is truer than it might seem at first blush. Logic structures are everywhere in scripture. Pair programming strongly resembles the intensive two person style learning found in all orthodox Jewish yeshivot. And you can say that your religion, either the one you grow up with, or the one you grow into is very much like a module you've inherited as a code owner. As Patrick Hubbard, one of our guests today says, "It's a balance of acceptance, idealism, reverence, and challenging architectural decisions made long ago." I'm Leon Adato and the other voices you're going to hear on this episode are my cohost and partner in internet crime, Josh Biggley. Josh: 01:02 Hello, Leon: 01:03 Doug Johnson. Doug: 01:04 Hello Leon: 01:05 Cory Adler. Corey: 01:06 Klaatu barada nikto, Leon Leon: 01:09 And my fellow Head Geek at SolarWinds, Patrick Hubbard. Patrick: 01:12 Hey, Leon. It's good to hear ya. Leon: 01:14 And it's good to have everyone here. Leon: 01:16 Um, so the first thing we want to do before we dive into the topic at hand is give everyone a moment for shameless self promotion. Um, so Patrick, why don't you lead us off? Patrick: 01:25 Yeah, so I'm also a head Geek at SolarWinds, which looks like dev advocacy pretty much anywhere else. Uh, you can find me on Twitter at @FerventGeek. Uh, that's probably the best way to find me. I am in too many places on YouTube and a bunch of other stuff because I didn't run away when they broke the cameras out. I'm not sure that I'd make that choice again if I could. And I am a Episcopalian, which means I'm a Christian, but not necessarily the kind that most people know because we're super progressive and we're kind of on a timeout from England right now. Leon: 01:55 [Laughing] Okay, great. Doug, how about you? Doug: 01:58 I'm CTO at Wave RFID, a startup that I started up with my business partner at the age of 60 something. How stupid is that? Uh, it can be found on Twitter at, at @DugJohnson or you can email me at doug@asknice.com. I'm an Evangelical Christian, but not one of those in your face hitting you with the Bible kind of people. But I will talk with you all day long if you, uh, want to have that conversation. Leon: 02:20 Uh, Corey, why don't you go next. Corey: 02:22 Hi, I'm Corey Adler, the constant pain in Leon's side, but during the day I am a team lead engineer at Autosoft. You can find me on the Twitter at @CoryAdler and much like Yechiel and Leon, I am an Orthodox Jew. However, I prefer to call myself the Jew, extraordinary Leon: 02:38 Dah, Dah, Dah. Okay. And as I, as I introduced earlier, Josh Biggley is one of the cofounders of the Technically Religious podcast. Josh, tell us who you are and where you're from. Josh: 02:48 Uh, so I'm a senior engineer responsible for enterprise monitoring. Um, I'm a wanna be a Head Geek. Is that a thing? [Multiple voices: It's a thing!] You can find me on Twitter at @jbiggley. I'm also with my wife, uh, the cofounder of a new website called http://faithtransitions.ca. It's for folks who uh, who are having a, uh, a faith crisis changing their faith. Uh, just a place for there to be a safe place for there to be community. Uh, I am currently a post-Mormon, ex-Mormon, um, former Mormon, whatever. Not Mormon anymore. Leon: 03:27 Got It. Okay. Um, and just a reminder to everyone who's listening that there will be links to everybody's information and any of the things that we mentioned during this episode in the show notes. So no, no need to scribble madly. Um, also these episodes are transcribed for people who may not speak English as a first language or are deaf or hearing impaired or just like to read more than they like to listen. Corey: 03:49 And study for the pop quiz later. Leon: 03:52 And Yeah, you can study for the pop quiz and my name again is Leon Adato. I am also a Head Geek at SolarWinds. You can find me on the Twitters @leonadato or on my blog, adatosystems.com. And I'm also an Orthodox Jew. Um, so I want to dive right into this. So the idea of, when we were talking about this episode, we talked about it as, you know, God as a Service or looking at our religion as code. Let's, let's unwind that a little bit. What are we, what are we saying really when we say looking at our religion, like we look at it as code. Josh: 04:27 I mean I, I want to start off by, by reading the, um, reference on blog dot a-e-g-sub.org. I don't even know how to say that. Leon: 04:39 Aegisub Josh: 04:39 It'll be, don't worry. The link will be there. Right? So, so this is, this is a post that I have laughed over since you brought it to my attention last year. I feel like I saw before but didn't remember it. And I was, as I was reading it today, I was howling with laughter inside because, so here's the entry for Mormonism and it is if you're Mormon or Post-Mormon or Ex-Mormon, you know that this applies to you. So C sharp (C#) would be Mormonism. All right? Okay. I don't code in C#, but that's okay. So at first glance it's the same as Java, but at a clo- at a closer look, you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation, which many Java followers believe to be evil. And that may, uh, that it may contain a theological concepts that are quite different. You suspect that it's probably the, it's probably, uh, sorry. You suspect that it probably be nice if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it. For context, Java is Fundamentalist Christianity. So Doug, [Leon laughing] you know? Yeah. Why? That's just the way that it works. Leon: 05:50 Okay. Corey: 05:50 That's scarily accurate. Doug: 05:52 I mean, and the reality is the guy behind C# is the guy who is behind Delphi, which is the other language that I, so there ya are. It just all comes together. Leon: 06:01 It all just comes together. So, right. So again, I think it makes it makes a cute joke, right? Um, and I think looking at our programming languages that we love as religions is one thing. But looking at our religions through the context of what we know as programmers I think is another. So again, I just want to, I want to try to unwind that for people who are listening. What do we mean when we say that? Patrick: 06:24 Okay. But hold on a second. I think the Delphi analogy is good and I once upon a time wrote an awful lot of Delphi and you could almost say it in a sort of descendant, um, way that Delphi was great because it was fun, right? It sat on top of the full Win32 API. It linked down to the compiler language that uh, a Borland C++ used. So it was super efficient. So when you transition to C#, and I was also all Java for a long time and when I changed jobs I was like, yeah, I'll hold my nose and do this C# thing for awhile. But it was fun in the same way. And so I think a lot of times with religions, a big part of it is like, are there, are there tenants here or there are there echoes and reminders of something from when I was younger or that was easy at the time. So I'm not sure that that analogy of something that you encounter once and then there's the better version and iterative period and then all of a sudden you find yourself in it later. Definitely with technology it works out that way. Patrick: 07:22 Okay, awesome. So that, that gives a piece of it. Um, anyone else want to take a swipe at why we're doing this today? What, how, how is it that we look at our religions through the lens of code? Doug: 07:32 Oh, they are in the world of code, there are ways that you do things. There are it, there, there are certain things that any language has to do to be a language. And there are also certain things that any religion has to do to be a religion. I mean, any religion that doesn't deal with how you run your life and uh, ethics and how we relate to each other as a person wouldn't be much of a religion. Uh, any piece of code that can't handle a four loop or a, uh, be able to go ahead and handle stuff or go to a procedure or have a goto [pause] kidding! Leon: 08:08 [Laughter] Corey: 08:11 Oh, you scared me there for a second. Doug: 08:13 Oh, come on. You guys are being too good. Leon: 08:16 Okay. Any religion that has a construct that you never, ever, ever want to use because it's horrible Patrick: 08:22 and that it's always going to be the one you're going to use over and over. Doug: 08:25 Oh, you know what I would say most regions religions would have, I can certainly give you some constructs in Christianity I never, ever, ever want to hear about Leon: 08:34 Anyone else want to take a swipe at it. Josh: 08:35 I'm struck by the, um, by the nature of code and religion, um, in that code doesn't play well together. So it's not like you can, um, start using Java and then go, Oh, I'm just going to throw some, you know, some commands in here from, you know, Golang or something. Uh, I mean, I know that you, there are, are, are certain languages that you can do that with, but if you're going to develop an entire, uh, project using Java, you're going to want to minimize things that are not part of, you know, mainstream Java. Religion to me feels kind of like that the same way. There are things that they, on the surface they look like, "Oh yes, these things all make sense!". Yes, there is a god. Yes, these are constructs that help us to, you know, act a certain way and behave a certain way and do certain things. But when you start to pull things apart, you realize that the way that religion is assembled, the way that it's put together is very different. Much like, you know, hey, you can, you can develop our front end app and it looks like it's doing all the same things, but you start to pull it apart and you realize that the pieces that go in to making that application don't look at all the same. Um, so I don't know, I'm not a developer at all, but I, I feel like things just don't fit together well when it comes to religion. You know, we see that we see an awful lot of conflict in the world. Um, you know, in a, in a prior life, uh, you know, Doug and I sitting down in the same room would have resulted in one of us being hit with a Bible. Um, I'm feeling it's probably me, um, being hit, but you know, you understand what I'm saying, right? It's, this isn't religion and, and code. I mean, it's a, it's a Battle Royale sometimes and it just doesn't need to be. Leon: 10:27 Okay. Patrick: 10:28 Well, but how much of that is, how much of that is the religion and how much of it is spirituality? Because if, if, to me, spirituality is sort of the platform as a service here, right? Like it's the set of cloud native service primitives that, that everything else is built on. So that would be a.. Leon: 10:44 I like that its a cloud native. Like it just works so well. Oh, keep going, keep going. Patrick: 10:48 No, the point of the Cloud is we're going to deconstruct everything into a set of service parameters and it's up to you to put it together, right? So then the question is, do you come at it dogmatically and say, "Okay, I'm gonna use only cloud native technologies!" Or "I'm gonna lift and shift from, um, a set of monolithic applications that have made me feel good for the last 30 years." And if there's anything that's opinionated in religious, it must surely be monolithic applications. Um, but underneath it, it's things like mindfulness and it's forgiveness and it's awareness and it's how does this fit in with cosmology and the, the basic tenants of that? Like what is spirituality? I think maybe that's the thing that maybe aligns more with technology and then almost the religion itself ends up being kind of the dogmatic argument if thing that you see in a Linux forum, right? Talking about talking, you know, where people will literally wish they could get in a car and go fight each other over a pattern implementation. But the reality is that the, the commonality is more about those, those base services and then we layer on all of this opinionated, uh, uh, dogmatism that distracts us from the, the core of it. Doug: 11:56 right? I don't disagree with you, but by the same token, in the wonderful world of religion, you can have all of these wonderful, uh, in touch with the world and all that kind of stuff. But you know, the, the, the real acey-spacey kind of stuff that you tend to get with people who don't have a specific religion, they just, they're in touch with their spiritual feels, they actually accomplish very little and in the world of programming, while we can all get down to the core constructs of going ahead and working directly against the metal if we want. The reality is until you pick a language, you hardly ever get anything done and it's until you've got a team of all of a bunch of people all working with the same code base, working with the same language, working together, that's when you actually accomplish stuff. So while there are similar, while there is that base that's behind it all, you don't get much done if you sort of stay off in the sort of loose commonality area. It's only when you get into specifics that things start to happen. Leon: 12:50 Okay, and I just want to jump in here for, for the listeners and for us and say that is at the heart of this episode, which is as programmers we can take our sensibilities as/programmers and then look at it and look at our religion and say, this is, this is the similarity. This is where I can actually deepen my experience of my religious point of view by bringing my technical, my programming sensibilities to it. So that's what this episode is about and we've already started to dive into it. So I want to keep going with this. Um, and really get into some of the specifics. So with all of that said, with that framework laid down, how are, in what ways do you find that our religions are similar to programming languages and/or code? Again, how do we bring our programming sensibility to the table and say, ah, now I can appreciate my religion so much more because of this or that or the other thing. What are some things that strike you? Corey: 13:50 I mean, just the general structure of it all. I mean, religions, organized religions in particular are always very structured, you know? Yeah. I have especially, I mean, you could speak to Orthodox Judaism. We have to go to the services three times a day and you know, and we have to on the sabbath. We have few certain things that we can do, things we can do. The, the, the structure in general of this is how you run your life is always there. We're there and it's something that in code, I mean you understand that there are certain commands that you're going to do. There's that and you understand what programmatically, what that is going to do. Leon: 14:24 So thou shall declare your variables before using them? Corey: 14:27 I've tried to teach you that too many times. Leon: 14:30 [Laughing] Okay! Patrick: 14:30 Wouldn't it be nice if there was a religious linter that took care of the analysis beforehand? Doug: 14:36 But that it is the same thing happens in my loosey Goosey Christianity there it's, it's, while there are rules that we don't have the very strict rules of course, because we're forgiven of everything, right? Okay. But if you actually, "Hey, you know, doesn't matter what you do, you get forgiven and just go ahead and take care of these sins and you're done!" Okay? But the reality is when we go to the service, there's the opening, then there's this many songs. Then, I mean, there's a way that we do it every single time and there's that structure that we expect. And boy, Heaven help you. If you should go ahead and you know, put the sermon first cause people are arriving late, who don't want to miss miss that, the big band in the beginning. And if they missed the sermon, boy they would be on your head. So there's just, again, there's that standard structure even in the loosey-goosey that uh, it makes it work interesting. Josh: 15:29 So I want to build off this idea that's a, that's come, um, that there's, there are differences and similarities between religion. Being the non programmer of the group here. Um, because my God is Google and that's, that's how I survive. Um, I'm, I think that the missing element we have here is a scrum master or a project manager. We've talked about this idea that religion has rules, that we are a, that we have to follow. We've also talked about how programming languages have constructs that we have to follow. But if you don't have someone who is enforcing those rules or who is, um, setting out the paradigm in which you need to participate, then how do you know that you're doing what the other people need to do? So Doug, to your point, if you don't get people all on the same platform, if they're not all using the same, uh, you know, the same version, right? You know, if you're using a Python and you're using 2.7, so is last two dot release?, uh, versus python three, I mean, they kind of look a lot alike, but they're not going to.., there's going to be some, uh, some discord there. So I, I, I feel like, at least for me, if I, if, if I were to come in and be a programmer, I would want that. Um, I would want that scrum master. I would want that project manager. Interestingly enough, within Mormonism there is a scrum master. Um, and some people are going to say, well, yeah, "Sure, Josh, the scrum master is Jesus!" Uh, wrong answer. The scrum master is actually the president and, and a prophet of the Church who today is Russell M. Nelson. He is, uh, the, the sole, um, well he is the corporate soul. So he owns everything within the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints. He is also The Voice. So what he says is Gospel. Um, I mean, I don't know if you guys look at your scrum masters or your project managers and maybe the same way that Mormons look at Russell M. Nelson, but that's the construct, right? There has to be somebody who says, here's how things are going to operate. Here are the rules. Patrick: 17:51 Okay? But what if Git is a guide here? And not to invoke the obvious, but the whole point of being decentralized, right? Being, um, a set of practices that allows people to collaborate. And I think GoLang there is a, uh, something to be said for if you make the right thing to do, uh, the easy thing to do, people will do the right thing. Like what if it's not about adhering to a judgment that's external, but instead the thing that's great about a great technology or a great language is, is, is one where interacting with it daily, when you look back in hindsight, you feel like you did the right thing, but it never felt like it was prescriptive. Or you were worried that you weren't adhering to a set of programming standards or was that completely annoying architect? It was always about code standards and you're like, "I just hacked the most amazing thing ever and you're going to go on a 15 minute diatribe about the way that I did my comments?". Right? Well what if the best faiths are the ones where you find that you intrinsically live them without necessarily having to go back to requirements documents every time, that they, the the right thing to do is the easy thing to do. And instead it's something that you collectively do as a part of community as opposed to being something where you're worried that the scrum masters kind of assign you a code branch that you really don't want to deal with. Leon: 19:10 Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to jump in on that whole scrum master idea and project manager idea. Cause I think in Judaism there's a slightly different structure. And the good part is I've got Corey here with me because there's a role in shul, um, in synagogue called the Gabbai. Uh, and the Gabbai is the person who really makes sure that every service is running as demanded as, as it needs to. So, Corey I'll let you... Patrick: 19:36 So basically it's Cron New Speaker: 19:38 uh, well more than that, I'll let Cory, I'll let Corey dive into it. Corey: 19:42 So, the analogy I use, let's use all the time for being, the Gabbai, he is a, he's like a bartender and a great party. You don't notice the bartender unless he screws up the drink. Leon: 19:53 Okay. Corey: 19:54 Very similar fashion. The Gaba gets cause people to leave the service, makes sure everything is running on time, make sure nobody uses, you know, growing up at the podium, you know, and, Leon: 20:09 But also you, the Gabbai knows what day it is and what special elements of the service have to be observed, whether that's a normative weekday or a normative Shabbat or a special holiday. But also that, um, this person has a special event in their life. For example, if there's a groom in the, uh, in the room or somebody whose a child is having a circumcision, then certain parts of the service are not said. But the Gabbai's job is to notice that, and say, "Oh!, we skipped this part!" and everyone says "What?!?" So the Gabbai really is that project manager role. I think, you know, in a large way I could be wrong, but... Patrick: 20:49 So a project manager, not a lead developer? Corey: 20:53 Uhh, I mean especially from an agile perspective, I was, I would disagree with that. Leon: 20:57 Fine. Corey: 20:59 Umm, from an Agile perspective, the project, the product manager is, you know... Patrick: 21:03 Well, cause where I was going with that was a more like a, you know Julie the cruise director, right? Not actually a part of your experience, just making sure that you have a fantastic experience. Basically like a Doula. Leon: 21:13 Right. Corey: 21:14 [Laughing] I like that! Patrick: 21:15 It's the, it's the leader behind the scenes in a situation where you're not supposed to have a leader. Corey: 21:20 So I would disagree about that from an agile perspective where the product manager is really is one informing the team of what needs to be worked on and what needs to be done now versus the Gabbai who is just almost letting everything just flow naturally. Everybody already knows what they're supposed to be doing in the service is just making sure that you know, the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed, you know, not to use the pun or anything because this is a religious podcast. Leon: 21:55 Oh my gosh! [Laughing] "The 'T's are crossed". Oh no! Okay, keep going, moving on. Nothing to see here. Corey: 22:04 But and so the Gabbai is more, is more of an over, is it more of an overseer rather than actually dictating what the product is. Leon: 22:15 Okay, Patrick: 22:16 So they're providing governance. Corey: 22:17 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Leon: 22:18 All right. Okay. That works. Doug: 22:20 And to a certain extent, I mean, again, while it would be great, you know that you're sitting there doing code and the code is perfect and the language allows you to do it and you're having a wonderful time and all that kind of stuff. You do still need that outside governance. In the evangelical community, it's going to be your elders and your deacons. But basically what it comes down to is, you can have a really crappy programmer coming in and just having a wonderful, wonderful time and they think they're doing great and they're just messing up everything. That's why everybody hates PHP so much is because the, you know, anybody can program in PHP and unfortunately anybody does. So you then need somebody, the scrum master, in this case, a code reviews, any kind of where to go ahead and help them get back on the track and hopefully, uh, to go ahead and write better code or to essentially be a little closer to the rules of the religion, which are there, one expects, for a reason. Josh: 23:19 Just so everyone understands, Doug and I have never worked together. So when he talks about crappy programmers, he's not talking about me. Leon: 23:28 [Laughing] And, and just to be clear, Doug and I have worked together, so if he's talking about crappy programmers, he's probably talking about me. Doug: 23:35 Actually, Doug's worked on enough teams that he has had enough crappy programmers in his life. He's talked to a lot of them. But you know, one of, as in the case being a senior Dev, one of, one of my jobs as a senior Dev or in my current role as CTO, is to go ahead and help my, uh, new developers to go ahead and become better developers to effectively become a senior developer. In fact, one of the best things that you know has happened to me is one of the guys that I coached at, the last place that I was at is now a senior Dev at his current job. He didn't have it when he didn't have it when I met him. And he did have it when he left. So I'm not taking, obviously he had the capability, but he needed guidance. And that's what, in evangelical Christianity, the elders and deacons are supposed to do. They don't, they don't beat you up around the head and the shoulder, but when they find that you're drifting, when you're going in a direction that's not good for you or the community, they guide you back into the path. Leon: 24:39 Okay. And, and we've also started to hit on another point that I think there's a commonality between, uh, programming and our religious life, which is the idea of consequences. So what are your thoughts? Like what, how are the consequences in, in our coding lives? How does that inform our experience of consequences in religion or vice versa? Josh: 25:00 So when we jump into this idea of cost consequences, I want to touch on something that really falls in line with what Doug was just talking about. And maybe it's something that we all have as a blind spot here because, um, to some extent or another, we have a religious observance. But when, when we don't work well on a team, whether we're talking about, um, uh, an agile team or, um, a religion, there are times in our lives where being part of a religion is really problematic for us. There are people who cannot function within, um, the constructs that we want them to function in. And I don't know exactly how to draw this completely back to, um, to programming because I'm not a programmer, but there are people... Doug: 25:48 It's called cowboy coding! Josh: 25:50 [Laughing] Cowboy coding! Doug: 25:51 It is that they exist and it's a problem. These are people who do not work well on a team and they do what they want. They're called Cowboy coders Corey: 25:59 Or Bro-grammers Leon: 25:59 Or Bro-grammers. Josh: 26:02 Well, and I think it's, it's even more than that though, right? This sometimes there is a system that um, you just don't work well and um, and it may take a long time for you to recognize the value of that. Um, for example, for an awful long time I was a Windows only guy. Man, Linux scared their crap out of me because like there are weird words in it. It's like... Patrick: 26:27 There's no pictures. Josh: 26:29 Like people make up funny names. Right? Exactly. And I'm, I'm complete. I was completely flabbergasted by it. It just seemed weird and I was compelled to have to learn a Linux and I mean, somebody on this call used to work for the same company I worked for, wrote some code that I still have to look at on occasion. I mean, I'm just pointing and saying Leon, I mean, not, not saying Leon, not saying Leon. Leon: 26:59 [Laughing] Right? Yeah. There we go. Josh: 27:02 These, these times, right? These times where we realize we have to step away from the thing that we were comfortable with and do something else. Um, that is for me is very much a very close to my heart. Right? Um, there are times when religion just does not work to construct those, those elders out, those deacons to use Doug's terminology, they have failed in their role and you step away from that. Um, and that's okay. Like you, you don't, to go back to what Patrick was talking about, you don't have to keep programing in Delphi just because it's the thing that brought you joy in 1996. Um, it's 2019 pick a new language. Patrick: 27:39 Cool. And I think that's something you're hitting on. Um, the thing that we all forget, right, is that I think everyone, when they are using the language of choice or if they're using the particular faith of choice or let's say religion of choice, is that you, I think a lot of people feel like, oh, this was just destined. I of course have just found myself in the best, most amazing thing ever. But the reality is, yeah, everyone went shopping once upon a time. People selected that and we forget that. And so like when you're looking at, um, especially with Go, um, your, your browsing GoLang libs or you're out looking at GitHub and what are you looking for, right? You're looking for fellowship, right? Like how many contributors are there? How long has this project been, uh, in, in, in a process? How many people are providing updates? How many comments on it? When was the last time the code was updated? So you know, basically how full is the parking lot, right? Right. So you, you, you, you did once upon a time make a choice. And I think part of the, the key is to remember that you should revisit that on a regular basis. Don't ever like just decide, well, this is who I am, this is what I am. I'm never gonna look at it again because then you don't own it. Right? So maybe, maybe that's that going back to the platform as a service thing, but like just with like with code, go back to how many people really actually enjoy this. Ah, do I trust the people who are contributing to the, uh, sub, uh, projects that are a part of this code? Am I willing to dive in and really dig through it? Like what was it? Never decide, "Okay, I'm settled." Like, whatever got you to that thing, that process should be good just as it was with picking a library or hey, there's four to choose from, so the other three have about the same number of, uh, same number of contributors. So what's wrong with the other three? Nothing. Leon: 29:24 I like that. And again, using that sensibility from our programming lives and reapplying it to our religion and saying, well, I do this with my programming. You know, I'm not afraid to do this, to reevaluate my programming. It must really joke about programming languages or like religions, you know, "There's the one true language!" You know. The fact is, is that we are very comfortable when it's time to move on or when we do declared that a language is not suitable for this particular project. It doesn't necessarily shake our world and using that comfort to say, you know what, I'm just going to take a minute. I'm going to think about this religious tradition I, I was born into or grew up into and say, "Am I still there? Is that still me?" I like that idea. Leon: 30:05 We know you can't listen to our podcast all day. So out of respect for your time, we've broken this particular conversation up. Come back next week and we'll continue our conversation. Josh: 30:15 Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website, technicallyreligious.com, where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions, and connect with us on social media. Doug: 30:29 .Net! Patrick: 30:30 Go but optimized for Google, so GoLang Doug: 30:34 Delphi Leon: 30:35 Perl! Josh: 30:35 Guys, guys, please, can we just unite against our common enemy? All: 30:41 PHP!

The Peoples Voice:  It’s been a little over 50 years since the Apollo missions carried men to the moon 12 men who walked on the moon the words one small step for man one giant leap for mankind spoken by Neil Armstrong as he planted his foot on the lunar surface. But what’s next we’re going to be talking about the new mission caring mankind to the moon again this will be a huge step the next program Intended to return man came to the moon in 2024.   The Success Factor:  What does it take to truly become successful. How have others done it and what sort of mindset does it require. Will be talking about success and focusing on a particularly successful individual today listen in and find out.   UNEDITED AI TRANSCRIPTION Kevin O’Leary  0:06 Hey, Wes, Chef wonderful here, I just want to do a really big shout out for you. I'm working today selling YB cakes on QC. But I have enough time to shout out for you because you have done something amazing. I love this whole idea of winning first place in the New York Book Festival. I love your new book, big things have small beginnings, which focuses on being the catalyst that delivers success. Of course, great ideas start small, but you have to really focus on them to make them happen. And I think that's a great theme West. I love everything about it. And you also made the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. How cool is that? So, you know, hats off to us. Keep up the good work, take care of my friend. Wes Berry  1:04  Welcome to the Wes Berry radio show. This is the people's voice segment. And I'd like to thank Mr. Wonderful for his very kind words. He's a great guy. Yeah, I don't know if you watch Shark Tank. But if you shouldn't, you really should watch it. It's a great show. We're here today with Ryan toll, my good friend. And we're going to be talking a little bit about the space program. And more importantly, it's you know, it's always important to celebrate things that have happened. But it's also critically important to be looking forward. And last week, the Apollo program celebrated its 50th anniversary of landing a man on the moon, and it landed two of them. Actually that day, on the 20th of July, Neil Armstrong with those famous words, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. But you know, since the 70s, we just haven't been back there. And the question remains, what's the purpose? Where are we going? Why do we want to be there? Well, we've got to cut cut coming up in just a couple of minutes. It's going to talk about that Apollo 11 landing on the moon. But then it's also going to talk about the next stage the next step in the program. And that's that's really, it's, I believe, it's Artemis is what it's called. And Artemis is is the sister of Apollo, the sister of the Greek god, Apollo. And you know what's really interesting, she's also the goddess of hunters, which really, really pokes at me, because it's called the capsule and everything part of the system is called Orion, which is the hunter. Oh, that's interesting. So think about that. Yeah. So you've got the goddess of the hunt of the hunt. And you have the hunter, you know, most of you are probably familiar with a Ryan Ryan belt, you know, the three stars that are sort of in a crooked line in the sky, night sky. But it's I don't know whether or not NASA is trying to send us a message or not. But   Ryan Toll  3:10  they're not very smart Wes. I'm sure they have no veil meaning.   Wes Berry  3:14  You know, I'm sure they have so many men in there. I don't I don't know what they're planning on hunting. But I'm sure that the conspiracy theorists will soon unravel that,   Ryan Toll  3:23  you know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories speaking that believe we have not been to the moon that it was all done enough. Yeah. I don't believe that. I'm not I'm not advocating that.   Unknown Speaker  3:31  Yeah, but I do believe those are the same ones who do believe that the moon is made of cheese, very good, very well being specifically Swiss cheese, or Alsace Lorraine cheese, you know, that's a little bit smaller.   Unknown Speaker  3:43  comes from France. That's true. That's true.   Unknown Speaker  3:47  I forgot about that. But the problem here is not whether or not we should go back. But what's the mission? What is the reason? You know, the only reason Apollo the Apollo program was, was to put Flipboard sun the moon, you know, right,   Unknown Speaker  4:01  yeah, put a flag there, put some   Unknown Speaker  4:02  footprints there. Yeah, but we've got to have a more resoundingly reason to return the moon this time. And we are looking at going back, that the plan is for us to land on the moon by 2024. And I'm, I was very curious to see that that same program is supposedly going to be the one that's going to allow us to go to the moons of Mars, they've got this whole thing planned out. So let's go to that clip right now from NASA, about the Apollo program and where it's going now.   Unknown Speaker  4:37  50 years ago, we buy into the path to the trail we blazed cut through the fictions of science, and showed us all what was possible.   Unknown Speaker  4:50  Out here, today, our calling to explore is even greater.   Unknown Speaker  4:55  To go farther, we must be able to sustain missions of greater distance and duration, we must use the resources we find that our destinations, we must overcome radiation, isolation, gravity, and extreme environments like never before. These are the challenges we faced to push the bounds of humanity. We're going to the loo to stay by 2024. And this is how   Unknown Speaker  5:25  this all starts with the ability to get larger, heavier payloads off planet and beyond Earth's gravity. For this will design   Unknown Speaker  5:33  an entirely new rocket   Unknown Speaker  5:35  Space Launch System, SOS will be the most powerful rocket ever developed.   Unknown Speaker  5:39  And with components in production, and more in testing, this system is capable of being the catalyst for deep space missions, we need a capsule that can support humans from launch through deep space and return safely back to Earth. For this, we built   Unknown Speaker  5:57  a Ryan, this is NASA next generation human spaceflight capsule.   Unknown Speaker  6:02  Using data from lunar orbiters that continue to reveal the moon's hazards and resources, we're currently developing an entirely new approach to landing and operating on the moon, using our commercial partners to deliver science instruments and robotics to the surface, we're paving the way for human missions in 2024.   Unknown Speaker  6:21  Our charge is to go quickly   Unknown Speaker  6:24  to press our collective efforts forward with a fervor that will see us return to the moon in the manner that is wholly different than 50 years ago.   Unknown Speaker  6:35  You know, it's a big, it's a big, big step, it's a big thing to initiate. Right. Any thoughts on this? No, I think I think, you know, the, the there was this common view throughout the 70s. And, you know, even in my childhood, in the 80s, and so forth, that we would colonize the moon. And there's I dozens of movies made right about, about, you know, colonization, the moon and those colonies and and how that would move to Mars and so forth. So I think I think there's a lot of people are probably a little surprised that it hasn't happened yet. But that that that isn't the natural state of evolution from 50 years ago, from landing on the moon. Well, you know, so many people watch science fiction, and and they have a tendency to, to blur the lines between reality and and science fiction. And it is difficult, I'm sure that you could have made a wager 50 years ago, that we would be continuing to go to the moon. And you know, nobody would have taken that bet they would run sure that we were if it would have been the greatest bed of all times to say we wouldn't we wouldn't be back in 50 years. Right. But it's just hard to believe. But you know, it's that momentum. Sometimes, it takes a long time to make those, those those furthers step. Right. You know, you think about Christopher Columbus coming here to the new world and 1400 92 I don't think there were a lot of things settlements in 1400 93, you know, right, right, takes a while. But I'm very excited about this. I'm pleased that we're going back, please, that we have a reason to go back the scientific reason is something we're going to talk about a little bit later on. But this should really give a lot of energy to the whole process.   Unknown Speaker  8:20  I would agree. And I think, you know, I think that's the natural, you know, man has been an explorer, always right, whether it was to the next mile away or over the next mountain or whatever. And that is the next stage in our exploration or evolution, right is where else we can go within our galaxy. Sure. And you know, what got us   Unknown Speaker  8:37  into that. That position of landing on the moon was that we were in a competition. It was a space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. And that's what really really pushed it. You know what, we've got to go to a quick break now and we'll be right back.   Unknown Speaker  8:59  Some things in your mind medicine cabinet are more dangerous than others. When it comes to prescription drugs. opioid pain medicines can be addictive and even deadly. Half the people who misuse prescription pain medicines, get them from a friend or family member. Be part of the solution? Go through your medicine cabinet drawers anywhere you keep unused opioid pills, patches or syrup's? Find out how to dispose of them safely. Visit FDA. gov slash drug disposal. Hey, business owners, you can grow your small business into something big. Everyone starts somewhere. Big things have small beginnings is the best selling ebook by business expert West Berry. Learn how to build a $60 million international business from a $60,000 flower shop. Don't ignore the little things, build something big and turn your business into a huge success. Big things have small beginnings.   Unknown Speaker  10:02  Mason's among us, brought to you by Michigan Mason's   Unknown Speaker  10:05  nickname wise.   Unknown Speaker  10:07  He is an inventor, programmer and technology entrepreneur who co founded apple. He is known as pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 80s.   Unknown Speaker  10:16  And he single handedly developed the   Unknown Speaker  10:18  apple one, his name Steve Wozniak, a proud member of the Masonic fraternity,   Unknown Speaker  10:24  brotherhood fellowship community, be a mason go to We are the masons.org to find out more.   Unknown Speaker  10:34  We are this close to making history   Unknown Speaker  10:37  22 making history this close to changing this class, we are this close. This close this close to making history for this close to ending polio, to making sure no child suffers from this crippling disease ever again. All we need is you.   Unknown Speaker  11:13  Thank you for joining us. We're back. This is the people's voice segment of the West Berry radio show. And before I forget, I want to mention that my best selling book, big things have small beginnings is available on Amazon and other platforms. But it's probably easiest to get it there. It's a it's a great book. It's well it's got a Wall Street Journal bestseller on it and a USA Today best seller. So it's not just me and my mom, Tanya, it's a good book somebody else's to we're talking today about the new space program of returning to the moon. And I'm here with with Ryan tool. And I don't know, you know, Ryan, what do you think about this whole returning to the moon idea?   Unknown Speaker  11:57  Well, I think I think it's, you know, a good idea. I think there's a lot of technology that's coming to us from and I think we've talked previously about you know, that's, that's the space programs where Velcro came from, and the space programs where a lot of sustainable food ideas came from and freeze drying of food and so forth. And I think that the other piece to that, really and where I'm always looking for used is, I feel like there was this whole step out of that space program. We went away from the capsule away from that to the to the space shuttle for the you know, the 70s and 80s and 90s. Right. And now that program is scrapped, right? We're done with spit. And now we're back to if you looked at the pictures, the other video capsules, right. So   Unknown Speaker  12:30  it does look very, very familiar, doesn't it? Well, you know, that whole space shuttle program was a what's referred to as a low Earth orbit. Right. And we haven't we have not gone back to a distant orbit or a deeper space orbit since the Apollo program. You know, one of the things that I find a little bit curious about the new program, is that they they are it's a system, and they've got a plan that goes beyond just being able to get there. You know, the original space program is, as we mentioned earlier, was a space race between the former Soviet Union and us. And I think what really got us on our heels, is when China mentioned just a few years ago that they were going to Right, right, I agree with you. And you know, and I think I think the reason there wasn't a longer term plan and the original Space Race is your point. Right? It became well, we have to get there before the Russians, the Soviet Yeah. And, and so it didn't matter what we did to do that we were just going to get there first, it was equivalent to the race to Berlin was to get to the scientist should the race to Berlin at the end of World War Two, right, who that just showed your superiority? You know, that's a very good point. And on that subject. You know, after World War Two, the Nazi scientists that came to the United States under what was called Operation Paperclip, Verner von Braun was the guy and Verner von Braun was really I've got a chapter in my book about him actually about, about his personality type and about him. He was really a what you would refer to as a technocrat. He didn't really care who he was doing it for or why he was doing it. He just wanted to work his craft, like a technological mercenary, almost right, just whoever wanted to do it. And he invented the v1 and v2. Right? He did. He did. And actually, you know, there's I certainly don't, wouldn't say that this is the right way to say it, but that there were people who used to say that the United States didn't have a United States or an American space program. They had a German rocket program in the United States.   Unknown Speaker  14:37  I think that's that's factual. I mean, even the nuclear program, right was basically   Unknown Speaker  14:42  same rockets. Yeah. Yeah.   Unknown Speaker  14:42  You know, defected, you know, German scientists that defected. But   Unknown Speaker  14:46  right, German scientists. Well, the same rackets that were used in the space program were used in the ballistic missiles. Right, right. And, you know, the other thing that's kind of funny about this is in the Soviet Union, they had German scientists, too, right? Yeah. I guess it was a race to see who had that better German scientists. I don't know.   Unknown Speaker  15:03  Turns out we did, apparently,   Unknown Speaker  15:05  apparently, not many people realize that Verner von Braun was actually a major in the SS, which I didn't know that very difficult to believe sometimes. And for some reason, all photographs of him in that uniform form had been expunged.   Unknown Speaker  15:20  from us, we're anywhere it's almost like there was some clandestine act taking   Unknown Speaker  15:25  place. But if you actually read, you know, it, read the read the story, you know, and I'm not talking about reading some some conspiracy guy, but if you read his Wikipedia page, it'll tell you actually won't call my major is a different something, something group inferior, which is German for, you know, the same same pay grade as it would be over here, which would be an old for I guess, but at any rate, the point being, that it was so important to us to get to the moon and to enter to get control of that rocketry programs, that we were willing to do almost anything to accomplish that. And, you know, we've talked about this, and we've seen it in other situations, the whole computer age, I do not believe it could anywhere exist anywhere near the level that it exists. Now, without that Apollo program. I   Unknown Speaker  16:17  think you're absolutely right. And I think the, the acceptance by people of the world of the computer of technology, I think, was driven by that, you know, I, if you were to talk to some some, you know, older folks that were maybe alive during was, you know, there's a was a fundamental distrust of technology and its shareholders. Sure. And and I think that that is there's come a long way. Well, the reliability   Unknown Speaker  16:39  wasn't there, but the reliability had to be there. Because actually, you know, be the first Apollo craft had a monkey in it, right. And the monkey went up and came back down alive. Now that the Soviets, the dog, a dog, I'll think of his name, just as I leave here today. dog's name, I think it started with a P, but the dog didn't come back. No, they left them out there. They you know, so that was kind of a big difference between the American space program and   Unknown Speaker  17:10  the program. I think that's really that's the crux of the difference, right? Yeah. I think that we won the space race against some eyes that were pretty crazy, because I don't think they were also concerned that everybody they sent up came back to dogs, not a person, I get it. But there were no   Unknown Speaker  17:25  live broadcast, right, right of any Soviet rockets blasting off and no broadcasts of any failures either. So we had we had live fears that everybody got to watch. And and you're absolutely right. They had some advantages. But those same advantages are what gave us a better hand of cards.   Unknown Speaker  17:48  there who's still Is there anybody still alive? Do you know that was in the Apollo program? I'm thinking about it now. I mean,   Unknown Speaker  17:53  because it was all it is. And also Duke, I can't remember his first name, Duke, but actually a friend of mine, Danza who lived in West Bloomfield, the, the community that I grew up in, was actually actually in the Apollo program. And you know, he used to talk a lot about the Apollo 13 situation where they were having a hard time, right, okay. And he was really there. And he was a, he was recruited out of Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame, a real rocket scientist. Wow. So he was an interesting character. I haven't seen him in a long time. I, I know he moved out west. But he was also an avid Civil War historian. But at any rate, that and that, you know, that was something for me to get to meet somebody who was really there now, right? No, I, me I had I had met Alan Shepard at one point. But that was that was something to talk to him and just to pick his brain so to speak. But so what are we going to do, we've got to go back to the moon, we've got to make this work. And let's go to another clip that we have here. That will really help out help us to understand the new system that will allow us to travel to Mars and beyond.   Unknown Speaker  19:09  We want lunar lander is that are reusable, that can land anywhere on the lunar surface, the simplest way to do so is to give them a platform in orbit around the moon from which to transition,   Unknown Speaker  19:19  an orbiting platform to host Deep Space experiments and be a waypoint for human capsules. We call this lunar outpost gateway.   Unknown Speaker  19:28  The beauty of the gateway is that it can be moved between orbits,   Unknown Speaker  19:31  it will balance between the Earth and men's gravity   Unknown Speaker  19:34  in a position that is ideal for launching even deeper space missions. In 2009, we learned that the moon contains millions of tons of water ice,   Unknown Speaker  19:44  this is can be extracted, purify, for water, in a separate an auction for breeding for hydrogen for rocket fuel,   Unknown Speaker  19:50  the moon is quite uniquely suited to prepare as and propel us to Mars and beyond.   Unknown Speaker  19:57  This is what we're building. This   Unknown Speaker  20:00  we're training for.   Unknown Speaker  20:01  This we can replicate throughout the solar system. This is the next chapter of human space exploration.   Unknown Speaker  20:07  Humans are the most fragile element of this entire and, and yet we go for humanity. We go to the moon and onto Mars to seek knowledge and understanding and to share it with all we go knowing that our efforts will create opportunities that cannot be foreseen, we go because we are destined to explore and see it with our own eyes. We turn towards the moon now, not as a conclusion, but as preparation as a checkpoint toward all that lies beyond our greatest adventures remain ahead of us. We are going, we're going. We are going.   Unknown Speaker  20:48  Down. We're going.   Unknown Speaker  20:56  One of the things that I find very curious about this whole program. Is that whole gateway system. Yeah. So I have a prediction. And I haven't read this anywhere, but I'm willing to go out on a limb. But not too far out. You know, if you wanted to cross the desert, and you could only carry you know, like three gallons of water with you at a time. That's where you depots so you go out one gallon Berry one use the other one to get back, then you know, you have to depot your back and forth. And I would not be surprised at these gateway, maybe not for the first trip. But eventually, if we're actually going to be able to colonize Mars and it unless we're able to find some way to change the the laws of physics that we accept currently. Right? It's going to take a long time to get there and a lot of resources. So I think they're going to do it the same way across the desert. I think they're going to depot and I think they're going to depot, US utilizing this gateway type system.   Unknown Speaker  21:57  Well, I read a little bit before today that was talking about one of the one of the keys to this whole process is that that Elon Musk self landing rocket and you know, the SpaceX concept to do exactly that, right, they're going to send supplies ahead to Mars, and they're the Rockets going to go land. And when the astronauts do arrive, or cosmetics or whatever, you know, then they will go to those rockets. And they will retrieve the supplies because they can't carry enough supplies.   Unknown Speaker  22:23  And I agree with you. My thought is though that in addition to that we're going to need gas stations along the way,   Unknown Speaker  22:28  I think you're probably correct. And   Unknown Speaker  22:30  I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't come about at some point. You know, it's interesting that you bring up Elon Musk, by the way, he's a very good publicist for himself, because NASA had NASA, Lockheed Martin, and actually vertically landed a rocket like five years before that, but they didn't do a press release. At any rate, aside from that, there is something that people should know, you know, the Freedom of Information Act, which allows us to have access to all the information that the government has, unless it's like national security, some special special stuff, and then it just gets a date on it when it'll get released. Right. That doesn't apply to private companies that we do that the government does business with. So any information that is held in by SpaceX trade secret, basically is that is not something that falls under the preview of the Freedom of Information Act. So hypothetically, they go to the moon, they find little green men, if Elon Musk's guys find it, we don't get to know if the United States government agency finds it, then we have to tell   Unknown Speaker  23:34  That's very interesting. I never thought about that last but I if one word conspiracy theorists, they would say that by using private companies, it gives a layer of protection.   Unknown Speaker  23:42  Well, it avoids the whole Freedom of Information Act thing. It's certainly like offshore banking. Right. You know, and I find that very curious that that is going on, to the extent that it is, I think it's a good thing, because anytime you get capitalism involved in it, anything and you you put in it, that there's some sort of monetary incentive that there's incentive pay, if you write for what you're getting done, all of a sudden, it's a huge multiplier, and a multiplier that the government can't usually provide very well. Right. Even if they decide to provide it, they don't seem to do right. But so, um, any more thoughts on this? Or   Unknown Speaker  24:23  how I think I think, you know, there's probably a lot of discussion to have, I think it's, it's exciting to me to think that, you know, in my children's lifetime, in the very near lifetime, assuming the 2024 day, they're going to get to see someone land on the moon that, you know, they'll have that to talk about, and I think I'm excited to see how that translates to your point into into moving farther on, whether it's to move out to the next way station along the way that gets us to Mars, or I think, you know, and I think that's sort of just exciting in our time, that's going to be the next bastion of exploration. Well,   Unknown Speaker  24:53  the whole idea that humanity needs to become a multi planet species. Is, is like, it's difficult, because just like back in the in the 70s, and late 60s, when this was going on with Apollo, there were a lot of people who thought it was a bad idea, because they want it to have those same funds utilized for things at home. Yeah, there was an interview that I was watching the other day from back then that somebody said, well, instead of going to the moon, why don't we you know, clean up New York, why don't we make it easier for people to get fed here? So there is this this innate desire in humanity to want to explore that, you know, what's around the corner, you know, what's what's over the hill, it's, it's, it's just in our nature. And it costs money   Unknown Speaker  25:44  aside, no use for it. So my wife sent me a text yesterday with a link to an article. There's an island. That's very, it's in the Pacific. And it's it's so isolated, that at most given times the people on the International Space Station are closer to them than anyone on Earth. Well, and, and but the point being that, that that isolation is is the hardest part of all of this, right? That's the that's the hardest part of space travel is sure, you know, yeah. Let's lock the three of us in a room and, you know, see how long we can stand each other before someone goes crazy.   Unknown Speaker  26:17  I don't have any problem with that, because I've gotten years where no one was willing to speak to, you know, so I'm sure that I would be able to handle it. Whether or not I would get any of the mission right or not. That's a whole nother thing. Right? Probably not probably why they wouldn't be speaking to me it would   Unknown Speaker  26:30  you go Let me ask you that question. Where's the near? Where would I go? Somebody called you up and said, West,   Unknown Speaker  26:33  there's a spot. This is a one way trip, though. Yeah. What one way? I don't know. I have to give it some serious consideration. Let me think about that. As as we're we're going to move to our next segment. But before we do, we're going to leave you with a few words from my favorite housewife from New York. Bethenny Frankel. She's also a guest on Shark Tank as one of the sharks from time to time. Let's hear what Bethany has to say about whatever she wants to say.   Unknown Speaker  27:07  Hi, Wes, congratulations, I hear you won first place in the New York Book Festival for your new book, big things have small beginnings, which is the truest thing I've heard all day. It focuses on being the catalyst delivering success. I'm all about it. Congratulations on making the Wall Street Journal, best sellers list. That's real accomplishment. Well, it's not as good of an accomplishment as getting your hair to be this wild. By doing nothing to it, hi, small say congratulations, but good for you. And big things are here for you. And you come from a place of Yes. And you are supported, you are loved. And you are going to have amazing success and good fortune and health and happiness and love and wealth in your life. So beyond the road, and look at all the signs and all roads lead to Rome. room are the big things. And wherever you are small beginning. So congrats with   Unknown Speaker  28:59  Hey, Wes, Chef, wonderful here, I just want to do a really big shout of you. I'm working today selling wine beef cakes on QZ. But I have enough time to shout out for you because you have done something amazing. I love this whole idea of winning first place and the New York Book Festival. I love your new book, big things have small beginnings, which focuses on being the catalyst that delivers success. Of course, great ideas start small, but you have to really focus on them to make them happen. And I think that's a great thing. Wes, I love everything about it. And you also made the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. How cool is that? You know, hats off to West Keep up the good work, take care of my friend.   Unknown Speaker  29:50  Glad you could join us. We're here with this success factor segment of the West Berry radio show. I don't want to forget to pitch my book. I gotta make sure I do that. Big have small beginnings. It's a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and I hope you'll consider picking up a copy. Well, thank you, Mr. Wonderful. And thank you, Bethany, for your kind words. Let's, we're going to focus a little bit on a different shark. Today we're going to talk about Lori Grenier, who is a really a remarkable business person. She's She's the principal in Q BC. She's also one of the sharks on Shark Tank. And she holds patents on over 100. And I'm 450 products note 120 products, I'm sorry, that she holds patents on. And she's created over 450 products that she sells through q BC and other sources. She's a true entrepreneur. And she's really someone that it's hard to. It's hard to get past her when when you start reading about her a little bit. Really a very accomplished woman.   Unknown Speaker  31:04  She's very impressive. I don't know if you ever watched her on Shark Tank at all. But I mean, I she's very engaging, and interesting, and she has a different take on it. And I think you know that QVC aspect I and you know, truth be told I've never bought anything NQ Vc, but she is intriguing. I feel like maybe she does have something I need to buy? Maybe I should watch NBC,   Unknown Speaker  31:22  you know, you're absolutely right. And she knows how to leverage her position. You know, we if you watch, you know, if you don't watch Shark Tank, you really should. It's a great show. And one of the things on Shark Tank when that she'll like leverage her abilities through q bc or through remarketing that maybe someone else won't have that on the show. And be able to, you know, get that little bit of an advantage sometimes and she's not. She's She's always happy to bring other other people in on a deal to   Unknown Speaker  31:49  get noticed that Yeah, she's she's not use the word greedy about it. But she's more than willing to partner up with somebody who thinks the right move. Absolutely.   Unknown Speaker  31:57  You know, I got a couple of quotes from her here. And I this one I really love. And I love this for a lot of reasons. First of all, I always sort of thought that I was in an optimist and I even belong to a club that's called an optimist. But she says, optimists, pessimist realist, why are you guys busy arguing about whether the glass is half full or half empty? Sincerely, I am an opportunist. She says, you know, that's, that's a heck of a way to think about it that, you know, may sound a little crass, or it may sound a little overbearing, but, you know, if you're going to make it, you have to be an opportunist, you have to be able to see opportunities and sees them.   Unknown Speaker  32:38  Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, I think, you know, I work in sales, right? Which is there's a super, there's a piece of that that's opportunistic, right, right. You have to you have to meet somebody needs Sure. Little little saying that I always tell people, right, whether you're optimistic about glass half full, half empty, I just think that glass might need some ice. Right. And that's, that's providing something that's and I think that that's, that's some of these real successful people that you're not worried about a glass walls half or half empty, they're worried about how they fill the rest of that glass and how that benefits what they want.   Unknown Speaker  33:05  And, you know, I think that's what she's she's talking about, you know, she, I think that really, perhaps, with instead of thinking about being an optimist about things, which is really positive thinking, which I really embrace, but that opportunists thing is just too critical to ignore. And what I really like about it, is that you get to see how she thinks when she does these shows. And another thing that she says is, I was fearless. I knew I would make it work. And that's the difference between successful entrepreneurs and peoples that don't get somewhere. It's the tenacity, it's the drive. You know, we used to call that stick to toughness. I don't think that's a real word. I think it's one that Alexander Haig made up, but it is it? I don't know, if I suppose tenacity is that is really the right word.   Unknown Speaker  34:03  I think you're absolutely right. And I could go on a whole tangent on Alexander Haig, but I won't. That guy was he's in charge. You know, he was he was chief executive for what self proclaimed, when we walk out of here later, I'm   Unknown Speaker  34:14  going to be I understand the only true coup that the United States has ever had pulled on. That's   Unknown Speaker  34:19  right. That's right. Now, but but really, I mean, I think I think I think you're absolutely right, though, you know, it's, it's what you see in success with these folks that all those books on success factor, and they're almost all self made, right? None of them. This is not a jab, none of them got this million dollar loan from their father, anything they their self made, guys, and gals. And but what you see in common is they have the ability to size up that situation. And they don't say it's going to work or not work. In fact, often they're like, yeah, this might work for you. I don't know that I can help you, you know, they have the ability to determine where they fit in and how that works. And sometimes you'll see him say, I, you know, Kevin, say, I can't help you. Maybe Lori can maybe she you know, I mean? Like sometimes we're and that just kind of shows their intelligence overall, right? That they, they like I can't, this isn't for me, but I think maybe she gets this. Well   Unknown Speaker  35:06  guess also, at the same time, when you're talking about venture capital investing in those sort of situations. The idea isn't so much as to pick a winner, as to pick something that can win big Yes. And if you pick 10 of them, and you put 100 grand in each, it's a million dollars, but if every one of them have the potential to pay off 100 fold. They I'm talking to you, then you're talking money. And you'll see a couple of Mark Cuban who we've talked about before Mark Cuban, I'll say that some of those folks, right is, hey, you're probably worth 500,000. And you might be able to pay me back 10% a year, I don't want to I don't want the investment that's given me 10% of your I want it's given me 40 or 50, or whatever. So I'm not saying you're broken. I'm saying you don't work for me. You know, I was in a in a conversation at one time with someone who was talking to me about, well, when you were scaling your business? What percentage of growth Did you plan for each year? And I'm like, Oh, my God, this guy doesn't get it. You know, if you're starting off, like I was starting off at $60,000, and you have 100% growth every year, you're never going to get to see a million dollars in my lifetime. And an interesting point about that, is that, yes, you have to have goals. But your goals have to be lofty enough to really make things happen.   Unknown Speaker  36:24  Right? Well, and I think though that's that's why private sector so important. And that's why that's why small business is so important by So look, I you know, it's no secret, I work for some I live and die by a budget, right? That's what I have to do. And so if I have to grow by 10%, my goal is to grow by 10%. It's you know, and in fact, I've worked for companies in the past where if you were growing more than that, they would say, Whoa, slow down, you're going to make this number for this year, you need to you need to save some of that for next year's number I see. Whereas words, you know, an entrepreneurial perspective for yourself. It would make a lot of sense to just   Unknown Speaker  36:54  get it, get it I understand. We're going to go to a clip from Lori, that I think really helps us to to understand who she is better. Go with that clip, please.   Unknown Speaker  37:05  If we just believe we have to be driven, you have to be motivated, you have to have passion.   Unknown Speaker  37:14  If I have an obstacle, I go over it, I go under it.   Unknown Speaker  37:19  You just don't quit waiting for   Unknown Speaker  37:25  glory actually reigns over a multimillion dollar Empire. And it all started with a jewelry organizer over half a   Unknown Speaker  37:31  million of these spoken for. She's one of the most prolific inventors of our time with over 120 patents to her name and has grossed over a half a billion in sales. Would you buy this? Do you like it? Would you need it? And what would you pay for it?   Unknown Speaker  37:43  She's a serial entrepreneur and has kept expanding her brand. Despite the difficult economy. I can tell instantly if it's a hero, or a zero sees the warm hearted shark on the hit show shark tank and has been crowned the Queen   Unknown Speaker  37:56  of QVC. The most successful Shark Tank item to date, I'll make you a millionaire within a year.   Unknown Speaker  38:04  What is Lori, a shark tank, I knew she would be the right partner.   Unknown Speaker  38:07  This is the best sponge in the world. And I've got to bring it to all of you at QVC. To be a good business person, you must be decisive. You could have PVC Bed, Bath and Beyond target all the different retailers. You could have your online you could go to insurance, shark do it all. We all do it but I will do it the best. I know from 17 years of experience, what's going to work on the market.   Unknown Speaker  38:33  Please welcome the author of invent it, sell it back it   Unknown Speaker  38:39  so much great advice. You've really   Unknown Speaker  38:41  covered it all. In this book,   Unknown Speaker  38:43  you learn how to do exactly what I did. You learn how to take a product from concept to creation, from marketing to manufacturing, packaging, patenting. Everything is in there step by step,   Unknown Speaker  38:54  everything that Lori touches is gold went over $8 million.   Unknown Speaker  39:00  Lauren has made me really busy. She's made me   Unknown Speaker  39:03  pretty wealthy, such a great partner, such a great mentor.   Unknown Speaker  39:05  I'm very happy to be here tonight with all of you, I love speaking to people because I can feel them getting excited, their mind spinning saying I can do it, I can do something to I'm inspired by people that love to make things happen. I'm not just business driven. I'm a true real person who has a heart. I've always felt that if you're lucky enough to be successful, you have an obligation to give back. greatness to me is achieving something that makes you happy and has a profound impact on the world. You can make anything happen in my life, there are no knows just how can I   Unknown Speaker  39:48  now that somebody who you can use as a role model, I'll tell you absolutely, she's definitely the sort of person that that you can see that she has enthusiasm, and she has the drive. And she has the determination to be successful at what she does. It's amazing to me that she's been in your neighbor in your living room, in your house on TV. And we all feel as though we know her a little bit. But I think that there's an awful lot more to know about her. And one of the things that I found very, very curious was how she positions herself in the market. She's in sort of a vertical position, because she has the retail part of it, right. And she has the development of it. And she has the venture capital to create things. So she's carrying it all the way through. Lots of people that start a business are looking to sell something that's already on the market. This is a this is a person who they sell things that are in the market, but she goes out and tries to find things that people should want, will want. And then she's able to deliver that. And in many cases, she's creating it. What what a marvelous individual. And that whole vertical integration is something that a lot of people miss. It allows for scalability. And that's one of the things that Lori has accomplished is that her business model allows it to scale. Right? If you know, if you're going to mow lawns, and that's in you're going to you want to you want to build a million dollar business, you're gonna have a very hard time doing that. Because it's really not scalable to that. Right. Right. And it may pay a better living for you at that age in your life. And when you and it, you know, in a small way, but somebody who's really looking to build something scalable, has to be willing to take it on the chin for a few years. And then get it long   Unknown Speaker  41:58  risk is such a big part of that right there. That old saying no one ever no one ever got rich working for someone else. And no one ever got rich without taking a risk. Right. And I think those are probably very factual statements. Right? That that's it. Although I guess the people that work for like General Motors is the CEO, they might have gotten rich.   Unknown Speaker  42:14  She's kind of a machine created, though, right? That does this. She recruits she develops, she manufactures. She retails she benefits. That's, that's like, holy cow. She's got the whole thing.   Unknown Speaker  42:32  Why? And I gotta tell you, I think it goes back to have you I'm sure you've done this, I've done this where I've, I thought, Hey, you know, I should, I wish there was a product that did x, whatever it is right? And you think about it, you think about it, you kind of design in your head, but then you never do anything about it. And then all of a sudden you see   Unknown Speaker  42:48  it on the shelf and you go, I could have invented that.   Unknown Speaker  42:50  I hear you. I hear you. We're going to go to a quick break now. And here are a few words about a few things.   Unknown Speaker  43:00  Hey, business owners, you can grow your small business into something big. Everyone starts somewhere. Big things have small beginnings is the best selling ebook by business expert West Berry. Learn how to build a $60 million international business from a $60,000 flower shop. Don't ignore the little things, build something big and turn your business into a huge success. Big things have small beginnings.   Unknown Speaker  43:35  A legendary golfer, used to say that it didn't bother him when he would have a bad shot because he expected to have a few bad shots every round. And every time he'd have a bad shot. He was thankful because he got the bad shot out of the way. That's the way you got to think about it and not let yourself be overwhelmed by setbacks.   Unknown Speaker  44:04  optimists volunteers contribute time and money to programs that inspire and bring out the best in kids. optimist give leadership guidance and hands on involvement to activities that shape young people's eyes. optimists help form positive attitudes and kids and optimists creating opportunities for you as they develop into adulthood and become role models for future generations. optimists are doing all these things right here, right now.   Unknown Speaker  44:34  Because of Shriners hospitals for children, I can play basketball.   Unknown Speaker  44:49  I can write my name. That's Shriners hospitals for children.   Unknown Speaker  44:53  Love is caring for a child, regardless of the family's ability to pay. If you no child, we can help visit Shriners hospitals for children.org.   Unknown Speaker  45:15  Welcome back, this is the success factor. And this is Wesley Berry. I'm here with Ryan toll. And we're talking about a really a wonderful person. Lori Grenier, who is a she's on Shark Tank, she runs q BC, she's done over a half a billion dollars in sales. And I probably shouldn't go into this because it'll sound as though I'm trying to trying to pat myself on the back. But I do that pretty regularly. So I guess I shouldn't be worried about that. When I heard that, that line in there, and I researched a little bit. She was talking about things that she sold her through her own business from that through Creek, UBC, you know, over a period of time. So I went back to and I ended up how much I had done all together while I was in business. And I came up with over 750 million dollars in sales. And I never thought of pitching it that way. But I must say that that you know, Lori, she's got it figured out. She knows how to how to package?   Unknown Speaker  46:17  Yeah, no, I think that's smart. They might want to put that on the front of your book. Yeah, maybe this next?   Unknown Speaker  46:24  Throw it on there.   Unknown Speaker  46:25  Yeah, I hadn't thought about that one until I read that. So you need to pay your own way in the world. That's a line that she likes to use frequently. And I that's, that sounds simple and sounds True enough. But it's not always easy. If you want to really have the opportunity to enjoy success and to succeed, you really do need to understand what that means. And that means you either be need to be in a business, that you're able to develop your own book of business, so to speak, or your own relationships, and that you're going to be rewarded for those relationships and for maintaining them. Or you need to be going out there and starting your own business. You said it earlier. You may you may get well off, but you it's really hard to get rich working for someone else. Right. And that's that's a key thing to understand. true that there used to be those that saying it was it was actually about Michael Jordan, right. Michael Jordan's rich, but the guy who signs Michael Jordan's check is wealthy. Right? I mean, that's the best difference. Right? Exactly. Exactly. It she's, she's got it under control, and she's got it going on. One of the other things that she likes to say is, the big thing for me is, I never think about myself as a female in business. I'm a person in business. You know, I hate to say this, but you know, society has, for a long time brought women up to believe that that they were not necessarily the the one we're going out there making the biggest difference, you know, and and that's not right. And she's not letting that hinder her. In other words, she's not making excuses. Because that's all it would be for what she's able to do or not able to do. Yeah, you know, it's like the guy who says, Oh, you know, I can't do that. I don't I don't have a college degree. Well, you know what? That's just an excuse, right? Get started, you know, if you're not going to get started, then you're definitely not going to be able to do it. Right. But if you get started, at least you have a chance. I mean, what the heck,   Unknown Speaker  48:31  yeah, yeah, you're never you're never going to get to an outcome. If you don't, if you don't start?   Unknown Speaker  48:34  Well, for sure. But that's a real big problem. You know, I I like to say that fear has prevented more success than failure has. And, you know, when you think about that, you think about just like you were talking about earlier, about, you have an idea about a product, you know, or something that you would wish you had. And then the next thing, you know, it comes out, it actually happens, sometimes things are different, at the same time in different areas. And that's simultaneous discovery. And that's when society's needs and the components that exist, are in play at the same time, and someone recognizes that opportunity idea. So they recognize that and it can be two different companies and different parts of the country, or they can be across the street from each other. And they come to a realization that, you know, we need a better mousetrap. And they start working on it. And and then they look at the technology that's available to build a better mousetrap, right. And the technology that's out there from which they draw on may lead them to almost the same type of conclusion. And that's it simultaneous discovery, right. And you and I had a discussion before,   Unknown Speaker  49:45  off air, just you know, in their personal life, but one of the you were you were giving some advice to somebody, but one of the things you said was, Hey, you know, if you want to become a millionaire, then you should probably hang out with people are millionaires, because that's their they're emulating them is going to get you there. If you want to be a millionaire, but you choose to hang out with a bunch of people that are hanging out at a bar, you're going to end up being the guy that hangs out at the bar, not a millionaire.   Unknown Speaker  50:03  There's a lot of people who who have said it in different ways that you're a reflection of the five closest friends, or this or that or whatever it is, but I'll take it a step further. Absolutely, it if you want to succeed, you need to hang around people who know how to succeed. But you don't have to hang around them physically. Just if you are willing to make a leap and say, all right, I need a mentor. To get where I need to be. Okay, I'm going to read about a mentor. And you know that when you read a book about somebody, or about what they did, you can relate to them, you start thinking about how they did things, you know, when you read a book about Howard Hughes, right. And you understand a little bit about how he was thinking and why he was doing what he was doing in order to accomplish things. And reading Lori's book, I think would be a great idea. And especially for anyone who give it to someone who's been making excuses. Give it to someone who's been making excuses. If you don't need the book yourself, give it to someone who's been making excuses for not being there. You know, entrepreneurship is the way we take control of our lives in a tough economy. That that's Laurie Laurie talking there. That's how she thinks. And you know what, there are times in a tough economy where you can grow a business faster. Okay, I have a I know a guy who was a congressman. And during the tough economy, his his business pivoted to foreclosures. He made a fortune in foreclosures. He was only he only did okay as an attorney before that, right. And then when he you know, then all of a sudden he was he was a, you know, a jackpot winner, right? So you've got to be willing to look at those opportunities. We're going to go to a quick segment here with just a couple of little little spots about once about an optimist.   Unknown Speaker  51:57  optimists volunteers contribute time money to programs that inspire and bring out the best in kids. optimist give leadership guidance and hands on involvement to activities that shape young people's eyes. optimists help form positive attitudes and kids. And optimists create opportunities for youth as they develop into adulthood and become role models for future generations. optimists are doing all these things right here, right now.   Unknown Speaker  52:30  This is Brad Paisley, how does it good more become a good man. same ole believes that it takes good friends, good activities and good role models. The Malaya is the only nonprofit youth organization where young men decide on the activities planned them and carry them out. But it takes adult volunteers to be the role models that steer them in the right direction. a celebrity isn't necessarily a role model, role model is a caring concerned adult like you to learn more, call one 800 DMOLAY or visit them on the web at DM live.org.   Unknown Speaker  53:13  Welcome back. I'm glad that you're still with us. And we've only got a couple minutes left. Ryan, any thoughts about Lori or about? You know about her her expertise or anything? No,   Unknown Speaker  53:24  I think you know, I was thinking about the number of patents she said she had 120 and I think the average cost to get a patent is like $10,000 probably so I mean just she's got you know, millions of dollars in patents, you know, they weren't making money now. It happens that they are yeah, oh yeah.   Unknown Speaker  53:39  I wear jewelry box before though that the whole photo ID I didn't see it until you watch the video. But I seen that places before. You know, I hate to do this. But I think the same that should go with this. When you talk about this. She started with that. Just making a jewelry box. And then she created to BC, is that big things have small beginnings. I don't know. But I think it would be a great named for a book if somebody wanted to write a book. But she started she actually went in the garage and built that first jewelry box prototype herself, she used her dad's workshop, woodworking shop and created it. And she created it, it's it was it's a sort of a different kind of jewelry box it it has a lot of different holding mechanisms that you wouldn't ordinarily have. And it was just her putting her creative thoughts into it and developing it so that it would would be able to satisfy those sort of needs, right. And she sold a boatload of them right out of the shoot. So you don't have to have some big venture capital guy or some big investment or whatever to write your business go. She went out in the garage took a piece of hardwood and started bits fit fiddling with it till she made what she wanted to make.   Unknown Speaker  54:53  Yeah, I have a buddy who built a pole a solar pool heater. Just he had an idea and he went and kept the hardware store and kept by in parts and and it's your his patented now and he sells it and Walmart's buying and whatever. But through exactly that same. He just decided off of off of picking up a garden hose that was given up some hot water. We've all done that. Right? He went Hey, how do I harness this? Instead of paying $1,000 a month? You're cool.   Unknown Speaker  55:16  Hey, but that's what you know, the difference between your friend and most people is they had that idea, but then they don't do anything. Right. Right. You know, there's an old expression that I always love. And and I i Reese restated in a little bit more friendly way. But that is that   Unknown Speaker  55:40  a good idea?   Unknown Speaker  55:42  poorly executed is a failure. Yeah.   Unknown Speaker  55:46  But a, an average idea. well executed is a success. And what does that mean? It means that it's more about the doing even than the idea. I honestly believe there's no bad ideas. It's the execution. That's the blame. Somebody told me once                                 Unknown Speaker  56:03  well done is better than Well said.   Unknown Speaker  56:05  Right? Absolutely. We're going to go to one last clip as we close out the show. And this is from a good friend of mine. His he's a pawnbroker. His name is less gold from hardcore pawn. And when your name is less gold, I guess you belong in the pawn business. You know, I mean, it's like a birthright. Let's go to that clip as we leave today, and I hope to hear from you and see you next week.   Unknown Speaker  56:31  They watch this is let's go from hardcore pawn, and American Jewelry and Loan, giving you a big shout out all the way from Detroit. You know, I know it's not easy writing a book. As a matter of fact, I wrote a book for what it's worth, business wisdom from a pawnbroker A few years ago, which I was fortunate enough to make the New York Times bestseller list. And I want to congratulate you and winning first place in the New York Book Festival for your new book. You know, it's not easy doing a book like I said, so I give you a lot of accolades and wish you the best of luck in the future. You know, and also our   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Last week, CNN reported that Facebook and Instagram are shutting down all peer to peer sales of alcohol. This wasn’t a joke. In the span of 72 hours, all of the major bourbon groups were wiped out. The secondary market is synonymous with Facebook. The growth of bourbon’s popularity can be attributed to it as well by those that are in it to flip bottles. Owen Powell didn’t create the first group to buy, sell, and trade bourbon, but he certainly created the largest. The Bourbon Secondary Market group is no longer around on Facebook, but the story of how it was built, the ways discussions were moderated, and how it served as a data gold mine for valuations is told. We uncover the progression of the group from a few hundred members to reaching over 50,000, what leads to certain distilleries being banned on a black market, and if the secondary market will actually end if Facebook groups cease to exist. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits. Barrell Craft Spirits has won a few medals at some of the most prestigious spirits competitions out there, but don’t take their word for it and find out for yourself. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about Parker's Heritage Collection. How did you get into bourbon? Talk about the growth of the group. Were there any growing pains? How many members are in the group? How many admins do you have? What do you look for in admins? Why do people have animosity towards admins in these groups? Let's talk about the rules in the group. How did the secondary raffle site become its own thing? How does a dispute come about? What do all the acronyms mean? What is the best way to handle a dispute? Have you ever had accusations of counterfeits? How do you handle that kind of situation? Why did you do an open group? Do you keep a log of all the transactions? You’ve banned a few distilleries. How are rules like that determined? Why do you run the group even though you don't get paid? What do you do when someone prices something too high? What about monthly dues? Do you think groups could end on Facebook? 0:00 Have you thought about a career in the whiskey industry? I'm not talking about being the next master distiller. But if you want a leg up on the competition, you need to take a look at the distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville. This 30 week program will prepare you for the business side of the spirits industry like finance, marketing and operations. This is 100% online meaning you can access the classes at anytime and anywhere so what are you waiting for? Get signed up to make your next career move at business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits 0:35 people add their wives to the group and then immediately regret it because you know their wives mad at them they're always on their phone. wife gets in there sees how much they're spending on it then it's like when you kick my wife out know that you got to do figure that out on your own. I'm not getting in the middle of that. I think I might add my wife 0:52 to it because because being part of the podcast now I'm like, I gotta you gotta have a pulse on what's happening. So you know exactly uninvite. 1:10 Hey, this is Episode 212 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny. And as usual, a little bit of news. On July 26 2019 beam Suntory broke ground on what is to become the friend be no craft distillery. It's part of a $60 million investment and what will become known as the James be distilling company and that can be located in Claremont, Kentucky. All of the building itself will be fresh construction. The brands that are gonna be produced at this new craft distiller are ones that were already familiar with like Booker's knob Creek and Basil Hayden's all as well as new brands such as little book and legend. Its name for the seventh generation master distiller Fred know which has been on the show few times before, and this new distillery will give know and his son Freddie the opportunity to experiment with new fermentation and distillation techniques. The distillery has also announced that they will be updating the visitor experiences with behind the scene looks at their brands, a new tasting room, and much more. Heaven Hill has announced the 13th release of the Parkers heritage collection, and this will be a heavy char rye whiskey. While 2:22 standard barrels and heaven Hill are a chart three the barrels the distillery used to age this rye our char five, that means they're burned for 50 seconds longer than a typical char three. The heavier char the easier it is for the whiskey to penetrate the wooden staves and take on those heightened open spice flavors. This new ride is going to be eight years old and nine months in these and was aged also in the seventh floor of Rick house why before being non shell filtered and bottled at 105 proof. The Parkers heritage collection is named after heaven Hill master distiller Parker beam, who passed away in 2017. After being diagnosed with ALS back in 2010. portions of the sale are donated to fund ALS research, and sales from the past six editions has raised over $1 million. The retail price set on this is going to be $150 MSRP. Ryan and myself are excited to announce that we are going to begin the process of opening a distribution of pursuit series in three states. You can look forward to Georgia, Texas, and of course Kentucky as the first states that we will be hitting the first barrel has been selected by Justin's House of bourbon with a second one quickly going into liquor barn, we're super excited to be able to bring our single barrel offerings at stores selections at first. And you can look for more information on stores in the States on our website at pursuit spirits.com. Now, don't worry if you aren't even in those states or Heck, even if you are you can still purchase your bottles and have them shipped to your door through our online retailer at sealed box dot com. You can go to pursuit spirits calm and click the Buy Now button and you'll be redirected to the site for that particular single barrel. Right now we only have about 20 bottles, let them stock but we're going to have a brand new September release, so get ready for it. Last week, CNN reported that Facebook and Instagram are shutting down all sales of alcohol, cigarettes and other similar things like e cigarettes. And this wasn't a joke in the span of around 72 hours. Half of the bourbon groups that I belong to were wiped out. Many of the larger secondary groups with 30 to 50,000 members were gone immediately in over the next 24 hours more disappeared. And even some groups that sold or raffled charitable causes for bottles were gone as well. We can't say for sure if this is the end of the Facebook secondary market, but it sure is a swift kick to it. Immediately following the demise of the large groups. Many of the smaller ones with less than 3000 members change their names, they also change the rules. And while multitudes of even more smaller groups started to emerge, it's uncertain if we'll ever see a group with over 20,000 members ever again. And that's kind of why we decided to release this podcast, the secondary market, it's synonymous with Facebook. This can also be attributed to the growth of Bourbons popularity by those that are captivated at some of the values that some of these bottles Dr. ON pal didn't create the first group to buy, sell and trade bourbon, but he certainly created the largest, the bourbon secondary market group is no longer around. But the story of how it was built, the way discussions were moderated and how it served as a data gold mine for valuations is a story that needs to be told. we uncover the progression of the group from 100 members to reaching over almost at the time it was cease to exist as around 50,000. And really, we're also going to talk about what leads to certain distilleries also being banned on this black market and at the secondary market will actually end Facebook's cease to ever exist again. Now you're done listening to me. So let's go ahead and listen to Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick 6:12 with above the char. 6:15 Hey, everyone, Joe here again. Our Bourbons have won a few medals, some of the most prestigious spirits competitions out there. But don't take their word for it. Find out for yourself. Use the store locator and barrellbourbon.com. 6:28 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. This past week, I posted a photo of the new Parker's heritage release. It was like a lot of PR release images. It was shiny. It told you all about the new whiskey. And it came with a price tag hundred and 4999. So pretty drastic increase from past Parker's heritage releases past releases were around 89 to $100. So you're looking at about a 50 to 60 you know, dollar price increase depending on what market you live in. People on my Instagram went crazy. I mean, maybe not crazy, but they were very upset with the price increase. And I had people writing me saying that this is solving Parker's good name. As many people know, I was really quite close with Parker been before he passed away. And it got me to thinking about where we are in bourbon right now. There's actually price increases across the board, not just with these really nice bottles like Parker's heritage, and the Buffalo Trace antique collection. But you're seeing it like an everyday Bourbons. I remember when I used to find four roses small batch for like $20. Now it's a $40 bottle. Now, some of that is on the retailer's for selling it to that price. But the fact is Bourbons that are 40 $50, I used to pay 15 to $25. for them. That is where we are. But I'm curious, I've been curious as to how much that might actually impact the retention of consumers. So I did a little digging. And as it turns out, if you are running a business and you are selling a product, one of the best things you can do is increase your price. In fact, they say that people actually grow their profits, and they also grow their consumer base. So according to this thing called the McKinsey report, it suggests that for basically like every 1% of increase in price can yield an 8% increase in profits. But these reports and all these people who are talking who are studying price increases also preach transparency. They say, Tell your people tell your customer base, why you're increasing the price? Did your costs go up? Did you have a bad loss in the previous quarter? And you're trying to make up for it? Why are you increasing prices, if you don't start telling your consumers, especially the bourbon consumers who have been with you from the very beginning, why you're increasing your prices, you will start to see a massive boycott. I'm talking about the kind of boycott you find on social media that ends up trending and people will no longer be buying your bottles. And that new consumer you think you might get because you're increasing the price and you're not coming off as cheap. Well, that person is going to be googling who you are when they're in the total wine or whatever liquor store. And when they Google you and they find out you've been increasing your prices 50 600% they're going to walk away and they're going to go to something else. In today's day and age, you cannot increase a price almost 100% and get away with it. Consider this some free advice to Bourbons everywhere. Keep your prices affordable. So the everyday person can buy them. If you want to have really ultra expensive products, create a new product and brand it to be ultra ultra expensive. But going from $89 to 150. It's just not good. It's a bad optic. So be thoughtful with your pricing and be transparent. You'll be rewarded by customers who love your product. And that's this week's above the char. Hey, did you know that I'm also curating hometown rising a country music festival that's featuring Tim McGraw, Luke Bryan Keith Urban and Little Big Town, go check it out at hometown rising.com. I'll be on the stage and you can hit me up and have a drink with me. Until next week. Cheers. 10:52 Welcome back to the new episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon, Kinney and Ryan here today talking about us subject that is very familiar to the bourbon culture and the whiskey geek culture. Because if anybody is really getting to bourbon, you've probably gone down your aisles, you see a lot of the regular stuff that's out there, you start getting really influenced by all of it and you want to learn more about it, then you learn about, we've talked about our own journeys into this, you learn about limited releases, and how hard it is to get your hands on limited releases. And when you get down to that path, everything all leads to one one sort of in gate here. And that's the secondary market. 11:36 Yes. 11:38 Well, you start out and you're like excited, you know, you found the Weller, you know, Elijah Craig barrel proof. And then you're like, well, what else is there, and then you gotta get bored with the stuff that you can find, then you're like, then people inches, like you introduce me to the Facebook world. And like, I was like, Oh, my God. It's like a Pandora's box. And that's how I got introduced to dust ease and all the limitations, and it's like, it's the best thing that's ever happened. Yeah, and the worst thing 12:03 is the best, worst thing you know, and we'll we'll talk about, you know, really our guest, because he is he's really the ones that as kind of spearhead and really grown this movement. But you know, just on the topic of dusty, I remember getting into the secondary market. And this is this was like, early 2014 timeframe when I was introduced to it. And this is before I think even this group was around that that became the largest one, he had all these secret code name groups that you got into. And I remember seeing dusty, and people were paying like 100 bucks for some 1970s old grand, I bought an 86 Oh, granted for 75 bucks, like in 2015. I bought, like, I bought like three or four of them. And but I was looking at it back then I was like, What moron is I know. 12:49 There's a 999 sticker on it, like 12:54 10 towns that but now it's like, why didn't about all of them? 12:57 Oh, gosh, I'm sure we all have some of these stories. So let's go ahead and introduce our guests today. So our guest today was one of the founders or is one of the founders of the largest secondary group that's out there on Facebook. So Ellen Pao of bourbon secondary market, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you for coming on. And you know, really kind of giving us a behind the scenes look of, of what really happens here. And, and just to make sure that everybody's clear, like, oh, it is not sitting here like advocating but he does this he kind of just operates a community. Right? And that's really what it is. And it doesn't matter if it was him or anybody else like this is going to thrive and exist no matter what, 13:35 no matter the channel no matter what. Absolutely. 13:38 So before we kind of dive into that, oh, and let's talk about kind of your past like how did you get into bourbon? How did you kind of find your way into into the scene? 13:49 See, I got into bourbon probably around seventh grade, just kind of like parents houses. 13:57 Usually people 13:59 get you're like, 14:01 like liquor cabinet. And, you know, us doing appreciate the corner. Yeah. But that was just, I mean, that's when I first got into it, then there was a pretty good time that I quit drinking it just because I had bad experience in high school and kind of just like, oh, not doing that. So it's usually when people have those 14:21 variances. And 14:22 then I guess freshman year in college, I worked at liquor barn in Lexington, and I was like, I'm gonna go out and get on, try and get back into this, you know, put it behind me got a bottle of Elijah Craig 18 for 50 bucks. It's like, I can't believe I'm spending this much. You know, went home had a party, we mixed it with Coke, you know, did shots of it just, it was, you know, one of those 1980 ones that were really good. Corey Putnam just chugs all the time. 14:54 And, you know, you look back and you're thinking like, Man, I wish I had that bottle of appreciation 14:58 anymore. You know, of course. The whole everybody looks at it, like a stock with they bought it when it first came out. Yeah, you know, but it is what it is. I 15:08 only bought Apple when it first came out. 15:11 Right? Yeah. $10 wouldn't, you know, but, uh, so and then, I guess, getting my education in hospitality, you know, I was managing restaurants and hotels, and in that kind of just the whole food and beverage thing just led me into spirits and naturally just 15:34 kind of evolved and got 15:36 naturally just start a secondary group. 15:40 I mean, we can get into that. And that that was a that was mostly because of back when you like we were talking about 2014. You heard of the group, she if you were in like bourbon info exchange, people will talk about it. But you got to know somebody to get in. I didn't know. I didn't know anything. You know, I was like, screw it. You know, I woke up at like, five in the morning Didn't you know, I was like, I couldn't get back to sleep. Like, I'm just I'm going to do it. Public, you know, all these secret groups. Why do you know why not? and it blew up. And I immediately became the guru and I didn't know it. People send me. They just assumed because I created this group. I knew everything. Yeah. So you know, they send a picture of this to me, what is this? How much is it worth? I have no idea. You know, like, Yeah, what is it? So all I do is Google. What is it? And I got educated, self educated on all the dust DS and fake it to every naked, you know? Yeah. I mean, I wanted to learn myself, I was intrigued by Why is, you know, why are people paying, you know, so? And then it just, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. And, you know, yeah, it didn't stop people rioted, that I let it be not secret, or, you know, and not bringing it to the forefront. And I think it did a lot. I mean, I think it affected the industry a good. 17:01 Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think I think that's what the secondary does. I mean, there's there's 17:05 brands that get like, totally thank the secondary model. Yeah, they're like, 17:09 I mean, yeah, I mean, it helps them evaluate exactly what they have in and maybe they start realizing everything's undervalued. Like, yeah, that was the that's probably the biggest thing. Communities had a huge impact on the black culture like do you think like old scout and like them county would ever be a thing without a bourbon secondary market? like it'd be tough to say yeah, I really would be it even be tougher to say that. Even would would group pics or store pics even have a place to be that are becoming that are, I guess you'd say sought after? Yeah. Because if you see something, and it's it's, it's got a group name on it, you're like, Oh, I immediately have that I've never seen it before. I remember for myself coming on to the secondary market with the first time. I remember seeing the Willett family estate bottles, just, you know, just the regular ones. And this is right as right as when the foil tops started taking over. So they're still wax ones in circulation. And I'm like, I've never seen these bottles before. I've never really seen them before. And so I'm I'm sitting there, I'm always going around the stores, trying to check them out. Trying to find these, you know, 10 910 14 year will family states. And I'm getting one in like Northern Kentucky. Like, I don't know, probably in late 2014, late early 2015 from the party source. But I didn't know like the whole entire time I could have just been driving to Bardstown. I mean, the whole time I could have been doing that. And so it was it was an edge. It's an educational experience as well for people that come into it. And just another education experience. I remember everybody's got their their Blanton story. You find Blanton's, you start learning about he learned about the letters in the horses in the bottle shape, and you come and trade with it. And then you learn out like, Oh my god, there's a barrel proof version. But you can't get the United States. How do I get my hands on it? 18:55 Like, how do you get a whole barrel on it? 19:00 It's exactly I mean, that's exactly like the the curiosity that gets sparked out of a community like this. So kind of talk about the hyper growth of what it was. And were there any kind of growing pains along with it. There were too many growing pains. It was just 19:20 occasionally we get to a point where like, I guess some of that some admins are like, Man, I'm having a baby now I don't have time for this. You know, I think it's kind of weird. Having admins leave because they they they really feel like they're getting noticed that a job. One of them like, Man, I've been trying to tell you this for a month now. 19:43 I don't care what kind of severance 19:45 do yeah, like, 19:47 I need an extra. 19:49 But uh, so yeah, it's only growing pains as as it got bigger. We just had to take on more admins. So what would you say you started start? 20 20:00 1415? And now how many about how many members are roughly? 20:04 About 35,000 35,000? 20:06 Yeah. 20:08 So do you have like a certain amount admins part? Thousand? Do you have like a like ratio 20:14 already have a certain amount of admins and time zones? Okay. That makes looking for West Coast because, you know, and then there's other things that we look for? What do they do during the day? Are you like a firefighter? Are you sitting in a firehouse for hours on end doing nothing but looking at Facebook or your hair? You know, really tech industry? Yeah. But, uh, so that's one of those are some of the things. And one of the things I told everybody, I was like, we don't want to hire anybody that actually comes to us and says they want to do it. Because then, you know, we actually did hire a guy that it you know, there's no wrong, you know, 20:57 some ulterior motive and, 20:59 and we there was, and but, you know, and it's just kind of a, you really got to be level headed, and most importantly, thick skin. Because if I mean, essentially, Europe, a boss of, I want to, I won't say it's a company, but I've, you know, you have to create these rules to keep the riffraff out. And then someone breaks one. And you're like, well, you broke the rules. Sorry, you got to go. But, and they've been drinking all night, and they're pissed. And then they, they've got to, you know, create a spoof accounts of your own Facebook or, you know, I had one admin leave because his kids were pictured him pictures of him and his kid were posted everywhere on their fake account, just like really, you know, sleazy stuff, but, I mean, it's, I mean, I kind of, I don't care what people say, doesn't bother me too much. You know, I just decided to keep doing what I'm doing. 21:57 Yeah, I mean, I guess it is tough. Because you're dealing in a market where these aren't, these aren't grandma's that are just knitting sweaters. Like these are, these are, these are, for the most part, a lot of grown men drink whiskey, and 22:11 it's an online bar, they have 22:13 seniors, and they have opinions. And they're very strong about them, too. And they 22:17 have a lot of liquid courage. That 22:20 in when you when you're behind the screen, and a keyboard that amplifies liquid courage is there's no repercussions really, except maybe a message back. 22:28 I mean, I've gotten into arguments online with people, you know, and then met them in person here. One guy, I, you know, he's his name will call him bow. And he came up here with Jamie from Lincoln Road, and we went to I went to a bourbon tasting that night and hung out with him. And you know, ha, mon, and I was like, Oh, hell, you know, me and him really got into it. And we went out drinking. I was playing Jamie and ping pong. He was cheering me on. He was all on my side. But the third bar was get to He's like, I go up to him. I was like, Can we bury this online hatchet, and he's like, Oh, we have a beef online. I was like, Yeah, he's like, what's your last name? I'm like, pow. Just started cousin. Oh. 23:16 Yeah, man. 23:19 God, I mean, he's a good guy. But so it's one of those things. It's like, Oh, they hate you. They hate you. But if you actually meet them in person, pretty much everybody's good people. But behind that keyboard, liquid current. Oh, yeah. FUFQFU. You know, you're the devil, you ruined bourbon. 23:34 Why do you think why do you think people do like have that animosity? I mean, it's and I know that you end up having to not post under your own personal accounts anymore. You do an inner page account to try and kind of hide and make sure the admins aren't aren't necessarily targeted anymore. So why is it that I mean, at this point, you are the godfather of the BSNV. Like that's, I think it's everybody love 23:59 that title, everybody. Hey, 24:01 everybody kind of understands your name. And when they see it, like, like, anytime it happens, like there's their posts, flurry that happens, but there's also some people that that hates you for no reason. Do you? Any idea? 24:13 I think it now, no, not really. I mean, I kind of see it as like, I know, I guess kind of the culture that everybody's gone through in the last six years of, you know, they don't care what they bought, you know, they've already made up their mind. They they're going to judge you for whatever it is that they think is true. And if they're presented with facts about the actual situation, you know, cognitive dissonance just goes in and they don't, you know, right ever, you know, yeah, I could be Mother Teresa. 24:51 You know, you ruin burden. If mother 24:53 teresa Rana face well, and when you're, 24:55 you're, you know, you're you're separated by a screen and you're not looking and talking to each. It really? Yeah, because you take the human element out of it is that you're like, you know, you can't it's if I'm sitting here Yeah, I'm not gonna yell at you for in person, but it might be a little easier. 25:12 Well, you know, I've never met you. I don't know you. I don't care. Right? Exactly. Yep, for sure. 25:21 So let's let's kind of talk about the rules a little bit because the one thing about bsm is that you're in compared to other groups like it's, it's a lot of like, no nonsense, like, this is what you're here for. You're here to buy bid. And that's it, like, no talk, no discussion. So kind of talk about the rules that that were in place and why they made them place like that. 25:42 So the the no discussions came up in a lot of rules were just formed by some of them sending me a pm saying, why don't you do this. And one of them was, I hate seeing discussions, when I'm only here to buy or look for something in particular. And the group's gotten so big, just, you got rid of it, I mean, then go somewhere else. And I was like, that's a great point, you know, bourbon or, or info, exchange, go there and talk about it. Here. We're one thing. So that's how that that happened. In a lot of the rules just were developed as we evolved. And just, I mean, people wanted it a certain way, it was mostly majority ruled on how things evolved, you know, from other groups and 26:26 stuff like that. And then you also have the secondary site that was doing kind of like raffles and all that sort of stuff. How did that sort of spin out and become its own separate thing? 26:38 saying basically, same thing, it's it's mucking up what a majority of people were there for. So it was like, we were just here for the bourbon, we want to buy it. That's what I want to I don't like gambling. I don't want you know, it's it's mucking up my area. So in the whole gambling thing, aspect, that's like a whole nother of great legal things that's going on. Doing a couple of things wrong there. And so I mean, that's that was just a separate it, you know, kind of 27:07 one of the first ones to do raffling different department. 27:10 I can't remember. I mean, I saw there was there was somebody in the community. I know that ran a group for a while he has since passed on. There not don't name names. Yeah, just for the sake of it. I mean, I remember it was red balls or whatever. Yeah, red balls or something like that. I forget. But there was there was there was those days and it I don't know like for I'll pass it to you guys. What would you rather do? Would you rather sit there and gamble on something or buy it outright if it's something you want? 27:40 Well, at first it was I won like my like first, like, like one out of 30. So I was like, This is amazing. Proceed to lose like 50 X in a row. And so then I quickly realized that let's just not a gamble. And let's just take the money that you would gamble and buy what you actually want and get it so it I'd rather much buy it now 28:02 then do it. I like I don't gamble at all with it. So I mean, I had no interest in in that help separate it too. And mostly the group ran it's the raffle group ran itself. And then people started getting crazy. We'll do a bottle bus was put in a bottle and then and then they're all gambling. So then they start someone owes someone a bottle, then they gamble with that bottle before it's even been shipped. And then it's like a cluster of who owns what where it was, you know, it's just like, so 28:34 it's it's kind of like I'm ready to double down. I didn't ever believe in those randomized. Like, I just still don't like mega ball ones. You know, it's like public knowledge. What's What's the number? Yeah. 28:47 So you were talking about just you know, who has what bottle and whatnot. I know that there are there's always disputes. kind of talk about what happens or how does the dispute come about sometimes? 29:03 A lot of times the biggest popcorn, 29:05 right. Explain popcorn to for people that don't understand that. 29:08 Yeah, remember? Yeah, explain. Because when I first saw you see like coronas and popcorn. And I'm like, What is all this mean? Like, yeah, go over the targets for the 29:17 words just means at the end of five minutes to go and your auction that you've created. If someone bids in that five minutes last five minutes, it extends the auction another five. And it just helps. You know, people are watching TV at home and 10 o'clock at night and they forget. Oh, someone did it. I can get in and you know, so it helped push it along and drive up the price but kind of stops that a little bit of the the eBay sniping kind of riots it does. You know if that happened, kindness, just Continental United State, cheap way to our easy way to say I'm paying for your shipping. I don't know where the the list of all the acronyms were created. came from somewhere before bsm came around and years before that. So you know there's I mean, those groups have been going around for 30:08 Yeah, I love the i's and T's and 30:11 GCS. Yeah, you gotta learn everything. That's I think that's, that's almost like a rite of passage we are getting into the bourbon world is that if you if you go to somebody and you start talking all this vernacular, and they don't understand that you're like, 30:24 welcome to the club. I think I won like an auction. And then I didn't realize what popcorn was. And somebody when I was like, wait a minute, I wanted it's time it went off, you know, but I didn't understand the rules. And it's kind of like read roll 13.0 and I was like, Oh, okay. Not this one in your videos. Another one. 30:41 I just discovered one. Last week, some South Carolina guys came up. And they were calling old Weller antique Ola. And I'm like, I've only heard it. Oh, da, I guess it's a, you know, different level. I've always heard of ODA, but apparently everywhere else they call it Oh, my God. You know, the vernacular, 31:01 it changes. That's for sure. Yep. So So kind of talking about what happens in a dispute, like what Ryan said, If there is, if there is something that somebody bids, but then somebody says like, nope, nope, it's over. Like, how, how does it when does an admin need to get involved in a situation? 31:18 Well, we wrote the rules. So hopefully, that they don't have to get an admin involved. But and they can people can will, you know, show the rules. It didn't, you didn't win it. Because here's the rule. It says, you know, after five minutes, it's over of no bidding. So, you know, you can check the timestamp of someone posting in that and determine if you actually did bit in time or not. So, I mean, things like that. If they're disputed, it might be well, the package says delivered, but it's not on my front porch, whereas Well, I know where it is. Someone stole it, you know, 31:54 who handles that part? 31:56 I mean, and you've even got the the drivers might steal it. I've had that happen. I know. You know, I was waiting for a package and excited that it was coming and got a notification that it was delivered in like, No, it wasn't, I'm literally by the front door. never showed up. So I bitter about that. FedEx. 32:13 Yeah. But I mean, is there is there a reason that admins have to step in the in a situation like that when a package is lost? Like 32:22 a? Not? Yes. Because usually the guy that ships it, they're responsible until it says delivered. And, or if it breaks during shipping, you know, the guy might open the package, and it's all busted. And he's like, Hey, this is broken, or the seal broke, and it's a collector's item, and I want it in mint condition. They'll they'll accuse, you know, the seller might accuse them of tampering with it, they just want a free bottle out of me or, you know, they're lying. This is bowl, you know, 32:54 Haven, they just have blue bears the liability and the Alicia Burton tell 32:58 if it's broken up, it's okay. You threw in, you know, three pieces of newspapers packing material, and it's broken, you know, come over here. Yeah, you know, and then a lot of the packaging suggestions that I gave actually came I used to work in a UPS hub one summer in Lexington. And I mean, I literally saw packages falling 30 feet concrete floor off these conveyor belts that get jammed up, and they just pack just are overflowing and just falling crashing down. So I was like, immediately, okay, I know how to pack a bottle from now, you know, you can't overpack in, you know, you really should you know it. Things like that happen all the time. So, it just, 33:39 I prefer their bottle packs their 33:42 wine wine bottle shipper things. 33:44 Yeah. Cool until I someone's like, showed me a bottle that they just, it kind of gives a false sense of security. Yeah. And they don't they don't throw anything else in there. And 33:54 well, y'all will have one of those in and then I put the popcorn around it or not popcorn, whatever. The styrofoam plate Stockholm, peanuts, peanuts. 34:02 Yeah. So in that situation, it's it's kind of it's up to the buyer to try to make it right. In a situation like that. Now, we've also seen it in some of the How 34:12 do you make it right, though? 34:13 Like, it's it's either reading under. 34:16 So if it's broken, it's refund the money if, if the tech strips broken world, it's kind of like you ask the buyer? Did you buy it to drink it? Or did you buy it to throw it on your massive wall? And, you know, whatever the answer is usually, okay. Well, then we take $50 for the, you know, crack seal, right? or something, you know, because 34:38 you're going to drink up to them to figure out the Yeah. 34:42 Yeah, we direct them to figure it out themselves got 34:45 you're not like the Better Business Bureau where they're like, they're like, have a dispute. And 34:50 you don't you don't have to resolve and 34:52 that's it. I was I was gonna think they're like a mediation court. You will, you know, like, you're going like husband and wife are going through divorce. Let's get together. No room real quick. 35:02 Yeah, I've had that quite a bit, actually. People add their wives to the group, and then immediately regret it. Because you know, their wives mad at them. They're always on their phone. wife gets in there sees how much they're spending on it, then it's like, well, you kick my wife out. Know that you got to do figure that out on your own. I'm not getting in the middle of that. And then divorces have come up. No way. Oh, yeah. Like, those wives know how much that collections worth. And you're getting into a divorce for whatever you did wrong, or whatever happened. That's, you know, needs to be split up. So then they want me to kick their wives out so they can let them know what they're selling or, you know, just like crazy. It's like, I'm not No, sorry. Sorry about your luck. you dug your hole. You know, that's my, my problem. Well, I didn't know that. There's a lot of that's something that I think about I think I 35:51 might add my wife to it because because being part of the podcast and I'm like, I gotta you gotta have a pulse on what's happening. So you know, exactly uninvite jacket. 36:03 I forgot she had it sees. 36:05 So I guess another thing is, you know, there's a, there's another thing that always happens, these groups that people call out other people, they'll say, you know, they'll tag and say like, Jimmy Joe, he's, he's a, he's a shifted, he's not he has a, you 36:19 know, good pair. 36:20 Well, I know that are like, I bought something. And then it's been two weeks, and he hasn't shipped it out. And he's not responding back to messages. Like, is that the right thing to do? Or is it like, 36:32 the worst thing to do? If If there's something going on, sometimes there's something actually happened, man, I've been in the hospital. That happens, it happened to me once and I had to take a picture of my armband and send it to do I'll ship your bottle out, it's just going to be a little while I don't know when. But uh, usually someone's if they might be scamming Omen or something like that. calling them out is the worst thing is he'll just piss them off. And if they have a conscience, and we're going to actually they messed up and they were actually having attention to get get you back, well, our refund you or something, calling them out, just ruined your chances. Best thing is to conduct admin and say, Hey, this is what's going on. And then we can reach up and I mean, I'll just send a message, Hey, yo, this bottle what's going on, you know, not a no accusations, I want to hear your side because a lot of times, there's, it's not their fault or something, you know, whatever. So, I mean, you do have to be diplomatic and not assume whatever you're being told is that the whole story and go to the other side. And most the time, it works out fine. And they solve the problem. Occasionally, someone just, you know, turned into a drug addict and is stealing or, you know, ripping people off. But we've done a good job of like letting people into the group, it tells you when like when someone tries to join the group, it tells you how pretty much everything where they where they live? Are they a member of any other groups that you're a member of? Are they friends with anybody? How windows? When did they create the Facebook page or in just all kinds of things? So if you're just created this in the last year, you're not getting? You know, if you're created the Facebook in the last two years? Why did you just create Facebook? And you know, all right. 38:30 around for a while, I know you're in your mid 30s? You 38:33 should know Yeah, exactly. So the and so we will have them prove their identity. Sometimes if their accounts really, you know, just send us a photo, a picture of your photo, Id block out all your pertinent information, we just need to see you actually who you are, you know, somebody that you're not afraid to. And now these days, you can if you have that information, just like a name and a city. You can find them on their address, every relative for free note, you know, not some search site, white pages. com. It's all 39:06 out there. So it's like LinkedIn work. So if you ever add accusations of counterfeits or frauds. 39:15 Hey, it's Kenny here and I want to tell you about the Commonwealth premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. It will be happening on August 24. In Frankfort, Kentucky. It's called bourbon on the banks. You get to enjoy bourbon beer and wine from regional and national distilleries while you stroll the banks along the scenic Kentucky River. 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Along with two bottles of hard to find whiskey rack houses boxes are full of cool merchandise that they ship out every two months to members in 40 states and rockhouses June box they're featuring a distillery that claims to be the first distillery to stout a whiskey rackhouse whiskey club is shipping out two bottles from there, including its beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel rye, both of which were finished in barrels that were once used to mature America's number one selling bourbon barrel aged stout. And if you're a beer guy like me, you would know that's New Holland dragon milk, go to rock house whiskey club. com to check it out. And try a bottle of beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel rye use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 41:03 Have you ever had accusations of counterfeits or frauds? 41:06 And the BS showing in the group? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, there's, there's been that. And there's been people that have done it that we just thought I like I went to this guy's house and got a bottle off of them. About a single project for 60 bucks or something. And house he's living in a $400,000 house in which in Louisville is pretty good sized house 30,000 square feet or so maybe bigger, nice part of town comes from a wealthy family, well known family. And you just wouldn't think he would be doing that. But I you know, who knows what motivates people to commit fraud? 41:45 So in a situation like that, where people have been wrongs, for say, like buying a buying a counterfeit on the page? Is there any? 41:57 Right? How does it How does it go about to try and make people whole or anything like that it's like, man like this is this is a black market, you get what you get immediate action from an admin is if that accusation is made, we immediately ban you, or stop you from being able to because we don't want to keep, you know, until we find out what's really going on. And there's been times where, yeah, I bought that. Yeah, I sold him that bottle. I got it from this guy who's also in the group in this transaction. And you can see me buying that tree. Yeah, and you know, and then it's like a, these bottles have been passed around for 10 people in the same group in three months. You know, 42:33 that's what I always say about the secondary, it's like, it all just stays in the group. Like, it's, it's like, we're all transferring and firing the same bottles. Like, it's funny how they pass around that. So 42:42 yeah, there's, I mean, there's some guys out there that do incredible work chasing these people down and finding out where the counterfeits are coming and how they're happening. And and 42:55 they're those five fighters or send on 42:58 Facebook every day. Well, I mean, it's just good that there's people like that, that they find enjoyment out of doing it, right. And they they either they find enjoyment, or it's maybe they're doing it to protect their own ass, because they do have a very large stake in bourbon. And they've got to make sure that what they have is still keeping its value as it goes. So two sides of that coin. Now, there's also times that we just talked about that people finagle people out of money. Somebody says buy it now you say sure sounds good. Take your PayPal, Facebook account deleted, I've got my money and run. What do you what do you do to help? Or is there a way to help those buyers either become whole? Or is it kind of like, Man, that's it? 43:41 Sorry? I'm hanging out with PayPal? 43:45 Is there a BSM community pool? where people are refunded like No, I mean, it's interrupt your own risk type of thing. I mean, there's not really a safeguard to protect you. And we tried to hope, prevent as much as we can by screening the people that come in there. But there's, I mean, there's an inherent risk, you're gonna, you have to assume when you go into it, yeah, especially, what's your legal recourse at that point to? Well, we're gonna go, you're gonna, you know, it's kind of like, tell me what, Wise Guys, you know, what are you gonna do about it? 44:19 You gotta kind of look at the history of you know, those trends, 44:22 right, and the whole vouching for what they're building? Yeah, I need a reference Jacqueline, this dude that, you know, yeah, that helps a lot. 44:30 In speaking of something like that, I just kind of thought of this to, you know, when you started this group, you also started in a way that was a lot different than others. Some other ones, like the old days, that's not around, which was BX people would go in there and they would post bottles, and you would, they wouldn't be transparent. It would say, like, you want to sip or you want to taste and that means it's for sale, or if it's for trade, and you would be post in the comments, or whatever it is, and everything what happened through PM, right? When when you built this site, it was almost completely opposite. It's like, full transparency, open market sort of thing. What was the idea of doing that versus kind of like keeping it behind these sort of like, secret code words? 45:15 One I didn't, I didn't know about the code words, because I wasn't able to get into those. And that's the whole reason it was created. And the whole transparency thing, you know, as like, after I started it, and it was starting to take off. I was like, What is Facebook's policy on this? So I found it. And it literally said, You must be at least 18 years old to buy alcohol, you know, sell alcohol and buy it on Facebook? And I'm just kind of scratching my head, okay. Oh, maybe they're just seeing it as an international company. And well, we're not really in it. And then it changed to 21 then it they said, Okay, now you can't do it. On marketplace, and now it's a at all so we'll see what happens. And I think I lot of that most recent changes, probably has to do with the legal trouble. Facebook and Zuckerberg or or in with the Justice Department and their his emails were leaked, and he might be in a lot of trouble. So I think Facebook legal team is just like, okay, no more chicken groups and gun groups, like, whatever, all these crazy little white, there's chicken group. There's like cockfighting and stuff. No, like, what are they like? Not heirloom. But, you know, crazy breeds of chickens that like rednecks are collecting that happened, really, but they don't they don't they don't let it pass for everything. I was like, I remember a secondary market like it like a like a Facebook 46:42 ad that said, like, find your people like there's there's groups for everybody. And I didn't know that. 46:48 So I just heard about that. Because I mean, when groups get shut down there, apparently there really is a history like a what Facebook normally does, and they take out the big one, and then they let it because all these groups, you know, all these little sub small groups, all those people are usually in the biggest group. So take out the biggest group and everyone will find out and maybe they'll go away or whatever. The term. Yeah, now I gotta roll down here. 47:17 I mean, in this also, like, I know, there was a huge opioid crisis that was happening through Facebook as well. I mean, there's people buy sell trade, you know, illegal drugs and stuff. I mean, those those groups go fast. But that's, that's sort of the way that the world works, I guess. And then so another way that those was a lot different from other groups as well. So there was another group that's it's still out there today. So I'm not going to put a name to it. But they always wanted to try and keep a record of, of transactions and sales, and it was all done online. And that's kind of what also fueled bottle Blue Book calm and everything like that. So kind of talk about why you said like, or just said, like, I'm not gonna, we'll just like, if you want to know, something, just research search it, right, instead of having to own a catalog or an Excel spreadsheet. 48:13 Yeah, it won't, I don't want to maintain it. Is 48:18 I mean, it doesn't pay anything to sit here and you know, play around on it. 48:21 Yeah. But the other thing is that also, you know, that that data was also used in some research studies to actually see how the prices of bourbon had been affected from years of just, you know, actually having a particular bottle and seeing how evaluated over the years, seeing how different types of bottles, you know, changed in value over the years. 48:43 Yeah, what was it like the average return was like, 200% on in, like, just a two year span? Something like that. Yeah, 48:50 it was crazy. I mean, some maintenance sucks. That's, 48:53 yeah, I just didn't want to spend time doing it. But in I felt like bottle blue, but does a really good job of you know, I don't I haven't been on there and years and but just because the history and in my group got so big, I didn't need to, and it was probably more current, because 49:09 you can search any, like thing, right? stir the group? 49:14 Yeah, if you can, if you can just run the search button and know you right, or exactly know how to filter. I mean, you can you can find pretty much anything but yeah, there was, I don't know really who's running pooper. So if somebody like us yet, there's another transaction and BSMNE to go and enter this NL 49:29 introduced into the toilet. Like, I'm always wondering, like Wikipedia, like, it's crowdfunding, like, Who the hell goes takes your time to fill out a Wikipedia page? You know, I'm 49:38 sure there's a lot of people out there. I mean, if you have a 49:41 if you have passion towards that topic, 49:43 exactly. I mean, I guess 49:45 it also has with Wikipedia, you get I mean, it's like a credibility and a point system, like, it says, you know, like Ryan Cecil did this, right? So so you get you get a little little badge or a star on your shoulder, I guess you could say, if you want to do that. 50:00 One thing I wanted to bring up and wild turkeys a good example. How the market affect your like, we hinted at it, but how the secondary market helps companies see where their brands going. I was doing a barrel pick at wild turkey several years ago. And I was talking to Eddie about the secondary market. He's like, yeah, I'm in that group. I love watching those bottles and what they sell for, you know, like, really, he's like, Yeah, and I got to thinking, I was like, you know, your name's not in my group. So he's under some, I don't know what he's under. But uh, and then I got to thinking about wild turkey in their high end premium brands that they release. They don't like, they don't work. They're out on the shelf at 350. And they might sit there for up to a year, but it'll finally all sell. He feel like they see these brands nudging up and know, okay, we put it out here, we'll be able to maximize our profits and smart business in my opinion, but 51:01 it is it is a way that companies can gauge what's happening. Yeah, I mean, it's, 51:07 it's totally, totally took off the secondary market to raise raise prices, both heaven hills doing it, everybody's doing it. They see the value? Well, it's the first ones that were like, all right. We don't image that. Yeah, 51:20 well, I mean, the other thing is, is when you look at just what these Facebook groups are able to do in general is is it not only just helps with value, but also helps with prediction of the changing consumer? Like what do what do all these people, what are they gravitating towards? I'm sure you can look at the stats that happens when you sell a pallet to a distributor, and that distributor gets it out to the the stores. But it's kind of hard to kind of track that data and you kind of hard to see like what people are saying about it, however, you go to an online forum. And you see some kind of like, let's take like Bill need honey, for example. Like, I saw honey, and I kind of like whatever, honey, 52:02 yeah, flavored whiskey, and then 52:04 and then all of a sudden, you know, in Nashville is a whole other thing. You get this whole group in Nashville that that seems to kind of create other little like a tornado of, of I don't know what you would call it, but somehow they're able to hype a lot of stuff up. And now bill need honey trades for like four or 500 bucks. And I'm like, how, how is this even possible? Because I wouldn't I wouldn't have find myself like particularly interested in it. But if you look at what the market does and what it's valued at, they're probably like, Oh, shit, we better add some more honey, these barrels, you know, I don't really know, like, that's a process. But it's a way that they can see they can gauge exactly what what consumers are gravitating towards. So yeah, for sure, another way to look at it. So there's a there's another kind of way to if we if we look at the the group that you had built as well, there's particularly one, maybe there's a few others of distilleries that you've banned from being inside the group, as well as like, these bottles are not allowed to be traded. You know, we don't need to give them a platform and say like, let's talk about who that is. But is there a reason why that you would go through and say, I think we need to put our foot down and we shouldn't have these type of bottles be on here or on my market? 53:18 Yeah, so one, we're bourbon secondary market. So we keep it it just whiskey. There, though, I guess one that everybody knows. And it's thinking about, we I, I was getting really pissed off at all the people that were thread shooting on, every time one of these bottles came up, as I got in, and they're just, I didn't even know what they were fighting over. I just got tired of hearing about it. And then I heard there might be market manipulation, and I was just like, screw it band. And then I heard about all these things coming out about someone going in and doing a barrel pic with the secret camera and, and trash cans and whatever. I was like, I didn't know that. And then of course, everybody assumed was that, you know, I was just tired of having to admin, my own group, like shutting people up. And people get in fights and yelling, and just like, We're not here for that, you know, it was just like, just ban it get rid of and then it 54:22 took off and 54:23 be like, what's your motive? 54:24 And then the gifts come out? Right? There's always the gift stream of how 54:30 but only wrong. There's a lot of funny pictures. Oh, yeah, 54:33 kids that are very creative. 54:37 If you can just like add some good laughs Oh, yeah. 54:41 So the other thing is, if we look at the time that's invested into this 54:47 time is time is very valuable time is very valuable to all of all we're 54:51 equal, let 54:52 it all have equal time and it's in it's in for I think a lot of people out there they take it, they take it for granted, the amount of time that you've probably invested into this group over over five years now. And last time I checked, you weren't collecting a paycheck from a warrior. Nope. So what what's the motivation behind going through it and continuing to do this without seeing any kind of upside, per se? 55:21 One, it's, it's a passionate hobby of mine and every other admin in there, there are some incentive or benefits to it. Like someone comes to town they know they know who you are, they know you live here. They want to hang out and share samples with you or bring you some samples or mail you samples. Get that all the time. You know, we don't even we don't pay for it. It's that nice and fun. But 55:50 I mean, there's no 55:53 it's really kind of easy, and especially if you're like working a job. So a lot of I used to manage a liquor store. A lot of time I'd be just it's just sitting there and doing nothing. I mean, it's shelves are stocked, okay, we're good. Now you're just waiting for customers, and it was a slower store. So get your phone out of time. A lot of time here, you know. So, I mean, what else am I going to do? You know, just watch cat videos are 56:21 still fun, but I'm more interested in bourbon. 56:25 Morrison getting yelled at? 56:26 Yeah, nice people in the area. 56:29 Yeah, start fights for out of nothing. It's a bourbon of all things. But just funny and amazing. Like how people getting arguments over bourbon. Like there's, there's just so much like, yeah, we'll get into heated debate, whether it's about a particular bottle or whether somebody prices some sex. Yeah, good question. What do you do in a situation where somebody accidentally prices something? We've seen it, we've seen it both ways. They'll say way to live got this happy? 15 I'm going to put a for sale for 2500. And then the laugh emoji start coming every day that's coming. What do you do in that sort of sense? You 57:06 know, there's, there's kind of a range of All right, I'm just gonna delete your post because you're an idiot, or you're just going to piss off everybody, you know, 2500 for whatever the bottle goes for now. You know, if it's $1,000 too much, you're probably going to get delete, because I know what's gonna. But if you You know, I've seen the opposite where Pappy 23 170 someone you know, 10 people Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben bit, you know, and then they want to hold 57:39 zero 57:40 exactly what was clear that you were not trying to short yourself that much money, you know, 57:44 yeah, so selling it below the cost of even retail, you 57:48 know, I'm not being that nice of a guy and you're being an asshole. So it's like, no, you're not getting your free bottle of Pappy basically. So. But yeah, I mean, so there's a if it's just if it's too much. I mean, I've seen it where it's like $100 too much and they're still losing it and it's then we do actually kind of manage it and just mute everybody. All right. You said something, you know you redshirted me your digital duct tape for three days? 58:14 Yeah. 58:15 Is there actually like a like a thing where you're like you're because I've never actually added a group before? Is there really a like a button that you can say like you're you're cut for 10 days or something? You didn't you're 58:26 just like three options? No way that's awesome. Three days seven days Really? Okay. And depending on how I feel that day, you 58:36 know, it's it's just progressively gotten worse. 58:38 seven day max punishment. 58:41 Alright, you didn't break like Facebook rolls so you're not out of the group, but come on. 58:46 And then there's there's the other side of this where there's somebody that posts like a mixers 20 for will say like 1000 bucks, right when that's easily an 1800 dollar bottle or 2000 or something like that. So what happens if they accidentally undervalue it? And it's not an obscene and it's not an obscene value like a they 59:09 they literally know. 59:12 we owed it to them. And usually when they realize like someone tells them you just lost $800 you could have had 1800 dollars or something whatever. They'll just disappear from the group by themselves you know 59:27 that that point is like no harm no foul like you're you're faster the trigger on their keyboard but that's about all we can give you right now. 59:33 Yeah, exactly. 59:36 And so sometimes hold people hold up themselves to the boat you know all right, honor it Damn it. I don't I don't want to but sometimes they swallow their pride 59:45 now hopefully somebody like returns something in their favor to or if they cry it opens them a sample or something like that that'd be old 59:52 least which is IRA karma. 59:54 That is true thing I mean, there's bourbon karma out there there's people talk about all the time you know, you have somebody find a bottle you ship somebody something you send them somebody a sample, hopefully the karma God's smile down on you and you go walk into middle of nowhere Oklahoma, you stumble upon an old dusty turkey or something, you know, like, that's the truth thing. Now, there was also I think it was maybe a few years back. It was around Christmas time in did the community come together and like by the admins, some, like some Van Winkle or something like that. 1:00:26 I remember that. Yeah, so that wasn't actually in my group. Oh, no, that's fine. So everybody wanted to Dave on the back for being a great admin and he got a bottle of Pappy 29 I didn't know about it. And someone saw that and was like, we should do it for Oh, and I'm like, No, just donate $20 to charity or something. Don't send me a bottle. That's not what I'm quit bother me. I'm done. I'm not trying to you know, I don't need a handout. Not that it was that I mean, but it until after the fact you 1:01:01 know, I just literally and then so kind of going back and looking at this whole thing of you know, in time is time is very valuable for for a lot of people as you start going down this path and in everybody's got careers outside of just bourbon least hopefully most your friends. I mean, well, I mean, I met outside of like flipping bourbon. Right? Right. So everybody's everybody's hopefully has some career and flipping bourbon just isn't it. But that's, that's what kind of go backwards or time is valuable. And you look at it, you say like I built up a network of 50,000 people? What if I was able to charge like $5 per person per year for dues in that would go towards? I don't know what it would go towards, like, if it is to like actually help with the time that value that spent or whether it goes into like an insurance bunker for 1:01:51 bottles? How many people don't think is instantly enough? Sorry, charging depends now and how many active out of 50 that would even know that are? 1:02:00 can probably see that data. But the thing is that would that setting could only work off of Facebook. And so when Facebook bands up, you know, kicks every all of it off the Facebook, that might actually happen. Not necessarily for me. I don't want to do it anymore. But it might I mean, it might be a good vessel. But the problem with that is everybody loves to get up their phone. Look, I mean, me, I don't say they love it, but they do it. They get out their phone, they start scrolling through Facebook, they see grandma, they see someone else's kid. Yeah, I see bourbon in usually my newsfeed that's the only way. I just see bourbon bourbon bourbon. And I'm sure a lot of y'all can. 1:02:45 That's the only reason I keep Facebook Like I loved it when you could only have the group app. And you didn't have to have the Facebook app you could just do. And then they made everything go to the Facebook app. And it was like, you could just totally keep your cool. Yeah, it's 1:02:59 so good. 1:03:01 People off of loan to a whole nother website. It's going to be a challenge. And so setting that up. That's a lot of work. And I mean, you better have some really good reason for people to go there, you know, and how you got to make it worth their while to go there. 1:03:19 Yeah, that's true. I mean, it is it is hard to try and monetize a platform like 1:03:23 this, because it's the path of least resistance you don't face because people are already there. 1:03:28 It's against Facebook rules to actually try that or do that. 1:03:32 No, well, you can't export the group lists, like on the spreadsheet. 1:03:36 You can everyone move over? Well, 1:03:39 knowing that then I guess that rules that out? Yeah, I was just trying to think of a way that you know, you could you could try to try to, you know, make it worth the time. That's that's actually invested. But it sounds like it because granted this This is by far the biggest group. But it is not the only group. I mean, there's probably I mean, there's got to be upwards of hundreds now. Not only just just markets where

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.

What is the dark web? What will you find in the dark web? Craig is on today on the Jim Polito show as they discussed the dark web, the pedophilia ring that a YouTuber discovered, and how Facebook uses its apps to track users. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Related Articles: What Is The Dark Web? How To Access It And What You’ll Find Facebook Uses Its Apps To Track Users It Thinks Could Threaten Employees And Offices Youtuber Claims Online Pedophile Ring Operates Freely On Youtube ---  Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors. Airing date: 02/26/2019 What Is The Dark Web - Who Created It Craig Peterson: 0:00 We had a really good webinar yesterday. Craig Peterson here for the Infragard. It's kind of cool looking at some of the patterns and what people are interested in. Yesterday, we were talking about the difference between cyber and cyber enabled crimes. Very, very hot topic. The other real hot topic that we discussed, in fact, the number one topic in the last year on the FBI Infragard webinars I've been running. The number one topic has been dark web. And that's kind of interesting, because that's what we talked about today with Jim Polito. Some history here behind the dark web. And why did the government create this thing? So here we go with Mr. Polito. Unknown 0:47 The man who knows it all our good friend and Tech Talk guru Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir. Unknown 0:55 Hey, good morning, Jim. How y'all? Unknown 0:58 You're from Canada. Don't say y'all just just because you travel the country frequently. Unknown 1:07 Isn't this the deep south? Isn't that how y'all talk down here Unknown 1:09 For you technically it's the deep south. Unknown 1:12 Yeah Unknown 1:14 Speaking of the deep south, let's see Facebook which has nothing to do with the deep south uses its app to track users it thinks could threaten employees and offices. Wait a minute. So Facebook can't you know a tell me can't the tell me whether or not a real post is actually offensive or just a lot of people complained about it. But they can tell me when there's going to be like an attack at work. And not that I'm making light of that. Unknown 1:55 It's kind of interesting. There's two interesting stories kind of along the same lines as this week. The Facebook one and then YouTube one both of which are how come they can police things they want to police but they can't police these things they don't want. Unknown 2:10 Right? Exactly good. That's what I was trying to say. But I'm not as smart as you. Unknown 2:18 It's interesting to look at. And that's a lot of interesting in one paragraph but to look at what Facebook is doing, and that is they have a whole security team that just cracking people who might who might threaten their employees or some of the physical offices. So for instance, there was a threat against their offices over in Europe. And Facebook picked on that really, really quickly. And CNBC ended up doing a story about it because they had more than a dozen former Facebook employees who said that Facebook is mining its social net Unknown 3:00 Work for threatening comments against Facebook wow some cases it uses its products which are of course the Facebook app the Facebook never use it VPN that using its products to track the location of people it believes present a credible threat now this is incredibly Big Brother-esque here bottom Yeah, yeah and Facebook's other employees are out there and you know Facebook's management is saying well listen it's only legitimate Every business has physical security. We have a physical security team why wouldn't we do it? But you know when when you get right down to a Jim. Why aren't they doing this sort of thing for threats against other people warning people about it. Why aren't they reporting all of this stuff to the local police departments? Why are they trying to do it themselves. Unknown 4:00 And why are they using their app to track these people basically without their knowledge that Facebook thinks might be a threat to themselves in this? That's where I think they really crossed the line. Unknown 4:15 Wow. Wow. We're talking with our good friend Craig Peterson, our Tech Talk guru and at the end of this segment I'll give you, well Craig will give you a number and you'll be able to get this information plus a whole lot more. Could this ever help you know I mean, is there any way that they could use this to help him in always in almost in a bit of remember the science fiction movie Minority Report where someone Yeah, predict someone was going to commit a crime and you'd be arrested before you committed the crime and... what? Unknown 5:01 Future crime became a crime in itself. If you are going to do that. Unknown 5:05 You are going to commit a crime? Yeah. Which is completely contrary to our Constitution. But all right, Craig, let's suspend disbelief here for a little bit. Could you know police use this kind of modeling to see where they may be spikes in crime? Could Facebook use the same kind of stuff? Unknown 5:26 That's why like you, you really are brilliant because you're pulling together a whole bunch of pieces. And one of the pieces that should enter into this fray here is the fact that there is already pre crime type technology in place. Then they're using it in New York City. They're using it Los Angeles. My last I heard Boston might be using this but what it is it looks at trends. It looks at social media feeds. Unknown 6:00 To try and find agitators to try and predict where a crime is going to occur and then the police departments are using that kind of pre crime information to have police officers and units and even in some cases SWAT teams on the standby in that area because this machine learning system this are you know not quite artificial intelligence is predicting crimes there so you combine that technology that already is there is already in the field with the ability of somebody like Google or Facebook is what we're talking about right now who does collect all of this information who does sell all of this information put it all into a pot and stir it and Jim it's a civil libertarians worst nightmare. Unknown 7:00 Yeah, I can see that. I mean it's like fire it's the good and the bad unfortunately you've destroyed your reputation by saying Jim you're brilliant I mean that's you know Craig we all know you're brilliant but if you're going to say that I'm brilliant people gonna say I don't know if I completely trust Craig Peterson. and his intellect i don't know if I. Unknown 7:22 Most people Jim they're not thinking it through right and that's the brilliance of brilliance is seen through just the normal short term thought process. And nowadays the average millennial has a an attention span less than that of a goldfish. We're talking five or six seconds so how would somebody like that going to think the next order through and that's where the brilliance comes in Jim in and it's absolutely necessary to think this through what's the ultimate outcome, right of this type of technology? And then look at the story on YouTube this region where we've got YouTube now ads pulled from companies like McDonald's, Disney, Grammarly. Chromebook, Purina, IKEA, Glad, GNC, Lysol. Now why did those ads get pulled? This is a story that's not really making the news but it turns out that there was a pedophilia ring, a pretty big one, a soft core pedophilia ring running on YouTube, and apparently YouTube kind of knew about it, trying to should have done something about it and absolutely didn't. So this YouTuber guy, his name's Matt Watson. Yeah, he exposed what he's calling a wormhole into this ring on the YouTube platform. He uploaded a video a week ago Sunday about all of this stuff, and it's disgusting to look at. I don't want to get into any of the details but it's right there in the open on YouTube. So you talk about Facebook tracking users is threatened Facebook and and the Facebook is insane, seemingly doing much about anything else who got YouTube now with some of the most important stuff you can imagine out in the open and it gets it so bad that advertisers have to pull their advertising to try and make YouTube do something about it. And it really makes you wonder where we're going. Unknown 10:00 Wow, we're talking with Craig Peterson. Our Tech Talk guru. At the end of this segment will give you a number you can get all this information for free. Plus other stuff when there's a crisis. I'll explain to you how you do it. There's no obligation All right, this is a question people ask me all the time and I give them a half baked explanation. But let's get it from the guy who's an expert at explaining the technical aspects of the web in a simple way that most people can understand, probably because you wrote some of the language, some of the code for the web that's still in use today. But what is the dark web? Almost sounds like that old dark shadows. That soap opera horror. So what is the dark web? Unknown 10:27 It does, doesn't it? Well, there, there are multiple parts to the internet. But you can think of it like an iceberg. The dark dark web and the business web are both the part that's underwater, in other words, is a part you don't see the internet inside businesses is bigger than the internet anyone else can see. And the number of apps in fact that are in use outside of the public curve, you are actually outnumber the number of apps available in the app store. Unknown 11:01 So so there's this huge underwater component of the iceberg when it comes to the internet. And there's really two parts to that. there's what's called the dark web. It's kind of a generic term. And believe it or not, the dark web was set up the effectively by our government and our tax dollars still maintain it. And the idea behind the dark web was how do we let people who are in these countries where there's heavy oppression in Iran, etc, etc. How do we let these militants communicate with each other and communicate with us, our military or the State Department, etc. So we developed this this dark web concept around Tor and some other technologies to allow these people to be able to communicate. Unknown 11:51 Oh wait a minute. I got it right now. So the government put this together for good and it's been taken over by the identity theft people the people you just talked about pedophilia and YouTube that's where pedophiles trade video in this dark web which was created for good and where did it, where is it ended up? Unknown 12:19 Well it is created for good it's still used for good but the overwhelming use of the dark web is really a lot of different types of criminal activity in this day and age frankly. So now there's a conundrum here for the federal government. Do do we shut this down which they can't do by the way there's no way they could shut it down because it was designed to be unsettled and shut down a Unknown 12:46 They did too good of a job you mean it was a government contract that did too good of a job. Yeah, exactly. So and they still want militants to be able to use it. So it's kind of stuck though there's a really interesting article on CSL online that I put up on my website that goes into this because not all of the dark web is bad. Not all of the tools by militants but if you do go out on to that dark web Be careful because it's easy to stumble on stuff that will make your eyeballs pop out. Unknown 13:18 Yeah. Oh the real bad stuff the really really bad stuff that people want to be able to share. It's like the back alley of the internet, isn't it? Unknown 13:33 It really is. You know, this is a place where people like Bob Kraft might find another a new massage parlor Unknown 13:46 Oh. So wrong on so many levels. But ok, I'll let it go. Unknown 13:51 We also have out there have been some of these sites like the Silk Road and things where people were buying and trading drugs and they was shut down. These people were caught. So just because it's on the dark web, just because you're using cryptocurrencies doesn't mean that the FBI or the Secret Service or other guys can track you down because they can and they do. So keep that in mind as well. It's a scary place to go. There are a lot of dark alleys out there we keep an eye on some parts of the dark web so that we know what's going on. And if there's something major that's where we find these huge cracks when when you know one of these places is broken into that's where we find that and that's what we use it for. But you know as a general rule, Jim they away from the dark web. Unknown 14:45 So, you know, teach us how to access it, which is good, but at least we know what it is and why it was created. It's kind of a back alley for the government to communicate with individuals who are in countries where they don't allow the internet and yet Then it got co opted by the bad guys all right I promised that I would give you a full well that Craig would give you a phone number and you'd be able to get this information plus a whole lot other stuff you get on Craig's list. Hey, Craigslist. Hey that's pretty good I just made a pun there well good register that yeah might be a little late. But anyway you get on Craig's mailing list. How about we say that and he sends you information without annoying you. He doesn't do it constantly. But the good thing is when there's a big problem like a big hack, he tells you what to do. And it's all free. So Craig, the number that people should text my name to is what? Unknown 15:47 It is 855-385-5553 that's 855-385-5553. Unknown 16:00 Standard data and text rates apply and again it's it's great to get the service but Craig it's better to get you in person every Tuesday here and we appreciate your time We hope you have a great day.  Thank you. Thank you to talk to you next week. --- Don't miss any episode from Craig. Visit http://CraigPeterson.com/itunes. Subscribe and give us a rating! Thanks, everyone, for listening and sharing our podcasts. We're really hitting it out of the park. This will be a great year!  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

Health and Hair ft. Jessie Santiago and Cal Bigari ***DISCLAIMER: KB ONLY*** This podcast is a series of interviews with medical providers, mental health professionals, community members and advocates. Each interview represents the opinions of the individual. Individuals may use different terminology than what you’re used to. The intention is to educate not discriminate, and we welcome positive and constructive feedback. Please keep in mind; this is not a replacement for medical care or advice. I am simply presenting my views along with educational information that will be both evidence based research and external networks that have an impact on LGBTQI and nonbinary health care. Consult your provider for any medical or mental health concerns. My name is Kerin “KB” Berger and welcome to Queer MEDucation! ***INTRO MUSIC***  ***INTRO TO EPISODE: KB ONLY*** Welcome back to Queer MEDucation. Special thanks to our friends at Kaleidoscope Health. For LGBTQ and nonbinary folks, accessing healthcare presents a number of challenges. Knowing that your provider is a safe space can be a game changer. Show support for your LGBTQI and nonbinary patients and colleagues by wearing a Kaleidoscope Health pin on your white coat, daily attire or ID badge. Order pins at www.kaledioscopehealth.org Today’s episode focuses on the relationship between LGBTQI and nonbinary health and hair. Have you ever felt uncomfortable getting your hair cut? Have you ever walked into a barbershop and they didn’t know what to do with you? Was getting your haircut ever triggering? In this week’s episode we chat with the owners’ of Salon Benders’ about creating affirming spaces that encompass bravery. As a queer person, getting your hair cut is so much more than a hair cut. The physical and mental health outcomes are tremendous. Please enjoy. ***INTERVIEW: KB, JESSIE SANTIAGO, AND CAL BIGARI*** KB:                 I'm here with some friends from Salon Benders'. Why don't you introduce yourselves? CB:                  Hey, I'm Cal and my pronouns are he, him, his and I am co-founder of Salon Benders. JS:                   And I am Jessica Santiago and the other founder of Salon Benders. Pronouns she/her. KB:                 Well, thanks for being on the show today. Can you tell us a little bit about what Salon Benders is and what that means? JS:                   Yeah, so basically we are a space that is, I'm queer and trans competent and we do hair for everyone. Um, but we, we like to call ourselves a straight friendly place instead of the place. Um, so we basically, you know, try to keep up with all of the lingo and tried to keep up with all the, um, all of the stuff that you know is important. Um, yeah. And so, and also like trends and styles too. Like, um, having somebody come in here and say, this is my gender expression and I'm not quite like, um, I had someone yesterday, like, I'm not quite femme. I'm not quite masculine. I'm not quite, I'm kind of somewhere in between, but I want to look like this. And to be able to say that to someone and for them to not have any questions of like, well, what does that mean? Um, I think that that's really, that's really powerful. And that's kind of, you know, that's my end of Benders' and my responsibility is really like nailing people's image and helping them express themselves, um, and the way that feels really valuable or valid to them now. KB:                 That's awesome. CB:                  So, Jessie is the greatest hairstylist who has ever touched KB, CB, JS:    CB:                  She's amazing and, so good at what she doesn. Um, and when we started talking about the concept, um, it just was, was perfect because what she does is, is excellence. Um, and uh, and she is a gender been bender herself. She is very, she/her., but she is fierce She is loud. Um, she has all of the things that we tell women not to be. And I love it. And it's amazing. UMM. And so, so we came together and created, um, Salon Benders, which is a place of, of excellence for a community of excellence. Um, and it's a place where expression and love, uh, is really the heart of everything that we do. So JS:                   He might cry. CB:                  I probably will several times KB:                 Cry away, if I could give you a tissues I would CB:                  I'm loud and ugly crier. So that's a good thing is yes, KB:                 Next time on the pre checklist. I'll put tissue box please. CB:                  We do have tissues in the salon because I'm not the only one that cries. Okay. How many people have cried here to today? JS:                   Two. CB:                  Okay. Well actually if we can double that. KB:                 Probably happy tears. I would imagine. JS:                   Mostly happy tears and like some sometimes just like an overwhelming amount of gratitude just was like, oh my God, I can't believe I work here. KB:                 For sure. For sure. CB:                  It's a form of expression. So sometimes the expression comes through tears and giggles and yeah. You know? KB:                 Yeah. So how did you all come up with this concept of a queer friendly, trans friendly salon? Like what did you, why did you think it was important? Where did it come from? JS:                   Well, okay. It's kind of in story form. Um, so I worked at a hair salon. I worked in Manhattan Beach, California, which is kind of like, um, it's kind of, I should be very careful. It's conservative, it's a conservative town in my opinion. And um, and so I was, I was having conversations that were just not super valid to my experience of life and just like, you know what I called them like rich people problems, like, oh, I can't, I couldn't drive my Bentley today because it, so I'm driving my Range Rover, whatever. And I'm like, what? Like, and that kind of conversation was just starting to like really, really challenged me. So I would come home from work and would lay on the couch and be like, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to quit doing hair. Like I can't, I just can't do this anymore. And he would say to me often, like, you're, what you're doing is so important. Like you're doing, you're helping people with their image and all of these things. And I'm like, but am I like, is that a real thing? And it was kind of his idea. He was like, why don't you market yourself to more queer and trans folks instead of, you know, the folks that you have been working on. I think that you would like have more of a joyful experience. And I just kind of judged that. I was like, I don't think that that I can do that because I'm not trans and I, how can I possibly speak or help someone with a trans experience if I don't have one myself? And, uh, he's just like my biggest cheerleader ever. And he's like, well, you're good at what you do and you don't have to have a trans experience to give a really amazing haircut and to listen to how someone wants to be. How has someone, how the way somebody wants to express themselves, you know, you can listen to that and you can that. And I'm like, yeah, you're right, I can do that. And so it was really just the real conversation that he mentioned that we were like, okay, that's where it really started is that tiny little car. You remember that conversation? We had car. CB:                  I do. Yeah. And I, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't just like the Bentley conversations and whatnot. It was like fat shaming and body shaming and expression shaming that was really, you know, packaged up in that. And we started talking about expression and how, you know, she's got a huge background of, um, of meditation and wellness and spirituality in that sense. And that is what the essence of her hair practice is, is about expressing something beautiful that is inside and allowing it to be shown on the outside, whereas that wasn't, that wasn't really truly being captured or appreciated in her, um, in her realm. And I said, there's a community. KB:                 So I guess what's, what's your role in all this, Cal? Like where, how did you decide to come together with this vision, this inspiration, build what you're building now? CB:                  Like Jesse said, seeing an amazing resource and, um, and the capacity to serve a community that is really underserved and my own experience as a, as a trans masculine person. So I was raised and identified female for a very long time. Um, and then once I started my transition and started growing a beard and grooming myself, I didn't know how to navigate. I was terrified of barbershops, like barbershops really affirmed my gender identity, but it was also horrifying to me because there was so much gender performance that was happening there and there was so much masculinity and I didn't yet, um, I wasn't taught that, you know, I wasn't taught how to groom my beard and I wasn't taught the social cues of like, I was still trying to talk to people in the men's bathroom and they're like, no, no, no, you don't talk to anyone. That is totally against the rules here. So going into a place that was like totally male dominated, like I learned, I learned, okay, don't, don't speak, say as few words as possible. I also had a high voice and a different growth pattern of my facial hair that I was afraid of being clocked. So I have, um, you know, a lot of fear about being in this space and, um, and just saw a huge opportunity. KB:                 What, what is gender performing? Can you, I don't think I've ever heard that term before. You used it in the context of the barbershop. CB:                  Uh, gender performance. I don't know if I'll do it justice, but I'll communicated as I know it. Um, we're all constantly performing gender in some way or another as been told. Um, don't do that. That's not ladylike. You're, you've been cued that you're not performing gender "properly". Right. Um, so I think as a, as a trans person, gender performance feels like something that has to be taught, um, are for me as a trans person, I had to relearn my gender performance because I was taught to perform in a certain way, sit with your legs, cross, don't speak too loud, don't eat so messy. Um, a lot of things about like taking up space that women are not supposed to do. Um, so I had to learn a different, a different way to, um, to be perceived as male in my community. And I still don't perform gender, um, properly, if you will. And so I'm generally perceive as a gay man. Um, and then they're really confused when I have this beautiful feminine partner. Um, they're like, wait, but I thought you were a homosexual. I'm like, CB:                  It's like the best part. It's so fun. JS:                   I think your boyfriend is gay. Yeah. So what if he is. CB:                  Because they're reading my gender performance as feminine. JS:                   Right. CB:                  Um, I'm perceived as gay, we clack feminine with gay and it's just all fun to play with and in my perspective too. So, um, I don't know. Did that answer your question? KB:                 Totally! I mean, I guess so. So then your personal experiences, your communication with Jessie, you had this conversation and then you then what? I mean you just decided to, okay, we're going to quit our jobs and, and when did you really decide to kind of go for it? JS:                   Yeah, what you just said was like, I mean, it really is a decision. Like we, um, we decided, uh, in February (2018) we decided in February that we were going to do, this was the right after my birthday. And he was like, let's just do it. And I was like, okay, first things first we got to find a space. So from February to April, we searched for a space and that was our very first thing that we did. Um, we just kind of like roll the ball and started looking at rental spaces, commercial spaces. Neither of us had ever owned a business. We had no clue, what Everyone:        JS:                   We still have no clue what we're doing. We're like, how is this still open today? So they just decided, um, to start to and I was just like, let's just go step by step. Like we have a space. Then the next thing we do is decorate it or build it out. And the next thing we do is, you know, um, uh, business licenses and cosmetology licenses and all of these other things and like, so step by step it, I like in this thing to having a child. Nobody was given a manual. Nope. Even if you study child psychology or you studied early childhood development when you were a kid, like all bets are off, right? The heck you're doing. And I think it's the same as owning a business. Like you can study business all day long. I've been cutting hair for 17 years. I know how to do that. But like even if you, you study business, you still will need to know, like, you still have no idea what you're getting ready to get into. So we just decided and we let it teach us. And we're still kind of letting it teach us. KB:                 The concept of your space and what you were looking for, and you know, was it just any old place or was it a symbolic? I feel like that's a huge decision to make and you have to almost have a very specific vision for, for what's, to build a space like what you're building. CB:                  Oh my God, I love this things that we're in. The coolest thing, well let's say it was really important for both of us, um, to have a community driven space, a space that felt comfortable for people to just chill at, a place for people to not have to gender perform necessarily, um, or to perform in whatever way they wanted to. So, um, and just feel really comfortable in their expression. So we wanted a place that felt really ooey gooey and really nice and comfy. Um, and we found this space and that's a whole other story. But this, this space is a, we call it the teapot because it has a giant teapot on top JS:                   It's a hundred year old building. CB:                  Yup. It has a crazy rich history and it has been through its own transformation, um, many, many transformations. But essentially it was going to be ripped down. Um, the city had deemed it a public nuisance. There was, um, a whole bunch of folks, um, making their home in here, um, JS:                   AKA squatting. CB:                  Yup, they were squatting. Um, yeah, so they were, they were going to knock it down and our landlords actually purchased the building and um, and with the historic committee renovated it back up to its original. Um, it's whole original, beautiful, like in its best self. And that just was so perfect for us because, um, because of what that means for, for the Queer and Trans specifically community is like, we see that the Trans Community and the, I'm giving this really big overarching umbrella and we know there's a lot of like variation within this, but a lot of oftentimes the trans community is this kind of forgotten community that is not given the power, um, or recognition that it actually has. Right. And that's what happened to this space was no one was paying attention to it and no one was tending to it and no one was telling it. It was beautiful and powerful and amazing. And so it looked like trash. You know, it was, it was really falling apart and it wasn't in its power. Um, and of course it has these beautiful bones. It has this immense power and all it needed was, was folks to come and, and say, we see you, we got you, and we're going to help you build up. And there's a really beautiful power parallel there. Um, I think when this community is really honored for the power that it has, we believe that the capacity that we have to change the world and make the world a better place is UNfreaking believable. Like it's just an unreal, just like this space, what it's turned into. KB:                 I love that comparison, that, that transformation idea of the physical space, the physical person and all the, you know, the bones need, needs some tender loving care. But ultimately with some TLC can see how beautiful it can fall becoming. Yeah. I love, I love that comparison. That's awesome. JS:                   It's kind of perfect. That this is our, I mean like I see this, this space as our first space. Like I actually like Salon Bendors and needed this to be its first space because of all of the symbolism and all of their amazing ooey gooey energy that's in here. Um, and if we don't happen to keep this space, we know that, that we want to bring that energy with us in our next place. And if we open up to Benders or three Benders or however many, we still want to keep kind of like that, that, um, unique feel to the space. So even if it's like, you know, a new modern place or something like that, but keeping some kind of like really unique vibe to it because this is such a unique concept, you know? KB:                 Definitely. JS:                   Our building has to also kind of reflect that a little bit wherever we are. KB:                 Yeah. And I think it probably always will, whether it's modern or historic or contemporary it, you know, it's all about what's on the inside really. So I love the, and CB:                  I want to say one other thing that's on the inside that is really freaking awesome is beautiful, beautiful wood, um, hand crafted built by queer women. JS:                   Basically everything in here was, uh, created, built, made, um, sewn together. Like literally I designed every single thing in here. Um, was, was made by Queers and Trans folks, space for whole, we gave work to, to our own community and we searched high and low for them. KB:                 Yeah. Was that a hard thing to find? JS:                   No. Yeah. I mean it was, it at first it was, I was like, what, how am I going to find the like a wood worker or contractor? I mean how am I going to find all of these people in our community? And it just took literally asking like I had never really asked my community for anything and said like, Hey, I need this. And as soon as I did, people started showing up. So I thought it was going to be harder than it actually was. Okay. KB:                 Interesting because we think of like social media as the ultimate outlet of finding things and Google and all that stuff. But it's, it sounds to me like something that's unique about the queer community is the word of mouth and the smallness of it in a way where, you know, I know my personal experience of starting this podcast and this idea, anybody that I asked to be part of it is excited and they're excited because when you talk about it, you, you feel something different that maybe you know, a non queer person may not understand or feel. And that's the beautiful part about the community aspect. JS:                   Totally. Yeah, we have an amazing community with some amazing, amazing people inside of it. And like we have to, we have to build each other up KB:                 For sure. JS:                   And bring that brilliance out. And it's, it's the same thing that we're doing with hair. You feel like, oh you come in here and you feel like your hair's fine. Great. Let me, let me hook you up. KB:                 Yeah, totally. How you do think hair and health kind of go together and, and what that means maybe for you personally or maybe for some of your clients? JS:                   My Gosh, I just got goosebumps. I feel like this question is so loaded. KB:                 It's super loaded. Like I feel my own experience, you know, you know, asking that question. So I'd love to hear you know, you as the doers. JS:                   What a brilliant question. Thank you for that. Um, yeah, so I think there's two, there's two elements to this for, for me. Um, the way that I think that hair and health kind of come together is, is physically so I can actually physically feel in someone's hair if there is some health stuff happening, I can't diagnose anything. But after 17 years of doing hair, you kind of, you can kind of gather like, oh, this person could be in poor health for whatever reason. I don't know, but you can, you can tell these things. And then there's, there's emotional and mental health around that too. Um, and I mean I have a million stories that I can tell that kind of will sum this up. But really it's all about like you have to really look at the history of hair to really understand this. Every other culture, I mean every other culture besides American culture has some kind of depth to their hair. They have some kind of cultural like ritual or something around their hair. Like if they're unhealthy, they shaved their head and they, they cleanse themselves completely from the inside out and they're like, when my hair grows back and it is down to my hip, so we be healthy, again, like there's like all of these, these different, these different kind of like cultural things that other countries do. And Americans just use their hair like, uh, this, you know, superficial best assessory or KB:                 Right, almost like a luxury if you're going to a certain location, especially living in Los Angeles, you know, to get a trim costs sometimes $150 and it could barrier almost people JS:                   Exactly. When I think that we'd make it a little bit more accessible. Your hairstyle is, can actually provide you with some insight that you, you know, that you, you might need. Like I, I could, you know, today I was doing someone's hair and I was like, are you eating enough protein? And she's like, you know what? I stopped eating meat a long time ago and I've been feeling really lethargic and I could feel it in her hair. It was like I had done her hair before and it wasn't that brittle. It wasn't that dry. And this time around I was like, hmm. You know, and, and just that little tiny insight, I don't know, like I have no idea what's going on, but I just asked a question, you know, about her protein because our hair is made of protein. So if it's drying brittle, there could be some protein things happen in your body. And it just so happens she's like, you know what? That was what I needed to hear because I thought it was, I was, you know, bringing in enough protein, I don't want to have animal protein, but now I know I can up my dosage a little bit, you know, whatever. For my protein shake and just like, so I think there's so many ways that hair and health come together. Like I said, physically, emotionally and spiritually even and all of the things I think that like doing hair is, is so beneficial for my health and for others. Yeah. I don't know, that was not a rant. Everyone:        KB:                 The best rant. CB:                  I almost, I feel like I just heard a couple of stories that I feel it would be really amazing to share just talking about like we're queer hair and, and mental health and what some of those like cuts and things JS:                   I did, I did a haircut yesterday that it was just, I can't stop thinking about it still right now. And um, so this person comes in and she has very long hair and it's, she's, she's sits down in my chair and she just goes to cut my hair off. I mean like cut my hair off. And I was like, okay, well do you have a picture? Shows me like literally a pixie cut, like going from hair down to her hips to like the shortest hair and like right then and there, that is my first indicator of what's going on, you know, like what's happening. Why? So I sat with her for 45 minutes before her haircut and had a full on therapy session with her to see where she was and where she wanted to be like. And basically the whole thing was I have been under this hair because I have been afraid that I wasn't going to get the job that I needed and wanted. My security was literally going to be, um, I was going to have, I was not going to be able to eat if I had short hair. This is literally how her brain was going together. I needed it. This, I need this job so I'm going to grow my hair out and seem femme because I'm around people that do not like women with short hair. And she had been living like this for so long, so long and she was like, but my insides feel more masculine, although I identify as female. But my image just does isn't matching up. So it was a three hour haircut by the way. Three and a half hour haircut. And we cried many, many, many times. And we laughed. And it was like when she left, it was, I mean I just went home and just like floated KB:                 Spiritual. JS:                   Yeah, it really, it really was. And she left and she was like, she hugged me like a hundred times and was like, I love my hair. And almost like I don't give it a crap if I go to work tomorrow and nobody likes my hair because I am back, I'm back. You can see it and feel it. And I mean like, and, and honestly, this is one of so many stories, but now what was one of the fresh ones? JS, CB:            So good. So good. So rich. KB:                 Yeah. Well, I mean I, my personal story about hair and health is, I never knew what it meant to have a real relationship with a hairstylist until I knew what it meant to have a real relationship with hairstylists. Like, you know, my mom would schedule me appointments, I'd go to them, sometimes I'd let my hair grow forever. I had really, really, really long hair always. Um, and um, for me it was just kind of a task versus an experience. And when I was in Grad School, for, to be a PA, I, um, I looked up a place and looked up like queer LGBT hair people and I found Susan. And I show up to see Susan and I, my hair is down to like my mid back and I'm like, I'm ready to chop it. And I had a conversation with somebody fairly recently who expressed her experience with chopping her hair off and saying that it felt like her security blanket through my own personal stuff that I was going through. I was like, I do not want a security blanket right now. And I was always really scared to cut my hair off. I don't even really know why consciously if it was societal or my own insecurities or whatever. But um, honestly Susan changed my life every time I'd go to see her, I was excited to be there. It wasn't a task. It was a pleasure. And she listened to me. She, I mean, you're right, like touching somebody's hair, washing their hair, feeling there, the connection to their brain. I mean, it's so powerful. Um, so I, I honestly can't even imagine doing the work that you do crying every single day. JS:                   I joke about it. I'm like, okay, today's going to be the day that I go to work and I don't cry. Like it hasn't happened yet. JS, CB:            KB:                 And then the question is, when you were working in a different setting, were you having those experiences and, you know, what makes this so different I guess is the real question? JS:                   Absolutely. Yeah. No, I wasn't having these experiences. In fact, yeah, there were, there were tears but they were not tears of joy. They were tears of frustration and you know, and I like, I worked with some great people. Um, I had, uh, I had a really, really kind coworkers who I love so much and really great, amazing clients. I had like, I feel like I gathered around like the best of the best of the, of the South Bay clients and I had like a tiny little bubble. But what was happening was I wasn't seeing anyone new I, I felt like I was, I was in a bubble of where those people were sweet and kind and nice, but they weren't relating to the things that I was relating to. Like when I said that I had a trans boyfriend, I had to literally explain to every single person what that meant, which was an honor to me to be able to like share that, you know? And I was like, this is important so we should talk about it. And then at the same time, it's kind of like, at some point, I kind of want to go to work and just be like, this is my boyfriend. You know what I mean? Like I don't know. So I wasn't having the same experiences of having these mind blowing like every single day, every day, mind blowing hair appointments. It was like, hey, this person coming in for their six week hair appointment. And it was always like dynamic and lovely and beautiful and amazing. But that little, those little sprinkles on top, we're not there yet. CB:                  Like every time there's a new person on the book, it's like, oh my God, I wonder who they're going to be and what their story is going to be. JS:                   And like, oh, it's so excited. So excited. Do another person. No. Do you know that person? Oh my God. Who are they? How do they find those? What's their story? CB:                  Everyone is like a superstar that we just cannot wait to get to know. KB:                 And Cal, if you don't mind sharing the first time, maybe you had a particular getting your haircut that was meaningful or life changing or something different than just a regular haircut. CB:                  Yeah. Um, well I think I cut my hair and my mom gave me a bowl cut when I was very young. She was great. My mom and my mom is incredible. She's like one of my biggest supporters. Um, and as soon as I was able to say like, I want short hair, she was just like, okay, great and did it. Um, so there wasn't like a lot of drama and trauma around it. I was so happy. Um, I wanted to grow up to be Michael Jordan, so I was really hoping that that haircut was going to help. Uh, you know, I mean, I'm still working, I'm a b-ball skills, but I think what, what really, like the haircut experience that really has influenced me with Benders is when I first started my transition, I was so incredibly blessed to be in a community of amazing trans men. Um, I sought them out and found them immediately and ended up living with, uh, three other trans guys who really transformed and, and, and they taught me how to grow up into my own manhood. Um, and we would, um, we would sit around and cut each other's hair in exchange for six packs of beer. Um, the haircuts in the later in the evening were worse than the ones earlier in the evening. KB:                 Oh, just, just more creative. Everyone:        CB:                  Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Um, a little more flair, but it was, it was, you know, like we talked about incredibly intimate and in a great way for us to take care of each other. Um, we generally would do this on the same night that we would call it a T party. We would give each other our testosterone shots and do hair cuts for each other. And it was really like the things that we were scared to do, we would do for each other and we would do together. Um, it was really something. Yeah, I love those men. KB:                 That's beautiful. I see my, my goal is that every person on the planet has a story like that person or place or, or something that you are so comfortable, you don't even have to think about how comfortable you are. Yeah. So that's awesome that you found that. CB:                  And I just want to share one thing. Like I think that, um, you know, where I just want to like call out that we're having a very like assigned female at birth heavy conversation. And I also want to talk about Salon Benders is, is really one of, one of the most impeccable things that Jessie is at is she's a hard femme and she works really well with them and them. I mean, she does all sorts of expression. But one of the things that's really beautiful for her to, for me to watch her do is working with the Trans Feminine community. And really our, our space does, you know, we welcome all and, and we really hold femininity in a, in a, in a really strong, um, an elevated position. It's really important because just as much as it is powerful for somebody who's been told that they need to have long hair to get it cut, for someone who has not been taught how to care for their hair or their skin or their makeup or their, their, their presentation when they are able to come into a space and she says, bring your curling iron, bring your makeup, bring, bring your tools and I will show you how to use them. JS:                   Well, the fact, here's the thing, what's m stem folks, right? I mean it takes, I don't know, I'm probably, well, this is a generalization. It can sometimes take a little bit longer to do "femme things", right? CB:                  Like there's a different expectation. There's a higher expectation of, okay, you're going to be putting yourself together. JS:                   Right. And I think that like even cis women, have no idea how to care for their skin and how to care for their hair. Often time, you know, I feel like I have a lot of, um, a lot of compassion for the Trans Feminine Community because I taught, um, I started off teaching cis women how to do their makeup and skincare and like, like trans women would come in and say like, Oh, you know, shame themselves, like, I should know more about this. And you know, like I, I really am bad at my makeup and I really don't have any like routines. I don't even know what to buy. I'm like, sister, nobody does. Like, it's not as trans woman thing that you don't know how to like get her for your skin and hair. It's, you know, and so that right there is like really something that I like to, I like to talk to, to Trans Feminine folks about is that you don't need to be ashamed that you don't understand how to do your makeup and hair. Um, because most of us we have to learn somewhere and most of us did your, you know, did your mom, my mother didn't sit me down and say, this is how you do a wing tip eyeliner. They be like, what is a wing tip eyeliner? Like what are you talking about? KB:                 No idea. CB:                  And I still don't know. JS:                   Exactly. And that's, I mean, and so like I just, I feel like I'm, I really revel in my femininity. I love being female. I love the fact that like I, and the way that I am female, I like to walk into a room today. Literally I have a dress and boots on and I think like, I love that I actually got a compliment today. I was on my bike with my fanny pack on and my hat and someone said, you look adorable and sexy at the same time. And I'm like score. Like I'm killing it today. So I don't know. I just feel like the, I like to play around in femininity, whether it's someone who has short hair, someone who has long hair, someone who wears makeup, someone who doesn't wear makeup. I like to meet people where they are CB:                  It's about expressions. You want to know how to do a wing tip eyeliner, great. And if you don't, great. KB:                 Yeah, I mean I think, I think you hit the nail on the head with, you got up today, put yourself together in the way that you wanted to and you, not only did other people perceive your confidence and your beauty and your hotness, but you owned that enough where somebody noticed it. And I think that's a huge part of people feeling comfortable either with the right haircut or the wing tip or the right or the right skincare. And you know, again, creating that space where they never had the opportunity to either ask people or feel comfortable saying, I really just don't know how to do this. Please help me. Because you're constantly be, there's all this negative energy. And this negativity behind superficiality, unfortunately. And, and, and for the queer community, I think owning your expression is, is, is so much more than your physical self. CB:                  When it comes from that space of owning it and expressing it, it's not from a place of shame of I was told that I have to do this or I want to whatever. It's like truly who are you and what, what do you want the world to see of you? And how can we help? It doesn't matter where you came from or what somebody told you. It's, it's what, who, who are you, that's, that's the whole point. KB:                 Right. Exactly. And I think, I think one thing that I'm picking up is that it doesn't really matter how you identify. Um, it's understanding how you identify and understanding that it's a process of course, but you know, for you, Jessie, you love being a woman. You feel woman, but it's all your feeling. I mean, nobody can replicate that feeling. And, and I think the problem with all the negativity in the world is, unfortunately, it, it just brings everyone down. JS:                   Totally. And it doesn't allow you to play in your expression the there's not, if you're not, you do not live as a man or as a woman. It's kind of like, well you know, well like I was having a conversation with my sister that I still am thinking about and she's like, but femininity is this and masculinity is this. Like she's like, when I think of Marilyn Monroe, I think of pure femininity. When I think of Marilyn Monroe, I'm like that's a bad bitch. Like she was a curvy girl that was like, I don't give a shit what anybody says. This is who I'm going to be. This is how good and like to me that is also feminine. But I see her see femininity differently than than my sister and also everyone else in the world. So I like to just ask people like describe to me how you feel. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with masculine and feminine. You can be colors for all I care, flavors of ice cream. Like I can pick up people's expression and how they want to look just by having like a conversation. No one asks you that, hey, how did you want to be perceived today to today? Because tomorrow could be a totally different thing. And just asking someone that question has unlocked so many conversations in my chair, at least it's been pretty spectacular. KB:                 And that's what's awesome about being alive is figuring all that stuff out. JS:                   Isn't that the point? KB:                 And if you want to pretend to know what femininity is all the power to you, mark. And we did a great job. They taught everybody how we're supposed to be the movies, all that jazz. But in reality, when you're at home alone thinking about it, that's what's really meaningful. So yeah. So can you tell us a little bit, I'm going to shift gears a little bit. Tell us a little bit about not only the hair side of things, but some of it, some other things that you're doing over at, at Benders. CB:                  Yeah. Um, we have some amazing things happening and one of the many amazing things which we have invited many people from the community who are excellent in their craft to come and share their knowledge with our amazing community. So we have a beautiful backyard space. It is absolutely stunning. It has all the who we can me feels, um, that the inside of the salon has. And it feels like a wonderful little community space. And we've had a number of events back there. We've run a queer self defense class, a clothing swap. Um, yeah, we have a bike ride that we do on the first wait second, second Tuesday of every month. Yes. We have a kickball team? Yeah, we have a kickball team. So we're healing some sports team trauma wounds together. Yeah. KB:                 Yeah. That's a whole different episode. I think. JS :                  We did a GSA art show. CB:                  That was amazing to me. That's a whole other... JS:                   12 year olds coming in telling, uh, telling us about their coming out stories, um, doing arts singing. CB:                  …who are also mentored by 20 year olds who have been coming into this space so they have more on this...Anyway, there's, there's so much. Anyway, there are young queer artists. So are we. We love art. We love meditation. We were forms of expression that, um, are holistic and enriching. And, um, and you know, I, I know that like being in the bars as another sense of community, we do have our community and I'm not shaming or hating on that. That is a whole other side. But we want to kind of come out into the light and say like, let's offer something else, too, is if you only place... JS:                   Because there's tons of bars, there's, yeah, I mean I can count five bars on Broadway, CB:                  Right, within five blocks JS:                   Exactly. I can't tell you one clear space that isn't centered around alcohol. CB:                  And so that's the lgbt center. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Which we, we love the center and we kind of share resources with them. So. Awesome. Anyway, um, yeah, if you were running some community events, we have them on our calendar. Um, and we essentially, we know how powerful it is to have space and that will, now that we have space, we want to share it with our community who took part in getting us to where we are. KB:                 I'm a cup is half full kind of gal, but I am curious to know if you've had any negative push back when you were starting Benders from, you know, family, friends, community or any kind of challenges that maybe were unexpected, um, with your excitement about this vision. JS :                  Yeah, I'd like to start off with that. I like, I like the sandwich technique, so there's, you know, the positive, negative, positive. So I'm going to start off with a positive. Our parents think we're freaking rock stars. Okay. So we told our parents and both of them are like our moms, both of our moms were like, yes. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So that was kind of awesome. And just to have the support of your mother when you're thinking about changing your whole entire life around that gave both of us. Yeah. CB:                  Priceless. JS:                   I mean, such, such an amazing thing. So, um, but I got a lot, I actually did get a lot of, um, I don't know if I would call it negative feedback, but I got a lot of, um, I experienced a lot of doubt. So I started talking to my, some of my clients, some of my clients were amazing and so supportive and some of them come to Benders now I'm all the way from, you know, 20 miles away, which is not that far. You drive with traffic, it's getting crazy out here. So, but then there was like a breadth, the client and, and people that were like, so you really think that's actually gonna like take off? Like how are you actually going to make money doing that? That literally was my, that was like the number one question was like, how are you actually going to make money doing that? Like, so are you going to, oh, I like this one too. Are you going to let quote unquote regular people go there? Um, what regular people, they really are not going to be successful. Like, so that was, um, I mean, and I still, I still to this day get that question. Um, and yeah, so I have had, I personally have had some kind of like some, some serious doubt. Um, and, and then that's like, to me out a little bit, I can't even mind. Like there was definite, there were, there were definitely times where I would be sitting across from like three cis white dudes. Sorry. But it's true on it that are like, so y'all tell me exactly what your, you know, what your plans are. And I'm like, oh no, like do some cool shit. Like, you know, like, and they're like, yeah, that's not going to work but you're not going to be able to do that. Um, and we, I don't know that this is true 100% true, but I feel also that like when we were looking for spaces, um, when we would actually say like, this is what we're doing. I think that there were some people, landlords that were kind of like a, I don't know if we want to rent you. Not, not, maybe cause we look young maybe because this is our first business. Maybe because it was the business model, I don't know. But we definitely did get some pushback, in some, and some nos, from several people before our yes. CB:                  And, and I would also say I think when, when probed, when I would probe people about it a lot of, particularly though there were a lot of like gay identifying people who said Long Beach doesn't need that. Oh yeah. That was another thing too. Like, oh we don't need that. Like every place is a gay place in Long Beach or like, well there's plenty of gay friendly things and gay owned businesses but queer and trans is a different, you know, it's a whole different, there is, there is a lot of gay male spaces. Right? JS:                   Right. But in Long Beach there is, there is zero queer and trans places that would not have found CB:                  Not true. Wide Eyes Open Palms is the exception of that right now. There's a queer coffee shop. JS:                   Yep. So two queer places. Everyone:        CB:                  And Long Beach is really queer. JS:                   And so people were like, yeah, you're not going to really need that. But you know, it seems that there is a need for this where it's, you know, CB:                  People are not coming here saying they were looking. JS:                   So where did you find this? Oh, we yelped queer hair salons, and I've been yelping forever, and finally something popped up. KB:                 Yeah. I mean, again, like I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago before I met you guys. I looked up queer salons in LA and there's one, that I know of and that's where every queer person that goes to a salon goes to whether you're a celebrity or regular person. JS :                  Exactly. Yep. Exactly. KB:                 It's, it's such an interesting, um, concept that's hard to explain, I think to the general population, the reasoning behind why spaces are important. Um, and I think it also comes back to the question of my normal versus your normal versus other people's normals and other people never really being questioned at the fact that my normal might be different than your normal. Um, and I think once you plant that seed, it's a little bit easier to have, to build on those conversations. It's so important to have queer spaces and it's hard to explain that. Speaker 4:       Yeah. And one of the things that we like to say about our space too is that like, we do realize that it's really, really important to have when your spaces, and I,, personally think it's, it's equally as important to have a message of integration. So I like in our space, we actually do not, um, we do not call ourselves or identify as a safe space. We like to identify as a brave space. And so we like to ask people to come in here regardless of their orientation or their gender expression or who they are and come in with, with bravery on their backs if they can and be brave enough to show up as themselves and have, you know, conversations with people that may or may not look like that, you know, somebody that may or may not look "normal" to them, you know, whether they're gay, straight, queer, whatever, whatever that have a conversation, um, about, about themselves and listen to someone else. And so that, that takes some courage to do that. It takes some courage for as a straight person to walk in here and say, Hey, I like what you're doing. Can I get my haircut here? KB:                 Sure New Speaker:  That takes courage. It takes courage for, you know, someone who's, uh, who's, um, not yet currently out as trans to come in here and say, hey, I, you know, I know I look like this, but this is actually my, the name that I want to go by and I would like for you to do my hair that takes courage. So you must be brave to kind of, you know, to walk through this space, kind of, you know, saying that and I, I think that it is important for us to have queer spaces AND we want to integrate too. CB:                  And, and I think the piece that like, it is a piece of, of, of integration and the place has been intentionally designed to make queers comfortable. There is one bathroom. JS:                   Yup. Yeah. CB:                  The literature is queer. Um, you know... JS:                   We cater to people... New Speaker:  We ask people to display their pronouns. We display our own pronouns. We do the thing, you know, if, if your a credit card has a different name on it, ain't nobody going to give some weird look or whatever, you know, just this, these, there are barriers to full access to quality service that knocked down their capacity of being brave because if I've been, if I've, if I've been, you know, kind of smacked around three times, by the time I'm sitting down in my chair, you're saying your name is what, and they have to choose which bathroom they're going to go to. And there's a vogue magazine with a Victoria secret model on the Friday. KB:                 Boooo, booo Victoria Secret. JS:                   Exactly right. Like, have any magazines in our space at all. We do not even have one magazine. CB:                  And then there spaces that have things like this and they're saying, oh, we're LGBT friendly because they want LGBT dollars. JS:                   They're saying, I'm going to stop, get flag out on the front of here and, and totally say I'm okay with everybody, but there's still misgendering people and they're still not, you know, fully affirming someone's true, you know, or uh, or even trying to affirm. CB:                  Sure. JS:                   It's an expression. CB:                  The intention is there and we do. We know that that is powerful because in a day and age where your, your politicians may not be taking care of your community, we get to vote in all other sorts of ways. We need to vote with our commerce. We get to vote to with, with our expression, we get to vote to say, I like this business. I would like to like it to stay there. JS:                   I want to spend my money now. CB:                  So we, we've, we want to be very, very open about what our values are and say when here supporting us this is what you're supporting. You're supporting the queers who built this, you're supporting the families who run this. Um, you're supporting expression and, and bravery. KB:                 Yeah. I mean I think it's so multilayered. I think, you know, the biggest thing that I heard from that is you're empowering people and we're constantly being shoved deeper and deeper down, so when we try to get up, it's like, so hard to see the light. Everyone:        Yeah. You get tired of getting up. KB:                 Because you don't have the same resources as the person next to you. And that's very real. But what I love about what you're doing is you are teaching people to feel empowered and confident and confident in who they are. Um, not only physically on the outside but really just how, who they are on the inside and to express that. But it's hard. It's hard out there. JS :                  I was telling that the person that I was cutting their hair last night, um, about like when she was wanting to cut her hair really short and she's like, I did this so I wasn't visible. And I said, let's talk about your visibility, about how important your visibility is. And I had this whole conversation with her and I said, look, your visibility is important because of the people, the young kids that were in here just last night that got to come into our business and see a trans person. And as a queer woman of color, only in this amazing space, those kids saw my visibility could have changed someone's life yesterday or the day when those kids came in here. And same with Cal. Some, you know, trans folks are going to look at him and say, look like it trans child and look at, that's what trends could look like. That's what queer women of color could look like. That's why visibility is important, KB:                 Right? As great as this time is in terms of quote trans visibility, now we have to remind ourselves that what we see out there isn't representative of all trans people and it can become the norm just like everything else is, you know, put into little boxes. You know, there's so much more to the community than what you see on TV. JS :                  Right? Exactly. This is what it could look like and then you can make your own expression. You can make your own, you know, whatever it is that you want, whatever it is, however you want to be, you can create that for yourself. And that's basically the message that I, I really want to share with my community and also like with the children of my community to like, whatever you want, however you want, however you want to look. That is possible. All of the things are possible. CB:                  We have to figure out how to, how to knock that down together to do it with, you know, JS:                   At least we can talk about it openly. Like, yeah, so important. KB:                 If we can affect one person telling him it's just going to keep growing and growing. So that's exactly. So what's the future of Salon Benders? CB:                  First thing that is very exciting, which is great to talk about barriers is this week we do have, um, we do have a brand of excellence and we have put a lot of money into this business. And so our prices reflect that quality that, uh, that is the worth of what we do. And we know that not everyone in our community can access that. So what we're so excited about is I have just started an apprenticeship program. Um, so starting in the new year, I will be able to provide low cost cuts, um, for folks one or two days a week. Um, so that will, uh, be a really exciting addition and we're, we're really excited to pilot it because we know one of, one of the big things that affects our community is employability. Um, and we do believe that cutting hair is an amazing trade and skill. Um, and we'd like to pilot this to potentially in the future be a teaching salon as well, so we can help employ, um, other amazing people from our community. Um, JS:                   So Cal will be my first different apprentice. KB:                 Live and learn both of you. JS and CB:      That's right. Yeah. JS:                   That's coming up in the future, which is really, really awesome. Yeah. We're hearing the call for exercise and so we're queer movement and I just love that just having more, um, more physical activity happening together as a, um, as a group and um, KB:                 ...and not being shamed for it. Everyone:        All sorts of different body shake pay. Exactly. Yeah. CB:                  All of it is kind of transformable and it's based on what the community has come forth and saying, this is what I want to provide, or this is what I want to see. So check back with our website salonbenders.com. There's a calendar page that you can click into and see what we're doing. You can follow us on facebook or Instagram, um, @salonbenders and we're actually a farre better at communicating events via those, uh, those, those, um, platforms. JS :                  So the other thing too about the future I think is, um, my hope for the future of Benders is that we grow. I want people to bite my idea, our idea. I want people to steal this. I really do. Or I want somebody to just say, hey, I want to open a Salon Benders and perhaps we can become a franchise. Um, I want to, for me personally, I would like to, um, teach what we're doing here. Um, maybe in a public speaking for like, whether it's, whether it's for hairstylists all over, at hair shows or even just in like a beauty colleges coming in and talking about like, um, like LGBT hair, um, LGBTQIA hair, you know, um, I would like to definitely share this message as much as possible, which is why, you know, this, this podcast is really like, we're like, yeah, absolutely. I, we hope some hairstylist or many hairstylists hear this and say, Oh, I don't even know about that and get in contact with us. CB:                  And it's something that we're already doing. So we, we have already, we've already done some training for, um, for a couple of stylists, which has been really, really, really monumental. Um, and actually Kerin and I met, um, through, uh, I did some, uh, education to up and coming physicians assistants, practitioner... KB:                 Physician assistants. CB:                  ...and see, so it's something that we're already doing and we would really like to do more, and we really appreciate having Salon Benders as a platform to do education, to bridge the gap and bringing, um, more, more practitioners in many fields who are excellent in their fields, competency in queer and trans issues, and serving this community with greater care. KB:                 And you know, what I've learned is that once you start the conversation, people want to listen and they might be nervous or not know what you're talking about at first, but as long as you continue the conversation; You're right, you set an example, um, you know, for others to, to be great. So, yeah. And it's a tough time right now. I think it's hard to maintain positivity, but meeting individuals like you have really helped me to keep myself in line with all the beautiful things that are going on in the world as well. JS :                  We appreciate it. CB:                  Every shadow comes from a light baby. JS:                   The bigger the shadown, the bigger the light. Everyone:        Yeah. Yup. You know. Awesome JS :                  We really do appreciate that. Like, I, it's not that right there is worth everything. Yeah, exactly. It's just, you know, we can just touch one heart that's enough. KB:                 Exactly that. Exactly. I mean, it's tough out there. Yep. Yeah. We just beat ourselves. JS:                   We have to stick together. KB:                 Exactly. JS:                   We have to empower one another? It's not, it's like not an option right now. It's just not. We have to tell each other, how much we love each other, and how amazing we are and remind ourselves and our community how, how powerful we are. CB:                  We're awesome. JS:                   We're awesome. CB:                  We're awesome. JS:                   Best community ever. ***END INTERVIEW*** ***CONCLUSION: KB ONLY*** For information about future episodes or to contact us, please visit us at our website www.queermeducation.com or email us at queermeducation@gmail.com ***OUTRO MUSIC***  

Brooke Elder:  00:01   When it comes to building a business online, we are surrounded with the idea that the only way to be successful is to hustle our way to the top and bugged everyone you know we are on a mission to prove it doesn't have to be that way. Welcome to the authentic influencer podcast where authenticity is king and prophet or a side effect. My name is Brooke Elder and I'm Nicole Easton. With over 20 years experience in direct sales and digital marketing. We've helped thousands of women learn that being an authentic influencer is the key to success. Join US each week as we bring you new ideas of strategies and tips on how to build a purpose driven business that is authentic to you. Brooke Elder:  00:40  Hey guys. Welcome to episode the three and the title of the episode three is you are not your company and this is one of my favorite things to talk about. NiCole Easton: 00:52 Yeah, I'm guessing that this is ruffling feathers right now. Brooke Elder:  00:57    I think that's why I like you do like to rebel feathers, don't you? I do. And so we're gonna. Just dive right in and we're going to talk about what it means to be you are at your company, so I totally look at this from a marketing perspective because like I really just have a marketing break and so when you're sitting there maybe convention or you're sitting at your upline is teaching you something or maybe you're on a like a, a company training or something and your company says that your product is for everyone. Let me give you an example. I have heard it's for everyone with the nose I have heard is for everyone was skin. NiCole Easton:   01:44   It's for everyone with a get. Brooke Elder:   01:47 Yep. And let me tell you, when you market to everyone you market to no one and when I very first heard that, I was like, what? That doesn't make any sense, but really when you're marketing to everyone, you're not diving into pain points here. Like the last episode we talked about problem, agitate, solve. Like you're not finding that problem that you solve and you're not signing a niche. It's like I'm going out and standing out on the corner and like handing out flyers and stuff to everybody that passes by, like who knows if they're your ideal customer or client or whatever. You have no idea. It's just like throwing money away, you know? Well, not only that you are NiCole Easton: 02:37  in your marketing efforts, your not standing out at all, but how about the fact that you're in competition with everyone else selling that product? Like exactly how do you differentiate yourself and you can't differentiate yourself when you subscribe to and preach everything that's coming from the company. That doesn't mean you have to hide the company necessarily or, or be ashamed of it. It just that, that the way that their marketing isn't necessarily the way that you need to mark it. And when I say market, I mean message or talk or you know, the just the experience that you provide for the people that you are wanting to engage with you and either buy from you or join your team. Brooke Elder:   03:15  Right? Exactly. And I mean, if you think about it logistically, of course your company has to have that kind of message because they can't go out and say, oh well you need to look for women who are in this age range, who have this problem because then everyone is marketing to that kind of person. You know? So what you need to do is you need to figure out for you what is that? What does your market look like? Who are the people that you want to read? NiCole Easton:   03:41   As you say that, I recognize that the company is trying to let everybody know that everybody has an opportunity to use this product and it's true, but you can't talk to everybody at the same time. And it's the same thing with pain points. You can't rattle off a million pain points and then hope that somebody latches on or, or resonates with one of them. But because what happens is you lose credibility. I'll give you an example. So if you are marketing a skincare product and you're like, do you have fine lines, wrinkles, oily skin, dry skin, acne, rosacea, w x, Y, Z, whatever it is. And you're saying this solves it all. When you say that you have the magic formula and you have a magic pill or magic cream, you instantly lose credibility because all you're doing is trying to get them to buy your product or your opportunity at any cost, regardless of what really matters to them. And when you speak to one thing and you you specialize in area. For those of you who don't know what niche means, that means a specialty market as an isolated market genre. Something really specific and narrow down. When you do that, you're speaking. Those people feel like they're speaking directly to you and we've all seen those ads are like, how do they know what I think? And you can create the same thing in your own little world. Brooke Elder:  05:06   Yes, exactly. And that was really one of our favorite things that we do with our clients is we help them figure that out and this really helping people find their gifts, their talents, the things that they are good at, the things that they love, that they could do 24 slash seven and never get tired of it. And how they can put that into their business. So then what it is, I say this all the time using your network marketing business as a tool to build your business because that's what it is. When you can build a business around the things that you love, you're never going to get burned out. NiCole Easton:     05:42   So often we are looking for inspiration and we're trying to figure out like, okay, what do I talk about today? What is my strategy today? And we go to our team page or to corporate website or we go to Google and we look up stuff or maybe we look other people's testimonials, but the fact is is that if you can find what you're really good at and what you're innately drawn to, inspiration is a lot closer than a google search bar. It's right in your heart and you will find yourself being inspired and you'll have more ideas than you can actually put into action when you're in your lane. Brooke Elder:     06:17    Exactly. And that was good. That was really good. That's what I'm here for. Sometimes I interrupt you and sometimes I have golden nuggets, so you're welcome. Well, that definitely Goldman right there. NiCole Easton:    06:35    So what does it take to be a successful network marketing professional? Besides passion? Brooke Elder:    06:45     Well, it takes, just understanding what their, what you're passionate about, and then creating a business around that. So let's give some examples of some of our clients because I think that will help our listeners kind of wrap their head around this because this is very different from anything else that anyone, like any network marketing coach or like your upline or your network marketing company. No one's teaching you this because they don't want to teach how you can actually create your own business around yourself. NiCole Easton:   07:15    You know, just a really quick disclaimer. I just want to be upfront and since this is one of our introductory episodes, it's good to just get it out in the air right now. When we talk about outlining company, we're not saying it like it's a dirty word and we're not trying to diss on your upline or maybe you are the upline in your teaching stuff that we're not teaching. Remember where the rebels? We're the weird ones. Um, you know, we're the ones that are, that are kind of rocking the boat, shaking it up a little bit, and I'm going to tell you, if you follow our lead, you will find success, but you can't take it personal. You can't think that, oh, I'm not going to listen to them and you're going to miss out on the goodness because you're too worried that we are like dissing you or that somehow we are knocking what has worked because stuff that people teach does work for some people. And you will hear this, a resounding, this message resounding through all of our podcasts and everything that you hear from us is that we believe that it does work for some people. What we're trying to do is help you find what will work for you no matter what. So I'm sorry to go off on that soap box. You will find that. I will do that often. I apologize in advance, but sorry, I'm not sorry. Go ahead Brooke. Brooke Elder: 08:33 So what some of our clients have done. So the first word that comes to mind is carrie and she loves nutrition. Um, I don't know if we should say what company she's with. She's with the health and wellness company. It's green ish. There you go. It starts in a and she loves her company and loves the products that they have, but she's very much into nutrition and she's built this whole movement around diet disruption and how you can really, she's, her goal is to come in and say, no, you don't have to go on a diet, change your lifestyle and look, this is what you can do and how eat complete. I'm not going to like go off her soap box. But um, she was able to find this whole idea of how she could use her network marketing company as a part of what she's doing and a part of her messaging because she saw problem that she knew how to solve as she gets solved with her network marketing company. So marrying those two ideas together is what's really steam boating her and making her just thrive. NiCole Easton: 09:41 Now I'm going to explain the differentiation and where she added rocket fuel for her efforts. She, um, she started out by using. Oh, I almost said the word using the company's nutritional program. It's like a 30 day cleanse. If you're with this company, you know exactly what I'm talking about and the reason we don't want to say the company is because we don't want to like bash anyone or just going back to my disclaimer earlier, but she was putting people into that program and it did work for many people, but the magic happened when she said, you know what? You're onto something. Here. I am passionate about it. That's how I've been already running my business, but I'm going to do a twist on it and I'm going to do my own nutritional program. And so when she launched her own version of it that had her exact specifications and the way that she likes to coach, she doubled her interaction. She had her. She doubled the productivity of her very best month and she is more connected and more passionate and more driven than ever before. Brooke Elder: 10:42  And this is just in a matter of like six short weeks and so it doesn't like you don't. If you're in health and wellness. I don't want you to think, oh, I have to go and create my own thing and stuff like that. Like you don't have to copy what she did because it's all about finding what is authentic to you and what you are. So do you want to talk about Luis Louise is a great example. NiCole Easton: 11:05  First of all, I absolutely just love her as a person, but her mission and what she's about is, it's actually the complete opposite of health. Nutrition is actually a physical product that she buys her jewelry, but she doesn't want to just sell jewelry. She wants to inspire women that maybe in, in like the world's view aren't the traditional model of beauty. They're not. Supermodels are not thin. She is empowering women to feel beautiful and be comfortable in the skin there. And no matter what their weight size, um, hair color, hair color, yes. The, her, that's a good one. Um, no matter what their outward, you know, what ever their outward appearances is, that you can compliment it. You highlight your beauty and you can be basically like a diva no matter what. And that is her mission. And it is amazing to see her sore and just thrive in that area. Brooke Elder: 12:05 So those are two really good examples. So you can start thinking about like what is your mission, what's your purpose? What is the thing that you want? What is the messaging that you want to put out there based on your products? When I'm. So I used to be with a company that is actually no longer, but it was all about getting the family together and it was products that we're bringing people together to eat, like through fondue and through cooking and grilling and all of this stuff. And they had different seasonings and stuff. And with all of this it was my favorite thing because my mission was to help families come together and so I was able to use my product that I was selling as a part of my overall mission of how can I get families to come together and sit down and have a meal together because that doesn't happen anymore. Brooke Elder:12:58 And so when you find that thing that's like, this is my mission and this is what happens. The interesting thing is when we do this with some of our clients is they figure out this is my passion and my company does not align with that, and so they end up switching companies, but then when they do like Kelsey comes to mind and how she was with one company and it, she realized that that was not what her passion was and when she made that switch, she was able to quit her job and stay home with her kids in a matter of about four months. Yeah, she went from let's just. NiCole Easton: 13:34 I'll give them some hard numbers. She went from making $300 a month in the first company to switching companies starting all over and within two months making. How much is it? Five figures in one month. So pretty significant. It's amazing what happens when you finish this. Brooke Elder: 13:51  What happens really when you align that you align your passion with your company and it's put positioning yourself as not your company. You're positioning yourself as this is my mission, this is my purpose, this is who I authentically am, and you just so happen to have a network marketing product that supports that. NiCole Easton: 14:12  Yeah. I think this is a hard concept for people to get their heads around because I'm in adolescence when we're still figuring out who we are. We're asked to decide who we're going to be. Right, and especially now like I, I am a small group leader to sophomore girls and the amount of pressure that they have to figure out what they're going to do and what they're going to be for the rest of their life at 15 years old is just. It's a. it's overwhelming and to try and figure that out and decide what you're going to do longterm, you're forced to go in and invest a four year education and thousands of dollars into this thing that you've never really done and you don't know if it's going to set you on fire and it's going to help you maintain that passion through your entire life. NiCole Easton: 14:59 And so we hear a lot of times our clients and people that are in our world ask, okay, that's all good and well, but how do I figure out what I'm good at and what is my passion like I've never even thought outside of what it's required for me to make money. And maybe that's what maybe that, that unsettleness and discontent is actually what motivated you to get into your network marketing company. Maybe you just wanting to do something that was on your own and you know that your effort would create something that would benefit you and that you could share with others. And maybe that desire to help others is really what inspired you to start your business. So I'm broke. How do we find that passion? Brooke Elder:  15:43  Well, I think it's, if you look back to all of the jobs that you've had and all the experiences that you've had, there's going to be certain things that are going to stand out to you. Like, oh, I loved this part of it. You know, talking about knowing, wanting to know or having to know what you want to be for the rest of your life when you're 15. Like I decided to be an elementary school teacher and I was actually trying to decide between a couple of different careers and Nicole, I don't know if you even know this, but the reason why I picked elementary education was because I got a scholarship so that helps. They would pay my school if I became a teacher. And I was like, all right, guess I'm going to be a teacher and I've always loved teaching and not something that I'm passionate about and that's why I love doing these podcasts and the helping students through our program and just being able to teach because that, that's something that is kind of ingrained in me. Brooke Elder:   16:39   But when I started looking at all the things, I was only a teacher for four years because I wanted to be a stay at home mom and then all of that and got into online marketing and loved that. So now I have marketing and teaching, you know? Um, it's interesting because people ask me now because I like, I could talk marketing all day long and they're like, oh, did you go to school for that? And I thought I didn't even know that it even liked marketing back then. That's right. At the same exact experience. Yeah. So it's, you find the things that you love through the different jobs that you have, the different experiences you have. And I love all of those things. Like when you, when you finally have found your place where you're like, this is it, and then you look back and you're like, how did I get here? Brooke Elder:  17:22    And you think, oh well because of this decision and because of this decision I learned this and this about myself. And so it's taking that time, like I love taking time in the shower to just sit and think about these kinds of things because really, I mean any of you have kids know, like you get no alone time and so that maybe in the shower, maybe in the shower. So the shower is my time to like really think and ponder these things. And so we have for your aim today of what you are going to be doing to help your business and aim in your business today is to think about like previous jobs you've had, things that you love. Just take some time to ponder about it. Maybe if you're sitting waiting for your kids to get out of school or something like that. Find some time where you can just sit and think like, what are specific things that you love. NiCole Easton: 18:19  Yeah. And what is the common thread that you see throughout the previous parts of your life that you either enjoyed or didn't enjoy? And it's amazing how, like if we figured out that we don't have to do the stuff that we hate doing, it's amazing that we can create this reality and find the thing that we absolutely love to do and doesn't feel like work anymore. And that's when we show up best in the world and we really serve our purpose. So, the homework for you guys today and we want to hear your feedback. We want to hear from you. You can write us a review and leave it in the comments there below, or you can engage on our facebook group and in there you can share and actually I think what we should do, Brooke, is we should put a prompt with each homework assignment for the next week or whatever in our group. So if you're listening to this podcast when it's being launched, you guys can go in and interact and if you're not, you can go in and search the group for this episode three and in episode three's topic you can go ahead and comment it and chime in below wherever we put the homework. Brooke Elder:    19:19   So awesome. And we'll just make sure that we put links in the show notes for all of that. NiCole Easton:   19:23    Oh, perfect. Yeah, so we want you to just take some time and if it's right now that are actually acting right now is the absolute best possible scenario. So if you have time right now, grab a piece of paper and write out three things that you absolutely love to do and could you all day. It doesn't matter if it's cooking, knitting, I mean anything. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be something that you think you can monetize at this point. Just write out three things that you love to do. Then make a list of the three things that people most often ask you advice about. These are the things that people see you as an expert in and so it could be something around your company. It could not be. It could be that you are known for, you know, knowing a lot about nutrition or maybe you're a spin a spin instructor or maybe you are like the best scrap or whatever it is. Right? Those three things down, and then I want you to look over those things and just really reflect on them as well as like the patterns in your life and start to come together with an idea of what you may be able to do that could really build a business that's very hard centered Brooke Elder:  20:32  Because when you do that, you are staying authentic to who you are and really that's when you are successful is when you can stay authentic to you and you put your true self out there. That's what is gonna make people attracted to you. That's what is going to bring people in into your world and they're going to see you as the authority and they're going to listen to you. NiCole Easton: 20:58   So besides your homework, make sure that you share this with your team. If you're a leader or share with your leaders, if you want your team to know about it, and if this is your first time listening to our podcast, we want you to go to social tenacity.com, forward slash gift where we have a special free gift for you and, um, you will find lots of Info and value there. Brooke Elder: 21:20   So remember, you are not your company. You are an amazing person. Have awesome things to bring to the world. So let's tap into that and let's really make a business that is centered around you and your gifts and talents. NiCole Easton:  21:38   This is how you become an authentic influencer. Brooke Elder:  21:41  This was an episode of authentic influencer podcast. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe so you can miss an episode. And most of all share this with your team. We're on a mission to change spammy network marketers into authentic influences.  

What's going on everybody? Hey, this is Coulton woods and I want to welcome you to another episode of learning from the experts, and once again, I have a freaking awesome expert on here today that I'm excited for you guys to get to know and your story and learn some freaking sick stuff from. So here's the deal. I know how frustrating it is as an entrepreneur to waste countless hours sifting through wanna be experts who never actually helped me in the end. Then to learn years later that there was an expert who really could help me 100 times faster than learning on my own. I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learn from and interview real experts who can actually help you grow your business. My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to learning from the experts. Awesome Josh! I'm excited to have you on here. I have Josh Forti on here with me today and he's going to drop some knowledge bombs, some truth nukes. Steve Larsen would like to say, but first off, okay, Josh, not everybody knows you, so let's, let's hear your story a little bit more. Coulton, the man, I appreciate you having me on here dude. It's an honor and I'm excited to get rockin' and rollin'. How far back should we go? Where do you wanna start? How'd you get started? We'll back up to the origin story. Born in Wisconsin at age one, moved to La, lived in the suburbs of La for 10 years and then moved out to this little itty bitty farm town in the middle of nowhere of Indiana. So culture shock, right? I'm 12 years old from there, grew up on a farm and had no social media experience and all, like I had dial up internet. I didn't have like texting or Internet on my phone until I was 20, so I mean, like really out in the middle of nowhere. And so I went and, you know, I'm a farmer and had a bad year in the farm community. I was planning on being a farmer my whole life. That was my goal, my mentality and had a bad year in that. It was like, dude, I gotta go do something else. Like I didn't realize the risk that was involved there. So I wanted something a little more. Started college for a semester. Absolutely hated it. While in college I got a job in insurance sales and kind of the requirement, the reason I was able to get that job was, hey, you're in college, you're going to finish it. Well, I was arguing with my professor one day and he was like, you're here because you want to be successful. And I'm like, oh no, that's not why I'm here. You don't need college to be successful.  And he goes, was, why the heck are you here? And I'm like, well, that's a good point. And so literally right there I got up, stood up and said I quit and walked out and walked out of the Bursar's office, quit my classes and left. And so when my boss finds out like three or four days later, she's like, you've got three months to figure out what you're going to do.  And either start something else, right? Sign up for more classes or figure out what you're going to do with your life basically or else you're done. And so I'm like, all right, well I'm gonna figure something out. So I'm pretty broke at this time and I'm looking around and I'm like how do I make money? And so we're sitting there, she's got some pretty big clients and we're at this sitting in the office of a huge company. I mean probably over $100, $200,000,000 a year at least. I mean, they got factories all over the world, right? And so he's like, sales are down and, and stuff, even though the demand for our stuff is at an all time high. And I'm like why is that the case then? He's like all the sales are coming in online and they weren't there, they weren't in that online space. This is like two years ago. And I'm like, we'll have you like tried like running ads or like being online or being on social media. And he's like, no, I can't remember exactly what he said, but it's something along the lines of like, that doesn't work or influencers, something is a fad or something like that. And I'm like, alright, well I'm broke and you're telling me that people are making money online. Right? So I go home and I just started googling it and I'm like how do I make money? How do I make money? How to make money? And long story short...  how old are you at this point? 20, 21, 22, so probably 22. I'm trying to think. Maybe this was right before my 22nd birthday I think maybe. And so I'm like googling and I'm like how do I do this? And so driving for Uber comes up and I'm like okay, that's not online but okay I get it. Flips and stuff on Ebay and craigslist and stuff. I'm like all right. And so I started doing that and just like looking around and I find facebook ads and I find a ecom and I'm like watch this. I'm sure there's a Webinar of some sort and they're like if you could just do this and this. And I'm like yeah. So I like jump in and I've spent... I just had to put it on a credit card because I didn't have any money and I spent like 800 bucks on a set of a website and econ website had someone to do it because I had no idea and like five or $600 on facebook ads. And I didn't make any sales, I tried to sell Harry Potter books because that was the only thing. I was like my friends all like Harry Potter. So maybe they'll buy it. That's awesome dude. I know. So I'm like broken out at this point and now I'm in debt and I've never been in debt before my whole life at this point. And so I'm like freaking out. And so I'm still trying to pay this off by flipping stuff on craigslist because I was driving for Uber. Then one day I meet this kid on instagram, he was like 16 years old, he's got 50,000 followers and I'm like, is this guy famous? Right. So I go and I literally googled his name and I'm like trying to figure out if he's got rich parents or if it's famous. I can't find him anywhere. And so I just messaged him and I had three questions for him. I was like, number one- are you famous somewhere else? Number two, are you making money? And number three, if so, how? He messages me back and I can't for the life of me remember who it was and I wish I would have written it down, but at the time I wasn't in entrepreneurship so I didn't know that that's what you did, right? I remember him telling me, he's like, I post cool stories about stuff that I do. People tell me what they want me to sell them. I go and I sell it to them and they buy it and I'm like, there is no way it's that easy. Right? Like how? And so I'm like thinking about this and think about this. And then I had this light bulb moment and so I messaged him back because I knew I probably only get like one more question before he ignore me. And then I'm an annoying instagrammer and I was like, Dude, you pay for ads? And he's like, no dude, they just tell me what they want. And I'm like, light bulb moment! This is amazing, right? I'm like, you don't have to have, like how do you grow without paying brands? You're not paying for your followers, they're all real. And so that was like a big light bulb moment for me because I'm broke at the time and you know many, I don't know where you, the listener are right now if you're, you know, are broke or maybe just started out. But like the thought for me and a lot of people that I run into is like the thought that me and a lot of people run into like, the thought of running ads is scary. Right? And it's like I don't know if I'm going to get an Roi on that money. And so I was like, if I can grow an audience and figure out how to grow an audience without having to pay for ads, that's game over for me, like I'm all in. And so I started looking around, looking around and I ended up buying a course. Once again, didn't have the money for it, only had like half of it, but I put it on a credit card and I was like, all right, I'm all in. And there was an instagram course and I don't want to bash on the course. It was, it was a good course, I think it was thorough in what it taught, but it wasn't anything like exceptional. I think a lot of people think that if it was not an exceptional or amazing course or whatever, it's not worth their money. The thought that like you have to have like this big drawn out course that needed to be super awesome in order to get results. That's not true. Like this course was average, mediocre, but it was thorough. And so I just did everything the course said. So I bought it on a Friday and I was like, all right, I'm going to do this from Friday when I get off work til like Monday when I go back, I'm gonna go through this whole course. That's exactly what I did. And so I started doing literally everything that the course said and I want to say, and this is kind of more like on the mindset issue side of things. My parents always taught me how to work hard and like my parents were not like, I don't have money and I don't come from a wealthy family or whatever, and not money savvy, but if you grew up on a farm, you know how to work hard. Right? And so I was like, I'm not gonna quit and I'm going to find new ways to make this better and I'm going to get my money back out of this because I've got to make my money back. And so I did everything that it said. And then some. And I tested different things and I opened several different accounts and I tried it. I tried it and it took me months to actually see results out of it. But fast forward seven months, seven months later, and I had 80- 100,000 followers on instagram just off of just doing it consistently. And for the first two or three or four months, so many people give up and I'm like, dude, I spent all my money and went and did that over this. And I didn't see any results for three months. But I followed through and I finally figured out how it clicked and so that's kind of what started me into this whole social media game was instagram and some 16 year old kid who said I don't pay for ads and I make money and that's what's lead into now, and I'm sure we'll get into that, but about 5 million followers that we've grown for myself, for clients on social media, between instagram and facebook. That's actually actually super impressive. One thing that I've kind noticed too is you say you came from a farming background, first off, that's freaking sweet because you weren't just given a phone when you were 12. So you've only been in this game for what, 4 years now? No, not even- three years. Three years. Yeah. So probably about three years ago is when I started googling this whole thing. And then I remember, October, November- that's what I want to quit classes would have been been around this time. And then I started on instagram March 1st or March second, two years ago. So it'll be coming up on three years this coming March is when I started on instagram. That's incredible dude. But I think the key to that is you didn't stop. Like most people, they don't see the Roi in like three, four, five, six months and they're like, this is not happening. I'm done right when they're at the edge of just hitting the gold mine, you know? And so I think that's a huge lesson for us to learn as well- you just got to keep pushing through it and then it will happen. If I could just stop you right there- just because a week or a month or a year has gone by means literally nothing if you're not actually working because like I have people that bought into the same course and they're like, well, I've been trying for six months and I'm only at 6,000 followers. How are you at 80,000? And I'm like, because I worked a job where I worked nine hours a day. I had a 30 minute commute each way, roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Right. So I'm like, there's 10 hours of my day that's gone. I had to be there at 8:00 AM. So I would wake up an hour and a half before I had to leave and for an hour I would work on instagram. My entire lunch break was instagram my entire time after that. And I had a girlfriend at the time. I wasn't married but it was constant. It was always, I didn't go to movies, I didn't go hang out with friends, I didn't go to parties, I didn't go to events. I went to church, I went to work, I went to Walmart and that's it. And when you do that people are like, well, you know, I have this. I'm like, dude, two years, two, three years of your life, you sacrifice for a lifetime of whatever that is. And I know Russell talks about that a lot too, so. Yeah, it's totally true. I've even talked about like when I served my repair business on the podcast and I've told you a little bit about it, but I started out and it was just a little here, a little there, not much. And then a year later I literally have a brick and mortar and I'm just busier than I could be, but I stuck with it, you know, like I just kept it going, pushed it out more and more. So. And then the other thing I want to point out is I feel like I've noticed this trend- I don't know if it's the farm thing or what, but a lot of killers out there I feel like they grew up and their parents just made them work so they've learned how to work. But with that being said, my dad had me outside working. I learned how to work outside, but not only that I learned how to enjoy my work even though most people hated it. I'm sure you learned the same thing. Like farming. It sucks when you're a kid. Right? Nothing like bailing hay, dude. 100 degrees outside the heat is blaring down on you. And then after you're dog tired, you got to go into the Hayloft and you've got to put it all into the barn and it's hot. There's no air you can't breathe. It is the worst. Yeah, no, absolutely. See, yeah, you learned some hard work, but that I feel like for me it didn't translate too much into like the online work. I had a really hard time with that at the beginning. Interesting. Then I went to college and I feel like that actually opened up my eyes that I could actually accomplish more things than I realized. And I'm sure you probably realized that even with like the one semester that you went to, like, Hey, I can actually do all this stuff. The biggest thing that I learned from college or that I was made aware of is that there's actually monetary value in the information that's in your head. But afterwards I would go and I look back at that and I understand now that there is monetary value in this stuff and I learned that through business. But I will say that there are certain elements of the college experience. I went to a community college. There was definitely valuable in that mental transition process for sure. That's interesting. That's cool stuff, dude. Well, Hey, I want to ask you some more questions here. We know that you were not just given this, it wasn't just a silver platter. Here you go. What are some of the hard things that you went through? What are some of the things that people go through as they become someone like you or they build their business like you did? So first off, the first little roadblock that everybody runs into, I think, I feel like less people run into it now just because more people are in the online space and people that are serious in this kind of like get into it. But if you're a complete Newbie, like I was, have no online friends, for sure you're going to run into this is nobody watches you at the beginning, right? Like no one. And I did a webinar yesterday. I actually showed a screenshot, like my first I used to try to publish on Youtube right when I first got started, like I had no money, so I was like literally taking the lamp shades off of lights and setting them on either side to try to get better. I got four views. The first facebook group I ever launched in the first month got three members, right? Like nobody cares. And so I think that at the beginning was really difficult. Thankfully I just liked to talk and so I'm like, well, if nobody listens to me, Dang it, I will listen to me, you know what I mean? Put my voice out there. So I think that was really, really difficult for me. And I think it's difficult for a lot because when you see that the person you're following is getting a thousand views and you're getting 62, that's a really big mental block. And so I think that was more of like an overall difficult thing. And then once I got into it, dude, I'll tell you the worst day of my life, I'm telling you the worst day and I've been through some crap in my life. But something I would not ever want to go back to December, I think it was 29th, 2016, so this is coming up on two years ago, not too long ago, my first webinar ever and we hired a guy, paid him the package, was $25,000 and I didn't have the $25,000 at the time. So we took out a payment plan on it and put down 15,000 up front, it's all the money I had. I think I had like my business partner and I combined. Mind you, we're both paying for an apartment. I don't have a job at this point. I think combined we had like $2,000 and I make it count. We put down every penny on this guy to help us build our webinar. And we were convinced that we had a good course. It was on instagram. We had grown probably over a million, 2 million followers probably at this time. So like we knew what we were doing and we told him, we're like, we're going to get a ton of people registered for this Webinar. And he didn't believe us. And I was like, no dude, you don't understand. Like we have a lot of followers on instagram, like we will push traffic. And so we went through and we worked as hard as we knew how. I talk about learning how to learn. Like I didn't know how to learn at this point. I didn't know how to receive that level of information, but I was giving it my all and this guy should've told us up front that we were not the right fit, that he didn't want our money. Like he should've said no. It was clearly obvious that we were not a good fit. But we went through and so we built this webinar, 2,700 people registered, zero ads spent. So this was a warm audience from Instagram. So it's not truly warm, but it's a warm audience. 1000 people showed up for the Webinar. Actually thousand and four. We maxed out the room and people couldn't get in. One sale. One sale? Hundreds of emails of- F you! Go to hell. You're never going to be successful. You're a scam artist. This was the worst webinar ever. Can I get an hour of my life back? You should pay me to do it. I'm talking the lowest of lows, like I would pay $100,000 to not have to go back to that day, right? It was that bad. And so I'm like going through this process, I bawled my self to sleep that night because we worked so hard and I was like, I owe $15,000 to this guy now, right? I put down $15 and 15 that was supposed to come from this webinar. I only made one sale and everybody hates me. And so at that point when you're in that moment, that's a defining moment for people's lives. And so when people are like, Josh, you know, it's easy for you to do blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's a misconception that it's easier when you have an audience and I don't want to scare anybody away from trying to build an audience. It's the most amazing thing ever. The amount of lives you can change, but everything you do is in the spotlight when you're in the audience and especially in business. The next day I wrote up. Wrote a very long email and I did a live stream apologizing to everyone there and I said, look guys, I'm really, really good at social media and I know what I'm talking about. Clearly I don't know what the heck I'm doing on webinars and I'm sorry. Right. And so we offered a followup training with no pitch for free, just sat on there for an hour. We just broke down on strategy and we turned that into a good scenario in the sense of we gained a lot of respect from the people that actually followed us, but everybody else hated us. I mean really truly hated me at that given point. And so when I see people like Logan Paul and his controversy was like millions, I can't imagine what that guy's going through. So that was the worst day of my life up until that point and still to this day, like in business, just awful. And so that was a mental game right there. Big Time. That is huge. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that's just something that people actually need to see and hear because it's so true. Yeah, it's not easy, but as long as you just keep going and you push through. There was guy named Hyrum Smith who I listen to from Franklin Covey. He said pain is inevitable. Misery is optional. Yup. I totally agree. You could have just taken that day and blamed that guy for the rest of your life and never done anything else and just ended up getting a nine to five and not grown an audience after that because you feel like you failed or you push through it just like you did and you made it happen. That's awesome dude. And I think the other thing with failure in that lesson specifically, and I love what you said there about blaming that guy because that's your initial reaction. Believe me, like the first thing that I did the next morning, because I got on Voxer with that guy and I said, here's what happened. We got issues, right? Not blaming that person and turning that into a learning experience- a lot of good, but mentally it has messed me up for future webinars and stuff. It really did. Even I did a Webinar just yesterday, dude, like you hit that Go Live button and you are in terror. Right? And you're freaking out and then when you can hit done, you're in terror because you're like, is my inbox about to explode my, about to make no money. You know what I mean? That happened, right? But you learned from that experience and you have to go through and let that experience go and not hold a grudge to that person and really learn from it and truly become that person. And if you only look at it from a financial standpoint and you only look at it from a business standpoint, you're going to have a really hard time with it. Look at it from a life standpoint. When you look at it from a wow, look what I learned from a non financial standpoint, it makes it a lot easier. And like you said, you don't have to be in misery over it. I've been through a couple of situations I can think of. One that was just, I couldn't really hold a grudge against that person for doing what they did and pretty much screwed me over on my entire business. But I look at it now and I'm like, man, I learned a ton from that and I'm glad I actually went through it then instead of later on. So yeah, totally. Just learn from those experiences. Let's get into social media. All right. Tell us some stuff. We want some gold here, some truth. You have to understand from a pure growth standpoint on social media, there are literally only two things that matter and I know people are like, what are the three secrets? You're probably looking for me to drop some hacks and we can get into that. I'm happy to do that, but excuse me, if you listened to Russell Brunson about funnels, he talks about the different elements of what makes a successful funnel on social media regardless of the platform, regardless of the message, whatever. There's only two things that matter and that number one is the story and how you deliver that story, like the content piece of it. Number two is exposure, right? Those are the two things you're going for. And so what you have to look at from a core element is if you don't know what your message is slash what your story is, then you can't get exposure on that story, right? And so the Hashtags, you use a facebook ad, you run the interviews that you do, all that is getting the exposure to your message. And so once you have that, I suppose we've gotten people that have had told the message, they'll get thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of views on their instagram profile or their facebook page or whatever and nobody will follow. And then you've gotten people that have gotten like 10,000 views on their facebook page or instagram page and like half of those people turn into followers. What's the difference? The difference is your content and your storyline behind it. You've got to give people a reason to follow you. And the only reason that makes you different or unique than anyone else is your story. And so when you have that story, and I work with personal brands. People that want to grow an audience. If you're not doing a personal brand, then there's a storyline behind whatever it is that you are trying to grow. Look at Nike. Look at Maverick by Logan Paul, look at these big huge econ stores, the ones that make it are the ones that have a storyline and the ones that really build that brand around it. So I would say those two things are the things that you need to focus on and everything that you teach and everything that you learn. It only applies back to one of those. You're either getting more exposure and I'm talking purely from a growth standpoint, not a monetization sample, but like from a growth standpoint, it either ties back to your message and story or it ties back to the amount of exposure that you're going to get. One of those two. And what do you think would happen if you kind of went off from your story into a different area? Like what if you broke from what you normally teach what you do? I just had the thought come into my head that if someone's got this story or this following and this is kind of like what they're teaching and this is what they're in,Russell Brunson in funnels, and he were to go somewhere else, like what would that do, do you know? So I would say one or two things. If you're breaking, if you're moving into something else and it's part of your storyline, then you're fine. Right? But what if you're not focused on that one, I guess? Right? Exactly. Why do you follow someone? Right? You follow someone because number one, you follow a story because you want to know what happens next, right? But you follow a specific story because of how you relate to that story. And so if this story is all over the place, are you really gonna follow it? Think about if I'm telling you a story and I'm like, dude, let me tell you this. One time I was at the beach and all the sudden we were eating ice cream and oh dude, when I was over here on this grass. You'd be like, wait, what happened? What happened to the beach? Right. I'll get back to that here in just a second, but dude, this grass. I was mowing this grass. You'd be like what are you doing? You know? And so if you're straying all over the place and you're hopping from this to this, this is really hard for people to know what it is that you're about and the story that they're trying to follow. So if you're straying from that, if you're straying from whatever it is and you're jumping from thing to thing, I try not to and people think they have to have it all figured out right away, you know? Right? If you're authentic and you're real and you put forth your passion and your why is why you always lead with why, then you can have different elements of the story and like your core audience will know that you're trying different things, but you've got to have that core message in that core story along what you're doing. And so for me right now, and I was sharing this with you before the podcast, there was a point not too long ago, six, seven, eight months ago when I was about to just dip out, I was done. And the reason you don't always share that, but the people that you do share that with, they go, okay, well they understand the process because they know your big vision. And so when you're like, Hey, I'm leading with this vision of I want to make the world a better place by providing people with information that's going to change their life. I'm all about education. And so for me right now, the vehicle, I'm using social media, that's what people know me by, but my core audience knows that my vision is to make the world a better place and change the world through education. That's what I've told my audience. And so every live stream that I'm signing off on is, go out, think different, make the world a better place. You know, James Lives. And so if I were to jump from social media and let's say make a shift to PR or make a shift to funnels or whatever that is, and that was my focus, my core audience that's actually going to follow and buy from me, as long as I tell them that storyline process, they're going to know, okay, he's shifting vehicles but he's still on the same route. But if you just jumped and you don't give them context, if you just jump and you don't share that story and you don't lead with that overall vision of what you're doing, then it's impossible for them to know what's going on and they're not going to fall. Yeah, totally. I think that helps a ton just to know kind of what the focus is on. A confused mind will not follow because they don't understand it. If it doesn't make sense to them or they don't get that emotionally attached to it, then they're not going to care. Think of it this way, right? Imagine you were following an instagram account. Instagram account was all about sunsets. You love sunsets, you love the beach. And I follow one. I think it's actually called that sunsets and it's beautiful pictures. You're following it for that reason, right? If all of sudden they went and deleted all that content one day and started posting pictures of themselves, are you going to continue to follow? No, of course not. And I actually had this example, I did that and I was building an instagram account. We had, I don't know, probably 100,000 followers or so. And it was a luxury account, like houses, beautiful cars and things of that nature. And I was like, dude, I want to be famous, right? Because at this point I hadn't really grown my personal brand. I was like, what if I just post some pictures of me up there? So like every now and then I would just throw up a picture and first off the engagement drops, like 90 percent, right? Like nobody likes it, engages on it. And then the random people that do, there'll be like Who the heck is it? Who are you? Like, why is this on my newsfeed? You know? And they'll literally just comment on it. They don't want it. It's not what they signed up for. And so people, you have to remember that the thing that you use to attract people is oftentimes the thing that they're going to remember you for and follow you for. And so that's why there's nothing inherently wrong about driving a Lamborghini or going off and having a ton of money sitting in your passenger seat for some reason, right? But if that's the message that you're putting off and that's what people are following you for, then that's the type of person you're going to attract. So as soon as you switch that up and you don't have that anymore, they're not going to follow you. Right. So like imagine if Tai Lopez stopped posting pictures of cars and girls and you know, things like that, like one of his core audience that, whose life he's changed continue to follow him. Yes. But with the mass majority of people that follow him, would you still be Tai Lopez? Like you wouldn't because that's what they follow him for, you know. So it's really important to just understand what are you using to attract people and is that really your core message? Which is why you'll, I mean, you might see me in a Lamborghini, but you're never gonna see me using Lamborghinis to attract millions of followers. That's not my style. Yeah, totally. No mine either, right? Because I don't think lamborghinis changed the world. They're awesome, but they're not going to go make the world a better place. Exactly. Right? You can have a good time and I'm all about having fun and a good time while you're working hard for sure. Is there any last one golden nugget that you want to drop? Let me drop a few golden go bombs here. Do you want to focus more on instagram or folks who are on facebook or general? Which one do you think is the better one at this time right now to be focusing on or both? Instagram, depending upon how your audience uses it. Right? Instagram drives a lot of traffic or can drive a lot of traffic. There's less buyers on the instagram platform now. I'll get to that in just a second. It's much easier to grow on instagram and you need to cultivate and nurture your audience a lot on instagram. It's hard to do that in an automated way. So instagram is a very time consuming platform, but it can be a very profitable time, which is one of the biggest problems. And actually the reason that I just got out of the instagramming, is because a lot of my clients, especially these bigger names, like they expected an automated solution because that was what they're used to, you can do that on facebook because you can place ads and do that content. You can't do that on Instagram, right? It's much more difficult. So from a standpoint of monetization, if you want to drive a ton of traffic and you don't want to have a personal brand and you don't want to spend a whole lot of time on it, great. You can go to Instagram, you can post some viral photos of entrepreneurship and grass and that's great. If you want to actually cultivate an audience, if you want to be on instagram platform, you're going to need time. Time is what goes into it. Now. That's evolving. Now on facebook. On the other hand, buyers on facebook, the same person, and this was back early 2017. So it's probably different. Instagram's got a really huge shift in 2018. But at one point the same exact person on instagram and on facebook was eight times more likely to buy on facebook. Then it was on instagram. So they see an ad for the same thing on the two platforms, they are eight times more likely to buy on facebook. So now you go, okay, well why the heck then would I even spend any of my time on instagram and it's because traffic on instagram is like 10 times cheaper than it is on facebook. So for those of you that are in the paid advertising space or are in the space of marketing, what we will do is we will acquire the initial customer or the initial follower I should say on instagram and then we will drive them to facebook as fast as we possibly can. So let's say you didn't want to grow an instagram page yourself, but you wanted to capitalize on traffic because it's cheap, right? So I'll set up a page and my only goal on that page is to get people to either opt in or really just hit the page. And here's why, I ideally would like them to opt in to our freebies, but I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever pay for an ad on instagram where I'm selling something. I'm always giving it away for free from shout outs from other influencers unless I'm going to do a super longterm deal with them. But if it's like I'm buying 10 jobs from them, I'm sending them to a Freebie offer, I'm putting a facebook pixel on that page and that facebook pixel is specific for that instagram audience. I'm going to go buy $3,000 in shout outs from an instagram influencer. I'm going to get literally tens of thousands of visitors to visit that page because they're doing swipe up. Like we were getting clicks for. I think we were getting Webinar registrations at one point for eighty three cents. We paid a thousand bucks and we got two or 3000 impressions to the page that we did the shout out from but now that facebook pixel has fired thousands of times, so you've got a lot of good data and as long as the quality of the account that you're buying them from has good quality followers, we typically buy story shout outs rather than post shout outs, photos with the swipe up. People are actually watching and engaged. Now I have an audience facebook pixel to go retarget on facebook and I can create lookalike audiences off of that. So I have a wired my 5,000 impressions for pennies on the dollar compared to what I would have paid for an initial 5,000 impressions on facebook and now I can just go retarget on there. And so from a paid advertising standpoint, that's a great strategy. From an organic, it is easier to grow fast on instagram. It is easier to grow loyal on facebook. That got interesting fast, more loyal on facebook and just the following mainly on instagram. That's really interesting because I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, your audience probably don't want to be like celebrity influencers and majority of them, yeah, I'd say probably a majority of them there, they're just looking to kind of grow probably. Yeah. Mainly just kind of grow a little bit of their, uh, let people know a little bit more what they do. Not like. Exactly. Number one tip I can give for you guys, if you don't have a facebook group, you need to open one. Now. We just got an amazing testimonial back from Steven actually outside of publishing the facebook group that we helped him create and grow is the single single greatest thing that has driven his business forward. So you know, when you, when you understand that, like you need a face book group and you do it in a and for those of you that are watching on a podcast, you probably won't be able to visualize this. But if you're watching on the video, like imagine your social media as a circle, your facebook group needs to be at the center of it and everything needs to revolve around that because facebook group is the most interactive and intimate a social media platform for two reasons. They get to know you because there's an instagram stories which are great, but it's going to bring you the highest level of Roi because you can do live streams in there. You can make posts in there and 90 percent of the content in a facebook group is not your content, but you get credit for. Right? So if you have an engaged audience, they're publishing tons and tons of content. Your benefiting from that. And so if your focus is on growing rather than when you're on podcasts, be like, yeah, check out my website or check out my youtube channel or check out this. Or you just send everybody to the facebook group, podcasts, youtube channels, twitter, instagram, email, snapchat, wherever you're at. If you send everyone to the facebook group, then they, number one, see that you're awesome because you got all these members in there, they're all interacting with each other. Number two, they actually consume your content. I go in there, I go live. Yesterday I did a live and in the first like four hours I got 1.7k views in the first hour. Two hours, right? And so they watched, they consume, they interact, they engage. So do that. And this is once again coming down to exposure. Alright, my, the single greatest thing that will drive your business forward without a question is interviews and live streaming. Right? So really even talking about publishing on his podcast, I did that exact same thing except I did it on facebook live, that's only difference. And the reason I did it on facebook live is because number one, I didn't really know about podcasting when I first got started in entrepreneurship. I thought podcast were for losers. But I went and did it on facebook because that were my audience was. And so I would go and if there was a facebook group, I would go to the admin and I would say, hey. I started with one number, just like most of you will start with, I'm not that special, but when you get your first 100 members, 200 and 500, whatever you got, but once you hit that thousand number mark, you got leverage. So you can go to these facebook group owners and anybody else that has between one and 5,000 members, I hit him up. Or if you have a really good skill that a lot of people need, facebook group owners love that. All right, so you can teach something. Let's say you're really good at, I don't know, seo. You're really good at designing funnels. You're really good at anything, any skill that could potentially go find facebook groups of your ideal audience and you might be like, well why would they let me in there? I'm like, dude, it's your ideal audience, it's also their ideal audience. The more value you can provide to them. And I sat on interview after interview after interview, after interview and that's what blew me up. And then on top of that I live streamed for like 170 something days straight every single day. I did a live stream and so all the sudden I was getting tons of massive exposure and I was telling my skillset with a little bit of my story to each one of these places and luring them in and then they would come back and think about it. What's the first thing that you do when you see a live stream that somebody else is interviewing, you can click on their profile. You're going to go, where the heck is this dude? Right, so you go the profile, you've got that whole entire profile optimized for the link to your group and a call to action and all that, and then you've got 176 days of nothing but live streams. They're going to go consume that content and that is more of my story. That's more my storyline, so now I actually give them a reason on top of that 30 minute snippet, I give them a reason to come follow me and so this is true, like if you're trying to grow a facebook group or a facebook audience of any sort, exposure is your best friend and you get exposure through interviews and leveraging other people's audiences that already exists. I've never spent a single penny on ads. That's huge man. All this is huge. Why do you follow someone? You follow someone because of their story. You can be like, oh no, I follow so and so, because they're really good at photography. No, you follow that person because they told a story that got you interested in their photography because there are 10,000 photographers out there, but you follow that one, right? Why? Because of their story, so you got to have your story in whatever it is that you teach, and on top of that, you got to get exposure to that story, so go tell that story to tons and tons and tons and tons of people. That's the biggest thing, I want to end with this for you. Then I'll turn it back to you. People are like Josh, there are only so many ways I can share my story. People will eventually get bored of it. All I want to tell you to do is go look at Gary Vaynerchuk instagram page. Okay? And it will be like, what? I'm like, dude, the guy says the same five things over and over and over and over again. Give value, give value one, right? Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. I want to buy the New York jets. It's five or six things, said a different way. You know, I value young kids. I value. It's the same thing, but you love him. Grant Cardone's the same way. Tai Lopez, the same thing. Russell's a little bit better about getting interesting, but in reality it's really just the same stuff because people need to hear it different ways and people are fascinated by it and so when you can go and you say it and you tell your story, I've told the Webinar story 20k times. It's the same storyline, but I tell it a little bit differently based on the audience, so if I know that one audience is a little bit more beginner, I use more beginner terms and if I know they're a little bit more advanced, I use advanced terms. If I know that they're real estate agents, I'm going to tell things that are only pertinent to real estate agents. Right, and so just tell your story over and over and over again and remember, most people are only going to hear it once or twice. Most people are not actually consuming every piece of content you put out and the ones that are, they're regardless. They are not going to get sick of it. Like I listened to Russell, his salesforce blog where he went to salesforce blog, 12 minute vlog I have ever watched in its entirety. Why? I knew exactly what was gonna happen. I was like, dude, this guy's going to salesforce, his competitor I want to know. Right? He's going to tell that story 10,000 times and I'm probably gonna watch it 10,000 times. Why? Something that I'm interested in. Right? So tell your story. It's so important and don't be put into this little box of like, oh, facebook ads are the where it's at, or you don't listen to me and go, well, Josh says to only do instagram. No, like go, go, go get exposure. Right? Like I didn't stop at facebook groups. There's a funny story about how I got a lot of exposure and people don't think it's possible. I got interviewed twice on grant cardone's show. I've seen it, I've seen it. He promoted the our instagram course during the first 10 x growth con on his website. You know how that came about, we did not pay for those interviews. I literally added Grant Cardone on snapchat and I sent him a message and every day for like a week, I sent a period to bump my snapchat the top of his feed. All right. Because I'm like, dude, if I can get in front this guy like major exposure and guess what? He replied and my message was something super simple. It was like, hey grant, I know that you are looking for an instagram person, right? Because I did my market research, got to know that and I went and I was like, I know you need an instagram person. My business partner and I are really good. We got proven course, x number of followers. Would love to help you out in any way that's possible. His message back to me was so short and simple. It was, this is awesome. Would love to have you. Call this number and gave me a number. I had no idea who I was calling, right? Can you give me a name? Nothing. And it was intended up being Robert Syslow, which is director of video marketing and so now I've got Robert's number. We got down there and we're like, this is awesome. Because I sent them a message on snapchat. Why? Because I was looking for exposure. Just little things, little things, dude. I think that's the biggest, like false belief mindset that people have is like, oh, I can never get big enough people to interview or they don't ever want me to interview them or actually let me do it. You know what I mean? Nowadays is so freaking easy to get into somebody's circle. It really is. What's the big main point for them? Right. I can't offer a grant cardone exposure. Right. Or at least at the time I couldn't. Maybe I could a little bit now, but like I couldn't do it, but I found the one thing that I did, He was actually probably my first start in entrepreneurship because I was in sales. He's one heck of a guy, let me tell you, so you find out one thing and if it's not in your wheelhouse, figure out a way to make it in your wheelhouse. Or for example, there was a guy by the name of Jason Stone, we used to be more friends when I was more in the instagram game. He's a big Instagram influencer. So when I first started out back when I had 100,000 followers, this guy probably had like 3 million right? Between his accounts. The biggest one was probably like 1.5 million. So I'm reaching out to this guy and there's nothing that I can offer him about instagram, which is the only little thing that I know. So I'm like, how do I go and how do I get ahead? And so I literally would just watch every one of his stories, every one of his live streams looking for that thing. And I'm like, what is it that he needs? What is it that he needs? And then I found out that he said one day he's like, right now we are thinking about getting into youtube and kind of want to do this stuff. And I was like, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding. So I went to Jose who is my business partner at the time and I was like, dude, you know, Youtube, right? And he's like, yeah, we know some stuff. I was like, who do we know that we could connect with Jason? And so we found, I forget, I don't even know who it was, but there was some video editor guy that had like a bunch of experience with youtube, Tim somebody I think. Anyway, so he reached out to Jason and send him an email and were like, dude, Jason, big fan and I'm talking about making videos. And then we're like, hey, saw on your story that you're looking into youtube, would love to connect you to our buddy over here that does this. Sure he would hook you up with a sweet deal as a referral, blah, blah, blah. Would that be interesting to you? And so he emails back and we kind of go back and forth and that's how we struck up a friendship and got to know him. And then at the event he sees us and he's on stage. He's like, what's up guys? We got pictures with him and that's how we got into his circle and now we get some good deals. It's is little things. It's not like you were huge or big influencer. No! I was a nobody. And I wouldn't say this though. And I want to say it with caution. I would super not recommend reaching out to grant cardone if you have no results. Don't waste is his time. Right? But Dana Derek talks about the dream 100 strategy and that's basically what this is more or less. I'm a big fan of the dream 100 strategy. I am not a big fan of it as an actual business model because it's not consistent. You don't drive consistent traffic that way. And so if you're trying to build a balanced business where you can know numbers, dollar in dollar out, I don't recommend this, but I recommend it in addition to that because it can bring additional massive amounts of exposure. That's just for me and take that advice more or less as you will, but when you're at the beginning, reach out to a person that you can directly affect that has an ideal audience in your area. So I made friends with Arnie guesty early on. He wasn't that big. It paid off well. But also early on I made friends with Jason Stone. I could offer him nothing. Virtually nothing, right? I had no experience compared to what it was. So I found that thing. Don't start by going, I'm going to dream 100. Gary Vaynerchuk, you got nothing to offer that guy, dude. Like I'm sorry, but start with someone. And then as you work your way up, go bigger and bigger and bigger and then every now and then once you kind of have a feel for what you're doing, take a shot. Right? I took a shot on grant Cardone, did not expect it to pay off. It did! It changed my business, right? Moved it forward in a direction. Jumpstarted a lot of things. Got of a lot of exposure from that. But I didn't depend upon that for my whole business model. I didn't go like we're with greg cardone, let's take out loans and go this and do this. I used it to drive my business forward and moving forward. And now grant cardone knows who I am and so does Robert and all that. I've been on his show. I want to say thank you so much for being on here and dropping as many gold nuggets as you did. I know my listeners will get a ton out of this and anybody who waches in the future- this is huge man and this is stuff that's going to stick around for a long time too, the stuff that you shared wasn't just like, oh, this is what's happening this week, no- it's stuff that's going to be sticking around for awhile. Sure. It changes, but the principles are all there, you know? Yeah. And on that note, I think it's really good to remember when a new platform comes out ike when I started on Instagram, there's a lot of hacks or tricks to get ahead, as any platform develops. And you look at the big platforms right now, facebook, instagram, youtube, like those are your three big pillars. When you understand that leg, they all function the same way more or less. None of those three platforms produce their own content. Okay? All of them are driven by users, meaning the longer they'll user stays on the platform, the more money that they make. And the thing that brings or that keeps people on platform is a good content. Instagram is not your enemy. People are always like, oh, the algorithm. I'm like, no, the algorithm actually would work amazingly in your favor if you actually put out good content. So understand that if a new platform emerges and evolves, yes, there's going to be hacks and tricks to get majorly ahead and to capitalize upon that. But there's also a lot of risk and there's also a lot of confusion on that. However, a lot of the social media strategies that we talk about here has very little to do with the platform. The basic stuff I don't want to waste your guys' time on like make sure your profile is optimized. That stuff is common sense guys. Right? Use your mind and think of, Hey, I'm doing my business online. I should probably look like a business owner. Right? There are certain logical things that you should do. But above and beyond the logical things, it really is like three or four core principles, whether it's in marketing or whether it's in this and I love the 80/20- rule the further along and getting business and the more I realized that it's applicable, 20 percent of this stuff drives 80 percent of the facts. Right. And at 80 percent of stuff that you do is basically worthless. When you double down on that 20 percent, I just hired an assistant actually long ago, actual full time and I pay her 40 hours a week, the whole nine yards. I'm a legit company now. Letting go of that outsourcing stuff, I felt like my business was going to fall apart. There's no way I could possibly outsource posting on instagram. I could never teach someone my skills of being able to do it. It's not true, you know? The same thing is true in social media. Eighty percent of the stuff that you guys are worrying about, like my live stream got cutoff 30 minutes in and I wasn't able to wrap up. It is not going to change your business. Stop worrying about that stuff. People are not going to unfollow you because one live stream of yours got cut out or because you accidentally dropped your phone or you accidentally made a slip up. You know what I mean? That just makes you look normal, it's happens. I think it's actually good at certain points or different times. And I think that there's a balance between being real and being professional. Social media is typically that place to be a little bit more real. As soon as you click off of social media and you enter that funnel and you enter that Webinar or you enter that sales call or whatever it is, you need to be very professional. Right now you're running a business, social media to relate, you can get away. People see me all the time and they're like, Oh Josh, you get on live streams or whatever with your shorts and your this and that, and you're just so real and authentic. I'm like, yes, but if you talk to me in person, you do what you say you're going to do. You don't mess up and you follow through. If I'm paying you money, you do your job and if you're paying me money I am going to do mine. I don't go, oh, it's okay. No, like we're running a business here, right? Social media, and this is where I think a lot of people get it wrong. Social media is just a marketing tool when you're using it for that. Right? And so people are like, oh no, it's my lifestyle and I want to be all truly authentic in this. If that's how you run your business, you're probably not going to get very far. So use social media as the tool that is designed and don't become obsessed with it like I did at the beginning. Don't make social media your reality because once you make social media your reality, a lot of your life falls apart and I've seen it happen to a lot of people. It's happened to me in certain areas, so be careful with it, but it's very, very powerful. Wow. Well, thanks again so much Josh. I'm going to wrap this up. This is a little bit longer of an interview. Thank you so much for taking your time and spending it with everybody that's going to listen to this and the followers. Thanks a ton. We'll talk to you guys later. Are you looking to jumpstart your business by learning or getting help from the real experts. Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you! Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating and leaving feedback.  

Kat Chow of NPR's Code Switch wrote about using the term "yellow" to describe East Asians in her article If We Called Ourselves Yellow. Lin discusses her unease with the term and its association with disease. From there, a conversation about acetate glasses manufactured to fit only a narrow strip of the population evolves into how stereotypes about races and ethnicities still reign in the popular imagination. Finally, Margrit raves about Webtoons and their rich and entertaining library of diverse comic art. Question of the episode: How do you feel about using the word "yellow" to describe East Asians? Bonus question: Do you have trouble finding glasses that fit? Do you have any solutions for making glasses fit better? Join the conversation on Twitter at @World_ofStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.  Transcript Margrit  00:00 Hi, welcome to World of Stories. I'm Margrit and my pronoun is they.   Lin  00:05 I'm Lin and my pronouns she and we're here to talk about diversity and storytelling.   Margrit  00:09 Indeed. So what's new this week in your life, Lin.   Lin  00:13 So there is an article written by Kat Chow, who is a journalist with NPR's CodeSwitch podcast and the article is called If We Called Ourselves Yellow. And it is about the term "yellow" to describe East Asians and she writes about how--sort of the origins of where this term came from, and some of the negative connotations that surround the use of this term "yellow" and how other ethnicities use colors like Black and Brown to describe themselves. And, the use of those terms is not viewed in a negative light. But yet yellow still is. And so she was saying how she's thinking about reclaiming this word. And it's a very, it's a very interesting article and it goes both into history and also sort of her thoughts about what to do with this term. Yeah, what to do with this term going forward?   Margrit  01:29 Right? Right. It does a really good job of presenting the cultural history of the term and how it pans out in like a bunch of movies and other kinds of, you know, cultural artifacts that were distributed and how that perpetuated a certain image of East Asian people in general. And how also that connected to policy, right?   Lin  02:00 Yeah, with immigration policies in the US. There was the Chinese Exclusion Act, I believe that was in place for decades and decades, where Chinese people were just not allowed to immigrate into the US. And then there was also Japanese internment during World War Two. I think there's a couple of others that she mentioned.   Margrit  02:22 Both of which Canada--   Lin  02:26 Yes, that's right. Yes. Those were both in Canada. And if I remember correctly, the Japanese internment was actually worse in Canada than it was in the US. If I have my Canadian history remembered correctly.   Margrit  02:54 I find this concept, like this way of reclaiming former slurs as a means of empowerment for a certain community, I find it really interesting. And it's very cool how it pans out for all kinds of marginalization. Like, for example, the term queer, being reclaimed and used as a way of identifying. And I was just wondering how you personally felt about it. After I read the article--I think it's a really, really well written article. And it's really wonderful in terms of being informative, but it will also leave you very angry if you have any kind of social justice leanings. How do you feel about this term?   Lin  03:39 Yeah, I've always... So it's interesting that this article came out now because I have been thinking about the use of the term yellow a couple of months ago, and I have no idea why I was thinking about it, but I was. And then again, this comparison with using Black to describe people, and Brown to describe certain groups of people. And I am kind of uncomfortable with the term yellow.   Margrit  04:09 Why is that?   Lin  04:10 It always reminds me, it reminds me of jaundice. Like yellow skin is like jaundice, right? Which isn't like an illness. It's a sickness. It's a disease and so... so yeah, that's, I guess my aversion to it. And she doesn't actually mention jaundice in the article, but it does talk about how there's a connotation of illness and toxicity and poison when it comes to this idea of yellow, particularly yellow skin. So yeah, I'm not opposed to the idea of reclaiming that word. And in viewing a different definition and connotation on to that word. And like, as you said, like, the term queer and a lot of members of the LGBTQ community have reclaimed that word. And I think there's certainly power in that. I just--for yellow, might take some time getting used to.   Margrit  05:21 Oh no, absolutely. And that's obviously up to the community and she--Chao--does a good job of, I think, interviewing a bunch of people and asking them, how do you feel about that? What do you think about that? And I think the way that the article presented, it's a really interesting way in which, you know, every single person that she's interviewed, then comes with a different facet of the history of the use of the term and its representation, popular culture and how it still sort of influences popular representations to this day and a lot of harmful stereotypes when it comes to East Asian people, right?   Lin  06:03 Yeah. And, you know, this reminds me of this other article that I was--that I came across today. Or a couple of days ago, I should say. Give me one second, I'm just going to find it.   Margrit  06:19 When she talks about the late 60s movements, like reclaiming the word yellow, and the yellow power, it just reminded me of the Black Panthers who did kind of the same thing. And it was, it was kind of at the same time, too. So, you know, the late 60s revolutionary movements across the world, really, were trying to shift, you know, oppression away and empower marginalized communities in that way. And there's a lot of similarities and--   Lin  06:52 Yeah, I think in order to reclaim that word, people actually have to use it. And I don't know if I've seen that many East Asian people be willing to use the word yellow? I could be wrong. I could just not be aware of, of groups who are using that. But, yeah, I just don't see it anywhere. So that article around Asian stereotypes reminds me of this other article on Refinery29 written by Kristin Wong, and the article is called the "Ideal" Immigrant Worker is a Problematic Trope, especially for women. And she goes into--she starts the article off talking about her mother calling her, and her mother is complaining, confiding about some workplace relationships that seem to be perpetrated by racial stereotypes. And so she goes into how a lot of the values and the sort of behavioral--how do I say this?  This is why I need scripts.  So she goes into how a lot of the values of immigrants, particularly East Asian immigrants, affect the way that people interact in the workplace and to the detriment of the immigrant. And that's obviously not limited just to East Asians, but also to other--   Margrit  08:57 But there is and I think, more in the States. There's this notion of the model minority, right? And East Asians are, and South Asians to some degree. And I think it refers to the fact that, you know, some communities tend to struggle, probably financially and in many other ways in order to get their children in education. So they sacrifice everything, just to get that education and to make sure that the children, you know, first generation immigrants and so on, attain a certain social status. And, that's viewed as sort of the ideal immigrant basically.   Lin  09:40 Yeah, so the values of you know, working hard, not complaining.   Margrit  09:43 Exactly.   Lin  09:44 You know, just like doing the work.   Margrit  09:46 Not stirring the pot.   Lin  09:48 Right and not claiming rights that they don't feel that they are entitled to.   Margrit  09:54 Yeah.   Lin  09:56 And so yeah, that really resonated with me. And yeah. And so speaking about things that East Asians don't feel like we are entitled, I actually have a rant about glasses. Okay, so I've worn glasses since I was eight years old, I think so I've worn glasses my whole life. And for people who know, who wear glasses, there are two main types of glasses, one is the wireframe glasses, with the clear plastic nose pads that are attached to the wireframe. And then the other group is acetate glasses, which is basically like the hard plastic and the nose pad is part of the frame. It's just molded plastic. Yes, okay. So when I was in high school or university, I don't remember now. But around that time, all of the trendy glasses were acetate glasses. And you know, I wanted to be the cool kid and be trendy and all that. So, I bought acetate glasses, because that's what all the cool kids were wearing. Right? Exactly. And, but they always slid down my nose and I thought, well, that's just what glasses, do they just slide down people's noses. And I didn't know any better from so for like 20 years. This is not 20 years of not quite that old. But for a good 10 plus years. That's just what my glasses always did. They just slid down my face. And about two years ago, some manufacturers started making these things called Asian fit glasses.   Margrit  10:22 Oh my god.   Lin  10:54 Yeah. And I was like, what is this and I like, went to a store, I tried them on and I'm like, "Oh my god, I didn't realize glasses could fit well." Like, they're not falling off my face, they like stay where I want them to stay, and they're comfortable. What is going on?   Margrit  12:13 So glasses are not supposed to just slide down your nose?   Lin  12:16 Apparently not. Yeah, who knew. And so the difference is that these are--the quote unquote Asian fit glasses are acetate glasses, but the nose piece is bigger so it actually extends out toward the face more than the standard fit glasses. And so what that does is it lifts the whole glasses higher up off the face and positions it correctly. It's less likely to slide down the nose because there's more plastic or material to sort of grip the nose and then my cheeks don't touch the bottom of the glasses, which in a lot of cases they do and then it just like, it's uncomfortable and it's smudges the classes as well. So I was like, I can't believe that my entire life I've been wearing glasses that don't fit my nose because as the case with most East Asian people, I have a flat wide nose. And that's technically called a low nose bridge nose.   Margrit  13:33 I like how it's still your problem. You don't have a standard nose, you have low bridge. So I mean, get that sorted out.   Lin  13:47 Okay, but hold on a second now, like most East Asian people have this type of nose, but also Southeast Asians and Africans and Black people and Indigenous people. This is like half the world that have noses that are like this.   Margrit  14:01 This is what my sarcasm was aimed at is that you know.   Lin  14:04 I know.   Margrit  14:05 Oh my goodness, this is--   Lin  14:07 Yeah, so it's like half the planet can't wear glasses that fit their faces.   Margrit  14:12 Right. So right, because they're designed...   Lin  14:16 Yeah, they're designed for like a narrow, pointy-er, for lack of a better word, or like a higher nose bridge nose.   Margrit  14:28 Or the much dreaded amongst my people, the Jewish nose, which has a bump right after the bridge. I was blessed without it. And but my whole experience, especially as a young person in Europe, when I would tell somebody that I'm Jewish, they would look at me like askance, you know, like the head tilt? Like the puppy, the confused puppy look where it's like, but you don't have a Jewish nose. And I'm like, well I must not be Jewish. Thank you so much for informing me about that.   Lin  15:05 Right, because you have to have that nose in order to be Jewish.   Margrit  15:08 Ah, right. And and it's interesting that we kind of roll back to kind of where we started from that shows, sort of cultural investigation of the use of the word yellow and, and all kinds of representations of Asian people because the idea of the Jewish nose was popularized by Nazi propaganda in all of their caricatures and representations of the Jewish menace. There was always like, sort of hunchback, middle aged Jewish man with a hook nose, and that was out to get the poor, you know, the poor Arian people out of their rightful place in, in the world, right? And so again, talking about stereotypes that endure. It's ridiculous how one small thing can just or something that somebody just throws out there can just live forever and ever and be so incredibly harmful to so many people.   Lin  16:14 Yeah, yeah, that's crazy.   Margrit  16:17 Yeah, because when I was reading--again, when I was reading Chao's article, it reminded me a few years ago, I was teaching a course on race and ethnicity and literature and we were reading Edward Long's History of Jamaica. And Edward Long was this British colonizer in Jamaica, he was some sort of official there and he just, you know, out of his own, free will took it upon himself to write a history of Jamaica, because obviously he was the expert. This was mid-18th century, 1770-something I think it was when it was written. And he was the one who was like, "Okay, I am observing things and therefore that must be the truth." So he, I think the whole image of like, the over sexualized African person can be traced back to his observations because he basically said, "Oh, look, African people have very, very wide lips, therefore, they must be very into sex."   Lin  17:19 Oh my god.   Margrit  17:20 And so this is a stereotype that endures. It has been so harmful, you know, the whole sexualization of Black people and sort of, you know, Black men are out there to rape white women and so they're very, very harmful. It's just to this day such an enduring, harmful, terrible stereotype that we just cannot get rid of that easily. And it's just something that originated with somebody who just thought themselves entitled to what is out there.   Lin  17:52 Yeah, and like, same thing with the exoticizing of East Asia, right? Going back to Chao's article. East Asia was always thought of as this very exotic place. And for some reason yellow was also, has that same connotation, which I don't understand how yellow can be--the color yellow is exotic, but anyways. Even to this day when there are so many stories out there when you think of, oh, the Orient is this exotic place and you know, the white man goes to somewhere in the Orient and learns, you know, enhances his sexual prowess through learning from some, like teacher or something like that. You know, there's a lot of that stuff going on too, today.   Margrit  18:45 Yeah, yeah, yes, absolutely. The exoticizing is alive and well and you know, Asia as a place of mystery and people being lazy because it's warm outside. And therefore they don't have to work. All of these connections that just seem like when you try to unpack them, they just seem so ridiculous and untenable, and yet they persist in the sort of white Western Eurocentric imagination as proof, right? Yeah.   Lin  18:46 Yeah. Yeah.   Margrit  19:22 Well, yeah.   Lin  19:24 That was all very depressing.   Margrit  19:28 No.   Lin  19:30 So, um, what have you been enjoying this week?  Let's talk about something to lift our spirits?   Margrit  19:36 Yes, I have been enjoying this for a long time. It's webtoons. Do you know about webtoons?   Lin  19:42 Webtoons. I've heard it because you've told me about it. Please tell us more.   Margrit  19:47 So webtoons is basically this type of comics that originated in South Korea. I think it was in the early 2000s. But I wouldn't--I don't have a citation for that. So it's very unacademic of me. And it's the thing about them is that basically they're comics that are, unlike manga that are published in books, they're designed for the online environment. And so they have vertical scroll, and they're very colorful. And I've been enjoying this app called Webtoon, which is available, I guess, on all platforms. And it's a platform for comic artists to present their, their work. And it's curated. So do you, do you ever read comics?   Lin  20:41 You know, I have not. So I wouldn't say I know anything about comics.   Margrit  20:48 There's a terrible gap in your cultural knowledge and you should totally remedy it, Lin. I don't know if we can be friends anymore. But the thing about Webtoon is that they have all of the genres so you can find romance or you can find science fiction or fantasy or slice of life. And there is a, there's a huge variety of artistic styles as well. So some of them are sort of very elaborate and complex drawings with a lot of--you can see that they've gone through many, many, many stages and drafts, and others are, you know, sketches in which the focus is on the story or on the shtick or anything like that. So there's definitely something for everyone. Even if you're not, you know, that much or you think you're not that much into comics, it's just a very good way to unwind these days with all that's happening.   Lin  21:54 Do you have any recommendations for where people can start?   Margrit  21:58 Oh, well, I can tell you what I've been enjoying so I, I love a bunch of them. And I'm only gonna mention--you have to stop me. So one of my favorites is Jem Yoshioka's Circuits and Veins. And it's about two women, one of whom is human. And the other one is an android and they sort of move in--they don't move in--the android moves into the apartment next door to the human and the human suffers from anxiety. And so a lot of it is just up in her apartment. And it's, and I think the way that they meet--the meet cute as it were--is that the human has designed these software, VR pets. They're kind of like a cross between very cute pomeranians and pineapples,   Lin  22:48 And pineapples?   Margrit  22:50 Pineapple pomeradians kind of a thing. It's really really cute and I am not doing it justice. So they meet and they kind of like each other and they start dating. And it's just so so super adorable. And this one particularly is very, very low angst. And I find I find this a lot about the stories in Webtoon, especially these days with all of the things that are happening in the real world and in politics and stuff like that. I find that low angst is my comfort. So if you are into anime, I really recommend a slice of life kind of comic. Like there's this, I think the artist is based in Malaysia, and she draws this comic called My Giant Nerd Boyfriend. And again, so super cute. The whole shtick is that the boyfriend is I think around two feet taller than the girlfriend. Oh, right, the 60 centimeters or so I think, the art is not very complex, but it's so good with the story and it's all about their daily life and their day-to-day relationship and how lovely and caring they are to one another. And it's just adorable. And it's just one of those things that gives you hope, or you know, makes you smile and gives you hope for the day till you encounter another article about microaggressions.   Lin  24:28 We need a lot of hope these days. A lot of it.   Margrit  24:31 I think we do.   Lin  24:33 Okay, should we do question of the episode?   Margrit  24:35 Sure. Let's do a question of the episode.   Lin  24:38 Okay, so how about what do listeners think about using the term yellow to describe East Asians? Does it give you an icky feeling like it gives me or do you think it's something that East Asians should reclaim and give a new definition to?   Margrit  25:03 That is a very, very good question. And I hope you will take a moment to answer it. And you can answer it on Twitter at @World_ofStories. And we look forward to hearing from you.   Lin  25:22 Yes. And bonus question. If you wear glasses, do you have problems finding glasses that fit? And if you've figured out a solution to get glasses to fit better, please tell me because I desperately want to know.   Margrit  25:39 Help Lin out with the glasses.   Lin  25:42 I have glasses problems. So come join the conversation. We want to know what you think. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen, iTunes or Google Play or on Spotify. We are now on Spotify, which is very exciting. And if you like our show, please leave us a review or tell your friends. And we hope that you have a great couple of weeks.   Margrit  26:10 Wonderful. Subscribe and we'll hear from you soon, I hope. Take care.   Lin  26:14 Take care. Bye

Jamie Brooks, U.S. campaign manager for Think Beyond the Pump discusses pending legislation in San Francisco, Berkeley and Santa Monica that would require gasoline pumps to post a 'climate risk' disclosure label showing hidden costs of fossil fuels.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Nothing to the madness is next witness mean to method to the madness, Speaker 2:a weekly public affairs program here on k a l x Berkeley featuring bay area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today I'm talking to Jamie Brooks, B u s based campaign manager for the think beyond the pump campaign. [00:00:30] Welcome to the program. Oh, thank you very much. First of all, what is beyond the pump? Speaker 3:Well, beyond the pump were a, a campaign happening here in, uh, the bay area, uh, that is seeking legislation to require a climate change information label or if you want to call it a warning label, be posted on each gas pump. We have a drafted legislation here in San Francisco and we think San Francisco, we'll be the first city in the nation to vote this fall [00:01:00] where we don't have a hearing dates yet. Uh, but we're, we're anticipating that a San Francisco will be the first, uh, but Berkeley and Santa Monica and southern California also have legislation to require, uh, climate change. So they're all kind of waiting on San Francisco to move. Um, it's probably important to point out too that, um, there is a sister campaign happening in Canada. Uh, it's called our horizon that has already passed the legislation into [00:01:30] law and British Columbia. So a small city North Vancouver has passed into law, so we should see climate change, warning labels, information labels being posted. Speaker 2:So who started this whole thing? Was it this horizons group in Kansas? Speaker 3:So it was, we simultaneously came up with the idea on beknownst to each other. Our horizon, we just discovered each other about probably a six months into our campaign, about three years ago. And uh, Speaker 2:wow. You've been at three years at [inaudible]. Speaker 3:Yeah, it takes a little bit if [00:02:00] you want to do legislation takes a long time, you have to be a little bit obsessive to, uh, to do something like this. And there's lots of legal, Speaker 2:is it the same in Canada because Canada Speaker 3:First Amendment laws are a little less constricting as American ones. Uh, so they have been able to pass it into law and British Columbia. Speaker 2:Does that mean it's gonna follow suit across the provinces or is there a movement to do that? Speaker 3:It'll be similar, um, to the United States. It'll pass and in [00:02:30] one city and then of the other cities within that province will take notice and it's happening kind of sporadically throughout Canada. Speaker 2:Let's take a listen to Toronto based lawyer, Robert Shirkey. Speaker 4:Our horizon is a national not for profit organization that is addressing the issue of climate change in a simple yet globally unprecedented way. And I left my job practicing law to do this because climate change is the greatest challenge of our, it is not [00:03:00] oil companies. It is not the tar sands, it, it's not pipelines just causing climate change. It's us, it's humanity. We all share responsibility for this issue. If we can shape market demand, if we can help people to connect the dots, I think that that's a way that we can transform and act on climate change. My organization is working to put climate change warning labels on gas pump nozzles similar to those we see on tobacco packages because it's [00:03:30] not until we're made to face the reality of what we're up against. It's not until we're made to feel responsible for this that we will then be able to move forward in meaningful ways. Speaker 4:What this idea does is it takes those far away consequences be the extinction of species, drought and famine or ocean acidification and through the use of image and text brings it into the here and now. It helps to mitigate the effect of the current moment bias and takes a problem of no feedback and builds feedback. [00:04:00] The placement of the warning label on the gas pump nozzle takes a problem of diffuse origins and quite literally it locates responsibility right in the palm of your hand. If we burn fossil fuels, we contribute to climate change. Climate Change Causes Arise in sea level, that then necessitates the spending of billions of dollars to upgrade our coastal infrastructure. Economists know that those costs can and should be reflected in the price of the product that's [00:04:30] actually causing the harm. And internalizing that cost through something like a carbon tax, we can show the true price of this product to the marketplace. Speaker 4:This idea, this market signal can contribute to an important cultural shift. This could be an important moral input that helps to transform markets. So we may worry about climate change, tar sands, pipelines and so on, but we never question the simple act of pumping gas. There is a complete disconnect. [00:05:00] What this does is it forces the question, if not this, then what? It disrupts the narrative and make space for a new story to be told. Businesses and governments will respond to this shift in demand. We just need to be made to want those alternatives. And this idea can be a nudge in that direction. Speaker 3:Well, let's talk about what do the labels look like in Canada and what do they look like here? Is there a difference? Well, the Canadian versions, we haven't seen them, but they're [00:05:30] s they're short of falling. The lines of being friendly, showing ways people can reduce gas consumption and also kind of a dichotomous of message want. It's kind of friendly, but it's like gasoline contributes to climate change. Uh, so they're trying to go down this middle of the road. Are they visually graphically depicting that have climate? Some of the labels, if you look at our horizon have images of dead animals from drought [00:06:00] in Africa and so they are going, ah, we don't know for sure if they're going to go down this really graphic like the cigarette labels that you're seeing, um, with people with whole tracheotomies and stuff like that. Is there any scientific literature about the effectiveness of something that is a little scarier versus something that's a little nicer? Speaker 3:Yeah, there is the, unfortunately it's, it's a little uncomfortability with this, but the research shows that tobacco labels that have graphic images are more effective [00:06:30] than just text labels only. I think the main way to look at the labels is not that they in and of themselves will change behavior in an instant, but more in how they change, how we perceive the normalization around our, in this case, using fossil fuel. And so that's their, Carmen can look at, will I even notice it? I mean, how are we going to notice that law? You may not notice the labels at first. You know, we're [00:07:00] making a few assumptions. The labels will be as visible as possible with all the competing advertising on a gas pump. So our proposal, I think if you want me to describe what are labels, they'll have a graphic image. W it's called, we're calling it, it's a little cartoon car bug with a, with a puff of CO2. Speaker 3:So they graphically communicate a friendly image of a car. But the reality of the CO2 that comes out of our vehicles and t cloud is black, [00:07:30] which in this case it is, but the colors might change depending on what happens legally. And then what we're doing underneath in terms of texts and communication as we're communicating EPA statutes. So if you look up section two oh two A, this is specifically deals with emissions that come from transportation, from cars and trucks, uh, from the gasoline that we consume. Uh, it, it shows, you know, basically already existing [00:08:00] findings on the fact that petroleum-based transportation fuels contribute to climate change and therefore have an impact on human health and welfare. So we're not making anything up here. We're just disclosing the information of already existing statute. Uh, it's particularly in section two oh two a this is an interesting area because you and I both know that there's a real challenge in getting people to react to something that they can't see. Speaker 3:Right. That's not immediate to them. [00:08:30] Exactly. Right. How can we make a paradigm shift that's, that's kind of the, the main focus of this campaign. So we're not really, as I said, we don't expect people to see the labels and then go, oh, I'm going to push my car to work. I won't start my engine. Although from a greenhouse gas perspective, that would be the best thing to do. We realized that's a ridiculous Nosha we're, we're primarily interested in how the labels will change perceptions, attitudes, [00:09:00] beliefs, the social context, the social license around using fossil fuel in our society and calling that into question over the longterm. So after someone views a label for the first time. So let's say you, let's say you don't see the labels, you're not a person that noticed them, but you run into your friend at work who does notice them and says, Hey, have you seen those silly labels on the gas pumps? Speaker 3:They're talking about climate change. So [00:09:30] the first thing that that might do is that it'll elicit a conversation that wouldn't have happened. One of the functions around changing the social norms around using fossil fuel is to kind of stimulate a conversation about the problem of climate change. The problem of using petroleum based fuels, however inconvenient or how it may be even elicits the sense of incredulity. This is a reality. Um, and we're not having that conversation. So part [00:10:00] of the way to look at these labels is not that they will necessarily make us stop using our cars right now, but over the longterm as cigarette labels, did they change the social context in order that there was a policy response? It's sort of a timeline. If you think about the first labels came out in 1965 for cigarettes and before the labels there was a general scientific [00:10:30] consensus that smoking caused FCM on cancer and all these ill health effects. Speaker 3:But socially, uh, smoking was normal. Uh, we smoked everywhere. And you know, I remember as a child, smoking was in the schools in elementary, the teachers would smoke in the teachers' lounge and the smoke would waft out into the halls. And now that would be, oh, that'd be EFL pot. That would be a major social football. But what happened with smoking labels is they went into effect in 1965 and that initial government [00:11:00] signal, that official focus on the health effects of smoking and the whole legal aspect of putting the labels on the, on the cigarette packs, that signal changed the way we perceive the risks of cigarette smoking. So no longer was it considered normal that we started calling into question. It's normalcy. It started being de-normalized. And so as a response, a few years later, uh, taxes went up on cigarettes. So in 1969, [00:11:30] cigarettes had a price increase in taxes. Speaker 3:And if you remember in 1971, the Marlboro man went off television. It wasn't necessarily that the labels elicited a behavior change in a direct sense that it's arguable that the tax had a larger increase impact on behavior. That also, you know, losing the, the tobacco company's ability to advertise on, on television also had an impact on behavior. Really, we're addressing [00:12:00] a complex issue here with transportation alone. You're dealing with, you know, land use, you're dealing with technologies, you know, what's available technologically to us. We're dealing with behaviors, we're dealing with transportation, lifestyle. And there's a tendency to think of that. We're going to fix the problem of transportation emissions with a silver bullet. And some of our, our advisors, we have one dance Sperling at UC Davis. Uh, we say, you know, [00:12:30] we're going to have this terrific technology that's going to save us, right? And he kind of smiled at us and he said, future transportation, you know, a low carbon, very low carbon. Speaker 3:The types that we need to really address the problem is going to be a mixture of things. It's not going to be a monoculture that we see today. It'd be quite different. You know, we'll have fuel cell vehicles, we'll have electric vehicles running on cleaner and cleaner and energy grid. Uh, but that won't be just it. Those, those technologies will always have limitations in comparison to [00:13:00] what we're currently used to. You know, transit systems will, will improve in the land use changes that will really require to get better transit systems in place will require a changes of social and political will that we have to change the social license around using fossil fuel and in order to achieve these objectives, these are big changes and will require a strong kind of political social response. Do you feel like the technology is there now? It's just the social will [00:13:30] that it and the political will that is lagging. Speaker 3:I think that if you just roll out an electric car and give consumers an electric car, they don't view the use of fossil fuel as, as, uh, as a serious enough problem, as a serious enough risk that that technology stands out. One of the criticisms we get is, you know, people say, well, doesn't everybody know that fossil fuel contributes to climate change? And certainly that's a legitimate objection. This is good to even think [00:14:00] about. And when you're talking about criticisms and stuff like that, but about 50% of Americans think that climate change is due to the hole in the ozone layer, so and not due primarily to the burning of fossil fuel. And this is the central issue. I think it's important to point out that in the research we've done, um, regardless of whether we already understand that fossil fuel contributes to climate change, we are as a marketplace, as a consumers of [00:14:30] petroleum-based transportation fuels, that even if we understand that they contribute to climate change, we're discounting those risks. Convenience being one. Right? Exactly. We have a tendency to discount risk of future consequences and we tend to favor the shore. Our short term needs and fossil fuel fulfills our short term needs in exceptional, extraordinary ways. Speaker 5:Right? This is the vote that happens in San Francisco. This what happens at [00:15:00] let's say San Francisco vote. Yes. Yeah. All the oil companies try to stop it. I mean, what has been the challenge against this? Speaker 3:Okay, welcome. If the oil companies don't sue and we can implement them and test them, then we have a stronger case to take it to the state. We'll say, here we go, we've got this program. We know that, you know, California's largest source of emissions comes from transportation Speaker 5:and this is how effective the labeling was in San Francisco. Right? Speaker 3:Right. And we need to [00:15:30] create support for cap and trade legislation. Um, you know, we need to accelerate California's already in place, plans to electrify the transportation system. Here's our proposal. This is happening in Canada. If oil companies intervene, which is they're likely to intervene. If it goes to a statewide measure, they're going to say, this is usurping our free speech [inaudible] and they're going to force a ballot measure. Yes. [00:16:00] If San Francisco adopts it and then the other cities fall in line out. It's important to keep in mind that we've also been talking to city of Oakland as well and they're interested but they're going to sit and wait until they see what happens with the other cities. San Francisco is the most likely candidate to go out front on this. They have the resources, they have the experience to defend themselves and these kinds of very contentious legally precarious type of situations. Speaker 3:The oil companies have already threatened. Berkeley Berkeley [00:16:30] was a ho out ahead of San Francisco. We were, you know, chasing Berkeley for for a couple of years and local politics pushed a, a cell phone warning label for cell radiation up ahead of ours and initiative got pushed into the back burner that the oil companies behind that you five, who knows the cell phone industry is just as uh, evil perhaps. They all come in. He's already had got wind of this a, [00:17:00] the western states petroleum association, um, got wind of this and basically threatened to sue that it would be a violation of their first amendment free speech. And you got into this whole issue of whether the, whether legally this is policy you're putting on oil company's personal properties and not factual information. Ray will argue that CO2 from the burning of fossil fuel is, is scientifically proven to [00:17:30] contribute to climate change. And there is no, uh, this isn't policy, this is factual information. Let's Speaker 5:say the vote occurs, there's a yes vote. So this doesn't mean there's going to be labels for a while. Correct. There. So there'll be a lawsuit, right. And they'll drag that out probably. Yeah. It's likely Speaker 3:for the more probable lawsuit that you must be thinking about it. Yeah, of course we are. Yeah. The cities will be largely in a position to defend themselves. [00:18:00] So it will be the oil companies versus the city of San Francisco. Yes. And any city that chooses to take it on. And it appears to be a tight rope for oil companies to, to walk in within the context of the investigation going on with ExxonMobil and whether ExxonMobil had already, you know, already existing science in many ways and ahead of the rest of the scientific community on the issue of climate change. And because [00:18:30] a, an oil companies, uh, staff is largely scientists. So it's interesting. It's kind of ironic. So whether the oil companies will ultimately sue and you know, drag out this issue, whether their product to be exposed to the fact that their product contributes to climate change, whether they're going to go down this road of defending themselves, uh, it's probably likely that it'll be the oil companies lobby groups that will do the dirty, dirty talking. Speaker 3:And this could be a really exciting [00:19:00] opening, this lawsuit that to me will bring this to the fore and maybe educate people a little bit more outside of here even. Right. I think it would elevate the seriousness, the urgency which we as a species as a society are discounting. It doesn't matter if we understand the role of fossil fuel consumption, we are discounting the risks because we discount risks we can't see as a species, we [00:19:30] do well at responding to dangers that we can see and the consequences in front of us. And we're not so good at these at the physics that climate change presents us to. I was kinda hoping the labels would have like burning trees and yes. Well we would, we would love that and that would probably be get struck down in the courts as a first amendment violation. So the labels that we have currently have passed a couple of rounds of, of legal scrutiny. Speaker 3:So the fact that we have that car bug [00:20:00] and the puff of CO2 is a really big deal. Yeah. But yeah, I think you raise a really, really, I think that the most exceptional aspect of this, as you know, we're, we're calling into question CO2. Does it qualify? Is it serious enough? Is Our consumption of fossil fuel, does it warrant a disclosure label? And are oil companies going to get up in front of the American people in front of the courts? And tell us that their product doesn't contribute to climate [00:20:30] change. So we're looking forward to this battle of course, or we are. So we're elevating the, the, you know, the specter of and the seriousness of this issue and we're calling into question the entire lack of even questioning, you know, using fossil fuel in a, within the context of this risk. So it's really, the labels really are about creating more congruency, you know, between the markets and what the science already knows. Speaker 3:And we're trying to, to have markets [00:21:00] reflect the most efficient way, uh, using information, putting it at the pump, not on a billboard, not on a television ad, but right when we are consuming the stuff, uh, you know, the research shows that you, you know, you start with the individual, you psychologically penetrate that personal space in order for a consumer to have gas to better internalize the risk. That's in the social science term. When we begin to internalize [00:21:30] the risks from fossil fuels, we change that social context. Uh, the research shows on an individual psychological level. When people that are internalized risks from various things, they are more likely to take action. Um, they'll probably be more likely to support a carbon tax. Exactly. These labels really operate, they're just another way of communicating costs. Uh, they operate like a carbon tax. Exactly. It's the same analogy. Speaker 3:They're more politically [00:22:00] expedient, you know, a carbon tax to get one that's, you know, high enough, uh, that will actually change behavior. Um, and this combination could be right. And the labels are really designed to be complimentary policy, uh, particularly here in California because we have cap and trade rules. We just had Jerry Brown signed an extension of the global warming Solutions Act to achieve our objectives and emissions in California. Transportation is the largest source [00:22:30] of emissions in California and all consumers, all of the U S it's the largest source. The correct emissions is a, it just a no, it just surpassed, uh, electricity generation. Just I think this year, wow. Because a lot of of, uh, coal, um, has been converted to natural gas and uh, you know, we are starting to make some dents in the electricity, uh, emissions trajectories. But now we have this 800 pound gorilla, which is our transportation choices and we are veering [00:23:00] more towards, you know, heavy usage of gasoline. Speaker 3:Again in this country, unfortunately vehicle miles traveled have gone up, consumers are favoring bigger SUVs and we have electric vehicles. But like I said before, where we haven't changed the social context around fossil fuels, right? Economic issue in a lot of these areas. It's true and if you lived in Ohio or you know, or West Virginia and you're in, your economic system is based on coal than it's going to be a lot harder conversation. [00:23:30] I worry about the time it takes to push these things along. I think that it's important, you know when you discuss matters, you know these types of things is it, we are dealing with a really complicated thing. What we're is just, we're not coming up with a solution for climate change in general here with our strategy. We're just dealing with a component within a myriad of solutions just to deal with transportation emissions and particularly [00:24:00] the way we perceive socially the use of our continued consumption, our everyday consumption of fossil fuel. Speaker 3:And not even beginning to, you know, deal with the other issues. This kind of a fantasy silver bullet, you know, that there's going to be something out there if we wait long enough, some technological solutions, you know, all we need is a carbon tax. It's, it's not, it's going to be a combination of things and just within the context of transportation fuels, we need to operate [00:24:30] on changing social norms around fossil fuels in order to facilitate a more comprehensive approach to dealing with transportation emissions just within that sector. So if you think about the little pieces of the Pie, you know, uh, electricity generation and agriculture, all of those will also need their own specific tools. You know, we're not arguing that carbon taxes are not important. They would have a broad application a and [00:25:00] efficient application on, in all of the sectors, but they're, they alone won't, won't take care of the problem. Speaker 3:Lots of research we've done on carbon taxes is in the short and intermediate term. They have very little impact on consumption, uh, in the transportation sector in particular. So people will tend to cut elsewhere. What does make a difference in the transportation second, do you do we know that yet? We, I don't think we really know yet. I think it would be a governmental leadership, just a blanket policy kind of a top down, but [00:25:30] it needs a political on social consensus for that to occur. And so we have to create markets. Again, like I said, that our markets for these, you know, these solutions, uh, that are more congruent with a science. Are you working with any other groups? Yeah, we're working with the Sierra Club, uh, in the San Francisco Bay chapter is, uh, we, they are in support and going to help us out at San Francisco League of conservation voters. Speaker 3:Yeah, those are our main environmental groups. [00:26:00] I think the issue that this label addresses, and it's important to point this out, if we all understand that there's a lot of climate denial being funded by oil companies and it's evil, unequivocally evil, but the emissions occur in the sector by the demand for the fuels. If you want oil companies to go away, you have to target demand the demand. The demand is us, it's us. We get people saying this is a guilt trip [00:26:30] or you know, people are not gonna, they're gonna ignore it because it's too negative. And it's, it's important to point out that it's an inappropriate intervention because it's targeting who chooses who, who determines the emissions. Um, and so it really matters when you switch from your guzzler, you know, your SUV to the most fuel efficient car you can buy when you, when it comes time to purchase a car or when your Carpool or when you take transit, et Cetera, [00:27:00] et cetera. Speaker 3:However inconvenient these solutions may sound to you, these behavior changes are going to ultimately determine the emissions, um, and transportation. And so if you want the all companies to go away, you make them go on to the, you know, medicine business only and are making photo voltaic solar panels in the energy sector and gone and renewable, right? Do you want the tar sands and Canada to go away? You know, those tar sands come out [00:27:30] the tail pipes of, of our SUV. [inaudible] this is the reality. So the labels are inappropriate intervention. They, they are that interface between you and your demand for the fuel. Speaker 5:Okay. Jamie, well, how do listeners who maybe have questions or w do you have a website they can go to to learn more about this and and also if they want to help you yeah. Campaign to get this passed in San Francisco. Speaker 3:Yeah. Well we would love to have people write letters to the San Francisco Board of supervisors. [00:28:00] I, the best way to reach us is Twitter at beyond pump capital B and capital p s our, we operate our website. It's our horizon.org. We share the same website with the Canadian or the Canadian groups. So we're work together and that way. So you can look us up on that. And uh, yeah, the letters matter. Just, just say I'm in support of climate change warning labels on gas pumps. You can just write a general letter. The best thing to do is to write [00:28:30] letters, write to John Avalose, the supervisor who's our sponsor. Jeremy Pollack is this legislative aid and let him know that you're in support of this, this legislation, and to just keep beating the drum. Speaker 5:Can people from outside of San Francisco should write letters, so, Yep. Okay. Absolutely. It all matters. Yes. Speaker 3:Matters. I can't tell you, it sounds so cliche, but it matters when you, when you're a politician and you see a letter of support, it gives you a little warm [00:29:00] and fuzzy feeling. Okay. And that is that we want to keep that warm and fuzzy. This is good. This is, this is the right thing to do and that energy level and keep it flowing towards San Francisco. We have Seattle also considering the city of Seattle and Seattle. We'll be sending a letter to the board of supervisors as soon as we get dates and supports the Seattle probably latch on to this legislation and it goes on. I mean, we a Newton, uh, Massachusetts and Cambridge, [00:29:30] Massachusetts were in contact with, with counselors there and those cities who are also looking. So there's a lot of looking and cities are going to have to be brave and be willing to take on the potential for a lawsuit. Um, and some very experienced lawyers have told us this could be something that could be in the courts for years and years. So you can also change the tide. It could also change the tide and change the entire question of our society using fossil fuels and energy source. Jamie Brooks [00:30:00] beyond the pump. And yes, I wish you a lot of luck. Speaker 2:Thanks again, Tricia. You've been listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley featuring bay area innovators to an and again next week, Friday at noon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.